Last updated: March 7, 2015
with Noam Chomsky
Image by Dandelion Salad via Flickr
strugglevideomedia on Mar 2, 2015
Speaking at the “Nuclear Free World” conference 3/1/15 in New York City Noam Chomsky speaks about the long history of U.S. policymakers risking everything in order to increase the power of the U.S. government over some part of the world. Again and again the actual safety of American people was risked.
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Helen Caldicott Symposium: Possible Nuclear Extinction (Part 1)
MsMilkytheclown1 on Mar 1, 2015
Symposium: The Dynamics of Possible Nuclear Extinction l February 28-March 1, 2015 at The New York Academy of Medicine
A unique, two-day symposium at which an international panel of leading experts in disarmament, political science, existential risk, artificial intelligence, anthropology, medicine, nuclear weapons and other nuclear issues.
A project of The Helen Caldicott Foundation
http://totalwebcasting.com/view/?id=hcfTheodore Postol
Professor Emeritus of Science, Technology, and National Security Policy, MIT – Striving for ArmageddonMax Tegmark
Professor of Physics, MIT – Artificial Intelligence and the Risk of Accidental Nuclear WarAlan Robock
Distinguished Professor, Department Environmental Sciences, Rutgers University – Nuclear Famine and Nuclear Winter: Climatic Effects of Nuclear War, Catastrophic Threats to the Global Food Supply
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Helen Caldicott Nuclear Symposium feb 28 2015 part 2
Joe Friendly on Mar 1, 2015
Steven Starr, Bruce Gagnon, Bill Hartung speak at The Helen Caldicott Symposium on the dangers of nuclear war February 28, 2015, as part 2 of 3 parts. This was the first of 2 days and was live streamed and archives at http://totalwebcasting.com/live/hcf as will be the second day, March 1st. The camera framing here is more varied.
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Helen Caldicott Preventing Nuclear War Symposium Part 3
Joe Friendly on Mar 2, 2015
Greg Mello: The Role and Funding of US Nuclear Weapons Labs; Seth Baum: The Catastrophic Risk of Nuclear War; Bob Alvarez: Lateral Proliferation Could Trigger a Nuclear Holocaust; Robert Parry: Ukraine and the Human Factor: How Propaganda and Passions Can Risk Nuclear Conflagration. video by Joe Friendly
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On The Beach (2000) Part 1
AussieRoo1 on Dec 19, 2007
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Beach 2000 film
see also Symposium: The Dynamics of Possible Nuclear Extinction
February 28 – March 1, 2015
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Updated: March 4, 2015
A Conversation With Prof. Noam Chomsky (2015)
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Updated: March 7, 2015
“I’m not Courageous. I’m a Doctor Telling the Truth”
strugglevideomedia on Mar 7, 2015
Helen Caldicott speaks at the conclusion of her symposium “The Dynamics of Possible Nuclear Extinction” 3/1/2015 New York Academy of Medicine. Caldicott has been warning of the dangers of nuclear war and nuclear radiation for decades. She is a Gandhi Peace Prize winner. Her website is: http://helencaldicottfoundation.org/
From the archives
Aid to Ukraine May End US Empire by Finian Cunningham + Video Reports
John Pilger: Ukraine Crisis Could Start World War III + WWIII – The Calm Before The Storm
Humanity Imperiled–The Path to Disaster by Noam Chomsky
Noam Chomsky: Two Major Crises Looming: Nuclear War and Global Warming
Dandelion Salad 
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David: Well yes, we can’t be certain on who is included in that group think mentality but one can presume that the PNAC group is the centerpiece for the new world order they are creating for themselves and cohorts.
Which goes back to “9/11” and all that’s transpired ever since in shaping thought with a daily dose of fear propaganda by the powerful and big corporate media outlets which either bought up or put out of business, smaller, semi-independent news outlets.Consider the constant demonizing of Putin and anything Russian these past three or four years.
The non-analytical, non-inquiring public swallows it down as if it were a tasty nectar at the diner table, and yes, the majority will go along with the prevalent powers, which is disadvantages for them in the long run.
Yes, Putin is no angel, but he has made life much better for the average Russian citizen since the Gorbachev and Yeltzin days. And yes, again – Putin is wiser than the imperial leaders of the West, but look at what he is up against? He understands quite fully what the game plan is.American and the NATO storm troopers are nation destroyers, not “nation builders.”
“By their works shall ye know them.”
On Kissinger – He’s one of those black magicians we discussed in a previous post. He’s caused too much harm in the world for me to take him seriously..
Thanks for the video of Thierry Vrain. I’ll watch it today.
Jeffrey Smith’s “Genetic Roulette” about GMO’s is another masterpiece on the subject.
Pax
Thierry’s lecture within a lecture is terrific Frank,I’m sure you’ll be amazed.
Its only a matter of time before this new biology really begins to sink in and reshape the public consciousness, the consequences will be dramatic.
That’s guaranteed, unless the world is irradiated by mad goons to prevent it all from happening!
