HIBAKUSHA REBELLION

PREVENTING NUCLEAR WAR II

In the first Democratic primary, the candidates were asked to describe in one word the most serious geopolitical threat facing the United States. Two of the candidates said that threat is nuclear weapons. Tulsi Gabbard, ignoring the one-word requirement, said, “The greatest threat is that we are at greater risk of nuclear war than ever before in history.”

Why did she say this? What could she possibly be thinking of? Is she thinking of Donald Trump? Is she thinking of the 30% of Americans who want to nuke North Korea (according to a poll published in Newsweek)? Is she thinking of Syria, Ukraine and increased tension between the US and Russia? Is she thinking of the pivot to Asia, the Belt and Road, and increased tensions with China? Because the debate format was designed to pull miniature sound bites from ten candidates, we don’t know what she was thinking, but I know what I’m thinking.

The post-WWII power structure continues to crumble. The USSR is now Russia. The US and Europe are weakening. China and Asia are growing stronger. Russia is openly resisting US hegemony. Iran and Venezuela are abandoning the US dollar. The competition for resources is even more intense than it was in the 1930s. We are nearing the end of the petroleum age, but our lives still depend on oil.  Economic inequality is worse than it was prior to the Great Depression in 1929. And we’re confronting ecological or environmental stresses we’ve never encountered before. Sea levels are rising. Forests are burning. The permafrost is melting, as are Greenland and Antarctica. The ocean is acidifying. We are sterilizing our planet; the sixth great extinction is well underway. Climate change and violence have sent over 65 million refugees on desperate journeys for new homes, but the US and Europe no longer have much sympathy for the wretched of the Earth.

The human family is coming under tremendous stress at a time when the global political/economic system has lost all credibility. The 1% are still competing for more, while the 99% keep blaming and fighting among themselves. Predictions of serious economic and even social collapse appear regularly in prestigious publications. It seems we’re headed for hard times. The questions are, will we pull together as a species and do our best to make everyone happy while keeping our planet habitable? Or will we continue our cutthroat competition and drag each other to hell on our way to near-term human extinction?

Getting rid of nuclear weapons would be a step toward cooperation for human survival. If we take this step, we could open the next door to additional cooperative steps. If we fail to take this step, how will we cooperate enough to solve any of the problems we face? The time has come. Nuclear weapons are soooo 20^thcentury. PREVENT NUCLEAR WAR through revolutionary love. Join the Hibakusha Rebellion.