The red line was crossed; let’s fire a shot across the bow. It sounds so easy, so clean, so surgical. Splash! A harmless shot landing in the water to make the enemy compliant. Since the American public – and for that matter the entire world – is rightfully doubtful of yet another U.S. military adventure, the administration is trying to play down what indeed are the preparations for going to war with another country.
Bringing the aircraft carrier USS Ranger to Fairview as a museum and memorial, a proposal reported in The Oregonian’s July 5 article “Carrier on the Columbia,” is not a good idea. What is being memorialized? The Ranger’s extensive engagement in the Vietnam War and Gulf wars?
In 1951 the US government’s Civil Defense Branch produced the film Duck and Cover. Bert the Turtle reached millions of school children and adults as part of a national campaign to prepare the population in case of a nuclear attack. Even at that time the usefulness of the proposed duck-and-cover maneuver in the face of the utter annihilation arising from a nuclear blast was questioned. Today’s advanced, larger, and far more numerous nuclear weapons have made the chance of surviving a nuclear attack with the ‘duck and cover’ tactic as hallucinatory as chatting with Bert the Turtle. The threat posed by nuclear weapons is still grave and the only true security for our society lies in their elimination worldwide.
A new, citizen-driven nonviolent reality is emerging in the escalated war on drugs in Mexico. The international perception of present-day Mexico is one of disgust about the escalated violence, thousands of fatalities, mass graves and militarized approaches to fight the powerful drug cartels.
06
SepSyrian ‘red line’ an opportunity to set new tone of global leadership and collaboration
The red line was crossed; let’s fire a shot across the bow. It sounds so easy, so clean, so surgical. Splash! A harmless shot landing in the water to make the enemy compliant. Since the American public – and for that matter the entire world – is rightfully doubtful of yet another U.S. military adventure, the administration is trying to play down what indeed are the preparations for going to war with another country.
Read more
07
JulUSS Ranger’s future
Bringing the aircraft carrier USS Ranger to Fairview as a museum and memorial, a proposal reported in The Oregonian’s July 5 article “Carrier on the Columbia,” is not a good idea. What is being memorialized? The Ranger’s extensive engagement in the Vietnam War and Gulf wars?
Read more
21
May“Duck and Cover” – not enough for the transition out of the nuclear weapons industry
In 1951 the US government’s Civil Defense Branch produced the film Duck and Cover. Bert the Turtle reached millions of school children and adults as part of a national campaign to prepare the population in case of a nuclear attack. Even at that time the usefulness of the proposed duck-and-cover maneuver in the face of the utter annihilation arising from a nuclear blast was questioned. Today’s advanced, larger, and far more numerous nuclear weapons have made the chance of surviving a nuclear attack with the ‘duck and cover’ tactic as hallucinatory as chatting with Bert the Turtle. The threat posed by nuclear weapons is still grave and the only true security for our society lies in their elimination worldwide.
Read more
05
JunOur Moral Obligation to Look South: Mexican Civil Society ‘Fed Up’ with the War on Drugs
A new, citizen-driven nonviolent reality is emerging in the escalated war on drugs in Mexico. The international perception of present-day Mexico is one of disgust about the escalated violence, thousands of fatalities, mass graves and militarized approaches to fight the powerful drug cartels.
Read more