Editor’s Note: We received this letter from New York reader, Anthony Donovan, and thought it would appropriate to publish. Thank you Mr. Donovan for the thoughtful missive.
Hawaii, from NYC, we are humbled by your experience and know we would have reacted the very same, not know what to do, nor how to prepare our last few minutes. What a significant opportunity this is. Will you take it and with such direct, real experience help the rest of the country?
The clear reality, truth you witnessed: There is NO protection from a nuclear device. Never has been. Einstein, until the day he died tried to warn us of these weapons being very dangerous false security. There is no shelter. No preparation that would make a difference. Remember, the larger bomb of Nagasaki was 20 kilotons. One nuclear missile on one of our submarines is 3,800 kilotons. Many devices are much more powerful, but on average, 20 vs 3,800! The devastation is beyond any possible understanding or human reason. The many billions spent on warning systems and missile defense will also not help us one bit, except allow us a few minutes of goodbyes.
Living undeterred in our republic, we have a largely clandestine industry that remains outside any democratic process. 100 US Senators don’t mention it in public, a media that never questions beyond the surface, rather all prefer to cast a shadow on a nation that is very clearly using our very own logic of deterrence, North Korea. A logic, many retired military officials, even former heads of Strategic Command say is false, extremely unsafe and long outmoded. Yet we have trillions of invaluable tax money on automatic, going to this industry in the name of patriotism and safety.
With many brave and outstanding young men and women in service, our Strategic Command has a long history of protecting this industry, misleading with mistruths, with thousands of accidents, and close call miscalculations the public has never heard of. As a citizen, never use even one nuclear missile of our many thousands in my name, or my country’s name. One accidental or purposeful detonation needs to be called what it is: murder of many millions. Just one will be an irretrievable set back to Climate and as well a poisoning of precious environment for generations. Accidents happen. Human error is a given.
We’re been extremely fortunate, and Hawaii is a real wake up call. We can listen to Pope Francis’s urgent conference and plea to the world. Listen to the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize awards. Read the the Treaty for the Prohibition of of Nuclear Weapons adopted by 122 nations on July 7th, that this country ignored. Divest. Stand up. Let’s prevent an unnecessary horror on earth. With extremely deep bunkers, our full arsenal can do little to Kim, while innocent humanity are murdered, and resultant deadly radiation spreads again around the world back to us all.
Such an example for others? Want to be a strong, wise leader? Honor 72 years of our greatest Americans and start down the path to abolish them now. As JFK said, we can, and we must. The young generations deserve a life free from our costly burden, our most grave insanity. Hawaii, please, reach out and teach America what you learned in a most invaluable, profound half hour.
(Advise all to read Eric Schlosser’s Command and Control, and Timmon Wallis’s Disarming the Nuclear Argument, or watch the recent documentary Atomic Homefront, about St. Louis residents trying to deal with it’s nuclear weapon waste, and the documentary covering much invaluable history; “Good Thinking, Those Who’ve Tried to Halt Nuclear Weapons, which among other awards won Best Documentary in Montreal last year)