Christian Nationalism Marches on With ‘Bible-Infused’ Texas Curriculum
“What we’re seeing here in Texas with these lessons is a larger national push to promote the idea that American identity and Christian identity are woven together, are one in the same,” said one professor.
Jessica Corbett, Nov 22, 2024, Common Dreams
Parents, teachers, and other critics of Christian nationalism were outraged by a Texas board’s Friday vote to approve a “Bible-infused” curriculum for elementary school students—part of a broader right-wing push to force Christianity into public education.
“They chose politics over what’s best for students, promoting an evangelical Christian religious perspective and undermining the freedom of families to direct the religious education of their own children,” declared the Texas Freedom Network, accusing the State Board of Education (SBOE) of ignoring warnings from religious studies experts, national media attention, and overwhelming negative feedback from the people they’re elected to serve.”
Like a preliminary vote Tuesday, eight of the SBOE’s 15 members voted to approve Bluebonnet Learning, instructional materials proposed by the Texas Education Agency. Three Republicans joined all four Democrats in opposing the curriculum. The deciding vote in favor of it was cast by Leslie Recine, a Republican recently appointed by GOP Gov. Greg Abbott to temporarily fill a vacant seat.
“In a state as diverse as Texas, home to millions of people from countless faiths and beliefs, the Texas Republicans on the State Board of Education voted to incorporate Biblical teachings into the state curriculum—completely undermining religious freedom,” said Texas Democratic Party Chair Gilberto Hinojosa in a statement after the final vote.
“This move has ultimately violated parents’ rights to guide their children’s faith while presenting teachers with additional needless challenges,” Hinojosa argued. “Our public schools should be focused on equipping students with the education and skills they need to succeed beyond grade school whether it’s pursuing a higher education or entering the workforce. The teaching of religious doctrine should stay in our places of worship where it belongs.”
Although the curriculum isn’t required, The Texas Tribunereported, “the state will offer an incentive of $60 per student to districts that adopt the lessons, which could appeal to some as schools struggle financially after several years without a significant raise in state funding.”
“Christian nationalists have bought their way into every governing body of the state, including the SBOE. And they will not stop with inserting Biblical content in English textbooks.”
Bluebonnet Learning features lessons from Christianity in reading and language arts materials for kindergarten through fifth grade………………………
Zeph Capo, president of the Texas arm of the American Federation of Teachers, urged districts “to resist the dollars dangled before them and refuse to use Bluebonnet Learning materials,” arguing that they violate the code of ethics for the state’s educators and “the separation of church and state by infusing lessons with Bible-based references more appropriate for Sunday Schools than public schools.”…………………………………………………………………….
Noting the current “moment of profound political division,” the union leader added that the vote “is the latest evidence that Christian nationalists have bought their way into every governing body of the state, including the SBOE. And they will not stop with inserting Biblical content in English textbooks. We can anticipate what will come next, whether that’s the erasure of contributions of marginalized populations in social studies or the minimalization of climate change in science.
The curriculum push coincides with an SBOE effort to restrict library materials. The ACLU of Texas said on social media that “the same politicians censoring what students can read now want to impose state-sponsored religion onto our public schools.”
The Tribunereported Thursday that “10 members on the board responsible for determining what Texas’ 5.5 million public schoolchildren learn in the classroom voted to call on the Texas Legislature, which convenes in January, to pass a state law granting them authority to determine what books are appropriate for school-age children.
Earlier this week, Mark Chancey, a religious studies professor at Southern Methodist University, toldFox 4 that he supports teaching religion in public schools, but in a fair and unbiased way, and he doesn’t agree with the state proposal…………………………………………………………..
At the federal level, Trump—who is set to return to the White House in January—has advocated for dismantling the U.S. Department of Education. For now, he has named Linda McMahon, a former wrestling executive accused of enabling sexual abuse of children, as his pick for education secretary. https://www.commondreams.org/news/christianity-in-schools?utm_source=Common+Dreams&utm_campaign=08cb74510b-Weekend+Edition%3A+Sun.+11%2F24%2F24&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-3b949b3e19-600558179
Royal Navy chief apologises for ‘intolerable’ misogyny in Submarine Service
Ben Key confirms several personnel have been sacked, demoted or disciplined as a result of investigations
Guardian, Alexandra Topping, 5 Oct 24
The head of the Royal Navy has issued an unreserved apology for “intolerable” misogyny in the Submarine Service, after a series of investigations across the navy exposed sexual harassment, bullying and assault of women within its ranks.
First Sea Lord Adm Sir Ben Key said he was “truly sorry” to the women who had suffered “misogyny, bullying and other unacceptable behaviours” while serving their country. “We must be better than this and do better than we have,” he said.
The long-awaited findings from an investigation into sexual harassment and abuse onboard the UK’s nuclear-armed submarines come almost two years after a whistleblower described a “constant campaign of sexual bullying” during her time in the elite Submarine Service.
Three navy personnel have been sacked and a fourth disciplined as a result of the investigation into complaints brought by Sophie Brook, who became one of the first women to be allowed to serve in the Submarine Service in 2014 and made history when she became its first female warfare officer.
In October 2022 she spoke out about sustained and aggressive sexual harassment during her time in the navy, which she said resulted in her self-harming to the extent that on one occasion she required stitches.
Brook’s story, which was first published by the Daily Mail, led to a number of other women, who make up just over 10% of the service, to come forward. The Guardian understands that the navy has carried out 28 investigations into sexual misconduct and unacceptable behaviour in the past two years, resulting in 18 personnel being sacked, four demoted and six disciplined.
Brook said submariners had simulated sex acts on her, left naked pictures of models in her cabin and told her she was on a “crush death rape list” if the submarine got into trouble. She described one crew mate attempting to distract her from her duty on the submarine’s periscope by putting his penis in her pocket and being punched in the kidneys if she took her eyes off the mast………………………….
An investigation into her case included 71 allegations and found “evidence to prove misogyny, bullying or unacceptable behaviour had occurred among a range of ranks”.
A heavily redacted report published on Friday obscures the detailed conclusions for every allegation.
Allegations of misogyny included:……………………………… more https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/oct/04/royal-navy-chief-apologises-for-intolerable-misogyny-in-submarine-service
Israel’s Ideology of Genocide Must be Confronted and Stopped
Jeffrey D. Sachs • September 30, 2024, https://www.unz.com/article/israels-ideology-of-genocide-must-be-confronted-and-stopped/
Israel’s violent extremists now in control of its government believe that Israel has the Biblical license, indeed a religious mandate, to destroy the Palestinian people.
When Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took the podium at the U.N. General Assembly last week, dozens of governments walked out of the chamber. The global opprobrium of Netanyahu and his government is due to Israel’s depraved violence against its Arab neighbors. Netanyahu purveys a fundamentalist ideology that has turned Israel into the most violent nation in the world.
Israel’s fundamentalist credo holds that Palestinians have no right whatsoever to their own nation. The Israeli Knesset recently passed a declaration rejecting a Palestinian State in what the Knesset calls The Land of Israel, meaning the land west of the Jordan River.
The Knesset of Israel firmly opposes the establishment of a Palestinian state west of Jordan. The establishment of a Palestinian state in the heart of the Land of Israel will pose an existential danger to the State of Israel and its citizens, perpetuate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and destabilize the region.
