Rally to stop nuclear war

2Jul22 & 16Jul22

passing out flyers
On the corner with the Federal Courthouse and in sight of the Liberty Bell Plaza.

In 1984, Democrat Walter Mondale ran against the Republican incumbent Ronald Reagan. Mondale made a detailed and comprehensive case against nuclear war. Reagan's rather careless and flippant attitude was made clear in the book "With Enough Shovels." The title was based on an aide who described building a quickie backyard bomb shelter as though that were no big deal. Mondale lost by such a convincing margin that the anti-nuclear movement was dealt a crippling blow. Why was that? Was the public in favor of nuclear war?

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Well, Forbes reviews the fact that Republicans have always opposed Social Security, a hugely popular program. After the 2017 tax cut, Senate Majority Leader McConnell noted that, with the federal budget deficit going way up, hey, we could just cut Social Security! Thankfully, McConnell's proposal went nowhere. Presideny Biden assures us that yes, the GOP wants to take away you Socal Security. But people, according to a Pew Research poll, don't consider losing their Social Secuity to be a serious issue. And no, nuclear war is nowhere on the list of top concerns, either. I don't know what the answer is, but clearly, we need to find some way to convince the public that their voice is needed in this debate.

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Anyway yes, the 16th of July marked the 77th anniversary of the first nuclear test blast in Alamogordo, New Mexico, code-named “TRINITY,” so it was a good day to call attention to that fact.
So what makes for a compelling issue that really grabs peoples' attention? The john Fetterman-Mehmet Oz campaign for Pennsylvania senator seems to have really caught fire. An excellent Twitter thread details how Fetterman took what nobody would have predicted would have been an issue, that Oz was a multimillionaire carpetbagger who has no roots in PA while Fetterman has been here all his life. Fetterman has been able to turn this into THE isssue of the campaign!

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I don't know. Problem is, there's no exact correclation between what people consider to be important and what's really important. Example: The Russin-born pundit here points out that Russian families get a lump-sum cash payment for a relative who died fighting in the war against Ukraine. Apparently, a lot of families went "Cool," and purchased themselves a new car!American families during the Vietnam War, on the other hand, had very differenet reactions.
Perhaps the anti-nuclear weapons movement can come up with something that similarly grabs peoples attention.

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On May 3rd, the Supreme Court leaked a draft of a decision to overturn Roe v Wade, on June 24th, that decision was formalized. It was entirely predictable, but nevertheless the anti-choice movement was taken off guard and caught completely flat-footed when a 10-year old child was raped and impregnatd and had to go to the neighboring state to get an abortion. The anti-choice movement said that of course the child should have had the child (Chris Hayes brings a lot of good, righteous fury to his description of this)! This is after the anti-choice movement has had almost five decades to have gamed this out, to have come up with strategies to defend their point of view without coming across as inhuman monsters.

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Another problem is when having a baby and living through the experience are not both possible. A woman had begun to miscarry and also had a womb infection, but the fetus had a heartbeat! The medical people had to wait about a full day for the fetus to die before they could do anything to save the life of the woman! They just had to sit there helplessly and wait as the woman's condition got worse and worse. In theory, anti-choicers insist that women should be able to get treatment for miscarriages without a problem. In reality? It isn't at all easy. According to the WaPo: "Confusian post-Roe spurs delays, denials for some lifesaving pregnancy care" Again, This is due to the fact that the repeal of Roe is no longer a theoretical possibility. It's real and every woman who suffers because doctors aren't sure what they can legally do, can blame the anti-choice movement directly. Again, anti-choicers could have used the past 5 decades to have written highly specific legislation that would have avoided this confusion.

passing out flyers

An ectopic pregnancy is one where the fertilized egg emplants in the wrong place and its continued growth will endanger the woman's life. This only happens about 2% of the time and anti-choicers insist that these are covered by all 50 states. Yeah, kind of a problem with that is that "Texas hospitals reportedly delay care of pregnancy complications due to abortion ban"

One hospital told a physician not to treat an ectopic pregnancy until it had ruptured, putting the patient at risk, the Dallas Morning News reported. An ectopic pregnancy is when the fertilized egg implants outside of the uterus, where it cannot survive.

The problem is not that treating ectopic pregnancies is forbidden, but that the law is written in such a vague manner and with so few safeguards for the medical persons that they feel they're risking their medical license by providing such care.

passing out flyers

Russia has energy leverage over the Europen Union, Europe needs the natural gas that Russia provides. Azerbaijan, aong with Oman and the US, is trying to fill Eorope's needs. Moving to renewable energy, wind, solar, etc., is the best long-term solution, but this frees Europe from being blackmailed to abandon Ukraine. Also, Kazakhstan has refused to "recognize the independence of Luhansk and Donetsk in Ukraine." These are the two Ukrainian oblasts (provinces) that Russia is trying to absorb into itself.
"Vinnytsia bidding its last farewell to victims of russian barbaric missile attack on Jul.14"

passing out flyers
Runs the Brandywine Peace Community.

Is it possible to have peace in Ukraine prior to Russia being defeated on the battlefield? Seems pretty doubtful. Russians don't appear to have any desire to make serious concessions. Piece here looks at the destruction wreaked by HIMARS rockets on Russian ammunition dumps behind the lines. Piece also has count-up of Russian losses so far. This message indicates that HIMARS rockets are accomplishing exactly what they're supposed to be acccomplishing, beyond just blowing up lots of ammunition:

RU forces are moving the train offload points out of HIMARS range, this image gives an indication of how this affects delivery times. The conclusion is the transport times have doubled, so they need twice the amount of trucks to be able to keep up the rate of delivery.

Think the last estimate I saw was that 14 ammunition dumps had been blown up.

Very interesting that Russia might be avoiding a general mobilization because they don't want too many citizens to have advanced weapons training.

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D’oh! Biden’s weak response to the Israeli murder of the Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh is brought up by Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. Embarrassing, because yes, this hypocrisy weakens America’s justifiable outrage over the murder of the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.


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