To respond to Greg Mello’s query in part 3 @ 1:48:47 “War is the Health of the State” is by Randolph Bourne (1918.)
The Mighty Wurlitzer plays on….this has been an extremely valuable set of discussions to get the planetary ball rolling, so to speak, like the exemplary industrious dung beetle.
It might have been even more rewarding if we could have heard women’s voices on the panels as well.
Any way, I’ve said quite enough here, but as I noticed I’d misspelled delirium, I checked the etymology and was surprised to learn
…mid 16th century: from Latin, from delirare ‘deviate, be deranged’ (literally ‘deviate from the furrow’), from de- ‘away’ + lira ‘ridge between furrows’.
An intriguing allusion redolent with advanced agroecological and agroforestry empirical methodologies! GMO’s are (sans doute) thus totally & unequivocally delirious, utterly deviant, while extreme nuclear risk is even more terrifyingly so. “Adult supervision” is urgently required…
Dr. Caldicott’s closing remarks (including her extraordinary description of sociopathic weapons’ designers) are sobering and empowering to say the least.
So good health!! & as Polly Higgins says: “dare to be great!”
Thanks for watching all the videos and your commentary, David. I corrected the “delirium” misspelling in your previous comment. Didn’t notice it when I first read it.
As Bruce Gagnon reminds us, citing Lame Deer, it is indeed a spiritual sickness, this ecocidal ambition to dominate the universe! Such hubris is beyond sick, it is a type of “enlightenment” megalomania run to seed, nothing short of sheer insanity ~ the total weaponization of “science” to the point of extinction.
Actually this diabolical precocity is not true science at all; technically speaking, it is the grossest and most lethal misapplication of science conceivable.
So where has true religion gone? Surely there is some warped and quasi-religious ideology behind this delirium? if so, I’d really like to know exactly what it is. What is its scripture, where is its Word of Law?
Everything seems to point to a species of demented magic(k) that forestalls and disempowers any authentic possibility of a religious ethos that might regulate, constrain and order this ecocidal plunge into oblivion (by design) ~ all in the name of “profit.” How absurd can it get?
I’m about to listen to the final segments now, that I trust will prove even more illuminating. After all, a nuclear fireball does not illuminate anything, it consumes (apt!) darkens and destroys, obscuring the light of the stars, eclipsing our native Sun, obliterating all life. The ancient Egyptians attributed such destructive power to Apophis or Typhon…..
Updated: March 7, 2015, added speech by Helen Caldicott at the conclusion of the symposium.
I agree with Lo and Jerry ~ a great comment for sure Jerry.
There is an underlying sense of awaking to the terrifying realization of living on borrowed time, a feeling that dovetails quite nicely with controversial notions of guilt and debt (cf David Graeber’s.readings.)
The fact is, this is a fearfully grave conversation that needs to be not only acknowledged, but fully absorbed; only very few of us have the stamina or bottle to face it.
There is a dissonant unreality about the whole ghastly issue, because it is so far beyond anything humankind has ever experienced or is likely to, unless we are prepared to accept some self-inflicted fate of species erasure, eliminating our presence in this star system altogether, and likely most living things along with us.
Evidence of this mute denial is everywhere, not the least in the deafening silence over Fukushima, as though the hemlock of extinction were slowly but surely creeping into our sentient beings, and the last thing we shall remember is that we forgot to care quite enough to have prevented the tragic inevitability of our own carelessness.
It will take me weeks to digest this material; but it will only take minutes for it all to be little more than a shadow of academic formality, should it augur the terminal abrogation of human responsibility & the actual demise of planetary life.
I daresay some neocons might even relish the prospect of a type of such “accidental catastrophe” actually welcoming it, to hasten their religious rapture or some equally demented apocalyptic juvenilia.
Maybe the only equivalent scale of disaster that might throw the entire nightmare into some sort of coherent proportion for those aberrant and deluded apologists for humanity’s perversity, would be the eruption of Yellowstone…….
As the eminent Doctor C. says, how can this (nuclear) pathology be cured?
We cannot uninvent the wheel, nor undiscover fire. So we can only conspire (literally) to invoke humankind’s emergent strengths, and thereby lead (our) humanity to a wiser place, not just under but within the Sun.
Thanks for your great commentary, David.
The speaker, Steven Starr on the 3rd video (Part 2) states that the US education system does not even inform the students of the nuclear arsenal and the possibility of the total elimination of the human species along with most every other species on Earth. He mentions that the candidates for president don’t even mention it in campaign speeches/debates. It’s like it doesn’t exist. I would add that Hollywood’s films and TV programs do a disservice when they make these surviving the Apocalypse-type shows. There will be no survivors.
Hear hear, Lo. I shall be listening to all of it over the next few days.
Good that you will take the time to listen/watch the symposium, David. Wish more people knew about it. It’s very important info from many different scholars. Huge kudos to Helen Caldicott for putting this together.
Lo, David’s commentary is great – I say extraordinary – with spiritual understanding of Universal Law and the folly of man’s (and sad to say – women’s) selfish, possessive, and extremely arrogant points of view that the might makes right mental illness permeating Western “culture” is par for the course.
