Countdown to Zero: Apocalypse Soon
Film producer Lawrence Bender wants his documentaries to make a difference.
Don’t all documentary filmmakers want the same thing, from Michael Moore’s dream of the death of capitalism to Morgan Spurlock’s vendetta against the Big Mac?
But Bender’s last documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, affected the global dialogue on climate change no matter where you stand on the issue.
Bender hopes to catch lightning in a bottle once more with Countdown to Zero, a film detailing the dangers of a world chock full of nuclear weapons.
It’s a topic that stands a far better chance of uniting the left and the right — who doesn’t fear a nuclear bomb assault?
The film details the history of the atomic bomb and how the nuclear club keeps expanding, and recalls a series of peace-time accidents that nearly detonated these weapons. It’s the kind of frightmares that would give even Freddy Krueger a scare.
We also hear tales of stolen uranium and learn just how easily a bomb could be smuggled into the U.S.
Bender, who calls himself a filmmaker and activist, spent time talking to CIA officials about nuclear bombs and gathered plenty of material to keep him up at night for months to come. The old sense of security supplied by the mutually assured destruction meme no longer applies, he says.
“The stuff that’s not in the movie is just as terrifying [as what made the final cut],” he says.
Countdown features some pretty impressive talking heads, from former President Jimmy Carter to former Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
Getting them on camera took patience. Bender says the film team met Gorbachev during a recent visit to Harvard University. A year and a half later they nabbed the interview.
“None of the interviews were easy. ‘We’re filming a movie about nuclear terrorism. Tell me everything you know,’” he says of the approach they essentially had to take.
An Inconvenient Truth surfed the cultural zeitgeist regarding the global warming movement, and recent news concerning President Barack Obama’s efforts to reduce nuclear stockpiles will certainly help Countdown, Bender says.
But the film’s team isn’t taking any chances.
“We’ve screened it for all the Internet folks, like MySpace and Google, screened it for religious folks, NGOs,“ he says. “We’ve traveled around the world, screening it in India, Pakistan and [we] got it into the Cannes Film Festival.“
“It’s not gonna be An Inconvenient Truth, but there is a whole social action campaign based on globalzero.org behind it,” he says.
Bender hopes Countdown won’t be cast aside as an ideological film.
“I believe the next step needs to occur in a bipartisan way,” he says of the move to reduce stockpiles of nuclear weapons. The film wraps with that message, one that conservative audiences will think requires rose-colored glasses to envision, and the film also lacks voices who support producing these kinds of weapons to keep rogue nations in check.
Bender understands the cynicism viewers may have about how much diplomacy can help.
“No one wants to be naïve to think just because we reduce Iran will reduce or change their position,” he says, adding that the world needs to do “anything possible to stop Iran or any other country from obtaining“ these weapons.
That said, he believes the U.S. and Russia need to take the lead in arms reductions, which will exert pressure on China to do the same.
“The tolerance for countries trying to obtain nuclear weapons will become more intolerable,” he predicts.
Bender took a moment to reflect on the aftermath of the ClimateGate scandal that rocked the global warming community.
Suffice to say he’s angry the scandal made so much news.
“Those scientists have been exonerated three times over. The media has done a huge disservice to the world by giving quote-unquote a fair and balanced viewpoint,” to global warming skeptics, he says.
Most people believe the world is round, so why should the news give equal coverage to those who think it‘s flat, he says for comparison‘s sake.
“It’s terrible that the media and the quote-unquote naysayers who are funded by energy companies … are out there confusing people and therefore we’re not where we need to be from a legislative standing.”
When Bender isn‘t trying to change the world one audience at a time, he‘s attempting to give them a thrill or two. He produced Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds as well as the bulk of the director’s work.
“Inglourious Basterds fulfills a creative itch. I love fictional movies,” he says. And those films allow him to keep producing films like Truth and Countdown to Zero, since the latter won’t make a fraction of the money Basterds hauled in during its theatrical release last year.
