Tidbits - January 1, 2015 - New Year's edition

Reader Comments- Selma - the movie; Labor, Racism, PBA's Patrick Lynch, Police Police Unions; Sports, Athletes, Equality and Anti-Racism; the 1914 Christmas Truce; It's a Wonderful Life, Comrade; Prosecute those responsible for Torture; Okinawa rejects "Pivot to Asia"; Fighting Anti-Semitism and Jim Crow; Announcements- Invisible Lives, Targeted Bodies - Impacts of Economic Injustice on Vulnerable LGBTQ Communities; Symposium: Dynamics of Possible Nuclear Extinction

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Tidbits - Reader Comments and Announcements - January 1, 2015,Portside

Re: Selma's Truthful MLK: A Radical Despised by the Establishment

How MLK's right-hand man was `erased' from history

Julian Bond
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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this article, which is good so far as it goes. But in my opinion, a little bit more needs to be said about Dr. King's understanding of the connection between race, racism, class and exploitation. The climax of the Selma to Montgomery march -- and the "Selma" film -- is the culminating rally in front of the Alabama capitol where King gave one of his most powerful and insightful speeches. As you may know, the King family refused to grant the film makers permission to use any of King's speechesm so film director Ava DuVernay had to rewrite his speeches using his content and cadence but her words. She did an terrific job, but let's remember what King himself said:

"The segregation of the races was really a political stratagem employed by the emerging Bourbon interests in the South to keep the southern masses divided and southern labor the cheapest in the land. You see, it was a simple thing to keep the poor white masses working for near-starvation wages in the years that followed the Civil War. Why, if the poor white plantation or mill worker became dissatisfied with his low wages, the plantation or mill owner would merely threaten to fire him and hire former Negro slaves and pay him even less. Thus, the southern wage level was kept almost unbearably low.

"Toward the end of the Reconstruction era, something very significant happened. That is what was known as the Populist Movement. The leaders of this movement began awakening the poor white masses and the former Negro slaves to the fact that they were being fleeced by the emerging Bourbon interests. Not only that, but they began uniting the Negro and white masses into a voting bloc that threatened to drive the Bourbon interests from the command posts of political power in the South.
"To meet this threat, the southern aristocracy began immediately to engineer this development of a segregated society. I want you to follow me through here because this is very important to see the roots of racism and the denial of the right to vote. Through their control of mass media, they revised the doctrine of white supremacy. They saturated the thinking of the poor white masses with it, thus clouding their minds to the real issue involved in the Populist Movement.

"They then directed the placement on the books of the South of laws that made it a crime for Negroes and whites to come together as equals at any level. And that did it. That crippled and eventually destroyed the Populist Movement of the nineteenth century. If it may be said of the slavery era that the white man took the world and gave the Negro Jesus, then it may be said of the Reconstruction era that the southern aristocracy took the world and gave the poor white man Jim Crow.
"Let us therefore continue our triumphant march to the realization of the American dream. Let us march on segregated housing until every ghetto or social and economic depression dissolves, and Negroes and whites live side by side in decent, safe, and sanitary housing. Let us march on segregated schools until every vestige of segregated and inferior education becomes a thing of the past, and Negroes and whites study side-by-side in the socially-healing context of the classroom. Let us march on poverty until no American parent has to skip a meal so that their children may eat. Let us march until no starved man walks the streets of our cities and towns in search of jobs that do not exist. Let us march on poverty until wrinkled stomachs in Mississippi are filled, and the idle industries of Appalachia are realized and revitalized, and broken lives in sweltering ghettos are mended and remolded."

Bruce Hartford

Webspinner: Civil Rights Movement Veterans
Sojourner's Blog

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In the late seventies, my first organizing work (along with Ralph Abernathy III who was a freshman at Benedict College and his classmate (my brother) Darryl Gregory Gray) was with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference when Ralph Abernathy was the head. We marched from Chester to Columbia with church rallies along the way, over the death of a black man, Mickey McClendon, murdered for dating a white woman. McClendon, from Chester, South Carolina, was shot, tied behind a pick-up truck, set on fire and dragged down a road, much the way James Byrd Jr. was killed in Jasper, Texas, in 1998. Controversial organizer Golden Franks was Abernathy's man on the ground. My most memorable image of that time, well the evening rally in an old white wood church stands out, but the most personal is perhaps Rev. Abernathy taking all us young organizers to dinner at the local McDonald's.

