US Hegemony Opens the Doors to Hell, and Nuclear Annihilation

John Hersey’s Hiroshima, was judged the finest piece of American journalism of the 20th century by New York University. Hiroshima, the book, is a mini-Masterpiece as it follows six of the only humans in history to survive a nuclear attack, and describes their journeys with the following types of gruesome detail: “He met hundreds and hundreds who were fleeing, and every one of them seemed to be hurt in some way. The eyebrows of some were burned off and skin hung from their faces and hands. Others, because of pain, held their arms up as if carrying something in both hands. Some were vomiting as they walked. Many were naked or in shreds of clothing…their faces were wholly burned, their eye sockets were hollow, the fluid from their melted eyes had run down their cheeks.”

The United States would rather Destroy ALL Life, than Give Up on Controlling ALL Life.

I am one of the luckiest people on the planet. During a recent trip to China, I was able to take a week, and also visit a few cities in Japan, including Hiroshima. Prior to my visit to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, I had read many articles, and a few books concerning Japan, including Hiroshima, The Bomb, and The Rape of Nanking. I was expecting a day of reckoning for the United States, but what I discovered instead, was an almost apologetic tone from the Japanese peace museum’s perspective, and an over the top, blame the victim, forgiving stance towards US war crimes. In fact, America’s decision to murder hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians was presented by the museum as being mostly justifiable during “a time of war”.

Here is a quote that appeared to be chiseled onto a wall at the Peace Museum:
“At one point in the 20th century, Japan walked the path of war. Then, on December 8, 1941, Japan initiated hostilities against the US, Great Britain, and others, plunging into what came to be known as the Pacific War. This war was largely fought elsewhere in the Asia Pacific region, but then the tide turned against Japan, American warplanes began bombing the homeland, and Okinawa became a bloody battlefield. Within this context of war, on August 6, 1945, the world’s first atomic weapon, a bomb of unprecedented destructive power, was dropped on the city of Hiroshima.”

Obviously, US propagandists have their fingerprints all over this statement, which implies that the United States had no choice but to slaughter countless civilians “within this context of war.”

But before we get to the Bad and the Ugly on Japan and the United States, let’s first talk about the Good.

THE GOOD:
– The best part of visiting Japan is the friendliness and warmth of most of the people. Thich Nhat Hanh once said that, “Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.” Mr. Hanh’s quote touches on a common vibe in Japan. Many people went out of their way to be nice, and smile (and not just service workers but people on the street too). The airport personnel on the ground of Tokyo International, actually stood and waved good-bye from the tarmac (I may have been the only person on the plane to wave back!). The funniest moment was when a hotel worker and I played ping-pong with our bowing one morning, before we both broke down with laughter after about 5-6 turns! I know a few Americans who might find that kind of attitude annoying and insincere (which is one of the many failings of American culture), but not once did I feel as though our Japanese brethren were being inauthentic, or pretentious. Their consistent warm energy, and attempts to be friendly, were among the highlights of our trip!
– Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. Even though it has a few major shortcomings (see above), the park is otherwise superb. We joined a tour group for our first trip to the Peace Memorial Museum (which is on the premises), but were given only 45 minutes to see the exhibits. Luckily, our hotel was only two blocks away, and I was able to visit for a few hours on the following day as well. Even then, I still needed, and wanted more time!
– The most impressive part of my visit to the Peace Park was the relentless work of Taeko Yoshioka. Ms. Yoshioka is a 90 year old woman (I think), who stands beside the Genbaku Dome (the only structure that was left standing in that part of Hiroshima after the bombing), each day in order to encourage visitors to support the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). TPNW bans the use, possession, testing, and transfer of nuclear weapons under international law. A smiling Ms. Yoshioka was there with her clipboard each morning, and told me that only bad weather keeps her from showing up! I had the pleasure of meeting her twice, and I thanked her each time for being an inspiration. I thought of having my picture taken with her, but then thought better of it (I didn’t want to be a distraction). Ms. Yoshioka is one of the few remaining survivors (Hibakusha), of the 1945 atomic bomb blast in Hiroshima. As a result, I had to share a couple of pics of this awesome lady. 😊

– I love China. Like all countries, China has its issues, but overall, it is a beautiful country, with a deep history, and a fascinating modern culture that is leaps and bounds ahead of the United States, and other western countries. While the rapidly declining US Empire (along with its 902 military bases), attempts to take the entire planet down too, if it can’t get its way, China is on the rise, and providing “Win, Win” partnerships, and economic alternatives all over the world. Yes, there are pockets of the Chinese population that can be rude, and obnoxious (particularly the younger generation), but overall, the people are gracious, kind, smart, and lovely. In other words, China Rocks! In fact, in many respects, and despite the language barrier, I feel more comfortable, and more at home in China, than I do in the United States (this was my 4th visit). Lastly, the food. It was nearly impossible to not find delicious, affordable plant-based meals at every turn. Although many Chinese are moving away from traditional plant-based diets (China’s disease rates reflect the slow transition), every dining location we visited, still had at least one full page on its menu dedicated to plant-based/vegetable options! And I must say that the food in China, is by far, the best tasting grub on the planet! 🙂

THE BAD:
– The Food in Japan. I was surprised to learn that it is really difficult to find healthy, delicious, plant-based/vegan food in Japan. I still don’t understand it, but most of the restaurants did not offer a single, completely plant-based/vegan entree. Every offering seemed to contain some type of animal product, whether it was fish in the miso soup, dairy in the corn soup, or eel liver in the stir fry. Fortunately, we did enjoy a delicious traditional style, Ramen vegetable soup at the Tokyo train station on our way out of town.
– Expensive. Everything seemed to be more expensive in Japan than in both China, and even New York City. The bullet trains, meals, activities, and hotels, all seemed to be a bit pricey.

