Image by Dim Leventis via Flickr
by David Swanson
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Let’s Try Democracy, May 23, 2022
May 25, 2022
Public support for the obliteration of all life on Earth is growing despite every effort of the corrupt liberal media.
According to Pew, 36% of Republicans and 35% of Democrats favor U.S. warmaking even if it risks nuclear war with Russia. Obviously the main conclusion from such numbers needs to be that Republicans are the entire problem. But, on a side note, huge majorities of U.S. residents of every flavor and description support measures guaranteed to increase the already high risk of nuclear war with Russia — a risk already acknowledged by 69% in the U.S.
Wise elder Mitt Romney recently opeded in the New York Times that Russia could use nukes, proposed pushing Russia into a corner in which it might use nukes, claimed lots of things could then be done, but listed only (1) apocalypse, and (2) more pushing Russia into that corner. This, young people may be unaware, is called “triangulating.” Romney is siding with those who want an apocalypse *and* with those who merely want to act so as to make an apocalypse more likely. It’s a thing brilliant politicians do.
Meanwhile the egghead liberal scientists are running out of seconds with which they can move the Doomsday Clock any closer to Midnight.
Three years ago another poll, you may recall, found that a third in the U.S. supported not just a risk of nuclear war but actually launching nuclear weapons at North Korea even if it killed a million people; and a full half of the U.S. public said it would happily set aside its own capacity for independent thought and support a nuclear attack on North Korea after it had happened (but before their own demise from direct hits or nuclear winter).
Meanwhile, there’s been an increase in admitting that climate change exists, but not in support for doing anything about it. In fact, support for addressing climate collapse is declining. The only category of people in the United States who support serious action on the environment in large numbers, according to Pew, are people who believe that this world is the only world, that when you die you die, and that you won’t get any pie in the sky.
This suggests an important human rights consideration. The liberal media’s refusal to give apocalypse a fair shake is a clear violation of the freedom of religion of people who prefer crazy magical beliefs to preserving life on this planet. This puts us in a real bind, of course. We’d better figure out what to prioritize soon. Or maybe it’s already been figured out for us.
David Swanson is an author, activist, journalist, and radio host. He is director of WorldBeyondWar.org and campaign coordinator for RootsAction.org. Swanson’s books include Leaving World War II Behind (2020), Curing Exceptionalism: What’s wrong with how we think about the United States? What can we do about it? (2018) and War Is A Lie. He blogs at DavidSwanson.org and WarIsACrime.org. He hosts Talk Nation Radio. He is a 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 Nobel Peace Prize Nominee. Support David’s work.
From the archives:
Larry Wilkerson and Paul Jay: Ukraine and the Doomsday Machine
Vijay Prashad: Ukraine a Pawn in a Larger Struggle (Part 1)
Abby Martin: The US Military: Planet Earth’s Greatest Enemy
Earth Burns and the Capitalist World Talks, by Pete Dolack
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Nature vs Humans. While nature’s been talking for decades very few are listening.
Don’t sweat it Folks.
Those Armani suited blokes and women at Davos will figure it all out and we’ll be right as rain in no time.
After all, they know best what’s needed for the billions of people living in poverty and fear.
Haha, Johnny.
Mother Nature has it covered. The coming climate collapse and all the violence and chaos that will accompany it is pretty much a foregone conclusion, at this point. The only thing left to do is to develop as much mitigation practices as we can, to ‘soften’ the blow and maybe buy a little more time.
Sorry, stuckeyjohn49, I have to disagree. If we don’t stop climate change real soon, there will be no “mitigation.” Feedback loops cause exponential acceleration. We’re now on the part of the exponential curve where it starts going upward real fast. It’s soon going to be so hot that we can’t go outdoors, so hot that the plants won’t grow. Even the rich, in their bunkers, will quickly run out of canned food. Either we fix it now, or bye-bye. But, you know, “don’t look up.”
I’m afraid David may get into trouble, or at least get attacked, for his phrase “crazy magical beliefs.” The rest of this piece is well within the bounds of polite satire.
I wish there were some way to reason with religious people, but apparently there is not. They have repeatedly said that one must put faith above reason (not clear why, that would be reason). And John 14:6 gives Jesus the seal of absolute authority, which they transfer to whatever present-day religious leader is purportedly representing Jesus. Apparently many of these people want the nuclear war to come sooner, because then (they believe) they will be reunited with Jesus sooner.
Personally, I believe that fans of apocalypse should not be permitted to hold public office — apparently their concern is not the future well-being of the nation, but merely what they perceive as the spiritual well-being of themselves and their friends. But I guess they have the votes on their side.
I almost didn’t republish this because of that, but do realize he’s talking about typical rightwing Christians and many, many Christians are not rightwing.
Hedges does a good job in calling those Christians out without implying all Christians are “magical thinkers.”
I suppose you’re right. But it’s the squeaky wheel that gets the grease; the right wingers are the only ones I ever hear about. I like the eco-Christians, who say that God wants us to steward this world s/he created for us, and don’t go blowing it up. But their knowledge of God’s intentions is no more based on evidence than the blow-it-up crowd’s is. The blow-it-up crowd gets more votes, because they have more and better advertising, because their advertising is paid for by big donors, who probably get their money from the war companies like Boeing, Blackwater, Halliburton. And those people don’t really want us to blow up the world — they just want us to keep buying more weapons.
Check out Faithful America, https://www.faithfulamerica.org/.
Yes, there are Eco-Christians, and Eco-Socialists, and Socialist Christians. Unfortunately they do not get much press.
From Message of The Day, May 25, 2022 on Shalom Place, https://shalomplace.com/index.html: