"A new world without war, poverty, executions, hunger, corporate greed, global warming or nuclear weapons" would be a world without capitalism. The preservation of "property" constitutes the underlying sanction of all these terrors. What is characterized as "greed" is simply the system performing as it must. Public penance will not create the reforms needed to change the world … indeed, nothing has succeeded in changing the world – yet.

good article

people of faith must abide

and lately, do a lot of praying

" so we need to pursue a new vision of nonviolence, a new world without war, poverty, executions, hunger, corporate greed, global warming or nuclear weapons."

That's reserved in Heaven for the religious peoples.

"Blessed are the peacemakers,for they shall see God."

There is also a wonderful DVD about John Dear that recently came out: "The Narrow Path: Walking Toward Peace and Nonviolence with John Dear, SJ." It's produced and distributed by the San Damiano Foundation, in Burbank, California.

And what happens next the world may never know.

I would like nothing better then to see this world rid of WMDS.

But imagine them gone and someone like GW Bush in Charge of a 700 billion a year Military in America.

How many nations woudl he attack....? Woulda person like that not think "Given we have such a tremendous Conventional forces advantage over Russians and Chines..why NOT take them out. They could never do our shores any harm"

Would it not mean Countries spending hundreds and billions on a coventional military?

We have to get rid of far more then just Nuclear weapons.

We have to get rid of the mindset that justifies visiting wars and violence on other peoples.

I would suggest that were all Nuclear weapons to vanish off the face of the earth tomorrow, we would then see an arms race unlike any other in history with countries the world over trying to play catch up with one anothers conventional forces.

Before we get rid of the weapons of mass destruction, we have to rid oursleves of the mindset of the peoples who developed them in the first place.

PK

Quoting from a 2004 article by "Mickey Z," entitled "59 Years After Hiroshima; Two Traditions: WMDs and Misinformation" —

"Although hundreds of thousands of Japanese lives were lost in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the bombings are often explained away as a 'life-saving' measure - (i.e., the saving of) American lives.

"Exactly how many lives saved is, however, up for grabs. … In defense of the U.S. action, it is usually claimed that the bombs saved lives. The hypothetical body count ranges from 20,000 to 'millions.'

"In an August 9, 1945 statement to 'the men and women of the Manhattan Project,' President Truman declared the hope that 'this new weapon will result in saving thousands of American lives.'

"'The president's initial formulation of 'thousands,' however, was clearly not his final statement on the matter to say the least,' remarks historian Gar Alperovitz. In his book, 'The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb and the Architecture of an American Myth,' Alperovitz documents but a few of Truman's public estimates throughout the years:

" * December 15, 1945: 'It occurred to me that a quarter of a million of the flower of our young manhood was worth a couple of Japanese cities . . .'

" * Late 1946: 'A year less of war will mean life for three hundred thousand - maybe half a million - of America's finest youth.'

" * October 1948: 'In the long run we could save a quarter of a million young Americans from being killed, and would save an equal number of Japanese young men from being killed.'

" * April 6, 1949: 'I thought 200,000 of our young men would be saved.'

" * November 1949: Truman quotes Army Chief of Staff George S. Marshall as estimating the cost of an Allied invasion of Japan to be 'half a million casualties.'

" * January 12, 1953: Still quoting Marshall, Truman raises the estimate to 'a minimum one quarter of a million' and maybe 'as much as a million, on the American side alone, with an equal number of the enemy.'

" * Finally, on April 28, 1959, Truman concluded: 'the dropping of the bombs . . . saved millions of lives.'

"Fortunately, we are not operating without the benefit of official estimates.

"In June 1945, Truman ordered the U.S. military to calculate the cost in American lives for a planned assault on Japan. Consequently, the Joint War Plans Committee prepared a report for the Chiefs of Staff, dated June 15, 1945, thus providing the closest thing anyone has to 'accurate': 40,000 U.S. soldiers killed, 150,000 wounded, and 3,500 missing.

"While the actual casualty count remains unknowable, it was widely known at the time that Japan had been trying to surrender for months prior to the atomic bombing. A May 5, 1945 cable, intercepted and decoded by the U.S., 'dispelled any possible doubt that the Japanese were eager to sue for peace.' In fact, the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey reported shortly after the war, that Japan 'in all probability' would have surrendered before the much-discussed November 1, 1945 Allied invasion of the homeland.

"Truman himself eloquently noted in his diary that Stalin would 'be in the Jap War on August 15th. Fini (sic) Japs when that comes about.'

"Many post-Hiroshima/Nagasaki sentiments questioned the use of the bombs.

"'I thought our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives,' said General Dwight D. Eisenhower; while, not long after the Japanese surrender, New York Times military analyst Hanson Baldwin wrote, 'The enemy, in a military sense, was in a hopeless strategic position. Such then, was the situation when we wiped out Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Need we have done it? No one can, of course, be positive, but the answer is almost certainly negative.'