THE UGLY:
– Like many countries, Japan is committing its own insane crimes, independent of the United States (e.g., whale hunting, dolphin killing, radioactive nuclear waste dumping into the Pacific Ocean, etc.).
– The United States is still bat-sh*t crazy. As I have shared in a previous post, the US has murdered between 20-30 MILLION innocent people since World War II, and not one US president or official has ever been held accountable. Unfortunately, these numbers only tell part of the story, and do not include the MILLIONS of Native Americans, African Americans, Japanese civilians, and countless others whose lives, and ancestral connections, were also destroyed by the US Empire. Like millions of others, I will never forget. And I will march, sign petitions for accountability, inform others, and do my best for the rest of my life in our collective fight for truth and justice. The US Empire’s violent, mass murdering history isn’t even suggested inside the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. In fact, it is clear that the US War/PR Machine has played a significant role in the messaging of the museum, as it presents many US officials, including war criminals Barack Obama, and Genocide Joe Biden, as being agents of peace. Can you imagine? I wanted to vomit, as flattering pictures and quotes of Obama and Biden were presented throughout the Hiroshima “Peace” Memorial Museum.

Reality Check #1: War Criminal Barack Obama

What is the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum thinking by presenting Barack Obama as an ambassador of peace? Former US President, and intellectual lightweight (he rarely wrote his own speeches), Barack Obama, recently chided protesters for calling out Joe Biden for being a GENOCIDAL monster. Barack Obama is a war criminal, who stands for nothing, stood for nothing, and accomplished nothing (other than expanding the US empire, maintaining the status quo, obscenely increasing his personal wealth ($70+ million), and being a war criminal himself). Years ago, Obama scolded thousands of peace activists, including myself, for our efforts to hold George W. Bush (and his cronies), accountable for their war crimes, and crimes against humanity, which ultimately killed millions of innocent people as well (and impacted millions more who are still suffering and dying to this day due to Bush’s lies, crimes, and Obama’s cover up). If our species survives our current nightmare, Obama needs to be held accountable too.

As per Professor & Author Norman Finkelstein:
“The “Obama legacy” is the lovingly wistful locution invented by his woke sycophants, as if Obama left behind a mother lode of achievements. To be sure, Obama, his cult, and the Democratic Party apparatus that elevated him did accomplish two things of distinction: derailing the Bernie Sanders insurgency and ushering in Donald Trump. The touted promise of the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2016 was that it would build on Obama’s legacy. But for the vast majority of Americans, building on Obama translated into building on quicksand. At the 1984 Democratic Party convention, Governor Mario Cuomo delivered a scorching verdict on Ronald Reagan’s term of office, which could also stand as the epitaph on the Obama years: “That its disastrous quality is not more fully understood by the American people, I can only attribute to the President’s amiability and the failure by some to separate the salesman from the product.”

And Dr. Cornel West:
“Let us not be deceived, Nixon, Bush, Obama, they’re war criminals…They have killed innocent people in the name of the struggle for freedom, but they’re suspending the law, very much like Wall Street criminals. The law is suspended for them, but the law applies for the rest of us…Obama is a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs, and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats. And now he has become head of the American killing machine and is proud of it.”

And what was Obama’s record on nuclear weapons?

Barack Obama made the following statement in 2009: “I state clearly and with conviction America’s commitment and desire to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.”

Obama then increased spending on nuclear warheads faster than any president since the end of the Cold War!

And talked about a “Pivot to Asia”.

As per the late, great, John Pilger:
“One of its principal advocates (the pivot to Asia), was his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, who, as WikiLeaks revealed, wanted to rename the Pacific Ocean ‘the American Sea’. Whereas Clinton never concealed her warmongering, Obama was a maestro of marketing…A “usable” nuclear weapon was developed. Known as the B61 Mod 12, it means, according to General James Cartwright, former Vice-Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that “going smaller” makes its use “more thinkable..The target is China. Today, more than 400 American military bases almost encircle China with missiles, bombers, warships and nuclear weapons. From Australia north through the Pacific to South-East Asia, Japan and Korea and across Eurasia to Afghanistan and India, the bases form, as one U.S. strategist told me, “the perfect noose.”

