Ninety seconds to midnight.
25 JANUARY—The Doomsday Clock stands at 90 seconds to midnight. The closest the clock has ever been set since it was established by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists after the second world war. The principal reason cited for moving it forward two days ago was the escalating war in Ukraine.
We are closer to nuclear war than we have ever been. Including during the Cuban missile crisis. Then we had a president who was committed to diplomacy, a president who understood the dangers involved and wanted to avoid them, a president who was able to control the war hawks surrounding him.
There is no one in the White House who can save us now.
The man currently sitting where JFK once sat is committed to nothing but his own self-interest and has been his entire political life. But even if Biden had any inclination toward diplomacy—doubtful given his life-long commitment to American wars and to sustaining U.S. global hegemony—the neoconservatives in charge of his Administration do not and Biden isn’t capable of standing up to them. In fact Biden isn’t capable of much these days given the severity of his cognitive decline.
But this war is unusually dangerous not because of Biden’s age-related dementia, but principally because the United States won’t back down. Like the plot of a racist western movie, the U.S. depicts this conflict as good guys versus bad guys, the forces of democracy and freedom versus totalitarianism, making diplomacy all but impossible.
For the United States this is a war of ideology—a war of ideas, beliefs, doctrines. For Russia the war is about survival—the survival of Russia as a nation and Russians as a people. NATO, always acting at the command of the United States, has long had Russia surrounded with military bases and nuclear weapons. It was in the process of turning Ukraine into another NATO military outpost, right on Russia’s doorstep, when Russia began its Special Military Operation almost a year ago.
The United States is playing an immoral game of brinkmanship. Ukraine is of no strategic or even economic importance to our country. Prior to the war most Americans didn’t know where Ukraine was and now the country is being completely destroyed like a pawn on an emperor’s chessboard. We won’t allow Ukraine to negotiate a settlement, instead we provide just enough weapons for the war to continue even as we know Ukraine cannot possibly win it. The consequences? Ukraine is being reduced to rubble and Ukrainian soldiers are dying in the tens of thousands. The Biden Administration is content to let Ukraine bleed.
Russia is now clearly winning the war which is why the doomsday clock was moved forward. Every paying attention person knows that if and as a Russian victory becomes undeniable, the United States will escalate. Just as it escalated in Vietnam. True to form, the Biden Administration is promising ever more weapons even as I write this. The United States is very good at starting wars but never knows when or how to end them. And like all of our wars, this one is already well beyond our control.
This is the single most dangerous moment any of us has ever faced and fools—ignorant and full of hubris—steer the helm of State.
Ending the war
Whatever your political persuasion, however loyal you are to your party, nothing is more important than stopping the war in Ukraine. Understand this: The Democrats are not going to stop this war. The Republicans are not going to stop it either. Only you and I can stop this madness
To be entirely fair, there are actually some Congressional Republicans who oppose the war. You won’t find any Democrats opposing it. And that’s important to know. If you’re a Democrat, you should ask yourself why. Why is the party I support now the preeminent war party? When and how and why did that occur?
The first step toward stopping this war happens when you take your loyalty and your power back from the political party you mistakenly gave it to. The Democrats, the party I was loyal to for 40 years, are taking us right up to the brink of nuclear annihilation. They no longer have my loyalty and they no longer get any of my time and attention. They will never do anything meaningful about climate change, they will never reduce the military budget, they will never enact medicare for all. They are not better than Republicans. They are just as bad as Republicans and in some ways worse. They are utterly and irretrievably corrupt.
If enough of us wake up then together we can stop this madness. We can preserve this planet and all the beautiful sentient beings living on it. You and I are the only ones who can do it.
I am going to bang on about this until this war ends.
Because… I love you.
Well said Cara although I have to disagree with Feral Finster. IMSHO it all started in the 1972 election when Tricky Dick trounced George McGovern in the country that was sick of the Vietnam war. The Democrats clearly concluded that anti-war was a losin' hand. The deal was sealed when St. Ronnie shoved the Republicans so far to the right that the moderate ones left and infested the Democratic party and destroyed it. We've had nothing but Republican presidents since then and I include Slick Willie, The Obamanation, and Nod in that list of Republican prezzies.
I can only hope and pray that the US and our vassals experience a financial collapse before the DINOs set off the bomb.
"To be entirely fair, there are actually some Congressional Republicans who oppose the war. You won’t find any Democrats opposing it. And that’s important to know. If you’re a Democrat, you should ask yourself why. Why is the party I support now the preeminent war party? When and how and why did that occur?"
What happened was that Team D was offered the whip hand. Note that the election of Obama did more to neuter the antiwar movement than anything Bush or Cheney ever could have done.