To call the land west of the Jordan the “heart of the Land of Israel” is breathtaking. Israel is one part of the land west of the Jordan, not the entire land. The International Court of Justice has recently ruled that Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian lands (those outside of Israel’s borders as of June 4, 1967, before the June 1967 war) is plainly illegal. The U.N. General Assembly has recently voted overwhelmingly to back the ICJ ruling and called on Israel to withdraw from Palestinian territories within one year.
There are many sources of this Israeli brazenness, the most important being the backing of Israel by U.S. military power.
It is worth recalling that when the British empire promised a Jewish homeland in Ottoman Palestine in 1917, the Palestinian Arabs constituted around 90% of the population. At the time of the 1947 U.N. partition plan, the Palestinian Arab population was approximately 67% of the population, though the partition plan proposed to give the Arabs only 44% of the land. Now Israel asserts the claim to 100% of the land.
Without the U.S. military backing, Israel could not possibly rule over an Apartheid regime in which Palestinian Arabs constitute nearly one half of the population yet hold none of the political power. Future generations will look back in amazement at the success of the Israel Lobby in manipulating the U.S. military to the severe detriment of U.S. national security and global peace.
Yet in addition to the U.S. military, there is another source of Israel’s profound injustice to the Palestinian people, and that is the religious fundamentalism purveyed fanatics such as the self-proclaimed fascist Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s Minister of Finance, and Minister of National Defense Itamar Ben-Gvir. These fanatics hold fast to the biblical Book of Joshua, according to which God promised the Israelites the land “from the Negev wilderness in the south to the Lebanon mountains in the north, from the Euphrates River in the east to the Mediterranean Sea in the west.” (Joshua 1:4).
At the U.N. last week, Netanyahu once again staked Israel’s claim to the land on Biblical grounds: “When I spoke here last year, I said we face the same timeless choice that Moses put before the people of Israel thousands of years ago, as we were about to enter the Promised Land. Moses told us that our actions would determine whether we bequeath to future generations a blessing or a curse.”What Netanyahu did not tell his fellow leaders (most of whom had in any event vacated the hall), was that Moses laid out a genocidal path to the Promised Land (Deuteronomy 31):
[The LORD] will destroy these nations before you, and you shall dispossess them. Joshua is the one who will cross ahead of you, just as the LORD has spoken. “The LORD will do to them just as He did to Sihon and Og, the kings of the Amorites, and to their land, when He destroyed them. “The LORD will deliver them up before you, and you shall do to them according to all the commandments which I have commanded you.”
Israel’s violent extremists believe that Israel has the Biblical license, indeed a religious mandate, to destroy the Palestinian people. Their Biblical hero is Joshua, the Israelite commander who succeeded Moses, and who led the Israelites’ genocidal conquests. (Netanyahu has also referred to the Amalekites, another case of a God-ordained genocide of foes of the Israelites, in a clear “dog-whistle” to his fundamentalist followers.) Here is the Biblical account of Joshua’s conquest of Hebron (Joshua 10)
Then Joshua and all Israel with him went up from Eglon to Hebron, and they fought against it. They captured it and struck it and its king and all its cities and all the persons who were in it with the edge of the sword. He left no survivor, according to all that he had done to Eglon. And he utterly destroyed it and every person who was in it.
There is a deep irony to this genocidal account. It almost surely is not historically accurate. There is no evidence that the Jewish kingdoms arose from genocides. Most likely they arose from local Canaanite communities adopting early forms of Judaism. Jewish fundamentalists adhere to a 6th century BCE text that is most likely a mythical reconstruction of purported events several centuries earlier, and a form of political bravado that was common in ancient Near Eastern politics. The problem is 21st century Israeli politicians, illegal settlers, and other fundamentalists who propose to live by—and kill by—6th century BCE political propaganda.
Israel’s violent fundamentalists are some 2,600 years out of step with today’s acceptable forms of statecraft and international law. Israel is duty bound to the UN Charter and the Geneva Conventions, not to the Book of Joshua. According to the recent ICJ ruling and UN General Assembly resolution backing it up, Israel must withdraw in the coming twelve months from the occupied Palestinian lands. According to international law, Israel’s borders are those of June 4, 1967, not the Euphrates to the Mediterranean Sea.
The ICJ ruling and U.N. General Assembly vote is not a ruling against the state of Israel per se. It is a ruling only against extremism, indeed against extremism and malevolence on both sides of the divide. There are two peoples, each with roughly half the overall population (and with no shortage of internal social, political, and ideological divisions within the two communities). International law calls for two states, living side by side, in peace.
The best solution, which we should strive for and hope for sooner rather than later, is that the two states, and the two peoples, get along, and actually draw strength from each other. Until then, however, the practical solution will be peacekeepers and fortified borders to protect each side from the animosity of the other, but with each having the chance to prosper. The utterly intolerable and illegal situation is the status quo, in which Israel rules brutally over the Palestinian people.
Hopefully, there will soon be a State of Palestine, sovereign and independent, whether the Knesset wants it or not. This is not Israel’s choice, but the mandate of the world community and of international law. The sooner the State of Palestine is welcomed as member state of the U.N., with the security of both Israel and Palestine backed by U.N. peacekeepers, the sooner will peace come to the region.
Cardinal Parolin: ‘World threatened by irreversible nuclear destruction’
The Vatican Secretary of State reiterates the moral imperative of the total elimination of nuclear weapons and reaffirms the Holy See’s condemnation of the use or threat of use of such weapons.
By Lisa Zengarini, https://www.vaticannews.va/en/vatican-city/news/2024-09/parolin-world-threatened-by-irreversible-nuclear-destruction.html
“The only way to avoid a nuclear war is the total elimination of nuclear weapons.” Cardinal Pietro Parolin strongly reaffirmed this point in a statement he addressed on 26 September at a High-Level UN Meeting in New York commemorating the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons.
Wars and arms race dangerously increasing risk of nuclear conflict
The Vatican Secretary of State grounded his speech on the current state of global affairs and the relentless arms race which is dramatically increasing the risk of nuclear conflict. He, again, decried that States are strengthening their nucleararsenals with resources that, as Pope Francis has emphasized several times, “could be more effectively used to address pressing development needs.”
This trend he said “underscores a troubling reliance by nuclear-weapons States on nuclear deterrence, rather than on fulfilling their obligation under Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).”
Nuclear deterrence does’t work
Echoing Pope Francis’ tireless appeals on this crucial issue, Cardinal Parolin insisted on the need to “go beyond nuclear deterrence” thus reiterating the Holy See’s call on all States to accede to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).
States, he added, must also renew their commitment to other disarmament measures, such as the revitalization of bilateral arms control processes, the entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and the opening of negotiations on fissile material and negative security assurance treaties.
Holy See committed to building bridges of trust to free world from nuclear weapons
Concluding, Cardinal Parolin reaffirmed that the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons can only be achieved through discussions based on mutual trust. For its part, he said, the Holy See will continue to build bridges of dialogue with every State, “with the aim of safeguarding the common good rather than individual interests.”
New Book Explores the Intersection of God and Nuclear Weapons
By Global Security Institute, , https://gsinstitute.org/new-book-explores-the-intersection-of-god-and-nuclear-weapons/
Bishop William E. Swing, founder of the United Religions Initiative, has released a thought-provoking new book titled “God and Nuclear Weapons: Meditations at the End of the Atomic Age.”
This timely and relevant book delves into the complex relationship between belief in a life-creating God and the reality of a life-denying nuclear arsenal. While life teeters on the edge of extinction, this book offers the full biblical scope of hope in the face of extinction.
