A Sensible Direction

2001-9-11 11:22:00

Benjamin writes:
In fact, if there were any political hope of the initiative going anywhere, I would endorse immediate, total, unilateral disarmament of all nuclear weapons, and set an example for and offer an invitation to the world.

JJ
The thought is good here, but such an action would put us in even greater peril. The United States and Europe attempted to set the example and disarm before World War II and this just gave Hitler encouragement to take advantage of the situation. If we were to unilaterally disarm then a rogue nation could attack us with impunity, which would make the attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon look like child's play.

The only solution is a coordinated world wide disarmament with the cooperation of all the nuclear nations of the earth. Such a plan is presented in Project Peace and Goodwill. Lawrence just gave the reference which I will give again:

Declaration of Peace & Goodwill

Larry wrote:
For example, Stewart Brand of "Whole Earth Catalog" fame wrote:

"We have wished, we ecofreaks, for a disaster or for a social change to come and bomb us into the Stone Age, where we might live like Indians in our valley, with our localism, our appropriate technology, our gardens, our homemade religion guilt-free at last!"

I would submit that this idea has a core of pure evil.

Benjamin:
Your general argument is well balanced, but I must offer one comment here. My understanding is that Stewart Brand was being somewhat sarcastic in that statement, attempting to illustrate the naive attitude of many of the "hippies" of the 60's. That decade was a time of exploration of many alternatives to the status quo, one of which could - theoretically - be a return to a technologically primitive state. I think that the vast majority of that generation has realized since that life in the 20th and 21st centuries is a bit more complex than that.

So, I don't think that Mr. Brand is actually advocating the position suggested above, but rather offering some gentle ridicule of that position. I commend his honesty, in fact, for admitting the errors of the past.

JJ
Unreasonable attitudes like this are more prevalent than one might assume. Just a couple days ago a member of the Sierra Club knocked on my door with a petition. After having a conversation with him and after he assured me that the views of his organization were moderate and not radical, he began to speak with glee about his hope that we would have a complete economic collapse so we would be too paralyzed to do any more damage to the environment.

Sad.