Rosa, Nukes, and He-man
We are having a nuclear war right now!
As a young boy, coming to age during the reign of Reagan and Gorbachov, I can clearly remember having terrible nightmares about the awe inspiring mushroom cloud. Growing up in that time one remembers the PBS specials about nuclear weapons and nuclear war. There were songs and books a plenty written on the subject. Every person, children especially, had had a very clear notion of what a nuclear exchange would look like and what horrors it would bring. A nuclear explosion bursting with radioactive energy blossoming upward and outward, shock waves of fire whipping through flesh and fur and bark like paper, radiation sickness felt miles away slowly choking out life, and radioactive clouds with fallout obscuring the earth from the sun and raining down radioactive ash for thousands of years. This was not a Star Trek episode this was REALLY possible. This was the climate of the 80s, it was tangible, you could smell the fear of it. At night we watched the news unblinking while reports would describe the tensions between the two super powers. Russia and the United States, poised with fingers on triggers, in an enormous stalemate that could ultimately spell the complete annihilation of all life on the planet earth.
That was 20 years ago. The cold war turned into something else. Pheww......
Somehow all life did not come to an end. For my part I believe that the global powers had summarily sobered themselves and their respective peoples with this shocking glimpse of the future. The idea of an all out global thermo nuclear war became...unpopular. Guess jeans went to goodwill, Swatch watches lost theyre appeal after theyre batteries went dead, and He-man and G.I.Joe would ultimately be replaced by a sponge named bob.
I think most people would, given the choice, trade the Smurfs for total annihilation. So great, well just take all these missiles, point them at our enemies, and save them for a rainy day. They are just too scary. Its too scary to use a hydrogen bomb right?...
Well, we do use them. We are having a nuclear war right now! We just use smaller bombs with different packaging. I wonder how many people know that during the Gulf War a newer nuclear weapon was widely used. Depleted uranium rounds and shells. Not as exciting as the big Kahunas but still really, really bad. It was in Dessert Storm, and still is in Iraq, common practice to use Depleted Uranium Weapons as standard ammunition.
No big mushroom, no big boom, no big deal right?...Wrong. These weapons in widespread use utilize the the depleted uranium from our soil. Its good to get this stuff out of the earth and away from food supplies (much of it can be found on tribal reservations in this country...nice land we gave those injuns huh?) and best of all its free. This uranium has the isotope 235 (used for hydrogen bombs and nuclear power plants) which is highly fissionable (a la the big mushroom clouds) and 99.3% contains the isotope 238. 238 is just as radioactive as 235 but is less obviously dramatic. If a 10 pound tank shell is made with this stuff and fired at great velocity at an enemy tank the shell bores through the tanks armor till it reaches the other side killing the soldiers inside and exploding with great force. This uranium is still very pyroforic which means you have yourself a great fiery mess after it hits and therein lies the problem. The byproduct of an explosion like this leaves you with tiny fallout. Particles no larger than 5 microns (really small) in diameter are dispersed into the air. These highly carcinogenic particles stay airborne and have a half life span of some 4.5 billion years.
What does that mean? These particles emit high levels of alfa radiation which causes just about every kind of cancer you could dream of: Lung, liver, bone, blood. As an added bonus it is capable of permeating the placenta of a child (which only a few really nasty things like AIDS can do) and it does it well. Four years after the end of Dessert Storm children's cancer rate in those battle weary areas of Baghdad and Basra have increased as much as 12 times. A current increase statistic is unavailable. Birth defects have been charted at 7 times higher after that war. Children are born without arms, feet, eyes, even brains. A child born with no brain...(ponder that for a minute). Troops returning from that first highly publicized spat complain of semen that burns as it leaves the body. This same semen burning when it enters the body of a woman that soldier is with. Hot sex?...I dont think so.
These weapons are in widespread use as we speak and with this Vietnam II in full swing no end in sight. This is just a little report I decided to research. I wonder...
I wonder why the fuck no one is ripping down the front doors of the oval office and asking that fucking inbred moron why?:
WHY DID WE GO TO WAR WITH A COUNTRY THAT WE THOUGHT HAD NUCLEAR WEAPONS (and didn't) IF WE WERE GOING TO USE NUCLEAR WEAPONS ON THEM!!!???
Hypocritical. Disgraceful. Wrong. Just wrong. If we are going to just sit down and take it I say do it like Rosa Parks (God rest her soul), she knew how to stand up for herself even while sitting down. why cant we?
We are having a nuclear war right now!