This reminds me of the late Alaskan Senator, Mike Gravel’s comments about his early days in the US government, “It’s like going into the Senate. You know, the first time you get there, you’re all excited, and “My god, how did I ever get here?” Then about six months later, you say, “How the hell did the rest of them get here?” And I gotta tell you, after standing up with them, some of these people frighten me. They frighten me. When you have mainline candidates who turn around and say there’s nothing off the table with respect to Iran. That’s code for using nukes.”

Reality Check #2: War Criminal, “Genocide Joe” Biden

Again, what is the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum thinking by showcasing “Genocide Joe” as an advocate for peace? As mentioned in another post, US President Joe Biden, is a mass murdering psychopath, who should be viewed as one of the most overlooked genocidal maniacs in history. We must never forget that Joe Biden was one of the architects of the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq, which according to Brown University, killed millions of innocent people. Genocide Joe made the following declaration to Israel’s right-wing Prime Minister Menachem Begin (in a 1982 Senate foreign relations committee meeting): “If attacks were launched from Canada into the US, everyone here would have said, “Attack all cities of Canada, and we don’t care if all the civilians get killed.” Prime Minister Begin later told Israeli reporters that he “disassociated” himself from Biden’s remarks, and that according to his values, “it is forbidden to hurt women and children, even in war.” Don’t forget too that Biden championed two of the worst US Supreme Court justices in US history (Clarence Thomas & Antonin Scalia), and vehemently supported advocates of animal cruelty, in their fight AGAINST the more humane treatment of factory farm animals (California’s Prop 12). Genocide Joe has also been a chronic liar throughout his career, and the top recipient of any active politician, of AIPAC money. Joe Biden has had the power to stop Israel’s GENOCIDE at any time, but instead has chosen to not only be complicit with GENOCIDE (the evil of all evils), but co-belligerent as well. So yes, Genocide Joe Biden has been a war criminal for decades, and is now largely responsible for Israel’s US backed GENOCIDE in Gaza too.

And what is Joe Biden’s record on Nuclear Weapons?

According to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, “President Joe Biden has a terrible nuclear policy…Biden has authorized the largest nuclear weapons budgets since the Cold War, delayed then squandered his chance to contain Iran’s nuclear program, and apparently has no policy for containing North Korea’s missiles and weapons.”

As per the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), “Last year (2023), the world’s nine nuclear-armed nations all increased spending on their arsenals at a rate equivalent to $250 million per day. The United States’ share of total spending ($51.5 billion), is more than all the other nuclear-armed countries combined, and accounts for 80% of the increase in nuclear weapons spending in 2023.” Under “Genocide Joe”, the US spends nearly $98,000 per minute on nuclear weapons!

Also on Joe Biden’s watch: Unhinged US General, Michael Minihan, recently declared, “Aim for the head”, when discussing the preparations needed for what he described as a nuclear war with China that could come as early as next year. He is not the only lunatic in the US military, as US Admiral Charles Richard, formally announced that “nuclear employment is a real possibility”, with both Russia and China. According to Daniel Ellsberg, a nuclear war between the US and Russia/China would wipe out over 90% of the world’s population.

Although their comments are shocking, it is still not a surprise to learn that moronic monsters, like General Minihan, and Admiral Richard, are largely motivated by greed. The Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft reported late last year that 26 of 32 US four-star generals and admirals who retired between 2018 and 2023 “went to work for the arms industry as board members, advisers, executives, consultants, lobbyists, or members of financial institutions that invest in the defense sector.” The US political & military systems are replete with genocidists, war profiteers, war criminals, warmongers & climate change deniers, who are without a doubt, the biggest threats to the survival of our species.

Reality Check #3: Lifetime Criminal Donald Trump

“Trump is the worst criminal in history.” – Noam Chomsky

“Donald Trump is unfit, he’s unqualified, he doesn’t know anything, he’s a con artist, he’s a criminal, he’s a judicially determined rapist…Trump has been a dangerous criminal for his whole life.” – Pulitzer Prize Winning Author David Cay Johnston

Laughing beats Crying: If Donald Trump ever spent a day in jail, it would set a dangerous precedent for every US president since FDR (alive or dead), who has also committed war crimes, and other heinous offenses. As a result, a Trump incarceration will likely never happen, in spite of his never-ending crimes, and the danger he presents. I spent about 10 minutes searching online for the best description of Trump, before I stumbled onto this piece by British writer Nate White. Although I disagree with his take on Obama, his thoughts on Trump made me laugh out loud!

Here are a few excerpts from Mr. White’s stellar piece on why British people don’t like Donald Trump:
“Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers. And scarily, he doesn’t just talk in crude, witless insults, he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness…Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing, not once, ever. I don’t say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility, for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman. But with Trump, it’s a fact. He doesn’t even seem to understand what a joke is, his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty…And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully. That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a snivelling sidekick instead. There are unspoken rules to this stuff, the Queensberry rules of basic decency, and he breaks them all. He punches downwards, which a gentleman should, would, could never do, and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless, and he kicks them when they are down…it’s impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum. God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid. He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart. In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws – he would make a Trump. And a remorseful Doctor Frankenstein would clutch out big clumpfuls of hair and scream in anguish: ‘My God… what… have… I… created?’ If being a twat was a TV show, Trump would be the boxed set.” – Nate White

And what is Trump’s record on Nuclear Weapons?