“They help support the other part of my life, the activist part,” he says.
Two thoughts:
First, today’s nuclear weapon is overwhelmingly a counterforce device, intended to destroy the WMDs of an enemy. Indeed, that orientation is so strong that the American missile arsenal contains hardly any of the old “city-buster” style weapons that were once relied upon to deter a Soviet attack. In this connection, liberal columnist Russell Baker once wrote that “there is no other bomb with a comparable safety record. You could grow fond of a bomb like that.”
Second, the undiscussed consequence of the development of nuclear weapons is that they’ve brought national rulers onto the battlefield. No politician or tyrant can feel completely safe from nuclear death, which makes the political elite far more cautious than it would otherwise be about bearding one another. It’s close to being a return to the days when kings led their own armies, and were therefore somewhat prudent about the wars they invited.
In other words, let’s not eject young Mr. H-Bomb from class without first reviewing his deportment records.
Nicely put; Implies that rulers who want to die,
or who do not care what happens after they die,
cannot be allowed to control nuclear weapons,
or other weapons of mass destruction.
Nonsense. All of it. Leaders, all leaders, think they will survive. You can be sure they have spared no expense for their own sakes.
But none of that cold war macho logic matters anyway. A single nuclear weapon detonated anywhere on earth would destroy confidence world-wide as Bill Clinton has noted. The tragedy for those immediately affected would be over. The economic and political fall-out would destabilize every market on earth. Economic and political visibility would be zero. Uncertainty would fatally cripple economic activity for decades and political instability would follow.
““Those scientists have been exonerated three times over. The media has done a huge disservice to the world by giving quote-unquote a fair and balanced viewpoint,” to global warming skeptics, he says.”
They have not been exonerated by anyone qualified to do so. You are a partisan hack, and no one I’ll listen to.
Will it be the noise,radiation of light,smell of distinct burning of the earths inhabitants,infrustructure,power grids,water,environement? What will these symptoms be, prior to the destruction? Or is it just not possible that anything could reinact itself sense world war two? Perhaps diabolic weapons have not progressed in there capabilities of mass destruction. What is the plan. Is it left to those experimenting with how to get rid of some regime or religion one does not enjoy? Is it color motivated to make each other hate to this degree? Or, has it so been written? I surely don’t profess to acknowledge knowledge of any of the prior. Have we come too far? Is it about the rich and powerful, who we know must be able to live forever? Is it impossible to believe that some only wish to exist and be fed and want only to live within harmony with each other? I would hope that many would be very acceptable to this. So,why then shall we destruct our planet? No one will win..or just perhaps, there are those who hold the universe answers and have it all figured out..good luck to those..remember, don’t get caught in the shuffle and just do not get your hands caught in the cookie jar..just might go without..
“Most people believe the world is round, so why should the news give equal coverage to those who think it‘s flat, he says for comparison‘s sake.”
You know, I’m really beginning to hate liberals. You see, they’re just so much “smarter” than you or I. They are the only ones who really “know” the truth. If any of you little people out there ever have the temerity to disagree with them, then you obviously think the world is flat and should simply be ignored. What balls. The whole “global warming” issue was a fraud and has proven to be a fraud. Is the world getting hotter? Probably, but there is no solid proof the it’s ONLY because of man. After all, we did come out of the Ice Age without the help of man. Who’s to say this warming trend isn’t cyclical and in years to come it will simply get colder?
But let us not rehash that debate. I’m sure this new documentary will tell us that nuclear weapons are bad and that if we don’t disarm we’ll blow the whole world up. Big Woop. Stanley Kubrick made the same statement over 40 years ago in his movie “Dr. Strangelove.” Other movies from the early sixties, such as “On the Beach” or “Fail Safe,” dealt with the same issue, accidental nuclear war. This is news? So you think we will avoid this calamity if we just wish away nuclear weapons? Does this guy actually think that if we make nice with Russia and just get rid of all nuclear missiles, the world will be sunshine and lollipops?
I thought that kind of childish naivete went OUT with the sixties. And notice, to be politically correct so that you don’t dismiss him as a total loon, he says, “No one wants to be naïve to think just because we reduce Iran will reduce or change their position,” he says, adding that the world needs to do anything possible to stop Iran or any other country from obtaining these weapons.” And how do you propose to go about doing that, champ? Those “much vaunted” UN sanctions? Well, that didn’t help with North Korea, now did it? North Korea is the poster child for how rogue nations can get nuclear weapons. Now North Korea is a global threat, not only to its immediate neighbors, but also to the world in general because it can sell this nuclear technology to other rogue nations, like Iran and Syria.
So tell me, how it this guy going to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapons? Let’s hear it. Let’s hear the great “diplomatic” way the world will be saved from these insane rogue states. The Europeans negotiated with Iran for years and got nothing for its troubles. So what now, champ? Do we invade? Do we start another war in the Middle East just because the Iranians won’t listen to a pathetic, childish, moron like you?
Liberals never seem to have an answer to those questions. They want to “wish” everything away. They way to wish away nuclear weapons, poverty, illness, and any other malady that afflicts mankind. They want a world filled with rainbows and unicorns and are horribly disappointed when they finally realize that the world is really made up of people like the North Koreans and the Iranians. Bummer, man.
Nuclear weapons are here to stay. Any nation who already has them and gives them away is committing international suicide and will be left to the tender mercies of the dictators out there who have no qualms about using such weapons if it will suit their goals. Liberals should start growing up because, if they don’t, one day they will see a mushroom cloud where Tel Aviv, London, or New York City used to be.
The producer sounds like not only a wacko… but also extremely naive. Both Russia and the USA could eliminate 100 percent of Nuclear weapons and Iran or North Korea and China wouldn’t care. It only makes them more powerful…. when has a Nuclear capable country ever been invaded?? There is a reason for it!
That is also my answer to people asking that pesky hypothetical question “What if a bunch of Americans started marching in Mexico City with their Stars and Stripes on the 4th of July making demands of the Mexican Government to be accomodated?”. Not a damn thing would happen, because we do have a nuclear arsenal at our disposal.
The TEA Party and other Challengers To the Power Elites, Please Read. The following is what has happened in America Over the Past 45 years. Please read and Please Get Out the Vote for Real Americans in November 2010 and Onward. We have been asleep for far too long.
Wake Up America!!
Yes, this is a turning point in American History.
For far too long, we Americans have remained lazy and complacent and have been all too willing to accept laws and movements based on Political Correctness and then Later on Cultural Diversity. After all, we are a good and forgiving country made up mostly of hard working, tax paying, occasional church-going believers who, even if we do not attend a church, the majority consider themselves to be Christians and believe in God.
While we have been busy working, raising our families, and otherwise getting on with our lives and being responsible, we have turned on the TV for entertainment and for a brief look at the Top News Stories of The Day in our communities, states, nation and world. We have not taken much time to really figure out what is going on in our own communities, much less the state, nation or world. We have depended on the Major TV networks: ABC, CBS, NBC and later on CNN, Fox and other news and TV outlets. Our entire world views have been painted by what these Outfits called News Outlets have gotten together and disected and decided to Tell Us. As we got on with our lives, our world and national views and opinions have been formed based on what the Talking Heads have Programmed Us To Believe and at times, they Parade Out Some Expert to Back Up The Same Stories that they, The Talking Heads have been programming us to believe. Thus, our opinions, thoughts, ideas, and beliefs have been Programmed Into Our Minds by the Programs we Watch or Listen To.
And, at the same time, the Hollywood Propagandists who write TV scripts, Movies, Etc. have been Programming us with the Hollywood Version of Facts and History. They have been the primary Movers of Public Opinion including the Pushing of Political Correctness and Cultural Diversity.
