Lessons lost from the atomic holocaust...
Get the Point!
It is not lost upon me that during the same week that literary/journalism legend Bob Woodward released his new book, War, one that includes among its political bombshells that the world was perilously close to Russia dropping nuclear bombs in Ukraine in 2022, that the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize will be awarded to Nihon Hidankyo, a collective of some of the more than 100,00 survivors of the U.S. atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan in August of 1945.
The deadly mushroom cloud rising high over Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 1945…
In the almost eight decades since over 110,000 Japanese men, women, and children were instantly killed in the final major air bombings of World War II, the fact that World War III recently was (and remains) a possibility should give American voters with even the slightest bit of common sense every reason to reject former President Donald Trump's bid for reelection next month.
Not surprisingly, Woodward's War notes that since leaving office, Citizen Trump has exchanged at least seven phone calls with Russian Dictator Vladimir Putin; what the pair talked about during those discussions ranged from Trump personally supplying Putin with Covid-19 tests, to the reality that their "friendship" was a political liability for Trump in his efforts to become the first president since Grover Cleveland to serve non-consecutive terms.
Trump looking demure and subservient to Putin circa ‘17
From my perspective, even the notion that a man who palls around with a brutish dictator who U.S. intelligence agencies have reported was a coin flip away from firing tactical nukes in Ukraine—a move that very well could have prompted a similar response from NATO—is beyond disturbing!
But here we are, barely three weeks out, and the issue of human life ending in a nuclear holocaust seems to barely register a care among far too many American voters that are firmly aligned with Trump? 🤔
Will those indifferent voters be moved at all by today's Nobel Peace Prize announcement, one that recognizes the efforts of those who live with the physical and mental reminders of what atomic/nuclear weapons do each day of their lives?
I doubt that there are enough crayons and coloring books to explain this issue to the ones who should listen and learn, but such doesn't prevent me from noting the pain, the survivor's remorse, and the altruism displayed by Nihan Hidankyo members who, as the Nobel Committee noted, are "demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again.”
Lest we forget…
Too many voters have had their brain cells destroyed by a steady diet of Big Macs, Kraft Mac and Cheese and too much sugar and cheese in general. They are willing to sacrifice their lives, their kid’s lives, their freedoms, their money and return Assolini as president while they sit at home in their recliners, gleefully watching deportations, police killings and prosecution of their leader’s opponents and critics…
Japan has been linked to my family since WWII. My grandfather was wounded at Iwo Jima and served in peace time in Fukuoka. Fifty years later, I visited as a student, and was also able to travel to both Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The 15-mile mentality that suffocates a large percentage of our American populace must be erased, lest these lessons of history get lost to complacency and blowhards.