Bishop Swing’s book is organized around an on-going conversation with his friend, the former Secretary of State, George Shultz, who initially asked, “Bill, what do you think?” regarding nuclear weapons. This book is a posthumous answer. The author goes on at the end of each chapter to pass along the same question to the reader: “What do you think?”
One Amazon reviewer describes the book as “a must-read for anyone grappling with the reality of nuclear weapons in our world today.” The book has received high praise for its thought-provoking and insightful approach to a complex and vital issue. Bishop Swing’s unique perspective as a religious leader and nuclear weapons abolitionist adds a valuable perspective to the ongoing conversation about nuclear weapons.
As the number of nuclear armed nations grows and the weapons are modernized with ever greater lethal strength, Bishop Swing asserts that this is the moment for “end-time thinking.” “God and Nuclear Weapons: Meditations at the End of the Atomic Age” is available now on Amazon and other major book retailers. For more information, please visit Voices for a World Free of Nuclear Weapons.
Bishop Swing’s book is about a property dispute between God and nuclear armed nations over nothing less than life on planet Earth. And where hope abides in the end! “God and Nuclear Weapons” is sure to spark thoughtful reflections which lead to actions. The book is available at Amazon.
The Global Security Institute is dedicated to strengthening international peace and security based on co-operation, diplomacy, shared interests, the rule of law and universal values. Our efforts are guided by the skills and commitment of our team of former heads of state, distinguished diplomats and politicians, celebrities, religious leaders, Nobel Peace Laureates, disarmament and legal experts, and concerned informed citizens. Our focus is on controlling and eliminating humanity’s greatest threat – nuclear weapons.
Jewish Council disappointed at Australia’s UN abstention, calls for strong international action to prevent Israeli war crimes
By Jewish Council of Australia, September, 19, 2024
The Jewish Council of Australia says it is deeply disappointed at Australia’s abstention from a critical United Nations General Assembly resolution calling on Israel to end its occupation of the Palestinian territories within 12 months. The resolution passed with 124 votes in favour, highlighting global frustration with Israel’s actions.
In a statement, the JCA said Australia’s abstention did not align with its commitments to international law and peace-building. While the Australian Government had indicated support for many aspects of the resolution, its failure to vote in favour was s a missed opportunity to show stronger, principled leadership, the Jewish group said.
“This vote comes at the same time as further apparent Israeli attacks on Lebanon, a day after the pager attacks,” a statement from the JCA said.
“The Jewish Council of Australia condemns these attacks. Their indiscriminate nature, killing dozens and injuring thousands of civilians, is an apparent war crime which underscores the urgent need for a collective international response to prevent Israel further breaching international law.
“We call on the government to join with other countries in condemning the killing of innocent civilians, and reiterate our calls for Australia to take material action by imposing sanctions and throwing its weight behind a global arms embargo.
JCA executive officer Sarah Schwartz said:
“We condemn the loss of any innocent life. Australia and the international community must take material steps to prevent, and ensure accountability for, the commission of war crimes. These indiscriminate attacks, which have killed innocent bystanders, are the behaviour of a rogue state and should be treated as such.”
JCA executive officer Dr Max Kaiser added:
“We urge the Australian government to join the vast majority of countries in the international community that are taking a firm stance. Australia can and should be doing more to hold Israel accountable for its unlawful presence in Palestinian territories. The time for decisive action is now.”
Richard Silverstein: Israel, ‘The Far Right Extremist State That I Can No Longer Identify With’
SCHEERPOST, September 13, 2024
Israel and its lobby today try to conflate the state with Jews around the world, that it speaks for Jews and encompasses the entire diaspora. Richard Silverstein, author and journalist of the Tikun Olam blog, says that this couldn’t be further from the truth. As the genocide in Gaza rages on, along with the killing of Israeli citizens and the mass torture of Palestinians, the support for Israel among Jews, particularly the younger generation, will continue to falter as the state itself plunges deeper into despair.
Silverstein speaks to host Robert Scheer on this episode of the Scheer Intelligence podcast to detail his relationship with Israel and Zionism and how his views have evolved over time, ultimately leading to a complete disconnection from the state, especially in light of the ongoing genocide, and now calling himself an anti-Zionist.
Being raised Jewish and earning degrees from Jewish Theological Seminary and Columbia University, as well as studying Hebrew literature at the Hebrew University in Israel, Silverstein makes clear: “[F]or you and for me and for most American Jews, Judaism is not genocide in Gaza, is not $20 billion or $80 billion in arms being sent by the US to Israel to kill Palestinians. That’s not the kind of Judaism that I represent.”
Not only is the genocide a driving force behind the alienation of the Israel state but also the way it treats its own citizens, looking at them as expendable in its objective to kill Hamas operators. Silverstein refers to the Hannibal Directive, a procedure used by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) to prevent the capture of soldiers by killing them and their captors. “[Y]ou now have a code that is expanded to also killing your own civilians. And that’s, I think, what is even more profoundly upsetting, disturbing about the way in which Hannibal is being used right now,” Silverstein tells Scheer.
orture and rape of Palestinian prisoners is also something that has emerged from Israel’s onslaught on Gaza and the West Bank, according to Silverstein. “We have Palestinians in Gaza who were swept up in detention raids and brought to concentration camps, really, in Israel, and there they’re tortured,” he states.
Silverstein insists that what is happening in Gaza does not represent Judaism worldwide like Israel claims, and that “American Judaism needs to stand on its own.” American Jews, Silverstein says, “really have to separate [themselves] from the hostility, the anger, the violence that Israel represents.”……………………………………………………………………………………………………. more https://scheerpost.com/2024/09/13/richard-silverstein-israel-the-far-right-extremist-state-that-i-can-no-longer-identify-with/
Zelensky signs law to ban Ukraine’s largest church
https://www.rt.com/russia/603017-zelensky-signs-orthodox-church-law/ 28 Aug 24
The bill outlaws any religious organizations considered to have ties to Moscow
Vladimir Zelensky has signed a law that calls for the banning of any religious group suspected of having ties to Russia. It threatens to effectively shut down the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) – the largest faith-based organization in the country.
The Ukrainian parliament introduced the legislation earlier this week; it is expected to take effect in 30 days. After that, all the activities of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) and all affiliated religious organizations will be outlawed.
The UOC will have nine months to sever all ties with the ROC, despite the Ukrainian church having already declared full autonomy from the Moscow Patriarchate in 2022, following the outbreak of the Ukraine conflict.
After signing the legislation on Saturday, the country’s Independence Day, Zelensky released a video address stating that “Ukrainian Orthodoxy is today taking a step towards liberation from Moscow’s devils.”
Moscow has condemned Ukraine’s crackdown on religious communities; the Holy Synod of the ROC issued a statement on Thursday comparing the new legislation with Soviet-style repression and other historical persecutions of Christians.
“The purpose of this law is to liquidate [the UOC] and all its communities and to forcibly transfer them to other religious organizations,” the Synod surmised, noting that “hundreds of monasteries, thousands of communities, and millions of Orthodox believers in Ukraine will find themselves outlawed and will lose their property and place of prayer.”
The Synod stated that it would appeal Kiev’s actions with international human rights organizations and call on them to immediately and objectively respond to the “flagrant persecution of believers in Ukraine.”
Meanwhile, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev responded to the new law by stating that Zelensky has “no religious identity” and describing the crackdown as “full-fledged Satanism,” supported by Ukraine’s Western backers.