The Trump administration unilaterally abandoned the arms control agreement with Russia in 2019, and left the Iranian nuclear deal too. Both of these decisions undermined nuclear non-proliferation on a global level. And what would another 4 years of Trump mean with regards to nuclear policy? According to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, “Trump would put nuclear weapons programs on steroids, trash what remains of the global arms control regime, and likely trigger new nuclear weapons programs in more nations than we have seen at any time since the early 1960s…Trump’s nuclear policy is all spelled out in a new conservative manifesto by Project 2025, a coalition of over 100 far-right groups led by the Heritage Foundation, which is widely seen as the template for a possible Trump 2.0 administration. If readers of the Bulletin have heard of Project 2025, chances are that they did not go through its 900-page book “Mandate for Leadership.” They should. This policy agenda, dubbed the “Conservative Promise,” is a blueprint for the most dramatic take-over and transformation of the US democracy in history.”

As per the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists:
In condensed and translated form (in part, by yours truly), Project 2025 proposes that a second Trump administration:
– Prioritize nuclear weapons programs over other security programs.
– Accelerate the development and production of all nuclear weapons programs.
– Increase funding for the development and production of new and modernized nuclear warheads, including the B61-12, W80-4, W87-1 Mod, and W88 Alt 370.
– Increase the number of nuclear weapons above current treaty limits and program goals, including buying more intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) than currently planned.
– Prepare to test new nuclear weapons, even though the United States has signed the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty that prohibits such tests and has not tested a full-scale nuclear device since 1992.

Lifetime Criminal Trump and ALL US presidents are above the law.

Legendary consumer advocate, activist and attorney, Ralph Nader, is as sharp as ever at the age of 90. I voted for Mr. Nader three times when he ran for president, and the Ralph Nader Radio Hour continues to be a most trusted news source. In this solid piece from Democracy Now!, Mr. Nader says that Trump’s arrest was “massively overdue”, but he also points out that ALL US presidents obstruct justice, and break the law:

Excerpts: “Let’s start with Donald Trump’s notorious statement in 2019, which lays the basis for his lawlessness day after day as president. He said, quote, “With Article II, I can do whatever I want as president,” end-quote. Really? But he went on to prove it, before 2019, when he made the statement, and after. And so, the broader frame of reference here is that he turned the White House into a daily crime scene…It’s important to say also that all presidents violate laws. He’s just taken it to a new and diverse height. But he’s doing it so brazenly that if he gets away with it, he will continue to contribute to the institutionalization of lawlessness by presidents of the United States. Let’s face it, both Bush, Obama and Trump have violated all kinds of laws in extending the empire. Obama, for example, decreed, informally, that he could pick out anybody in the world and, as prosecutor, judge, jury, executioner, and in secret, wipe that person out. And he did it. Of course, Bush was the big war criminal, with Cheney, invading Iraq. But then Obama took out the regime in Libya without a congressional debate, without a congressional authorization, appropriation of funds or declaration of war. And that’s, to this day, producing chaos and violence, goaded by Secretary of State Clinton, who pushed Obama to do this, and he later admitted it was the biggest mistake of his administration…So, I think the American people have got to see this as an opportunity, a gateway, to reverse the process where presidents are above the law. They have been above the law. People around the world have suffered and died because these presidents have been above the law…”

Sadly, the supremely corrupted, US Supreme Court, “ruled” earlier this month that lifetime criminal Donald Trump is officially above the law. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, “The Supreme Court today ruled that former President Trump is at least presumptively immune from criminal liability for his official acts, and is absolutely immune for some “core” of them, including his attempts to use the Justice Department to obstruct the results of the election…While the court found that a president’s actions as a private individual are not immune to criminal prosecution, it held that presidents do have substantial immunity for their official actions – even when undertaken for personal ends and criminal purposes.”

Obama, Trump, Biden, Bush, Clinton, and countless other US officials are indeed war criminals, and above the law.
We knew it all along, but now it is official too. F*ck!

Why did the United States Use Nuclear Weapons on Civilian Populations?

The United States of War is still the only country to use nuclear weapons against another country. Despite Knowing months in advance that Japan was going to surrender, the United States still went ahead and mass murdered hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki (and destroyed the lives of millions more), in order to send a message to both the Soviet Union (Russia), and the rest of the world.

As per John Pilger’s excellent piece, Another Hiroshima is Coming Unless We Stop it Now:

“The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was an act of premeditated mass murder that unleashed a weapon of intrinsic criminality. It was justified by lies that form the bedrock of America’s war propaganda in the 21st Century, casting a new enemy and target, China. During the 75 years since Hiroshima, the most enduring lie is that the atomic bomb was dropped to end the war in the Pacific and to save lives.”

The United States Strategic Bombing Survey of 1946 Concluded:
“…even without the atomic bombing attacks, air supremacy over Japan could have exerted sufficient pressure to bring about unconditional surrender and obviate the need for invasion. Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey’s opinion that… Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war [against Japan] and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.”

