By Mark Taylor
DeMOCKracy.ink (7/17/25)
Early in my journalism career I spent a month in Japan on an international exchange program where American and Japanese journalists explored each others’ countries. One of the places we visited was ground zero in Hiroshima, where the United States dropped the “Little Boy” atomic bomb, not — as we were propagandized to believe — to bring a quicker end to WW II, but rather to send an arrogant middle-finger warning to the Soviet Union that we were now the world’s dominant nation.
Less than a month later, I was at ground zero at the Trinity Site, southeast of Socorro, New Mexico, where the first nuclear test took place, just weeks before the war crime in Hiroshima.
At that time the site was open once a year for a public tour of the vast open desert site. The ground was covered with tiny glassy balls created by the heat of the blast turning the silicon in the desert sand to glass. There was a distinctive quiet crunching noise as we walked about the area.
Guides from Los Alamos National Laboratory cautioned visitors to not take any of the glass balls as souvenirs, given they were radioactive. The visit was strictly limited to two hours.
Amazingly , there were still remnants of the concrete and twisted rusty stubs of the metal footings of the 100-foot shot tower that held the first atomic bomb, nicknamed ‘Gadget’. An old man was bent over carefully studying the remnants. He stood up and turned to gaze at different points on the horizon then back over his shoulder as he paced off the area with a small notebook in hand. I got talking to him and he explained he was the engineer who designed and wired up the detonating device.
“I was the one who pushed the button,” he said matter-of-factly.
It was his first visit back to the site since the detonation on July 16, 1945.
To have been on the ground at both sites in less than a month and have that personal encounter made the possibility of nuclear war real in a way that has been with me ever since.
Now, given the fraudsters, incompetents and moral maggots running the US and Western World into the ground, it can feel inevitable.
Nukewatch
Given the non-stop belching insanity of the 12-cylinder, 24/7 Trump crisis machine, the threat of nuclear war is shoved aside by the latest profanity-spiced Trump social media outburst, update on the horror of the US/Israel genocide and relentless push to war with Iran, Russia and China.
Fortunately, there is an activist organization called Nukewatch, headquartered in tiny Luck, Wisconsin, in the northwest part of the state, that does world-class activism tracking of the latest news in all things nuclear.
Over the past few years I have occasionally donated original artwork for their “Nukewatch Quarterly” newsletter, which even comes out on traditional newsprint! I did a cartoon for a recent Nukewatch article on Donald Trump and the politics of the raggedy myth of a protective nuclear umbrella by Nukewatch director John LaForge, an activist and organizer who has done time in German lock-up for his courageous protest at an American nuclear bomber facility in Germany.
It’s understandable that most people want to look away and ignore the minute-to-minute threat of nuclear war and deranged fantasies of some western leaders about “limited” use of “tactical” nuclear weaponry. But look — and act — we must, for nuclear weapons are the single greatest threat to the world.
As author Annie Jacobsen demonstrated in her profound 2024 book, “Nuclear War: A Scenario”, there is no such thing as a ‘limited’ nuclear war. As Jacobsen carefully documents, we would race from the first round of missiles to global destruction and decades of nuclear winter in less than 60 minutes. You can see my review below and I urge you to put Jacobsen’s book at the top of your reading list.
NukeWatch is an excellent American resource for foreign readers of DeMOCKracy.ink. I encourage you to check out Nukewatch at the link in the article below and contribute to their essential work if you can.
Note, if you have a truly progressive group, publication or campaign in need of original free-use cartoons, illustrations or photos for websites, newsletters, fliers, posters etc., check the DeMOCKracy.ink website, which is in the process of being updated with new free-use art.
U.S. ‘Nuclear Umbrella’ Is A Death Wish On The World
Mark Taylor creates & donates political art for Nukewatch and has more at www.DeMOCKracy.ink
By John LaForge
NukeWatch Summer Newsletter (7/14/25)
Some recent headlines speak volumes of thoughtless mush.