“This story will not go unpunished for Ukraine,” Medvedev wrote, stating “the country will be destroyed, like Sodom and Gomorrah,” referring to the Old Testament story of two cities obliterated by divine intervention for their wickedness. “The demons will inevitably fall,” he continued, adding that their punishment will be “earthly, cruel, painful and will happen soon.”
Religious tensions have plagued the country for a long time, with a number of entities claiming to be the true Ukrainian Orthodox Church. The two main rival factions are the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and the Kiev-backed Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), which is considered by the Russian Orthodox Church to be schismatic.
The UOC remains the largest Orthodox church in Ukraine, with more than 8,000 parishes across the country. However, since the 2010s, some of these have been choosing to transfer to the jurisdiction of the OCU under pressure from authorities in Kiev.
The heroes who saved the world from Chernobyl Two.
they were facing a life-or-death decision – stay or go. The Russians had told them they could leave – but what would happen if there was no one to monitor the radiation and ensure its safety?
the choices they made saved the world from another Chernobyl disaster.
Daily Mail, By Serhii Plokhy, 25 August 2024
Even though he had one of the most challenging jobs in the world as the man in charge of the night-shift at the Chernobyl nuclear power station, nothing fazed Valentyn Heiko. Three-and-a-half decades after the disastrous meltdown in 1986, round-the-clock monitoring of the site in Ukraine continued for deadly radioactive fallout from its defunct reactors and facilities.
On March 1, 2022, Heiko wished staff via loudspeaker ‘peace of the spirit’. It was a brave and apt message in the circumstances – and a defiant one. Because the corridors around the control rooms of the closed – but still lethally contaminated – nuclear compound were being patrolled by machine-gun toting, trigger-happy Russian soldiers.
Following Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine six days previously, they had burst their way in and taken over the plant.
Back in 1986, a massive explosion in one of Chernobyl’s reactors had blasted about 300 tons of radioactive graphite into the air, sparking a worldwide emergency.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union five years later, the area became part of an independent Ukraine, whose nuclear specialists have since been undertaking the monumental task of containing all possible contamination.
The danger was far from over. Indeed, just a year before, engineers had detected worrying signs that fission had restarted in one of the supposedly defunct reactors, threatening another accident.
After Putin’s decision to invade, the quickest route to the capital, Kyiv, was to go through the wasteland of the Chernobyl exclusion zone. One of the Russian leader’s excuses for invading was his claim that Ukraine was secretly building a nuclear bomb there and enriching irradiated materials to turn into weapons of mass destruction.
On February 24, 2022 – the first day of the invasion – a column of armoured vehicles broke through the security perimeter and hauled down the Ukrainian flag.
Inside the administrative building, soldiers of the Ukrainian National Guard unit took up positions, ready to fight. Two Russian officers, general Sergei Burakov and colonel Andrei Frolenkov, announced that they were assuming control of the plant.
Hopelessly outnumbered, the 170 Ukrainian guards put down their weapons and became prisoners of war, while the plant’s 50 engineers and operators and 80 firefighters found themselves under occupation.
Suddenly, they were facing a life-or-death decision – stay or go. The Russians had told them they could leave – but what would happen if there was no one to monitor the radiation and ensure its safety?
They knew they had to stay. So, for weeks, they worked at gunpoint with no change of clothing, medication or hygienic supplies.
In effect, these men and women were hostages, stuck on an endless shift, uncertain if they would ever see their loved ones or their homes again. But the choices they made saved the world from another Chernobyl disaster.
Their foreman, Heiko, had to cooperate with the Russians but was determined to do so on his own terms. He came up with a daring plan – he would use his technical know-how to frighten them.
Calmly, he introduced himself to his captors: ‘I am the shift supervisor and represent the state of Ukraine.’ After Heiko had confirmed the identity of his Russian ‘guests’, Burakov and Frolenkov declared that the Chernobyl plant was now behind Russian lines.
Though a captive, Heiko laid down his ground rules. He told them that no matter how powerful the Russian military, at the nuclear plant they were not in charge.
They didn’t understand how the plant worked and, as such, any interference would risk nuclear disaster – and all their lives.
As one observer noted: ‘He made it clear to the occupiers that either they would behave decently or be up s**t creek. That is why they did not touch any workers.’
They agreed his terms. Operational control would remain in the hands of the staff, who would be free to move around as necessary and without interference.
The Russian soldiers were allowed in the administration building but would stay away from the obsolete reactor and spent nuclear fuel facilities, and arms would be prohibited in operational areas.
The Russians accepted that they had captured a dangerous site and, to survive, they would have to follow Heiko’s recommendations.
He even bamboozled them into believing that three reactors were still operational when, in fact, the last one had shut in 2000.
As the days of occupation continued, Heiko turned the screws even more, particularly after Putin hinted at the use of nuclear weapons. He told his captors that if the Kremlin used nuclear weapons against Ukraine, he would sabotage the plant and unleash Chernobyl radiation to kill the Russians.
‘I promise you,’ he spelt out, ‘that you will slowly and certainly die here, together with me. I have enough knowledge and skill to ensure that you will remain here with us forever.’
Despite Heiko’s master manipulation, his fellow Ukrainian staff were totally unprepared for the situation they found themselves in. They lived and worked in appalling conditions, jammed into tiny spaces, four to a room
The work was unrelenting. Under normal circumstances, they were to take a 24-hour rest after a 12-hour shift, but now a new shift began immediately after the previous one. ‘We worked almost round the clock, resting for just a few hours,’ remembered engineer Liudmyla Kozak. ‘We were walking around like ghosts.’
Exhausted and homesick, they felt hunted as they were continuously under surveillance. Some succumbed to depression or panic, feeling ‘trapped, stressed and desperate for relief’ in the words of an article in the Wall Street Journal.
………………………………………..Troops started searching for those ‘nuclear bomb’ laboratories imagined by Putin. All the plant’s buildings were checked, with no result. Then, Russian officers considered opening up the mounds of earth erected over the sites where radioactive debris had been buried after the meltdown in 1986.
Valerii Semenov, a senior engineer, told them they were mad as exposing radioactive debris would put everyone in danger of contamination. Faced with the prospect of digging their own radioactive graves, the Russians desisted. Instead, they fortified their military position by digging trenches.
When Semenov discovered sandbags used to protect firing positions had been sourced from contaminated earth, he exploded: ‘You’re bringing in radioactive dirt from outside. Are you out of your mind?’ He also found trenches dug in some of the most contaminated areas – including one where, in 1986, radiation had discoloured the pine trees ginger brown.
The fact was that morale among the 1,000 Russian troops occupying the plant was very low. They drank heavily, with up to half of their rubbish consisting of empty bottles. Fights were frequent. So was looting as they combed the offices for alcohol.
Semenov recalled that many of the Russians were not prepared for a long war. They had expected it to be over within days.
What happened next was arguably the most heroic episode of the whole Chernobyl saga. It was increasingly obvious that staff at the plant had had enough. Even the Russian commanders agreed, realising the exhaustion and resentment of the Ukrainian personnel might lead to an accident that would jeopardise the lives of the occupiers.
They proposed a change of shift, allowing those on duty ever since the occupation to go home, to be replaced by a crew from the nearby town of Slavutych. But this depended on finding experienced staff prepared to risk their freedom – and perhaps their lives – by going into Russian captivity.