Kevin Alexander Gray
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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History is a catalogue of lies or perhaps half truths, the winning half. Yes. History is the winner's version or the winner's half-truth. They report this as if they were not complicit in his erasure. This place is too much for me...lol

Jason Ford
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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But after King was safely dead and sanitized the Establishment could "embrace" him (or, rather, the sanitized presentation of him).

Alfred Rose
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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the fbi murdered mlk as sure as they were behind the killings of jfk and rfk. all three were getting in the way of nefarious plans.

Bonnie J. Caracciolo
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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He was a man before time. Time has yielded to him.

Mujahidun Sumchai, Jd Phd
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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This story smudges history with respect to King and LBJ "at the time of Selma."

It correctly points to tensions and eventually sharp criticism of King by Johnson over King's growing opposition to the Vietnam War.

But the dates involved come after the struggle in Selma. The "early" private phone call mentioned in the story took place August 20, 1965. That was two weeks after Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act that emerged from the Selma struggle. King's "Beyond Vietnam" speech at the Riverside Church, on which the story focuses, came two years after the Selma struggles, in April 1967.

Johnson's defenders and promoters, such as Joseph Califano, have claimed undue credit for Johnson for the strategy and actions in Selma. They have also tried to distance Johnson from the anti-civil rights repression conducted by the FBI at the direction of J. Edgar Hoover. Yet Johnson did nothing to remove Hoover or control his repressive actions, before or after 1965.

Still it is pretty clear that during the period of the Selma struggles, King was working with Johnson, and that Johnson wanted to pass a voting rights act. He worked hard in Congress to secure it, including a speech to a joint session of Congress on March 15, 1965, eight days after "Bloody Sunday" and four days after the murder of James Reeb, which he famously concluded by saying "And we *shall* overcome."

Fighting for voting rights equality was of course radical in itself in the mid-1960s.

But King's later radicalism on imperialism and in his economic analysis was still developing. Attributing the latter forms of radicalism to the period of the Selma struggle, and hostile Establishment responses, is anachronistic.

Chris Lowe
Portland, Oregon


Re: Labor Must Reject Pat Lynch's Bitter Bile

Stand for democracy and the voice of the people. This guy need not be the voice of working people in NYC or anywhere else!

Trish Gonzalez
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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Keep in mind his name is Lynch. Killing is a part of his DNA--Hatred is his life-blood.

Audra V Knight
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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Is "labor's silence now a betrayal of the whole working class?"

Jim Campbell

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He seems to think the police are a law unto themselves and that they need answer to no one. He is so wrong. If the police want to be respected, they need to start showing respect to citizens.

Maureen Kapp
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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First rate thinking and writing here. Lynch is indeed a rogue. He speaks for no labor agenda I recognize.

William Trent Pancoast
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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Jonathan Tasini's clear thinking identifies both the toxicity of the current situation and the better path toward the future.  To permit Pat Lynch's pestilential rhetoric to infect the community -- including the NYPD -- with a lethal social virus threatens the vital organs of the city.

Labor must join others in denouncing Lynch's narrowly self-serving broadsides against the mayor and the larger community, even as leaders also recognize the siege mentality that grips the throats of many officers and offer words of support to relieve the worst of their fears as they continue to pursue their mission.

James Young
Harrisburg, PA

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The modern labor movement was founded on the principle that "an injury to one is an injury to all." The NYPD, at least the leadership of the police association, does not stand by this principle and must be opposed.

Harry Targ
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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Pat Lynch is a major part of the problem. Many, many police do not support him as seen in various postings. Rogue police, and irresponsible and/or racist cops make the job much, much worse for the honest, decent police. And for the record, I know some very fine and progressive people who have the last name Lynch, one is a strong, anti-racist and progressive unionist. The tone of both Audra Knight and Jimmy Lynch above is not helpful. Even if there is righteous anger it's just polarizing.

Mike Glick
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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Time for the good cops to stand up and dump this chump. Lynch is an embarrassment to the great city of New York and its once proud police force.

