nuclear-news

Haunting new documentary “Command and Control”

An Accidental Nuclear Detonation “Will Happen”

Atomic weapons are just machines, as this harrowing new film demonstrates, and machines inevitably fail. Mother Jones, MICHAEL MECHANIC SEP. 11, 2016 It would be impossible to fully replicate the depth of dread and disbelief tha tCommand and Control—Eric Schlosser’s 2013 book chronicling the Air Force’s history of nuclear weapons mishaps—bestows on its readers. This is not to say thatthe haunting new documentary of the same name, co-written by Schlosser and director Robert Kenner (Food, Inc.), doesn’t pack a punch. While the film’s producers were forced to simplify and trim from the book’s deeper content, any viewer who has not read the original or who, like most Americans, pays little heed to our modern nuclear arsenal, is due for a fine scare.

An Accidental Nuclear Detonation “Will Happen”

Atomic weapons are just machines, as this harrowing new film demonstrates, and machines inevitably fail. Mother Jones, 

MICHAEL MECHANICSEP. 11, 2016 It would be impossible to fully replicate the depth of dread and disbelief thatCommand and Control—Eric Schlosser’s 2013 book chronicling the Air Force’s history of nuclear weapons mishaps—bestows on its readers. This is not to say thatthe haunting new documentary of the same name, co-written by Schlosser and director Robert Kenner (Food, Inc.), doesn’t pack a punch. While the film’s producers were forced to simplify and trim from the book’s deeper content, any viewer who has not read the original or who, like most Americans, pays little heed to our modern nuclear arsenal, is due for a fine scare.

The contextual backdrop of Schosser’s book incudes plenty of the kind of Cold War insanity that many Americans have relegated to the attics of our memories:………

chlosser’s coup de grâce was a list he obtained (via freedom of information requests) detailing a litany of nuclear fuckupsby the Air Force. Although the brass typically blamed human error, the record in its totality suggested that America’s systems for safeguarding its nuclear weapons were profoundly broken, were they ever working in the first place. Some incidents were fairly minor and others reflected organizational ineptitude………

A film, of course, delivers something a book cannot. We get to see real footage from nuclear detonations, from the actual Damascus Incident, and from some of the past nuclear mishaps, the worst one involved the accidental release of two H-bombs over Goldsboro, North Carolina, in 1961—such an insanely close call that I still shudder to contemplate it. ………

The military screws things up routinely, of course, even if the public seldom hears about it. “Nuclear accidents continue to the present day,” Harold Brown, who was defense secretary under Jimmy Carter at the time of the Damascus Incident, says in the film. “The degree of oversight and attention has if anything gotten worse, because people don’t worry about nuclear war as much.”…….

It’s not just the US arsenal we need to worry about, however……..Command and Control rolls out in selected theaters starting on September 14 in New York City. Click here for dates, cities, and venues. http://www.motherjones.com/media/2016/09/eric-schlosser-command-control-movie-documentary-nuclear-weapons-accidents

The contextual backdrop of Schosser’s book incudes plenty of the kind of Cold War insanity that many Americans have relegated to the attics of our memories:………

chlosser’s coup de grâce was a list he obtained (via freedom of information requests) detailing a litany of nuclear fuckupsby the Air Force. Although the brass typically blamed human error, the record in its totality suggested that America’s systems for safeguarding its nuclear weapons were profoundly broken, were they ever working in the first place. Some incidents were fairly minor and others reflected organizational ineptitude………

A film, of course, delivers something a book cannot. We get to see real footage from nuclear detonations, from the actual Damascus Incident, and from some of the past nuclear mishaps, the worst one involved the accidental release of two H-bombs over Goldsboro, North Carolina, in 1961—such an insanely close call that I still shudder to contemplate it. ………

The military screws things up routinely, of course, even if the public seldom hears about it. “Nuclear accidents continue to the present day,” Harold Brown, who was defense secretary under Jimmy Carter at the time of the Damascus Incident, says in the film. “The degree of oversight and attention has if anything gotten worse, because people don’t worry about nuclear war as much.”…….

It’s not just the US arsenal we need to worry about, however……..Command and Control rolls out in selected theaters starting on September 14 in New York City. Click here for dates, cities, and venues. http://www.motherjones.com/media/2016/09/eric-schlosser-command-control-movie-documentary-nuclear-weapons-accidents

September 12, 2016 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, Resources -audiovicual, weapons and war