Even the faux liberal/progressive “left” (left of what?) cherish the war-mongering belligerent American “he-man” aka Hillary Clinton as their “best choice” to defeat the Republican opponent in next year’s election.
Lo, THANKS for the videos! Helen Caldicott is as angelic as they come, and I’ll always remember seeing her (for the first time) on Phil Donohue’s TV show in the early 80’s opposing Edward Teller, the “father of the Hydrogen Bomb.
Of the four Yugas, the Kali is the most destructive. Yikes!
Just when I was enjoying my “golden years” in retirement. Oh well. Gotta go sooner or later.
Thanks, Frank, I enjoyed your comment, too. Yes, David’s comments added greatly to the blog post, in my opinion.
Frank your own extraordinariness is beginning to show! What a daunting business it is; I really admire these remarkable panel members who have the brains and the courage to document and explain this truly awesome, grim reality.
It seems ominously apt that the story of Ragnarök is set in the region of the most gigantic waste store conceivable
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repository
The prospect of IS extremists with black-market Eastern block dirty materials does not even bear thinking about, and yet we must face the plausibility of such a scenario unfolding.
The US “defense/security” game is now so far beyond dangerous as to be utterly foreboding, a dire threat to all life. How do we preserve and heed genuinely wise counsel under such unprecedented circumstances?
I think this is the supreme question, and Mrs Clinton and the likes of “Mrs Kagan” are perhaps the least credible candidates to orchestrate and redress these moral lacunae, so essential for a burgeoning planetary society.
The USA is the first power on Earth ever faced with these collective responsibilities and the challenges of transitioning to a coherent universal polity, in an epoch of truly terrifying, ecocidal Titanic power.
Do we think it is actually capable of rising to the task? I’m not overly confident, unless the people who literally own the Pentagon are prepared to mutate the entire enterprise by adopting invincible ecosystemic reason.
David, In addition to what you just stated, which I certainly agree with, I’ll add one word: hubris. What comes to mind are four things.
First: The “Full Spectrum Dominance” mindset that after the Soviet Union ceased to be, the U.S. and our NATO warlords could take over the planet. “Project For A New American Century” on steroids.
Second: Remembering what Paul Craig Roberts said about Hitler and his bunch of thugs in an article some years ago. The Germans had defeated quite a few nations in a year and a half and were the “supermen” in the eyes of many, but “hubris” led to Operation Barbarossa which ultimately shortened the “Thousand Year Reich” by 988 years, thanks to courageous Soviet people and Zukov’s Red Army.
Third: Johann Galtung, the Norweigan peace maker and conflict resolution specialist said that during the occupation of Norway (he was a youngster at the time) his father told him that Hitler will eventually lose because he wants to do too much too soon and doesn’t know when to stop. Words to that effect.
Fourth: War Criminal Henry Kissinger’s quote that “control the oil and you control nations” and “control the food” and you control the people.” GMO’s anybody?
American society is too jaded and I still think Putin and Russia are the hope of the world. The Ukraine situation might be the catalyst for WW3.
Numbers One & Two will seem like dress rehearsals by comparison.
Can’t fault that Frank.
However, although hubris and, quite honestly, insane ambition looks pretty obvious to any clear-minded person, I’m not sure just who should be included in that group think mentality.
I think it may be the case that the majority will always go along with the prevalent powers, but just who are those empowered authorities? and in the name of what exactly do they exercise these unprecedented powers to deploy and wield such doomsday force?
I’d say we may be in danger of attributing more capacity to a bunch of paranoid psychotics than their juvenile hubris warrants.
Russia is altogether another beast, and a mighty creature at that, whether Putin occupies the throne or some other equivalent Tsar. The difference today is the nuclear fact, and so long as that exists, I believe Putin is far wiser than most, but he’s no angel. The former USSR is not a pretty sight.
As for the GM land-grab, no doubt about it. The only problem with that lunatic policy, is that it only serves the poison peddlers. I never dreamed I would ever agree with anything Kissinger advocated, but his latest offering about Ukraine and the escalation of tensions is, believe it or not, almost sensible in my estimation!
Last year I corresponded with Thierry Vrain about GM and he has recently put out an immensely valuable lecture video that I highly recommend to all Dandelion Salad readers, if Lo will let me post it here…its actually worthy of its own featured page in my opinion, the implications of what he presents are truly staggering
Thanks for the link, David. Jerry just posted it on his blog and wrote a great review/commentary of it: https://onenessofhumanity.wordpress.com/2015/03/12/what-about-glyphosate-kills-dont-americas-politicians-understand/
Reblogged this on THE ONENESS of HUMANITY and commented:
Consider this outstanding, fact-rich post by Dandelion Salad your free university course on the military-industrial-complex President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned Americans about in his farewell address, the very serious threat of nuclear war in 2015, mainstream media’s role in war propaganda, and why calls for unnecessary violence and war must become absolutely opposed by men and women the world over.
Thanks for reblogging, and your great comment, Jerry.