John Fusco
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

Re: Police Unions and the Challenge of Solidarity

A copy of this excellent, sensitive article should be mailed to police forces everywhere in the country ~ start with NYC, but don't forget Arizona and Florida and all the states in between.  Thank you for it.

Lois Racz

Re: Stop Kidding Yourself: The Police Were Created to Control Working Class and Poor People

Q: What do you call a place where cops think they should choose who's mayor?

A: A police state.

Peter Hogness
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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Mayor Richard J Daley of Chicago (that's Daley the father) said when Walter Cronkite or someone challenged him for the crazed police misbehavior at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968: "Da pollice isn't here to create disorder--da police is here to preserve disorder".

Emile Schepers
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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Last year, when my mom's house was burgled -- several times -- the Greenville County Sheriff's department wouldn't respond, wouldn't even take a report -- because my mom owned her house outright and had no homeowner's insurance. We were told they only respond to crimes in which there might be insurance liability. THAT tells you who they "serve and protect.

James Scott
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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Time for our NYC area labor leaders to point out that being a union member and leader does not require spewing hate filled rhetoric or insulting the popularly elected mayor because he dares to even question the choking death of an unarmed man right before our eyes on video. Time to do it NOW.

Workers Unite! Film Festival
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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At least there's an upside to this. The "power" of the working class has long been recognized on a number of levels - as a means to generate wealth, a societal force that must be contained, a foil for oppressive legislation, voting blocks that are easily divided with pointless issues while influential lobbyist sway policy makers, any others? Recognition should count for something!

Shawn Phillips
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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Really need a better grasp of the history of urban police unionism, ethnic power struggles between late 19th-20th century politically stratified white immigrants at the municipal level, racism of white ethnic dominated police forces and extra-legal white ethnic/"patriotic" mobs towards people of color, the long time private/corporate use of police and private security forces to break radical (Wobbly IWW, socialist or communist type unionism) and the role of white dominated para-militarism in the overall social control of hated and/or economically competitive minorities.

In the urban North and West ethnic policing has been the norm of police recruiting for generations. The few (affirmative action) recruiting changes since the 1960's in many police departments still finds minority police, police union heads, local prosecutors, judges (in majority black or Hispanic inner-cities) and other enforcement officials kept out of most of the positions that wield great power. Its fairly well documented that the KKK and other hate groups have long worked inside and with local law enforcement, prosecutorial and administration of justice agencies in the Old South.

Mahdi Ibn Ziyad
Posted on Portside's Facebook page


Re: The Power of Political Athletes to Puncture Privilege

What a great article. It reminded me that the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa really began to have an impact when players in the professional sports world there got involved and publicly opposed apartheid.

It is good that some people today are examining racism in the U.S. It is corrosive in a democratic society.

Laurel MacDowell

I Can't Breathe: Mendocino Team Banned From Tournament for Wearing Controversial T-shirts (Officials later recant after massive response in support of team)

Kym Kemp
December 28, 2014
Lost Coast Outpost


Mendocino High School Girls Varsity players:(Front row, left to right): Aimee Gordon, Naomi Baker, Sunny Scott. (Back row) Isobell Hall and Michaela Hubbard. [Photo from Mendocinosportsplus.]

Girls High School Varsity team banned, because they believe that all people are equal, because they believe that racial profiling and injustice has to go. You go Mendocino High School Girls Varsity players!

Jay Schaffner

Re: One Holy Night - The tale of the 1914 Christmas Truce

100 years and we still haven't learned how to get along with each other. sucks!

Bob Schmetzer
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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"on each end of the rifle, we're the same."
Christmas in the Trenches

A slide show about the Christmas Day 1914 when all sides laid down their weapons and made peace by playing a game of soccer.

Jeanne Tolliver Dipple
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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It was also a movie Joyeux Noel ( Merry Christmas )

John Godson
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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and after that act of human decency, the kings, kaisers and tsars made it a capital offense to repeat it. the rich, hating peace is what they do best.

Claude Miller
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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That's the only reason the poor are not outright exterminated: to provide fodder for the war machine of the rich.

Karla Blair
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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And cheap labor while they last.