They have Programmed Us To Believe that If It Is On TV or In Print, that It Has To Be True. After all, would they “Dare To Say It On TV, If It Is Not True?” Well, of course, the answer is yes!! The TV and Hollywood Propagandists and the Main Stream Media are One In The Same. They have the same Owners and Handlers. They have purposely been Brainwashing and Dumbing Down Americans seeking their own profits, and their own personal agendas that their owners want pushed on the Average American Citizen.
They write TV scripts ostensibly for Family Entertainment that are actually pushing Political and Social Agendas. Social Agendas that have included Socialism and Collectivism, Secular Humanism, Hedonism, Mockery of Christian Values, Mockery of Traditional Family Values, Mockery of Morality, Mockery of U.S. Traditions, Values, Customs, Language, Beliefs, Language, Patriotism and Borders.
And, at the same time, Our U.S. government has been being shaped by the Power Brokers, who are carrying out in Official Capacity With Legislation and The Creation of the Bureaucratic Machine the same Agenda that the Propagandists Who Control the Media, TV, Hollywood, Movies and the general Entertainment and News Industry
have been programming us to Accept and To Believe In.
And, beginning in the 1960′s, the Federal Government Began the Most Massive Social Engineering Projects of All Times. And, in a mere 45 years or so, the Propagandists in Hollywood, The MSM, The U.S. Government’s Bureaucracy, and the Public Education System have successfully Dumbed Down and Brainwashed The Majority of the Nation, and it was all Part of A Bigger Plan and has been Accomplished by a Concerted effort by folks whose sole purpose has been to Destroy American Values, Customs, Beliefs, Traditions, Language and National Borders. In a short 45 years, we have gone from being a Producer Nation to a Consumer Nation. We have gone from being the worlds largest Creditor Nation to the World’s Largest Debtor Nation, and the current Liberal Democrats in DC along with their RINO co-conspirators, are running up this Debt at the fastest rate of any nation in the world in the entire history of the world. In a mere 45 years, our public education system has successfully Dumbed The Nation from being in the top 3 best public education systems in the world to the 2009 level of being the #28 best public education system in the world. Did the rest of the world get better? Of course not, we have been purposely Dumbed Down and Brainwashed By Design of those Running the National Teacher Unions, The U.S. Department of Education, and the Policy Makers and Law Makers in the U.S. Government and the Local And State Governments Willingly and Cowardly relinquished their Responsibilties to the Citizens of their Communities and States with the Promise from the Federal Establishment That They, The Feds would give them a Piece of the Monetary Pie if they go along with the Federal Plan. And, then the Local And State governments gave into the Federal Mandates By Blackmail Schemes. The Feds say to the states: “Go Along With Our Suggestions, or You, the STATES LOSE YOUR FEDERAL Funding.” This is how they have Blackmailed Their Socialist Agenda into Actuality.
In a mere 45 years, the Official Government Policies and the Brainwashing By the Hollywood Media have Destroyed Traditional Family Values and Families. In 1966, over 80 percent of poor children, regardless of race, color or ethnicity lived with 2 parents. And, of these 2 parent families, at least one of the parents had a public job and worked for a living and provided for their families. Today, that figure is less than 20 percent, and the other 80 percent of poor children live with a single parent, usually a female, and many times this female is a child herself, or with some other family member or in state custody in foster homes.
I would like to believe that these dismal figures and the dismal state that We, The People find our nation in has been quite unintentional, but looking at it honestly and in being intellectually honest, I know better. Now, the Average American Citizen has been an unwitting partner in the demise of America and our values, traditions, beliefs, culture, language, borders, and our U.S. Constitution. The average American has been Dumbed Down and Brainwashed and Programmed subtly by the Programs They Have Watched and From Print Media That They Have Read. But, mostly, the Brainwashing has come from TV Sitcoms, TV News, and TV Docu-Dramas being Presented As Facts. And Mini-Series being Presented As Facts.