The National Archives in Washington contains documented Japanese peace overtures as early as 1943. None was pursued. A cable sent on 5 May 1945 by the German ambassador in Tokyo and intercepted by the U.S. made clear the Japanese were desperate to sue for peace, including ‘capitulation even if the terms were hard’. Nothing was done.

The U.S. Secretary of War, Henry Stimson, told President Harry Truman he was fearful that the U.S. Air Force would have Japan so “bombed out” that the new weapon would not be able “to show its strength”. Stimson later admitted that “no effort was made, and none was seriously considered, to achieve surrender merely in order not to have to use the bomb”…Stimson’s foreign policy colleagues – looking ahead to the post-war era they were then shaping “in our image”, as Cold War planner George Kennan famously put it – made clear they were eager ‘to browbeat the Russians with the bomb held rather ostentatiously on our hip’.

General Leslie Groves, director of the Manhattan Project that made the atomic bomb, testified:
“There was never any illusion on my part that Russia was our enemy, and that the project was conducted on that basis.”

According to Howard Zinn, “Scientists at the University of Chicago, led by Nobel Prize winner James Franck, suggested a demonstration use of the bomb on an unpopulated area to show its power and persuade the Japanese to surrender. At least one member of the Interim Committee agreed—Undersecretary of the Navy Ralph Bard. But the Interim Committee’s “Scientific Panel,” which included Robert Oppenheimer (clearly not a hero, despite Hollywood’s best efforts), the chief scientist in charge of making the bomb, rejected the idea, as did the Committee itself…The most powerful reason given for the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was that they saved the lives of those who would have died in an invasion of Japan. But the official report of the Strategic Bombing Survey, which interrogated seven hundred Japanese officials right after the war, concluded that the Japanese were on the verge of surrender and would “certainly” have ended the war by December of 1945 even if the bombs had not been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and even without an invasion of Japan. Furthermore, the United States, having broken the Japanese code, knew the Japanese were on the verge of surrender.”

And poof, hundreds of thousands of civilians were murdered, and millions more lives crushed forever. Clearly, the United States was guilty of war crimes, and mass murder, but you would never know it (unless I missed it), by visiting the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. The museum is exceptional in many ways, yet it makes a concerted effort to not only ignore the truth that would implicate the United States, but to also double down on presenting recent US presidents Obama, and Biden, as harbingers of peace. I mean, it’s a joke.

*Christopher Nolan’s box office hit “Oppenheimer”, appears to have been censored by the US Military Entertainment Complex.
As per Mother Jones: “Although he (Oppenheimer), became known as an arms control advocate—as highlighted in Nolan’s Oppenheimer—he admitted in his final interviews that he did not regret leading the Manhattan Project scientists at Los Alamos, nor question the 1945 precedent of using the revolutionary new weapon on civilian populations—a precedent that, in the end, makes the further use of nuclear weapons in the future more plausible.”
Democracy Now!: Journalist Greg Mitchell says that while the film (Oppenheimer), is well made and worth seeing, “the omissions are quite serious.” He says there is little mention of the dangers of radiation and no focus on the impact of the bomb on its victims in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The film also does not question the necessity of using the bomb in the first place, upholding the “official narrative…that has held sway since 1945.”

Biden, Obama, and all US Presidents, in their infinite arrogance, have refused to apologize for mass murdering hundreds of thousands of civilians in Hiroshima, and Nagasaki. An apology would at least be a first step towards genuine peace. Unfortunately, most Americans don’t care, and haven’t cared for a long time. For example, former US President Harry Truman, a war criminal, and the one person who was arguably most responsible for the dropping of the world’s first atomic bombs (and again, the mass murder of untold civilians), had songs written about him, praising his “honesty”.
I mean, you can’t make this stuff up.

History will likely repeat itself, as the United States remains hell-bent on starting wars, and ending the world as we know it.

The US and Japan Continue to Antagonize and Demonize Russia & China

“One comes across white men occasionally who suffer under the delusion that China is not a civilized country. Such men have forgotten what constitutes civilization.” – Bertrand Russell (1922)

Peace negotiations are never an option for the United States of War, as it has flat out rejected another Russian offer for peace. According to Professor Jeffrey Sachs, The US has now nixed peace negotiations with Russia on at least 2-3 occasions over the last 2.5 years (which has led to the deaths of over 500,000 Ukrainians, including more than 600 children).

Professor Sachs also had this to say on the remarks made by Japanese Prime Minister, Fumio Kishida, who recently warned the US Congress of China’s ‘growing threat to global peace’, “It is a shame, first of all, for a Japanese Prime Minister to come to the US Congress and speak that way. Really, it’s a shame. It’s also false, especially false, because in the 2,200 years of Chinese-Japanese relations, China never attacked Japan. China was once briefly conquered by the Mongols who tried to attack Japan in the years 1274 and 1281, just for the record, but that was the Mongols. The Chinese never attacked Japan in 2,000 years. Now, when Japan industrialized faster than China at the end of the 19th century, Japan invaded China in 1895 in the Sino-Japanese War. Then, in the 20th century, Japan repeatedly invaded China and then very brutally in the 1930s. So, it’s not right for a Japanese Prime Minister to come and trash-talk China in the US Congress. It’s not right for the Japanese people, it’s not historically accurate, it’s not appropriate, and it’s not wise either.”

