Mission Statement

This blog is dedicated to tracking current events and developments that exemplify, support or discredit the
themes of City, Save Thyself! Nuclear Terror and the Urban Ballot.

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Ten Tests of Your Survival Instincts

 The recent Non-Proliferation Treaty Conference, current Senate hearings on ratification of the START Treaty, the four year fissile control effort, and a world-wide missile defense race (today’s arms race by another name) all combine to remind us of End-Time’s looming shadow.

Nuclear missile targeting of cities around the world remains in place, both ancient Cold War targeting of U.S., Russian, French, and British cities, as well as, presumably, more recent and ongoing targeting by China, Israel, India, and Pakistan. All operational with a pushed button or two. Perhaps North Korea. Iran soon. The targeted populations, which is most of us, ought to make common cause to pressure nations to do what they have failed to do over the 65 years since Hiroshima - achieve verified arms control and prevent war.  Here are ten local, doable assignments for those who would discard victimhood and  practice survival skills:

1.  Ask your municipal elected body to hold a public hearing on how your city (or town!) might help our national government assure that nuclear and other WMD weapons will not proliferate to additional nations or to terrorists, and motivate nations that possess them to verifiably discard them. A simple first step would be for your municipality to lobby for Senate ratification of the START Treaty.  
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2.  Get local media to acknowledge the security risks of nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism, and to publicize why targeted populations should pressure their nations to achieve verified, enforced, arms control.

3.  Signal local office holders and political candidates that you think security is part of their job in view of national failure to achieve verified, enforced arms control and to prevent war.

4.  Make common cause with like minded people across state and national borders by putting a slot on the municipal ballot to elect a local representative to a global municipal security congress..

5.  Generate dialogue through local media, neighborhood organizations, and local elected officials about the risks of WMD targeting, both in war and by terrorists,

6.  Collect information from the media, arms control organizations, and books about the influence over national security policies that is exercised by economic and ideological interests, that influence and even determine what weapons are manufactured, the content of arms control treaties, what wars are fought, and the degree of effort (or lack of effort) that is devoted to security through enforced law rather than arms races and wars.
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7.  Willingly engage in a perpetual power struggle with private economic and ideological interests that have a stake in weapons and war.

8.  Identify local residents who are first, second, and third generation immigrants who maintain connections with the countries of their forbears, through family ties, travel, or politics.  Recruit them to help make common cause with municipalities in the old countries to achieve global law enforcement and arms control and prevent war.    

9. Inject these issues into politics and elections at all levels in order to force a national dialogue through local dialogues, and in order to elect office holders (that is, power holders) who will put the security of targeted populations ahead of every other issue.

10.  Self-select yourself to take on these tasks and expand the ranks of those determined that humanity and its civilization will not bow to the ultimate destruction of centuries of human progress.

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