Amazingly, there was no lack of volunteers. Forty-six men and women came forward, with two senior men, Volodymyr Falshovnyk and Serhii Makliuk, offering to lead the new shift. Makliuk recalled: ‘We were worried because we were going into the unknown. But our anxiety was less about how we would work at the plant and more what would happen to the families we were leaving behind.’
It was a complicated process getting the original shift out and the new one in, not least because it had to be done in stages so there would always be some staff left to monitor the place. On the 26th day of what had begun as a 12-hour shift, 50 workers were on their way home – 16 engineers and mechanics stayed, including Semenov.
The two shifts met on the side of a river and the exchange took place. ‘We had just seconds to embrace and shed tears,’ recalled a woman from Heiko’s shift.
Heiko considered the volunteers true heroes. ‘They were going into the unknown,’ he said later. ‘No one knew how it would end or how long they would be there.’
Heiko and his crew had spent 600 hours on duty at the occupied nuclear power plant. It was anyone’s guess how long the replacement shift would be there………………………………………………………….
the Russians locked Falshovnyk in his office and presented him with a document.
It was titled ‘Act of Acceptance and Transfer of Protection of the Chernobyl Atomic Station’ and stated the troops of the Russian Guard had provided ‘reliable protection and defence’ of the Chernobyl nuclear station, which they were now transferring back to the Ukrainians. Men carrying automatic rifles demanded that he and Makliuk sign the document or they would be arrested.
They were being asked to confirm that the Russians had behaved well but, faced with the threat of arrest, they signed.
And then, the Russians were gone. A security camera captured an image of one soldier leaving with a Russian flag trailing behind him like the low-hanging tail of a defeated dog.
The next day, April 3, those inside the plant were astonished to hear a voice on a loudspeaker coming from beyond the perimeter. ‘Good morning,’ it said. ‘We are the armed forces of Ukraine. Please let us in.’
And then a Ukrainian armoured personnel carrier and two trucks rolled into Chernobyl.
It really was over.
The Chernobyl staff got to work cleaning up. The extent of the Russian troops’ damage and looting was astounding.
Missing were some 1,500 meters for checking radiation levels, 698 computers and 344 vehicles, amounting to a total value of $135million (£102million).
The only thing the retreating Russian soldiers left behind was an increased level of radiation – up more than 40 times, almost certainly the result of digging trenches in the highly contaminated Red Forest.
There were unverified reports from inside Russia that one soldier had died, 26 had been admitted to hospital and 73 sent for treatment after exposure to radiation in the Chernobyl zone.
The Ukrainians believed that one reason they departed in such a hurry was in panic that so many of them were falling sick.
The Russian troops may have left Chernobyl, but there was every chance that Chernobyl would never leave them. And the threat of nuclear disaster remains very real elsewhere in Ukraine.
Zaporizhia, a nuclear plant in southern Ukraine and the largest power facility in Europe, remains under Russian control.
And last Saturday, following a drone strike nearby, the UN’s nuclear watchdog warned that the safety situation at the plant was ‘deteriorating’.
At Chernobyl, the brave actions of the plant workers prevented nuclear disaster, but we cannot always count on individual heroism to produce such endings in the future.
Unless the world acts to protect nuclear reactors from attack during wartime, instead of being a solution to the problem of climate change, nuclear power will solidify its reputation as the destroyer of worlds.
Adapted from Chernobyl Roulette by Serhii Plokhy (Allen Lane, £25), out on September 3. © Serhii Plokhy 2024. To order a copy for £22.50 (offer valid to 06/09/24; UK P&P free on orders over £25) see tomailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3176 2937
Thou Shalt Not Commit Genocide
Opposing genocide is a moral not a political choice.
The Chris Hedges Report, Substack, Chris Hedges, Aug 16, 2024
There is only one way to end the ongoing genocide in Gaza. It is not through bilateral negotiations. Israel has amply demonstrated, including with the assassination of the lead Hamas negotiator, Ismail Haniyeh, that it has no interest in a permanent ceasefire. The only way for Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians to be halted is for the U.S. to end all weapons shipments to Israel. And the only way this will take place is if enough Americans make clear they have no intention of supporting any presidential ticket or any political party that fuels this genocide.
The arguments against a boycott of the two ruling parties are familiar: It will ensure the election of Donald Trump. Kamala Harris has rhetorically shown more compassion than Joe Biden. There are not enough of us to have an impact. We can work within the Democratic Party. The Israel lobby, especially the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which owns most members of Congress, is too powerful. Negotiations will eventually achieve a cessation of the slaughter.
In short, we are impotent and must surrender our agency to sustain a project of mass killing. We must accept as normal governance the shipment of hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to an apartheid state, the use of vetoes at the U.N. Security Council to protect Israel and the active obstruction of international efforts to end mass murder. We have no choice.
Genocide, the internationally recognized crime of crimes, is not a policy issue. It cannot be equated with trade deals, infrastructure bills, charter schools or immigration. It is a moral issue. It is about the eradication of a people. Any surrender to genocide condemns us as a nation and as a species. It plunges the global society one step closer to barbarity. It eviscerates the rule of law and mocks every fundamental value we claim to honor. It is in a category by itself. And to not, with every fiber of our being, combat genocide is to be complicit in what Hannah Arendt defines as “radical evil,” the evil where human beings, as human beings, are rendered superfluous.
The plethora of Holocaust studies should have made this indelible point. But Holocaust studies were hijacked by Zionists. They insist that the Holocaust is unique, that it is somehow set apart from human nature and human history. Jews are deified as eternal victims of anti-Semitism. Nazis are endowed with a special kind of inhumanity. Israel, as the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington concludes, is the solution. The Holocaust was one of several genocides carried out in the 19th and 20th centuries. But historical context is ignored and with it our understanding of the dynamics of mass extermination.
The fundamental lesson of the Holocaust, which writers such as Primo Levi stress, is that we can all become willing executioners. It takes very little. We can all become complicit, if only through indifference and apathy, in evil.
“Monsters exist,” Levi, who survived Auschwitz, writes, “but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions.” …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. more https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/thou-shalt-not-commit-genocide?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=778851&post_id=147780732&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ln98x&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Bloody Eschatology: Israel and the next Big War
Australian Independent Media, August 14, 2024, by: Dr Binoy Kampmark
The push towards an all-out war in the Middle East is moving out of its sleepwalking phase to that of conscious eschatological reckoning. A blood filled, fiery Armageddon will reveal the forces of virtue, linking the evangelicals of the United States with the right-wing Jewish nationalists in Israel. That appalling prospect is certainly not one to discount: the messianic are always a frightful bunch, thinking history and selectively pruned religions texts to be on their side.
Each week now comes with some measure of sabotage, mutilation and disruption to prospects of peace. In his July 24 address to the US Congress, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu outlined his crude Manichean vision in routine barking fashion. In doing so, his intention, as Noa Landau pithily put it, was not to end the war in Gaza so much as prolong it.
For Netanyahu, the strained chords of civilisational rhetoric are never far away. He would like other powers to muck in, battling the fiends he calls an “axis of terror.” Impediments to the Jewish state’s war efforts had to be rejected. To impose them would see other countries of similar kidney shackled. “If Israel’s hands are tied, America is next. I’ll tell you what else is next: the ability of all democracies to fight terrorism will be imperilled.”
