Ultimate Violence: Nuclear War Alarms

Nuclear War Alarm Sirens are being Seriously Tested

A few days ago, on Wednesday, October 4, 2023, for the first time in history, the public in key countries was warned about and prepared for nuclear war as never before.  

While the U.S. military is seriously war-gaming and actually preparing for World War III, at the same time the public in the U.S. is being very carefully managed and numbed to prevent alarm, awareness, and understanding.

So, what happened on October 4, 2023?

In the U.S., all media and communications devices were simultaneously “tested” for a half-hour to see how and if they worked together to alert the nation immediately, if nuclear war or other catastrophic types of attacks or events were imminent.  Even if your cellphone was on mute or do not disturb, the special unique tone and warning signals, purposely restricted by law for this single purpose, blared at you.  And without much fanfare, it seems, special military flyover drills to protect Washington, ironically simulated across the Potomac at Arlington Cemetery, were conducted in recent days. 

Meanwhile, Russia conducted its first-ever nationwide nuclear war simulation and preparation, as depicted in the British Sun: “Wail of Death!  Chilling moment ‘nuke incoming’ sirens sound & schoolkids wear gas masks in war drills as Putin readies Russians for WW3.”  In Russia, all elements of society, from firefighters to hospital workers, from government officials to school children, received instructions on what to do and engaged in specific simulations of what steps to take immediately, should nuclear war be imminent or already underway.

In the U.S., despite efforts by government and media to downplay things, what took place in both countries, most especially the reasons why, should be of extreme concern.  That is the real meaning of what is happening, even though the “Attention, Everyone!” emergency messages in Russia ended with: “Please remain calm!”  For those in the U.S., a “National Alert” message by phone concluded with: “No action is required by the public.”  And those receiving the emergency message on radio or television were assured: “No action is needed.”

But we should not remain calm!  Action is urgently required!  It reminds me of how Donald Trump as U.S. president—what I deemed to be a public health emergency requiring immediate intervention—was handled in exactly the opposite way as it needed to be.

Now, as I have noted, the Doomsday Clock is ticking faster and louder, but the advice is that we “remain calm” (by which is meant, “do nothing against the preventable, existential threats that are mounting by the hour”) and take “no action” (by which is meant, “augmenting the reasons for panic at a later time”).

Albert Einstein, J.R. Oppenheimer, and other leading nuclear scientists were not calm way back in 1946, when they realized that they had discovered atomic secrets that were very quickly used to create devastating weapons, which they understood would quickly grow exponentially and possibly result in the destruction of humankind.  They immediately knew they had to take action.  This is why they came forward with a conference, leading to a book and a short movie, urging us all to adjust to a new way of thinking commensurate to the nature of the dangers.  So was born the movement known as, “One World or None.”

In Washington, DC, on October 4, 2023, one of the most prominent think tanks concluded its “debate” on the theme: “Is U.S.-China Conflict Inevitable?”  Senior U.S. military officials, political and media personalities, and even diplomats have publicly been building the public’s expectations of a war, even as China has expressed a desire to avoid military confrontation.  Eighty years after World War II and after the disastrous wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, the U.S. is continuing to think in conventional terms, instead of thinking about how to prevent a U.S.-China war at all costs, the entire foreign policy establishment is preparing to fight and win World War III!  Both countries have nuclear, space, and cyber weapons that could lead to total destruction.

Our country is stuck in balance-of-power, pre-nuclear thinking, with hardly anyone insisting that a World War is now totally unthinkable—that we must urgently reverse course, that any “limited” World War outbreak is very unlikely to be containable and could very quickly escalate into global thermonuclear catastrophe.  This is the same “stuckness” that limits our ability to confront the climate breakdown, as we remain in a pre-industrial, competitive mindset, with hardly anyone insisting that cooperation is quintessential to our collective survival—that we must urgently reverse course, that anything else would very quickly devolve into a climate catastrophe that extinguishes the human species (as well as many other species).

Not one in this “debate” at the elite, “bipartisan” Quincy Institute think tank even commented on the truly dire situation we are all in, nor made any reference to the Doomsday Clock, nor even mentioned that the policies of our own country are considerably responsible for the Doomsday Clock advancing in recent years, for the first time ever, from minutes to seconds.  

What took place on October 4, 2023, therefore, should have been a profound “wake up call” for us all … before it is too late.  

This is not a time to be “calm”!  

This is not a time when “No action is required”! 

In fact, the very opposite is called upon, to each and every one of us.

We need another movement of “One World or None,” this time with leading psychological experts who are not to “remain calm,” as the American Psychiatric Association urged us and then forced us to in the Trump era.  We have learned secrets of the mind that are quickly being employed not to better our health, but to create devastating conditions through politics and the media, which have grown exponentially and are quickly leading us to the destruction of humankind.  Several years ago, we knew we had to take action, and we came forward with a conference, leading to a bestselling book and a movie, urging us all to adjust to respond in a way commensurate to the nature of the dangers.  Such a movement is needed again, at much greater scale, and this time, no corrupt institution should stop us.