Tim West
Posted on Portside's Facebook page


Re: It's a Wonderful Life, Comrade - Hollywood Movie Investigated by FBI, with Help from Ayn Rand

Every time a bell rings a Commie gets a red star!

Blarchie Unker
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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Too many "Mr. Potter"s in Congress...

Milton L Butts Jr.
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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Every time a bell rings, a commie gets his wings...

Doug Richardson
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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lol.... not unlike the fear that is rampant in [o]ur culture today..

Karen Furr
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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Ahhh, the libertarian hero, Ayn Rand, making sure government stays out of our business.

Brad Smith
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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Paul Ryan's hero to the rescue!!!!

Karl Rohlich
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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Ayn Rand: Fink, Comrades!

Edgar Aracena
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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Fear has often, apparently been an effective political tool.

Bud Burridge
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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It has a Communist theme. Communists are good. The FBI worked for the 1%.

Charles Brown
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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Rand was quite the propagandist herself....

I love the way she attacked social security and other social safety nets, yet, when she and her successful attorney husband encountered health issues, they made sure to avail themselves of every possible form of assistance

Mike Hunton
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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I don't know whether to laugh or cry. I think I'll laugh. Year after year that commie film milks sentimental hearts winning over the bad banker heavy. Angels of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your wings!

Hilton Obenzinger
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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Actually, it was a conservative response to film noir, which was being propagated by commies like Jules Dassin & Abe Polansky. But I'm open to a remake where Potter is the hero.

Ethan Young
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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FBI & HUAC feared it's populist message: Evil banker-scrooge Potter (played by Lionel Barrymore) schemed to destroy families by swindling foreclosure while small capitalist Bailey's Savings & Loan tried to keep them in their homes. Too much for J. Edgar Hoover, McCarthy and ilk. But having pressured theater chains not to screen the film, it lay dormant for 30 years until a clerk rescued it from obscurity -- he forgot to renew the copyright. TV stations began showing it because they didn't have to pay a royalty to studio, creating an instant if belated "classic".

Doug Vaughan
Posted on Portside's Facebook page


Re: Cuban President Raul Castro Delivers Speech on Cuba-US Relations

I am so excited! Never thought that in my lifetime I would ever get to possibly see Cuba. Won't it be something!

Lee Tetrault
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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It only took 55 years to come to this decision. Hats off to Pope Francis, Obama, and Castro.
    
Brent Bonah-cameron
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

Re: Prosecute Torturers and Their Bosses

John McCain likes to think of himself as a maverick. Some might think his views on torture as wrong is one more piece of evidence that he still has maverick cred.

But John McCain's take on torture is, perhaps, better explained by the adage that he never likes a person he hasn't met and never meets a person he doesn't like. In McCain's case, he knows what torture is first hand and, as a result, knows how torture operates. But for his having been tortured, he likely would not oppose it and would assume that torture will get important information.

Ellen Dannin

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Amen.

Joan Woods Fisher
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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All the more reason to prosecute. If previous administrations had been held accountable, including Nixon and Reagan, perhaps Bush and Cheney would have thought twice before engaging in this activity.

Rich Smith
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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Idealism of equity bestows hope, realism of corruption defies history. Red, white, blue wall of silence shall prevail.

Edward Harris
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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The Eighth Amendment; Title 18: Section 113C; The UN Convention on Torture; and the Geneva Conventions on Prisoners of War [the last two, being treaties we've signed, are US law] all define what occurred as torture, and prescribe penalties up to and including death.

Andrew Reinbach
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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It is time to start this process! Bias? Bull! Facts tell no lies...unless they are fabricated and fudges... as is the proven way and know tradition of the extreme "right"... which over an over again had been proven not only to be totally wrong... but also utterly untruthful!!!

Gerhard A Fuerst
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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Why should they not be held accountable. Will the U.S. wait for the U.N. to intervene in our war crimes and domestic injustice crimes? Do we think we are untouchable? Empires fall...

Constance McIntosh
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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Nonviolence is stronger than violence. After 12 wars in 20 years costing $5-8 trillion, the empire should become a republic by closing most of its 1300 military bases and redefining security, health, happiness, work and interdependence.