As per John Pilger (2020):
“A study by the RAND Corporation – which, since Vietnam, has planned America’s wars – is titled ‘War with China: Thinking Through the Unthinkable’. Commissioned by the U.S. Army, the authors evoke the infamous catch cry of its chief Cold War strategist, Herman Kahn: “thinking the unthinkable”. Kahn’s book, ‘On Thermonuclear War’, elaborated a plan for a “winnable” nuclear war.”

The US War Machine’s Disastrous Path Towards Nuclear Annihilation

The arrogance of the United States is astounding. China, for example, has NEVER been a military threat to the United States, despite what you have likely heard from the US government, and corporate media (US state media). The only threat that China represents to the United States is economic (mainly because, unlike the United States, China hasn’t been murdering millions of innocent people, and squandering tens of trillions of dollars in ongoing wars, and the expansion of over 900+ military bases worldwide).

Author and journalist Vijay Prashad does terrific work, and is the executive director of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, which has investigation teams all over the world.

Here are a few excerpts from their remarkable piece, The Churning of the Global Order, which clearly shows that the United States is the one country that is by far, the greatest threat to world peace, and the survival of our species:

“To affirm their position of domination over the world order, the United States and its allies have increased military spending beyond belief. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) calculated that, in 2022, US military spending was roughly $877 billion, or roughly 39%, of estimated global military spending. However, as a recent report published in Monthly Review shows, this figure is vastly underestimated: actual US military spending is closer to $1.537 trillion – nearly double SIPRI’s calculation and the official US numbers.

China, meanwhile, accounts for 10% of world military spending ($292 billion), and its per capita military spending is 22 times less than that of the United States. Fear mongering about Chinese military spending is not substantiated by the facts. What is substantiated by facts is that China spends more of its social wealth on infrastructure and industry than on military waste. Meanwhile, the US spends a mere $252 billion on education, for instance, according to the Centre on Budget and Policies Priorities, but $1.537 trillion on the military, part of which goes to pay for its estimated 902 military bases across the world.

The only area in the world that is free of the US military apparatus is large sections of Eurasia: China, India, Iran, and Russia. Since 1992, the United States has dreamt of vanquishing this region, including through the use of military power. In 1997, Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former national security advisor to US President Jimmy Carter, cautioned that ‘potentially, the most dangerous scenario would be a grand coalition of China, Russia, and perhaps Iran, an “antihegemonic” coalition united not by ideology but by complementary grievances’.

Over the past few years, however, we have witnessed the slow attrition of the West’s control over the world economy as well as the gradual delegitimisation of the entire neocolonial structure. To better understand this attrition, we adopted a method that Samir Amin developed almost thirty years ago to assess the nature of imperialist power. Amin argued that the neocolonial structure did not require Western-based transnational corporations to own most of the world’s assets. Instead, he explained, what was needed was for them to have monopoly control over many of the assets in key sectors and ensure that the ultimate beneficiary of these assets would be the Triad, or the Global North, and its ruling classes. Amin identified five forms of control that lie at the heart of the neocolonial structure:
– Control over natural resources
– Control over financial flows
– Control over science and technology
– Control over military power
– Control over information

China’s impressive rise out of abject poverty has been key to weakening the Global North’s hold over these first three controls.
(the Global North comprises North America, Europe, Israel, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand).

Two exaggerations by the United States and the imperialist bloc from the mid-1990s to the 2010s also contributed to weakening this hold: 1. US wars, from the global war on terror to the wars on Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. 2. US economic overextension, from the over-credit in the US housing market to the lax regulation of the Western banking system.

New developments in China and Russia, which were taking place at the same time as these US wars and the chaos in the world capitalist system, began to accelerate new changes:

1. China. In the last years of the Hu Jintao government (2003–2013), China’s leadership began to reassess its reliance upon the US market and US political leadership. The formation of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, China, India, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates), in 2009 was part of this new posture. This reassessment was then translated into a new policy framework under the leadership of Xi Jinping. This included establishing alternatives to the US market and leadership, such as by creating an internal market through large-scale capital investment, eradicating extreme poverty, and building the One Belt, One Road (later Belt and Road) Initiative. Furthermore, China began to use the BRICS process to encourage the formation of new monetary systems and new political leadership.

2. Russia. Towards the end of the first decade of the 2000s, the Russian government began to undo the damage that the destruction of the Soviet Union had done to its people. Firstly, the government, led by Putin, began to claw back the energy sector from the ‘oligarchs’ and organise the basis of the economy around principles of self-sufficiency, including holding capital within the country and not allowing profits to be taken out into the Western-controlled banking system. Secondly, the government began to increase Russia’s role in OPEC+ (the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries as well as ten non-members) and build up its energy sector in order to sell oil and natural gas to Europe in a context in which the Global North’s wars on Iraq and Libya and sanctions-driven hybrid war on Iran interfered with Europe’s major sources of energy.