"Was it the cold logic of capitalism that motivated the nuking of civilians? As far back as May 1945, a Venezuelan diplomat was reporting how Assistant Secretary of State Nelson Rockefeller 'communicated to us the anxiety of the United States government about the Russian attitude.'

"U.S. Secretary of State James F. Byrnes seemed to agree when he turned the anxiety up a notch by explaining how 'our possessing and demonstrating the bomb would make Russia more manageable in the East . . . The demonstration of the bomb might impress Russia with America's military might.'

"General Leslie Groves was less cryptic: 'There was never, from about two weeks from the time I took charge of this Project, any illusion on my part but that Russia was our enemy, and the Project was conducted on that basis.'

"During the same time period, President Truman noted that Secretary of War Henry Stimson was 'at least as much concerned with the role of the atomic bomb in the shaping of history as in its capacity to shorten the war.'

"What sort of shaping Stimson had in mind might be discerned from his Sept. 11, 1945 comment to the president: 'I consider the problem of our satisfactory relations with Russia as not merely connected but as virtually dominated by the problem of the atomic bomb.'

"Stimson called the bomb a 'diplomatic weapon,' and duly explained: 'American statesmen were eager for their country to browbeat the Russians with the bomb held rather ostentatiously on our hip.'

"'The psychological effect [of Hiroshima and Nagasaki] on Stalin was twofold,' proposes historian Charles L. Mee, Jr. 'The Americans had not only used a doomsday machine; they had used it when, as Stalin knew, it was not militarily necessary. It was this last chilling fact that doubtless made the greatest impression on the Russians.'

"It also made an impression on J. Robert Oppenheimer, the scientific director at Los Alamos. After learning of the carnage wrought upon Japan, he began to harbor second thoughts and he resigned in October 1945.

"In March of the following year, Oppenheimer told Truman: 'Mr. President, I have blood on my hands.'

"Truman's reply: 'It'll come out in the wash.'

"Later, the president told an aide, 'Don't bring that fellow around again.'

"'Why did we drop [the bomb]?' pondered Studs Terkel at the time of the fiftieth anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.

"'So little Harry could show Molotov and Stalin we've got the cards,' he explained. 'That was the phrase Truman used. We showed the goddamned Russians we've got something and they'd better behave themselves in Europe. That's why it was dropped. The evidence is overwhelming. And yet you tell that to 99 percent of Americans and they'll spit in your eye.'

Click here for the entire article — http://www.counterpunch.org/mickey08042004.html

And so atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki:

a.) to graphically demonstrate to the Soviet Union the blood and guts — the horror — that takes place when atomic bombs are dropped on large urban areas; and

b.) to show the Soviet Union that the United States is ready, willing and able to use such a horrible weapon — recklessly and unnecessarily.

This brings to mind the so-called "Christmas bombing" of North Vietnam by Richard Nixon. … This carpet-bombing of North Vietnam in 1972 was also known as the "Madman Strategy." …

That is to say, Nixon and Kissinger wanted the North Vietnamese to make certain concessions at the Paris Peace talks
– concessions the North Vietnamese were unwilling to make. And so Nixon and Kissinger carpet-bombed North Vietnam in an effort to convince the North Vietnamese that Richard Nixon had, quite literally, gone mad.

Kissinger's orders to the air force were quite simple: "Bomb anything that moves."

The "final tally" for these two mass murderers, Kissinger and Nixon, was:

– between 2,000,000 to 3,000,000 Vietnamese dead; at least 900,000 of whom were civiilians;

– 58,000+ American soldiers dead;

– over 14,000,000 Indochinese either killed, wounded or made refugees.

Either humankind figures out "another way," or else kiss the planet, your kids, your grandkids and your-own-self ... good-bye.

(It doesn't get any simpler than that.)

With "Drill n' Kill" McCain we will be safe; no one crosses a crazy old coot who hasn't much longer to live, never can tell what they might do.

""In March of the following year, Oppenheimer told Truman: 'Mr. President, I have blood on my hands.'

"Truman's reply: 'It'll come out in the wash.'

"Later, the president told an aide, 'Don't bring that fellow around again.'

Yet Truman that cold blooded mass murderer is still venerated by so may Americans. As are so many other American 'dear leaders'.Can anyone please explain this to me.

Though I wear no sackcloth nor ashes,
Each day of my life I try to learn something
about the world and the people in it.

Much of what I see happening is deeply disturbing. I live in a mental state of
sackcloth and ashes with the futile hope that
the very least I can do is to be aware of what
humans are capable of doing to one another and
carrying my burden of guilt, shame, and despair for everyone that has suffered at the hands of those who revel in power and glory in
inflicting harm on others.

I feel like a masochist amongst powerful sadists.

Will Love conquer all or shall we be the source of our own destruction?

Love will tear us apart, since you asked.

Joy!

podhertz

I feel like a masochist amongst powerful sadists

so in other words you're enjoying being kicked around