Marc Batko
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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As much as I agree with this, I can't find any credibility in memes that refuse to address Obama's continuation and expansion of atrocities and wholesale violation of the Constitution committed by his predecessors. We have a history of letting off the hook those people mainly responsible for expanding the secret shadow government that continues to expand its power over us, acts with total impunity, suspends our constitutional rights, and is, in fact, unaccountable to anyone.

Dolores Bardoneschi
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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This is the first piece that has the cast of characters right. Addington belongs in the deepest ring of hell.

Michael Fortunato
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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We certainly have given encouragement and support for the trials and justice systems for those in other countries under these circumstances, so why shouldn't we do the same in this circumstance?

Georgiann Jones
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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Kuala Lumpur has already done this and convicted Bush, Cheney, Rumsfield et Al. But that court has no teeth.

BJ Conrad
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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When Obama took office, his first mistake was failing to investigate the commission of war crimes by the Bush/Cheney Administration. It was Obama's responsibility to investigate these war crimes and if he chose not to initiate prosecution, then Cheney and Bush should have at the very least been deemed "unindicted conspirators." In the name of national defense, they brought shame to everything this nation ever stood for.

Bill Rodis
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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don't forget Condi!

Joelen Mulvaney
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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We have NO moral authority in the world if we allow our leaders to commit war crimes without consequence....

Renida Pavia Taylor
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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We need a "Chenemberg" Trial.

Carl Jerry
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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The "torture" policy was never brought before Congress for a vote. President Bush used his executive powers to exempt his administration frm following Geneva Convention.

...Don't make assumption that people who view torture criminal are not a "veteran." I am a veteran & believe US is not above international law.

Yvonne Caluya
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

Re: Okinawa: A Small Island Resists U.S. Military's "Pivot to Asia"

a long time Okinawan activist and now teacher in Portland, Oregon. I wanted to thank you for your recent article on Okinawa. It is one of the best I have ever read, capturing the sentiments and lives of so many people and communities that are affected by the long-time issues of militarism in Okinawa. I was moved to teachers as you captured quotes by aunties and uncles who have been fighting in the same way for years. They have always been on the ground, not because they want spotlight on themselves, but because they are really fighting for justice and peace. I appreciate your article and coverage greatly.

Moe Yonamine

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This is a very interesting article. ...it would be interesting for her to study how the Island of Malta resisted  NATO  and particularly the Americans when Dom Mintoff, the dynamic and maverick leader of the Labor Party came to power in June 1971

An historic treaty that he signed with Britain and NATO enable[d] Malta to close once and for all the British military base.  Only one month after coming to power he ordered NATO, who had its headquarters in Malta, to pack its bags. In Oct 1974 Malta adopted an historic new constitution declaring   Malta a neutral and non-aligned state.

Given that Malta is in the heart of the Mediterranean where the U.S. and the then Soviet Union were continuously competing for power of the Mediterranean sea, and considering that Britain and the West for hundreds of years, continuously used Malta to undermine the Arab states in the Middle East, this was a historic moment. I think that parallels could be drawn between Malta and Okinawa.

Reno Calleja,
Former Minister and former member of the Maltese Parliament for 29 years.

Re: Fighting Anti-Semitism and Jim Crow: "Negro-Jewish Unity" in the International Workers Order

very interesting! amazing to me to see how much support existed for the Communist philosophy back then..

Faith Ann Lubitz,
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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The IWO also had a medical wing; progressive doctors were part of it and their costs far less than the average MD. They were a great organization. The progressive Jewish community has always supported the African American struggle. Today's participation amongst Jews of the Jewish Voice for Peace, is very similar to that of the Jews of the IWO time. An important factor here, is the Jews participating in the anti-racist struggle today, have also returned to honoring their own history. For a period probably from about 1960 to 1990, a large number of Jewish Americans, those generally of a Jewish cultural background, rather than religious, lost their sense of being part of their own community. Another schism developed amongst Leftist Jews as a result of the antisemitism that unfortunately rearose in the Eastern European countries during their socialist eras. That schism resulted in the development of many Jewish left wing congregations, which allowed young Jews who are culturally oriented, and engaged as Americans to once again feel they are part of their own community, which allows them/us to participate in genuine in the anti-racist struggle.