As a young boy, coming to age during the reign of Reagan and Gorbachov, I can clearly remember having terrible nightmares about the awe inspiring mushroom cloud. Growing up in that time one remembers the PBS specials about nuclear weapons and nuclear war. There were songs and books a plenty written on the subject. Every person, children especially, had had a very clear notion of what a nuclear exchange would look like and what horrors it would bring. A nuclear explosion bursting with radioactive energy blossoming upward and outward, shock waves of fire whipping through flesh and fur and bark like paper, radiation sickness felt miles away slowly choking out life, and radioactive clouds with fallout obscuring the earth from the sun and raining down radioactive ash for thousands of years. This was not a Star Trek episode this was REALLY possible. This was the climate of the 80s, it was tangible, you could smell the fear of it. At night we watched the news unblinking while reports would describe the tensions between the two super powers. Russia and the United States, poised with fingers on triggers, in an enormous stalemate that could ultimately spell the complete annihilation of all life on the planet earth.
That was 20 years ago. The cold war turned into something else. Pheww......
Somehow all life did not come to an end. For my part I believe that the global powers had summarily sobered themselves and their respective peoples with this shocking glimpse of the future. The idea of an all out global thermo nuclear war became...unpopular. Guess jeans went to goodwill, Swatch watches lost theyre appeal after theyre batteries went dead, and He-man and G.I.Joe would ultimately be replaced by a sponge named bob.
I think most people would, given the choice, trade the Smurfs for total annihilation. So great, well just take all these missiles, point them at our enemies, and save them for a rainy day. They are just too scary. Its too scary to use a hydrogen bomb right?...
Well, we do use them. We are having a nuclear war right now! We just use smaller bombs with different packaging. I wonder how many people know that during the Gulf War a newer nuclear weapon was widely used. Depleted uranium rounds and shells. Not as exciting as the big Kahunas but still really, really bad. It was in Dessert Storm, and still is in Iraq, common practice to use Depleted Uranium Weapons as standard ammunition.
No big mushroom, no big boom, no big deal right?...Wrong. These weapons in widespread use utilize the the depleted uranium from our soil. Its good to get this stuff out of the earth and away from food supplies (much of it can be found on tribal reservations in this country...nice land we gave those injuns huh?) and best of all its free. This uranium has the isotope 235 (used for hydrogen bombs and nuclear power plants) which is highly fissionable (a la the big mushroom clouds) and 99.3% contains the isotope 238. 238 is just as radioactive as 235 but is less obviously dramatic. If a 10 pound tank shell is made with this stuff and fired at great velocity at an enemy tank the shell bores through the tanks armor till it reaches the other side killing the soldiers inside and exploding with great force. This uranium is still very pyroforic which means you have yourself a great fiery mess after it hits and therein lies the problem. The byproduct of an explosion like this leaves you with tiny fallout. Particles no larger than 5 microns (really small) in diameter are dispersed into the air. These highly carcinogenic particles stay airborne and have a half life span of some 4.5 billion years.
What does that mean? These particles emit high levels of alfa radiation which causes just about every kind of cancer you could dream of: Lung, liver, bone, blood. As an added bonus it is capable of permeating the placenta of a child (which only a few really nasty things like AIDS can do) and it does it well. Four years after the end of Dessert Storm children's cancer rate in those battle weary areas of Baghdad and Basra have increased as much as 12 times. A current increase statistic is unavailable. Birth defects have been charted at 7 times higher after that war. Children are born without arms, feet, eyes, even brains. A child born with no brain...(ponder that for a minute). Troops returning from that first highly publicized spat complain of semen that burns as it leaves the body. This same semen burning when it enters the body of a woman that soldier is with. Hot sex?...I dont think so.
These weapons are in widespread use as we speak and with this Vietnam II in full swing no end in sight. This is just a little report I decided to research. I wonder...
I wonder why the fuck no one is ripping down the front doors of the oval office and asking that fucking inbred moron why?:
WHY DID WE GO TO WAR WITH A COUNTRY THAT WE THOUGHT HAD NUCLEAR WEAPONS (and didn't) IF WE WERE GOING TO USE NUCLEAR WEAPONS ON THEM!!!???
Hypocritical. Disgraceful. Wrong. Just wrong. If we are going to just sit down and take it I say do it like Rosa Parks (God rest her soul), she knew how to stand up for herself even while sitting down. why cant we?
VIEW 4 of 4 COMMENTS
hera:
the state of the world confuses me.. sometimes I think we have all become apathetic blobs with our heads stuck in the clouds... and steeped in popular culture. And you know what makes me really mad? Knowing that I'm no better as I sit here on my ass saying "but what can we do that will make any difference anyway?"
mtvinla00:
"but what can we do that will make any difference anyway?" Hera, in my opinion you are allready doing it. We feel how we feel about the world around us and talk about it. Try and make sense of it. Just having an emotion about what is happening is enough to change peoples minds and hopefully that ends up being a solution. When people find a place where they can take a stand and get up and make it that can be really amazing but again in my opinion the biggest changes we can make are in our own minds. Thanks for commenting.