We have to Correct This Brainwashing and Clear Up The Lies That People Have Come To Believe as FACTS.
Oliver Stone and Michael Moore and many more TV and Movie Writers, Directors and Producers have been Writing, Directing and Producing nothing more than Propaganda and Lies and they have become Masters of The Big Lies as they Prey on our Weak Minds and Emotions.
They have tried to make us ashamed of being U.S. Citizens and Americans. They have tried to Re-Write History knowing that the average citizen watching the drivel and lies that that knowingly are producing and showing will believe it. Propaganda and The Big Lie Technique is one of the oldest War and Political Strategies ever been devised and the modern day Hollywood and Political Class have Mastered The Big Lie with the Advent of Electronics, and their Primary Weapon and Means of Distribution of Lies and Propagandas has been the TV and Other So-Called Entertainment and Media Outlets. But, the TV has been the main way of distributing propaganda and in destroying the nation’s Values, Traditions, Customs, Beliefs, Morals, National Identity, Language and Borders. And, this Dumbing Down, Propaganda Campaign, and Destruction of Traditional American Values, including Patriotism and Love our Our Country has been no accident. This has been carried out methodically and almost completely.
The TEA Party Movement is mostly made up of Individuals, who have Turned Off The Tube, and have De-Programmed Our Minds of the decades of Brainwashing and Dumbing Down. In short the TEA Party Folks Woke Up From a 4 decade Fog and realized that those we had entrusted to the country to, Our Elected Officials, Had Sold Us Out and Were Destroying Our Nation, and that they only Care about We, The People, Come Election Day.
That is why the MSM, Hollywood, Career Politicians of Both Parties, and the Homeland Security Network have been so vehemently Opposed to The TEA Party Movement, To Libertarians, To Anybody Who Dares Challenge Their Authority and Their Reign of Power and Sellouts and Abandonment of Constitutional Law and Government. In short, the establishment and all their agencies Hate The Truth and They Hate Exposure, and they Hate Being Taken Down from their Positions of Power, Wealth and Fame that they have Gained at the Expense of We, The People, at the Expense of the U.S. Constitution, and at the Expense of our Children and Grandchildren for Generations to Come.
That is Exactly Whey The Tea Party and other Honest and Courageous Movements are seen as Such a Threat to those in power. Because the Truth Scares the hell out of them.
And, that is why the Media and Hollywood has been so Vocal and Vehemently Hateful toward the TEA Party Movement and to it’s Leaders such Sarah Palin and others. But, we are AWAKE Now, and there is no Putting The Genie Back In The Bottle, and in November, we are going to continue Taking Our Country Back from the Power Elites of Both Parties who have been Selling Us Down the River Now for Over 4 Decades, and We are Going to Abolish about 70 percent of the Bureaucratic Machinery that they Have Put Into Place for Their Own Personal Power to Regulate and Charge Fees in Ways that they Cannot Do with Legislation. We are going to return the U.S. Government to It’s Constitutional Duties, and relinquish to the Cities and States their Rightful Places With Local Control of things such as schools, welfare, health care, etc. and leave the Free Market to Decide What We Buy and Not a Government that is Now Regulating Everything from Apples to Zippers and everything under the sun in between A and Z.
America Has Awaken. The Excesses, Arrogance and Greed of our Elected Officials, Hollywood Elites, and Bureaucrats have Been Exposed and We Are Coming After Them in November 2010 and again in November 2012, and we are going to Return to Constitutional Law with a Limited Federal Government which is Free of Lobbyists who now Buy our Politicians To Do The Bidding of The Lobbyists, at the Expense of We, the People.
Yeah, that Jimmy Carter–I remember back during the hostage crisis the first thing I said to myself was that is one impressive talking head.
“Exonerated three times over?” Sure, by their own team but gee, the fool is equally scared of Iran and AGW? One, if real, will raise the temperature a degree over 100 years and the other will raise the temperature to somewhere approaching the center of the sun. These film makers sure have a sense of perspective, huh?
“Most people believe the world is round, so why should the news give equal coverage to those who think it‘s flat, he says for comparison‘s sake.”
-Good point!
Good point? Stupid and irrelevant comparison. Whereas the world is indeed an oblate spheroid, there is no CAGW. People believe the world is round not because of scientific consensus but because it is evidently so: for instance, climb even a small mountain and you can see the curvature of the earth.
Where is the proof that man has caused catastrophic global warming? Claims of consensus, computer models and graphs from compromised lawyers, politicians and pseudo-scientists who defame and calumniate anyone who asks for real evidence?
Ha.
“That said, he believes the U.S. and Russia need to take the lead in arms reductions, which will exert pressure on China to do the same.”
One of the stupidest statements I have ever heard. Exactly what does China have to fear if the US and Russia reduce their nuclear stockpiles? And since when did we begin trusting what Russia does? Their motivation would be what????
“The tolerance for countries trying to obtain nuclear weapons will become more intolerable,” he predicts.
The second of one of the stupidest statements I have ever heard. Do you think Iran, PRNK, Pakistan, Al Queda, Syria and OBL will be influenced by our decision to reduce our nuclear stockplies?
Lefty activists are unique in that what they really believe, even in the face of reality, everybody should believe. Because they say it’s so, it is so.
A Russia that right now is fielding hundreds of new mobile ICBMs with MIRV’d warheads in direct violation of START and SALT accords signed by the USSR, claiming that that was another country and therefore they’re not bound by those accords, while the US arsenal is going on 40 years old with no way to know if those missiles will even get off the ground let alone whether the warheads will work apart from some computer models that predict they will (computer models like the ones that predict catastrophic Global Warming…).
It was a surprise, at least to me, to find out that nuclear weapons
are the _cheapest_ means of producing mass destruction, and that they
are very _inefficient_ as weapons; They release too much energy in too
small a space, and most of it is wasted.
as I was saying, before I hit the wrong button
The US is in a position to develop an expensive, efficient WMD
that the impoverished, uneducated, third world cannot match:
Suborbital bombardment by kinetic kill, AKA artificial meteors,
Project Thor, Rods from God, whatever, capable of putting a
precision terminally guided round on any given square meter
in any strength from 100 pounds to 100 tons of TNT.
Quant. Suff.
First of all, nuclear weapons technology is extremely expensive. Insofar as WMDs, it far outweighs biological, radiological, and even chemical weapons in terms of cost. The Manhattan Project was the single largest investment of financial and intellectual capital by the US at the time. That the cost is prohibitive is evidenced by the relatively few nuclear players on the world stage (and even then, some had to buy or steal the technology). Unit cost per unit effect (casualty, destructive power, demoralization of the opponent, etc.), is no smaller than other unconventional weapons or tactics.
OTOH, a very efficient WMD would be something like a radiological device used in a large urban area. The casualty count would be far outweighed by the effect on the public psyche. Or, consider a tactical nuke, lit off in the suborbital atmosphere over the midwest US. EMT would effectively push us back to pre-Industrial Revolution, and millions would die. This is the epitome of a low-cost, high-effect WMD.
First of all, nuclear weapons technology is extremely expensive. Insofar as WMDs, it far outweighs biological, radiological, and even chemical weapons in terms of cost. The Manhattan Project was the single largest investment of financial and intellectual capital by the US at the time. That the cost is prohibitive is evidenced by the relatively few nuclear players on the world stage (and even then, some had to buy or steal the technology). Unit cost per unit effect (casualty, destructive power, demoralization of the opponent, etc.), is no smaller than other unconventional weapons or tactics.
OTOH, a very efficient WMD would be something like a radiological device used in a large urban area. The casualty count would be far outweighed by the effect on the public psyche. Or, consider a tactical nuke, lit off in the suborbital atmosphere over the midwest US. EMT would effectively push us back to pre-Industrial Revolution, and millions would die. This is the epitome of a low-cost, high-effect WMD.