Room was reserved to attack the International Criminal Court, whose chief prosecutor has sought warrants of arrest against himself and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, and the presidents of notable US universities. As for protesting students, they had chosen to “stand with evil. They stand with Hamas. They stand with rapists and murderers.” With daring outrage, he blotted out any notion that Palestinian civilians were being butchered, despite a death toll in the densely populated strip hovering near 40,000. Indeed, civilian deaths had been “practically none,” with Israel scrupulous in “getting civilians out of harm’s way, something people said we could never do.”
With this blood crusted Weltanschauung, acts of destabilising mayhem are automatic.Showing an utter contempt for Israeli hostages, let alone any humanity for the Palestinians they regard with expansive condescension, the Netanyahu government thought it wise to carry out two assassinations: that of Hamas’ political chief and chief negotiator Ismail Haniyeh, and Hezbollah’s top military chief Fuad Shukr, both killed within twenty-four hours in Beirut and Tehran respectively……………………………………………………………………………………………………………
This, as former UK diplomat Alastair Crooke observes, is the State of Judea doing battle against the State of Israel. He quotes Moshe “Bogie” Ya’alon, former Chief of Staff of the IDF, who sees such bloody eschatology as resting on a fundamental concept: “Jewish supremacy” or “Mein Kampf in reverse”. For Rabbi Lior, the next big war cannot come soon enough, one, he anticipates, that is bound to feature Gog and Magog. https://theaimn.com/bloody-eschatology-israel-and-the-next-big-war/—
Project 2025 – A New Pax Romana
the plan is chiefly concerned with how to put ever greater control of both people and resources in the hands of a small minority of mostly white, mostly male, wealthy Christians.
The wholesale capture of the state is the ultimate goal of its Christian nationalist architects
Tom Dispatch, By Liz Theoharis and Shailly Gupta Barnes. 28 July 24
Roman poet Juvenal coined the phrase “bread and circuses” nearly 2,000 years ago for the extravagant entertainment the Roman Empire used to distract attention from imperial policies that caused widespread discontent. Imagine the lavish banquets, gladiatorial bouts, use and abuse of young men and women for the pleasure of the rich, and so much more that characterized the later years of that empire. And none of it seems that far off from the situation we, in these increasingly dis-United States, find ourselves in today.
Although the Roman Empire described itself as being in favor of life and peace, the various Caesars and their enablers regularly dealt death and destruction in their wake. They spread the Pax Romana (the Roman Peace), including a taxation system that left the poor in debt servitude, a military that caused terror and violence across the then-known world, and a ruling authority that pitted whole communities against each other, while legislating who could associate with whom (passing marriage laws, for instance, that banned gay, inter-racial, or even cross-class marriages). The emperor in power in Jesus’s time, Caesar Augustus, was known for ushering in a Golden Age of Moral Values that went hand in hand with that Pax Romana, and it meant war and death, especially for the poor.
Fast forward millennia and that world bears a strange resemblance to the media distractions, violence, and regressive policies that MAGA and other extremists are pushing forward in our times. Whether it’s Donald Trump’s assertion that “I alone can fix your problems”; Supreme Court and state legislative attacks on reproductive rights, same-sex marriage, and trans youth in the name of family values; cuts to welfare, healthcare, worker’s rights and other life-sustaining programs to protect corporate interests; the militarizing of endless communities by allowing guns (especially AR-15 rifles) to proliferate, while offering only thoughts and prayers to the victims of violence, the MAGA movement is promoting culture wars and extremist policies under the banner of Christian nationalism. In doing so, its leaders are perfecting a disdain for the excluded, exploited, and rejected that hurts the poor first and worst, but impacts all of society.
And now, after decades of neoliberal plunder and the coronation of an avowed Christian nationalist — Speaker of the House Mike Johnson — to the third most powerful position in the government, the Christian Right and its wealthy patrons have their eyes set on an even more ambitious power-grab: Project 2025. Articulated through the Heritage Foundation’s 2025 Presidential Transition Project, it’s a sprawling plan to maximize presidential power with hundreds of newly trained and deployed political operatives during Donald Trump’s next presidency.
It was seen in full display recently at the Republican National Convention and made all the more likely by the recent assassination attempt against him with (yes!) an AR-15! The nearly 900-page document outlines a plan to ramp up U.S. military might, slash social welfare programs, and prioritize “traditional marriage.” A reflection of the Republican Party today, including several Christian nationalist organizations and billionaire funders listed among its 100 institutional sponsors, Project 2025 is a roadmap for what could be thought of as a new Pax Romana.
The Formal Project 2025 Takeover
As Project 2025’s official website explains (and doesn’t this sound like it could come directly from the mouth of vice-presidential nominee J.D. Vance?): “It is not enough for conservatives to win elections. If we are going to rescue the country from the grip of the radical Left, we need a governing agenda and the right people in place, ready to carry this agenda out on Day One of the next conservative Administration.” Although its authors unabashedly deploy the language of conservative populism — decrying wokeness and “cultural Marxists” — the plan is chiefly concerned with how to put ever greater control of both people and resources in the hands of a small minority of mostly white, mostly male, wealthy Christians.
The wholesale capture of the state is the ultimate goal of its Christian nationalist architects. Project 2025 simply clarifies just how they plan to implement their drive for power. Each of its sections — from “taking the reins of government” by centralizing executive authority in the office of the President to securing “the common defense” by expanding every branch of the military — is worth reviewing.
The longest section focuses on “general welfare” and it should be no surprise that the Departments of Agriculture, Health and Human Services, and Housing and Urban Development are subject to significant cutbacks, including:
Imposing yet stricter eligibility standards, work requirements, and asset tests to constrain access to Medicaid, even though more than 23 million Americans have been unenrolled from that program since 2023;
- Revisiting how the “Thrifty Food Plan” is formulated to minimize food-stamp allocations, while imposing onerous work requirements on the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), even though most of its recipients work and/or are in households with children, elderly people, or people with disabilities;
- Ending universal free school meals by removing the “community eligibility provision,” which allows school districts with high poverty rates to provide free breakfast and lunch programs to all children in need;
- Eliminating Head Start, which has served 39 million children and families since 1965 and currently serves more than 800,000 poor families with young children, while shuttering the Department of Education;
- Ending “Housing First” programs and prohibiting non-citizens, including mixed-status families, from living in low-income public housing; and
- Imposing a “life agenda” and a “family agenda” that will restrict access to abortion and reproductive rights, and otherwise curtail LGBTQ+ rights.
Such proposals would undoubtedly be deeply unpopular. In fact, as people learn more about Project 2025, opposition is growing, even across party lines. Most Americans want a government that would provide for the down-and-out, who are a growing segment of the population and the electorate, as well as one that supports abortion rights, voting rights, and the freedom of expression. At least 40% of us — 135-140 million people — are either poor or one emergency away from economic ruin, including 80 million eligible voters. Project 2025’s social welfare cuts would, in fact, push significant numbers of people across the poverty line into financial ruin.
Even Donald Trump has tried to distance himself from Project 2025 as attention has moved toward its distinctly (di)visionary agenda. However, more than half of the project’s listed authors, editors, or contributors were once part of his administration — and no one doubts that his vice-presidential nominee is 100% pro-Project 2025!
The Informal Takeover Already Underway
Perhaps scarier than either Trump’s or Vance’s connection to this regressive plan, however, is the fact that, despite popular distaste for such policies, it may not take a second Trump presidency to implement significant parts of Project 2025. In this sense, it reflects the ancient world of the Pax Romana. Rather than being dependent on particular emperors, its “peace” was a political and ideological program that punished the poor and marginalized so many, while keeping all its subjects in line.