Three major interregional platforms, still in an embryonic stage, define the new regionalism and multilateralism:

1. BRICS10 (an expansion of the 2009 formation of BRIC)
2. Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (2001)
3. The Group of Friends in Defence of the UN Charter (2021)

Tectonic changes are taking place in the world, accelerated by the wars in Ukraine and the rapidly escalating genocide in Palestine. These changes are shaped, on the one hand, by the Global North’s loss of economic power alongside its increase in militarisation and, on the other, by the Global South’s new mood regarding sovereignty and economic development…”
Click here to learn more about the great work of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.

And then there are the Additional Financial Costs of US Hegemony

“The US is a criminal state that is run by corporations.” – Noam Chomsky

American Corporate Capitalism has been a root cause of most of the world’s problems for a long time. Whether the US is committing genocides, mass murdering entire populations with its illegal ongoing wars, accelerating the climate crisis, or ignoring its many domestic problems, including food insecurity, poverty, discrimination, homelessness, and a “for profit” penal system that has the highest incarceration rates on the planet (phew!), it is clear that the US is a criminal state.

In New York City alone (as per the Food Bank for NYC):
– There are over 416,000 children facing food insecurity. That’s one out of every five children.
– 1 out of every 3 children live with the uncertainty of where their next meal will come from.
– In New York City, 23.5 percent of children under the age of 18 live in households that are food insecure.

In 2023, while the US spent over $1.5 TRILLION on military programs (illegal wars are Big Business), the US Congress passed the “Limit, Save, Grow Act of 2023”, which cuts “non-defense” spending on critical life saving programs by over $142 billion. Here is a list of the mental health services and other “non-defense” discretionary programs that would be eliminated.

At least 170,000 children from low-income families would be kicked out of Head Start programs, and another 105,000 would lose access to child care, which would impact future academic prospects and the parents’ ability to work or attend school.
Cutting off access for 900,000 individuals calling the 988 Suicide Prevention Lifeline, operated by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
5,000 fewer grants and a $10.2 billion cut for the National Institutes of Health, threatening research, including critical social and behavioral science research, and a $2.17 billion cut for National Science Foundation research and education grants, eliminating support for 66,000 scientists, technicians, teachers, and students. Research cannot exist in erratic funding cycles.
29,000 people currently seeking treatment for substance use disorders through the State Opioid Response grant program would lose access to treatment programs.
More than $2 billion in cuts to critical education programs, including those that fund low-income schools, support students with disabilities, provide school-based mental health services, and increase access to higher education.
30 million fewer outpatient visits, the elimination of 81,000 jobs across the Veterans Health Administration, and millions of dollars in cuts to valuable medical research for programs outside of the four Veterans Affairs (VA) medical care accounts. It would reduce thousands of VA staff and limit research efforts designed to address the impact of traumatic brain injury and suicide prevention.
A reduction of 4 million outpatient visits, and over 200,000 mental health visits within the Indian Health Service.
350,000 families losing housing vouchers and 87,000 families losing affordable housing under HUD’s Project-Based Rental Assistance program, prompting mass evictions.
Nearly 250,000 families losing Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) benefits.

The Future does NOT look Bright

The United States is the biggest agent of terror in the world, and the greatest threat to the survival of our species. Do you know that over 62% of the US federal discretionary budget goes to military programs? If organized society ends as a result of a US caused nuclear war, and 90-98% of the world’s population disappears due to starvation, and a nuclear winter (as the great Daniel Ellsberg estimated), it will be due to the unchecked arrogance, greed, stupidity, and complete disregard for life, by the United States of America.

How can anyone believe that the United States of War will stop with its insanity, and one day advocate for world peace?

The Lancet has recently reported that the accumulative effects of Israel’s US backed GENOCIDE in Gaza has killed more than 186,000 Palestinians, half of whom are CHILDREN! The story is being completely ignored by US politicians, the US corporate media, and unfortunately, most Americans too. According to Noam Chomsky, the US’s unwavering support for Israel is not because of the power of the Israeli lobby, but because Israel is a strategic and commercial asset that underpins, rather than undermines, US domination of the Middle East.
Click here to learn more about the Lancet report, and America’s silence.

And this comes on the heels of US appointed NATO chief, Jens Stoltenberg (who was recently awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by “Genocide Joe” Biden), escalating tensions everywhere by floating the idea of using nuclear weapons against Russia, China, and North Korea. The United States currently supplies 5 NATO countries with nuclear weapons (Italy, Germany, Turkey, Belgium, and the Netherlands).

What can you say? I have never been more ashamed of the United States of America. It is truly a despicable state. Again, all surviving US presidents are war criminals, but if Joe Biden (who recently told ABC News: “I’m running the world.”), Antony Blinken, Lloyd Austin, and the rest of their lot were held to the same standards as the Nazis at Nuremberg, they would all be hanged.