It is true that the start-up costs of a plant to produce
fissionable material is ferocious, particularly with WWII
technology; Some of the (understandably) less publicized
methods are more affordable, but the counter-intuitive
fact remains: Manufacturing and _delivering_ a megaton,
or even a kiloton, of explosives on target, against the
strenuous objections of the recipient, is more expensive.
Yes again; The genetic researchers can already synthesize
the Smallpox virus from scratch, and in a few short years
any kitchen chemist with a sequencing machine will be able
to produce a plague, which is an even stronger argument for
not leaving _any_ sanctuary states to harbor said chemists.
Many liberals cannot deal mentally with the responsibility of super power. They are weak in the head. I think many of them want us to get taken over by China. They were certainly willing to sell us to Russia during the cold war. I was a teenager in the 80s, I remember their cries. Better Red than Dead. They advocated we give up all our nuclear stockpile then, and either naively believed Russia, head of the Soviet Union, would do the same, or they didn’t, and just wanted to the world run by one power that wasn’t us.
The Nuclear genie is out of his bottle. Oppenheimer said “We are now all Sons of B**ches.” I think he understood from first mushroom cloud what his team had done. Even if the USA, Russia, and China all got rid off all their nuclear weapons, there are too many people in the world now who understand nuclear physics. Are we going to assassinate them all? “Sorry, sir, for the good of the world we must eliminate you.” Someone, somewhere will re-invent or rebuild it and then they will have a wonderful blackmail tool. Human nature doesn’t change, no matter what you do, or what lies you tell.
I know in my heart there will be another nuclear attack in the world. I don’t have any idea where, but as others of said, Tel Aviv, or New York, or London are good guesses. Are we going to make sure the Cordoba house in New York doesn’t have a nuclear laboratory in the basement. No. And when that inevitable day comes, the wold will be thrown into absolute chaos. Either we’ll come out of it billions of people lighter, or the ensuing nuclear war will wipe us all out and our ancestors will have to start humanity from scratch, just as Einstein predicted. I’m sorry to be so fatalistic, but that’s the way I see it, and no amount of nuclear disarmament is going to change that outcome.
The alternative answer, worked out back in the ’80s,
was a Co-Dominium of the USA and the USSR, with the
sole goal of preventing _repetitions_ of a very bad
thing done by extremists, by placing severe limits
on _all_ scientific research and development;
No telling from whence the next blow might fall.
We need not worry about Cordoba House being a nuclear lab, because there is simply no way to sneak the large amount of materials in.
Nuclear disarmament has the same flaw as gun control legislation…the only people who will obey the agreements are the people you WANT to have the weapons to deter the people who will ignore the agreements anyway.
But then again the Left has yet to accept the futility of gun control legislation despite mountains of evidence, so it’s probably going a bit too far to expect them to see the logic of this reality, either.
Worse yet, even if we did succeed, it would not be peace, but rather a return to great power war. What if nobody had nukes during the Cold War? It would have been WWIII! A hundred million people would have died, even without using biological weapons!
France was invaded 3 times and defeated twice from 1870 to 1940. The one successful defense in WW1 cost a whole generation of young men.
No one has messed with France since she got the H-Bomb in the 50s. No French republic will ever give up the H-bomb.
Bender’s comparison to ClimateGate is invalid. Once the East Anglia quote-unquote scientists were uncovered as partisan ideologues, their research could never again be taken seriously. A fundamental tenet of scientific inquiry is that the researcher is unbiased and will follow the evidence wherever it leads. These folks were willing to torch inconvenient data and fudge the results to obtain a predetermined outcome. That is NOT science.
Bender misunderstands another principle of science. Knowledge is never “settled”, that is, it is always open to new possibilities. So when you hear someone criticizing global warming skeptics, comparing them to flat-Earthers, you know it’s an attempt to discourage honest inquiry. I’ll say it again: science is always open to challenge, and paradigm shifts almost always originate from the margins.
