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My original post began with an error, since corrected. I said JFK was assassinated 62 years ago. He was killed in 1963, of course, 61 years ago. My father died in 1962 and I often confuse the dates

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Joe, thanks for pulling these JFK quotes together. As beautiful as some of them are, I couldn't help noticing that he never said, "I, for one, will never initiate a nuclear war." I doubt that this is because such a thought never accurred to him. Rather, I am quite sure it was because of NATO's first-use options. When JFK was president, that threat to counter Soviet conventional military might with NATO nuclear might at least had a bit of crdibility. But within less than a decade, when Russia had achieved parity withe the West, first use threats were no longer credible and that's held true right up to today. Despite this, it is religiously reaffirmed at each NATO summit, since any "backtracking" is considered poison for the alliance. In fact, it is the delusion which is the poison. NATO would be safer and stronger if it dump the first-use options since they only exacerbate crisis instability. Aaron

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Your example shines a light on a key obstacle. All of the above has been said repeatedly since the dawn of the nuclear age, and none of the good intentions, fine words and plans has worked in making the world safer. Instead, we are going in the opposite direction. All that has been accomplished by this pattern of behavior is to reduce the number of weapons from their peak, which didn't make the world safer, it only made the Armageddon Machine less expensive to operate.

So what's the solution? Without claiming to know, here's the best I can offer.

1) Stop doing and saying the same things over and over and over again while expecting different results, a pattern of behavior which would seem to meet the definition of stupidity. JFK already long ago said all of the above better than any of us can, and it didn't work. Face that failure.

2) Stop giving "experts" cushy professional careers for endlessly repeating the failed thinking and patterns of the past. After 79 years of failure we have now proven that more information is not the path to nuclear safety. The production of ever more nuclear weapons books, papers, conferences and such accomplishes nothing more than being unproductive make work for well educated people who can be put to better use. Such intellectual activity began with the best of intentions, but has evolved in to a white collar racket which is being funded by blue collar workers.

3) It's only when the failures of the past are faced and admitted that the slate will be swept clean and room will be made for fresh thinking. Like what?

4) Replace information with leverage.

Example: We DO NOT NEED any more open letters from scientists warning of the dangers of nuclear war. Fuck that. Enough already! We need the science community to stage a series of strikes. If they're not willing to do that, then they don't actually believe their own rhetoric. Replace information, persuasion, activism and policy papers etc with leverage. Until we do that, until we are in position to inflict pain upon society at large, nobody is going to listen to nuclear weapons activists and experts. This is not an opinion. These are well documented facts based on 79 years of real world experience.

5) The next nuclear detonation is coming. This is going to happen, and can not be avoided. When the next detonation does happen, a historic opportunity for substantial change in the culture of nuclear weapons denial may become possible. What are our plans for making the best use of that opportunity?

A key obstacle might be described this way:

1) Those who are in a position to rock the nuclear weapons denial status quo won't do so, because they benefit too much from that status quo.

2) Those who will challenge the status quo are of little use, because they lack the cultural authority necessary to be heard.

3) Thus, nobody is in a position to do what must be done.

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