In 1956, I shall not go to the polls. I have not registered. I believe that democracy has so far disappeared in the United States that no ‘two evils’ exist. There is but one evil party with two names, and it will be elected despite all I can do or say.” – W.E.B. Du Bois

I have a friend who grew up in the projects of NYC, put herself through college as a single Mom, and now makes a difference in Florida as a proud Grandmother, and Social Worker. I recently asked her about Florda’s awful governor, Ron DeSantis, and how his cruel, and inhumane policies impact her work. She told me that she doesn’t pay attention to him, and that she is not even going to vote in this year’s presidential election because both parties are the same corrupt organization, and can never be trusted. In her words, they are both “disgusting”. My friend is a smart, successful, and inspiring woman, yet like many of us, she has completely lost faith in her country, and the significance of her vote. Although she admits that a revolution is likely the only answer, she doesn’t want that either due to the inherent risk of violence. My dear friend is not alone, as 1/3 of eligible voters chose not to cast their ballot in the 2020 US presidential election.

As per the retired US Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson (in an interview with the always excellent MintPress News), “I think it’s clear to at least half the world now, some four billion people, that the United States is not the power that it once was. Reputationally, because of things like state-sponsored torture, and now state-sponsored genocide, our reputation is in tatters in the world…If the United States were to go to war with China or Russia today, we would lose badly (due in part to a US military recruitment crisis)…So what would we do? We’d turn to nuclear weapons and that is our fallback position. We have about the same number of nuclear warheads as Russia. So when we go into a conventional struggle that we can’t get out of and that we’re losing, we will go to nuclear weapons. So we will, for the second time in the history of nuclear weapons, be the only power to first use nuclear weapons.” And what are Colonel Wilkerson’s thoughts on the world being closer than ever to nuclear Armageddon due to US actions? “I still work with some people who are what I would call nuclear weapons experts and nuclear war experts from the old Cold War days. They think we’re closer to an exchange than we’ve been since 1949 when the Soviets exploded their first bomb. They think we’re closer than we were in Berlin in that hot summer of 1961 when they built the wall, and closer than we were in October 62 with Cuba and the Cuba Missile Crisis.”

Award winning author Chris Hedges recently provided a spot on summary of the greatest villain in the US, The Corporate State:
“Our only hope is to organize the overthrow of the corporate state that vomited up Trump. Our democratic institutions, including the legislative bodies, the courts and the media, are hostage to corporate power. They are no longer democratic. We must, like resistance movements of the past, engage in acts of sustained mass civil disobedience, especially strikes, and non-cooperation. By turning our ire on the corporate state, rather than Trump, we name the true sources of power and abuse. We expose the absurdity of blaming our demise on demonized groups such as undocumented workers, Muslims, African-Americans, Latinos, liberals, feminists, gays and others. We give people an alternative to a bankrupt Democratic Party — whose presidential candidate is in clear cognitive decline — that is a full partner in corporate oppression and cannot be rehabilitated. We make possible the restoration of an open society. If we fail to embrace this militancy, which alone has the ability to destroy cult leaders, we will continue the march toward tyranny.”

The United States of War is indeed the biggest agent of terror in the world, and I have never felt more helpless, or disgusted. We are all brothers and sisters, yet It is just a matter of time before the loved ones of the TENS OF MILLIONS of people who have been murdered by the United States, demand justice and exact revenge in any way possible. And who can blame them? I won’t. Even if it means the death of billions of people, animals, and “civilization” as we know it.

The Holocaust continues in Gaza, and whatever you are doing now is exactly what you would have been doing during the 20th century Holocaust. Thank God for the activists and organizers of the world, young and old, who continue to inspire and fight for truth and justice!

Lastly, all children are our children, and I can’t help but think of the estimated 2.4 billion beautiful, and brilliant kids on the planet, who ALL deserve to be safe, healthy and happy. And I think of their smiles, and their laughter, and their potential, and how none of that matters, has mattered, or will matter to the US War Machine as it continues to provoke, and demonize both Russia and China (through its illegal ongoing wars and military expansion), while also committing a GENOCIDE. Shame on us all.

The Bottom Line? Although the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park (and Museum) may be doing more harm than good by NOT exposing the US as a criminal state (see above), it still offers an unforgettable learning experience, and one that I highly recommend! 🙂

Free Palestine!

Until next time…

“Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of leaders…and millions have been killed because of this obedience…Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves… (and) the grand thieves are running the country. That’s our problem.” – Howard Zinn

*Main Images: Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum

*Background: Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park is located in the center of Hiroshima, Japan, and includes the Genbaku Dome (also known as the A-Bomb Dome), which was the only structure left standing near the hypocenter of the world’s first atomic bomb that exploded on August 6th, 1945. As per UNESCO, “The Hiroshima Peace Memorial (Genbaku Dome), is a stark and powerful symbol of the achievement of world peace for more than half a century following the unleashing of the most destructive force ever created by humankind…it also expresses the hope for world peace, and the ultimate elimination of all nuclear weapons.” The park is dedicated to the legacy of Hiroshima as the first city in the world to suffer a nuclear attack (which killed hundreds of thousands of civilians, and destroyed the lives of millions more). The grounds are well groomed, with a lot to see and do, including the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, Children’s Peace Monument, Peace Database & Library, and the Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims. The memorials. monuments, museums, and lecture halls attract over 1 million visitors each year.