From its recent rulings, it’s clear that the Supreme Court is hastening Project 2025’s agenda judicially, both in terms of specific future policies and the executive power grab at the heart of that mandate (and now of that court’s rulings). In June, for instance, it ruled in favor of the city of Grants Pass, Oregon, which enacted a law to fine, jail, and ultimately expel its unhoused residents. That precedent will only exacerbate the already hostile terrain confronting unhoused people, seeding firm ground to 2025’s plan to eliminate even more housing projects.
Worse yet, as the Nation’s Elie Mystal recently made clear, in just a few weeks of rulings, the court “legalized bribery of public officials, declared the president of the United States absolutely immune from criminal prosecution for ‘official acts,’ and made the power to issue regulations subject to the court’s unelected approval.” As he warns, “There’s no legislative fix for the problems the court has created… [and] they will continue to do all the things Republicans want that nobody elected them to do.”…………………………………………………………………………………..
in lockstep with Project 2025’s call for military expansion, Mississippi Senator Roger Wicker recently released a report proposing that $55 billion be added to the Pentagon’s already humongous budget in fiscal year 2025 while raising military spending by hundreds of billions of dollars in the next five to seven years. The report, “Peace Through Strength,” revives the false idea that spending ever more on war preparations makes us safer. Not only is Wicker distorting Cold War history, but his prescriptions ignore our experience of the past 20 years of military buildup and the disastrous Global War on Terror. According to the Costs of War Project and the National Priorities Project, this country’s post-9/11 wars have cost at least $8 trillion, taken millions of lives, and displaced tens of millions of people globally, while precipitating climate chaos through their polluting emissions. If implemented, Wicker’s plan would only increase the risk of yet more destabilizing conflicts, offering a modern Pax Romana promise for yet more war and death.
Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace
While extremist Republican politicians and appointees are leading the way on Project 2025, both major parties align around building up the war economy. Indeed, bipartisan support for military aid to Israel is contributing to what the United Nations has labeled a genocide in Gaza.
Nor is this new. Every year, the Pentagon budget invariably passes with widespread bipartisan support, even if a few representatives vote otherwise. Since the 9/11 attacks, in fact, $21 trillion has been funneled into war, surveillance, policing, border control, and incarceration. In Fiscal Year 2023, nearly two-thirds of the federal discretionary budget funded the military-industrial complex and militarized spending. This year, a Democratic amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act will automatically register every male citizen and resident aged 18-26 in the selective service database………….
This remarkably bipartisan consensus for a war economy shouldn’t just be considered another “issue,” but an approach to governance that relies on force and violence, rather than consent, to establish social control…………………………
Jobs and Homes, Not Death in the Streets
The greatest violence of the Pax Romana was always borne by the poor, who were often ripped from their families, enslaved in back-breaking labor, and dispossessed of their land and resources. To maintain its authoritarian rule over millions of people, the Roman Empire relied on its military might and the fear inspired by its brutal army. And yet it was from the ranks of the poor that Jesus and his disciples led a non-violent revolution for peace.
Today, tens of millions of poor people in this country are on the front lines of our failing democracy and increasingly militarized society. They are the true canaries in the coal mine, already living through the violence of a society that has prioritized war and profits over addressing the pain and toll of low-wage jobs, crushing debt burdens, polluted water and land, and lives cut short by poverty, the police, and the denial of basic human rights. They can undoubtedly also foresee the drive toward an ever-deeper warfare state and the possible fallout from Project 2025 if Donald Trump and J.D. Vance win this year.
Forged in the crucible of violence, the criminalized and impoverished still call out for a true peace.
On June 29th, Reverend Savina Martin, a military veteran and formerly homeless mother, took to the stage of the Poor People’s Campaign’s Mass Assembly in Washington, D.C., and shared these thoughts:
“I am a US Army veteran and I was impacted by homelessness many years ago. Today, thousands of homeless veterans are fighting for [their] benefits, housing… navigating a complex system while sick and suffering, trying to survive the war waged against the poor. Yesterday, the US Supreme Court decision in Grants Pass v. Johnson permits cities to criminalize homelessness by enforcing bans on sleeping outside when no shelter is available. How can sleeping while homeless be against the law? If you sleep, you get arrested?
This system depends on us to fight their wars, but we can’t depend on [our government] to guarantee housing or healthcare? Instead, [our government] allocates $1.1 trillion to war, weapons, and a system that criminalizes the poor, leading to mass incarceration, deportations, and detentions. We want jobs and homes, not death in the streets.”
Savina was speaking of the war on the poor, the power of the military-industrial complex, and an extremist agenda that will connect her in unsettling ways with 140 million poor and low-income people in this country — and billions more around the world. As in other moments of history, the struggle of the poor for life and dignity in a world that denies them both is a struggle for the best that we can be as a society. In their leadership lies the hope for us all — not in Project 2025, a future Trump administration, or the all-too-devastating version of a Pax Americana that would go with it, but in the peace (and justice) that Savina and so many others are demanding, and will continue to push for, until it is ours. https://tomdispatch.com/project-2025/
“Nuclear disarmament is a right to life issue” – Catholic Archbishop John C Wester
Nuclear weapons were invented here in my Archdiocese. Therefore, I feel a special responsibility to address humanity’s most urgent threat.
“Nuclear disarmament is a right to life issue. No other issue can cause the immediate collapse of civilization. In January 2022 I wrote a pastoral letter in which I traced the Vatican’s evolution from its uneasy conditional acceptance of so-called deterrence to Pope Francis’ declaration that the very possession of nuclear weapons is immoral.
“Therefore, what does this say about expanded plutonium pit production at the Los Alamos Lab? And what does it say about the obscene amounts of money that are being thrown at pit production, often excused as job creation?
“What does this say about the fact that the [NNSA] is pursuing expanded pit production without providing the public the opportunity to review and comment as required by the National Environmental Policy Act? I specifically call upon NNSA to complete a new LANL Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement.
“In two weeks, I travel to Japan for the 79th atomic bombing anniversaries. The bishops of Santa Fe, Seattle, Hiroshima and Nagasaki have a simple message for world leaders. You utterly failed to begin serious negotiations as required by the 1970 NonProliferation Treaty. In this era, you must demonstrate concrete steps toward multilateral, verifiable nuclear disarmament by the 80th bombing anniversaries a year from now. http://nuclearactive.org/four-archbishops-urge-g7-leaders-to-undertake-concrete-steps-toward-nuclear-disarmament/
“I have a simple message for NNSA and the nuclear weapons labs. You’re very good at creating them. Now show us how smart you are by demonstrating how to get rid of nuclear weapons. Stop this new arms race that threatens all of civilization. Let’s preserve humanity’s potential to manifest God’s divine love toward all beings.
A letter to the children of tomorrow
July 22, 2024, The AIM Network, By Roger Chao, https://theaimn.com/a-letter-to-the-children-of-tomorrow/
Dear Children of Tomorrow, in sorrowed verse we write,
To pen our deep apology beneath the failing light.
We’ve ravaged Eden’s gardens and scarred her innocent face,
And left a fractured legacy of greed’s unyielding pace.
Forgive us for the forests, where once the giants stood,
Their branches high and mighty, their roots of ancient wood.
We felled their lofty canopies, and silenced whispered dreams,
Their fallen forms now stories, adrift in muddy streams.