Phyllis Mandel
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

Re: My Glorious Brothers

These two articles, by the venerable Uri Avnery this month, and the equally venerable Morris U. Schappes, 2/3 of a century ago, are fascinating reminders of the ways in which the story of the Maccabees has become relevant in different ways in different times. One-third of a century ago, inspired by a Conference on Women & Judaism, I wrote an opera called HANNAH, about the sister of the Maccabees, based on midrashim dating back to the 2nd century C.E. and cited by Rashi 1,000 years ago, telling the story in terms of the struggle for women's rights and and the debates within Judaism on violence vs. nonviolence.  That opera just received its US premiere this month and is now viewable on YouTube.  Go here for links to the playlist, as well as articles, reviews, production photos, and the complete audio recording from the 1980 European premiere, posted on Florida Atlantic University's Judaica Sound Archive.

Leonard J. Lehrman


Re: One Step Forward, One Step Back in US-Latin America Policy

Important info. Maybe if Venezuela has a few Americans to trade it would be freed from this heinous blockade.

Georgia Wever

Re: The Demise of Dr. Oz

My only surprise is that it took this long for the demise of the purported "Dr" Oz.

If anything, that so many people would so be desperate to drink the Dr Oz kool-aide in first place is rather telling.

Dr Oz just happened to be a lucky, predatory opportunist who appeared at the right time, knowing how to peddle his snake oil.

But maybe, just maybe, the snake oil gold rush is fading away . . . at least for the moment.

Charles Ostman

Invisible Lives, Targeted Bodies: A 2-day Conference on the Impacts of Economic Injustice on Vulnerable LGBTQ Communities

January 23-24, 2015

hosted by The Murphy Institute
Co sponsored by the Queer Survival Economies Initiative, Barnard College

Speakers Include Amber Hollibaugh, Kenyon Farrow, Rebecca Lurie, Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas, Reina Gossett and many more.

As part of the ongoing Queer Survival Economies project, this conference examines economic realities and survival strategies. Sessions will include queer perspectives within poor and low-income communities. Speakers will describe experiences of LGBTQ workers in workplaces characterized by long hours, low wages, and very few workplace protections as well as the concerns LGBTQ people face as healthcare consumers, documented and undocumented immigrants, people of color, elderly people, sex workers and the incarcerated. Together, we will develop the groundwork for new research, public policy and organizing agendas for economic justice that engage queer people and communities.

Join us for this exciting event - RSVP here.

The Invisible Lives Conference will take place on January 23-24, 2015, at the Murphy Institute: 25 W. 43rd St., New York.

Click here to download the conference flyer - please circulate widely.

Thank you,

Paula Finn, The Murphy Institute

Symposium: The Dynamics of Possible Nuclear Extinction - 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, anthropology, medicine, nuclear weapons and other nuclear issues will be held at The New York Academy of Medicine on Feb 28- March 1, 2015. The public is welcome.

A project of The Helen Caldicott Foundation

Venue: The New York Academy of Medicine
1216 Fifth Ave @ 103rd St
New York, NY 10029

Russia and the U.S. possess 94% of the 16,400 nuclear weapons in the global nuclear arsenal. The U.S. maintains its first strike winnable nuclear war policy, and both countries have raised their nuclear arsenals to a higher state of alert because of the situation in the Ukraine. Furthermore it has just been announced that the administration has plans to replace every nuclear warhead and their delivery systems via ship, submarine, missile and plane, at a cost of one trillion dollars over the next thirty years.
This symposium to be held by The Helen Caldicott Foundation will address the following issues:

  • What are the human and technological factors that could precipitate a nuclear war between Russia and the U.S., how many times have we come close to nuclear war and how long will our luck hold?
  • What are the ongoing technological and financial developments relevant to the nuclear weapons arsenals of the US and Russia?
  • What problems are associated with lateral proliferation of nuclear weapons via strenuous corporate marketing of nuclear technology?
  • What are the medical and environmental consequences of either a small or large scale nuclear war?
  • What are the underlying philosophical, political, and ideological dynamics that have brought life on earth to the brink of extinction?
  • How can we assess this situation from an anthropological perspective?
  • What is the pathology within the present political situation that could lead us to extinction?
  • How can this nuclear pathology be cured?