Didn’t we just read last week how the former USSR admitted to cheating on the SALT agreement? The only incentive for rogue nations to sign on to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty NPT)is after they have become nuclear, and only to hamstring other nations, specifically the NPT’s Article IV, Disarmament. Didn’t the DPRK admit cheating on their agreement and then officially withdraw in 2003? Didn’t Iran do likewise, that same year?
How naive do we have to be to continue repeating the error, hoping the tiger will change its spots? Or is it an error?
Why nobody remakes “Threads” for an Iranian audience, I’ll never know…
And that lovely Treaty on Dreadnoughts forestalled a second world war… oh, wait…
So you want to get rid of nuclear weapons?
Ah, I do see… lets make the world safe for conventional war!
So if you think what can be done with nukes is bad, do you want to see what total war did to millions upon millions of people? And since those weapons are cheap, really cheap to make, everyone will have lots of them. Has anyone done some research on the effects of nuclear devices on tamping down conventional warfare, beyond the Cold War era, that is? Why is it a given that such awful weapons are the problem when they just might be a solution to preventing wider conventional wars? You know, stopping adventuring by smaller countries looking to get a leg up in the world by invading their neighbors leading to larger scale conflicts due to treaty arrangements?
Of course you can’t make a slick, neat and progressive documentary about that.
If the Imperial Japanese Navy’s secret ship-building program
had produced those new-fangled slant-deck aircraft carriers,
instead of tried-and-true superdreadnaughts like the Battle
Ship Musashi, the Japanese could have won the Pacific War.
Repeating their mistake by preparing to re-fight the Global
Thermonuclear War of the past, rather than the preemptive
preventive peace of the future, is a major mistake.
No surprise the new ‘Countdown to Zero’ disarmament documentary omits life-saving strategies from their genda of banning nukes, like advocating public Civil Defense, to try and better survive nukes in the meantime. The disarmament movement for decades has hyped that with nukes; all will die or it will be so bad you’ll wish you had. Most have bought into it, now thinking it futile, bordering on lunacy, to try to learn how to survive a nuclear blast and radioactive fallout. In a tragic irony, the disarmament movement has rendered millions of American families even more vulnerable to perishing from nukes in the future. For instance, most now ridicule ‘duck & cover’, but for the vast majority, not right at ‘ground zero’ and already gone, the blast wave will be delayed in arriving after the flash, like lightening & thunder, anywhere from a fraction of a second up to 20 seconds, or more.
Today, without ‘duck & cover’ training, everyone at work, home, and your children at school, will impulsively rush to the nearest windows to see what that ‘bright flash’ was, just-in-time to be shredded by the glass imploding inward from that delayed blast wave. They’d never been taught that even in the open, just laying flat, reduces by eight-fold the chances of being hit by debris from that brief, 3-second, tornado strength blast.
Then, later, before the radioactive fallout can hurt them, most downwind won’t know to move perpendicular away from the drift of the fallout to get out from under it before it even arrives. And, for those who can’t evacuate in time, few know how quick & easy it is to throw together an expedient fallout shelter, to safely wait out the radioactive fallout as it loses 99% of its lethal intensity in the first 48 hours.
The greatest tragedy of that horrific loss of life, when nukes come to America, will be that most families had needlessly perished, out of ignorance of how easily they might have avoided becoming additional casualties, all because they were duped that it was futile to ever try to learn how to beforehand.
The disarmament movement’s sincere supporters, just wanting a world safe from nukes, will discover those unintended consequences to be inconvenient truths of the worst kind.
The Good News About Nuclear Destruction! at http://www.ki4u.com/goodnews.htm dispels those deadly myths of nuclear un-survivability, empowering American families to then better survive nukes. For as long as nukes exist, these life-saving insights are essential to every families survival!