Once pure and sparkling rivers, now heavy, choked, and foul,
No longer sing with clarity, but moan a mournful howl.
Their crystal veins, once life itself, are tainted now with blight,
The shimmering scales of fish are gone, lost in endless night.
The oceans, vast and sapphire, with treasures held within,
Are tombs of plastic relics, borne of our careless sin.
Coral citadels, once resplendent, lie pale and cold as bone,
Their colours drained to silence, their teeming life now flown.
The air, once sweet with fragrance, from blossoms fresh and bright,
Now hangs a heavy curtain, a testament to plight.
The wind that sang through valleys green, now carries cries of pain,
A dirge of darkened futures, beneath a sky of stain.
In cities sprawling, concrete-clad, where nature’s breath is thin,
We built our towers to the skies, and drowned the wild within.
The whispering leaves of yesteryear, now whispers of the past,
Replaced by metal murmurs, in shadows deep and vast.
Creatures grand and humble, who walked this world beside,
Have vanished from the wilderness, swept away by tide.
The thylacine’s bark, the marl’s squeek, the tasman starling’s song,
Are echoes in the empty night, of what we’ve rendered wrong.
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Mountains mined to hollowness, valleys deep and scarred,
Our insatiable appetite, left nature bereft and marred.
Glaciers pure, as ancient as the dawn of time itself,
Now weep into the oceans, their sorrow on the shelf.
For all these acts, we beg of you, forgive our blinded ways,
And listen to our earnest plea, in these twilight days.
Though the world we’ve handed over bears the marks of our neglect,
In your hands lies a future, that you can yet protect.
See the earth with reverence, its beauty in each form,
In every leaf and petal, where wonder is the norm.
Nurture the silent forests, let rivers run again,
And build a realm of radiance, where love and nature reign.
Embrace the ancient wisdom, that the earth does softly impart,
In the rustling of the branches, in the pulsing of its heart.
Guard the fragile sanctuaries, where wild things find their peace,
And in their freedom, find the song where human hearts release.
Let the oceans breathe again, with depths both bright and vast,
Heal the coral gardens, restore what we’ve surpassed.
Clear the skies of smog and smoke, let sunlight grace the land,
And cherish every creature, with a gentle, guiding hand.
In the sprawling fields of flowers, let bees and butterflies,
Paint the air with vibrant hues, beneath the open skies.
Plant trees that reach the heavens, their roots deep in the soil,
And find the joy in simple things, in honest, earnest toil.
Turn away from fleeting gold, and listen to the call,
For nature’s wealth is boundless, beyond the worth of all.
In every bird’s sweet melody, in every dew-kissed morn,
Lies a promise of a world anew, where harmony is sworn.
Learn from all our errors, let them be your guide,
Tread lightly on this precious earth, with each and every stride.
Hold every creature dearly, from the mighty to the small,
And in their quiet presence, find the greatest gift of all.
Rise with dawn’s first light, and greet the day with care,
For in your hands lies power, to make the world more fair.
With every seed you plant, with every tree you tend,
You leave a legacy of hope, where broken dreams can mend.
In fields where wildflowers bloom, let hope take root and grow,
In songs of rustling grasses, let your hearts forever know,
That though we’ve left you scars and pain, there’s still a way to mend,
To bring about a brighter dawn, where sorrow can now end.
So rise, dear future guardians, and heed this humble plea,
To forge a path of healing, to let the wild be free.
For though we’ve faltered, in our wake, there’s still a chance for grace,
In your hands, lies the power, to heal this sacred place.
With every step you take, may you walk with gentle feet,
And every path you choose, may it make the world complete.
For in your care and keeping, lies the promise of the earth,
A legacy of love and hope, a tale of endless worth.
So rise, dear children of the dawn, and let your spirits soar,
For in your hands lies the power, to heal and to restore.
Take this world we’ve given, with all its scars and pain,
And weave a brighter future, where love and hope remain.
Roger Chao is a writer based in the beautiful Dandenong Ranges, where the forest and local community inspire his writings. Passionate about social justice, Roger strives to use his writing to engage audiences to think critically about the role they can play in making a difference.
Julian Assange And The Criminalization of Journalism: A Story Of Moral Injury And Moral Courage
New Matilda, By Kari James on July 8, 2024
‘The truth will out’, or so the saying goes. The question is, at least in a modern context, is how much injury – moral and otherwise – is suffered by the courageous men and women trying to expose it? Psychologist and researcher Kari James explores that answer.
12th July 2007: Two US Apache helicopters unleash 30mm cannon fire on a group of Iraqi civilians. Two of them are Reuters journalists – Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh.
Twelve are killed, including both journalists and a passing van driver who stops to help the wounded. The van driver’s two young children, passengers at the time, are severely wounded.
The journalists’ cameras were later retrieved from the soldiers who had seized them. They indicated no evidence of the firefight the US military claimed had prompted the strike.
5th April 2010: WikiLeaks releases a video titled Collateral Murder, confirmed as authentic by the US military. The grainy footage taken from one of the Apaches documents the casual slaughter of noncombatants. You can hear the crew laughing at some of the casualties.
Is this just part and parcel of war? Is it sanctioned by the brass, or just the actions of a few bad apples, like the 2005 Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal that had previously embarrassed the US military?
The troops involved in the Collateral Murder atrocity were well aware of the rules of engagement, and that they were in violation. Yet a US military investigation cleared them of any wrongdoing, though they were unable to locate their own copy of the footage.
Stories that make or break
In service of public interest reporting, journalists worldwide may routinely witness traumatic events like the Collateral Murder atrocity.
While that’s no picnic, it’s the outcome of a story that makes or breaks the journalist.
In some cases, the story never sees the light of day, spiked by an editor who doesn’t see the value in it.
In other cases, the story is published, people read it and think ‘oh, how awful’, and then nothing changes. The same atrocities continue.
And in other cases, the story is published, the public react to it, and the world comes perilously close to making much-needed changes. Vested interests may then come into play, seeking to make scapegoats and examples of those who dare to incite change.
That’s how people like Jamal Khashoggi, Shireen Abu Akleh, and the Balibo Five wind up on the cutting room floor. And that’s how WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange wound up behind maximum security bars in Belmarsh.
A timeline of persecution
25th June 2024: Julian Assange is released from prison, a guilty plea of espionage extorted from him in exchange for his freedom.
It’s an interesting conclusion to a saga that began with Swedish sexual assault charges in 2010, just a few months after the release of Collateral Murder……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Moral betrayal and moral injury
…………………………….Upon visiting Assange in prison, Nils Melzer, UN special rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, concluded that he presented with symptoms typical of prolonged exposure to psychological torture.
…………………The treatment of Assange has a label: moral betrayal.
Moral betrayal involves witnessing or experiencing persecution, gross injustice, or systemic failure; or being let down by legitimate authorities, colleagues, or the public when it really counts.
……………….Occupational hazard?
Like first responders, journalists are frequently, and often repeatedly, exposed to trauma and moral challenge, whether reporting on natural disasters, violent crime, war, or human rights abuses………………………………………………………………..
………………..A chilling effect?
It’s now widely speculated that Assange’s plea bargain will have a chilling effect on future reporting on the moral and ethical transgressions of the world’s governing authorities and their enforcers.
It seems prior chilling events may have tumbled down the memory hole.
Yes, while the plea bargain sets a precedent for the criminalization of public interest journalism, extrajudicial guarantees against public interest journalism have long been in place…………………………………………………………………………
1 This Month
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