“Europe Is Ready to Shelter Under France’s Nuclear Umbrella” (Foreign Policy);
“Can Europe Build Its Own Nuclear Umbrella?” (FirstPost);
“France has a nuclear umbrella. Could its European allies fit under it?” (BBC);
“To many in Europe, Trump has punched holes in NATO’s nuclear umbrella” (CNN);
“Canada’s allies are wondering if they can still shelter under the U.S. nuclear umbrella” (CBS).
The phrase “nuclear umbrella” is designed to evoke the image of an impenetrable shield of protection. In the comforting euphemism of diplomats, the phrase means a promise to “defend” compliant non-nuclear states using nuclear weapons. In military circles, it is one government’s threat to attack a third country with nuclear weapons on behalf of an ally that has no nukes.
The practice of holding a “nuclear umbrella” for allies is sometimes called “extended deterrence.” It’s been offered by the United States to nuclear-free European countries, along with Japan, Australia, South Korea, and others.
CNN reported that Polish President Andrzej Duda, on March 13, called on President Trump to deploy U.S. nuclear weapons in Poland, much like it does in Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium. CBS News reported on May 7 that current talk of the “nuclear umbrella” is “driven by Trump’s threats not to protect allies that don’t meet his expectations.”
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace reported recently that Europeans “seriously worry about whether Washington will continue to extend nuclear deterrence — sometimes referred to as a nuclear ‘umbrella’ — to the continent.” The “Europeans” the CEIP refers to are only those who have no understanding of nuclear weapons.
Sugar-coating disaster
Use of the sugar-coated word “deterrence” hides the ghastly, devastating, suicidal reality of nuclear weapons attacks, and has the additional power of teaching the public to live in fear of other countries. As one vice president of a group called “Liberal International” put it recently, “The U.S. nuclear umbrella over Europe is the ultimate defense against hostilities toward NATO countries.” The question “What would a nuclear attack achieve?” never enters the conversation.
The late Daniel Ellsberg, as an advisor to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, drafted plans for nuclear attacks. He wrote in The Doomsday Machine: Confessions Of A Nuclear War Planner, “The plan called for a total of 40 megatons — megatons — on Moscow, about four thousand times more than the bomb over Hiroshima.” In Things That Can and Cannot Be Said, Ellsberg says about this plan, “Our private, top-secret estimates were that we would kill every European, a hundred million Europeans, without a single U.S. or Soviet warhead landing on West Europe. Just from the fallout of the attacks we were planning on Russia and East Europe. One hundred million.”
The self-destructive nature of nuclear war was understood by some Europeans, including Germany’s (future Chancellor) Helmut Schmidt, who warned in his 1962 book Defense Or Retaliation that the use of U.S. nuclear weapons “will not defend Europe, but destroy it.”
Today’s editors and heads of state ought to be focused on how to eliminate nuclear umbrellas rather than hundreds of millions of compatriots, allies and friends.
Filed Under: Newsletter Archives, Nuclear Weapons, Quarterly Newsletter, War
More From Nukewatch / Uranium Found In Bones Of Fallujah Survivors: U.S. Depleted Uranium Munitions Blamed — A new study reports that among people who returned to bombarded homes and neighborhoods in Fallujah, Iraq, following the 2003 U.S. bombardment and invasion, bone sampling detected uranium in the bones of 29% of study participants. Researchers from Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs report that investigators “have never before detected uranium in bones in vivo: in vivo bone XRF [X-ray fluorescence] sampling is groundbreaking in identifying uranium exposure among living populations.” The May 25, 2025 study, “Lessons from Fallujah,” also notes that, “Our findings support prior research which has demonstrated that those who are first at the scenes of war-damaged areas may be at a higher risk of reproductive health harms, and that Fallujah’s population faced a 17-fold increase in birth anomalies and myriad other health problems linked with the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.” The United States used tons of so-called “depleted uranium” munitions in its March 2003 bombardment and invasion of Iraq and also during the 1991 Gulf War in Iraq and Kuwait. The shells are made of uranium-238, a toxic and radioactive heavy metal waste left from the production of nuclear weapons and uranium fuel for reactors. … Link to story
On 80th Anniv. Of Trinity Test, Nobel Winners Release New Version Of Bob Dylan’s ‘Hard Rain’
Democracy Now! (7/16/25)
On July 16, 1945, the United States carried out the Trinity test, the world's first nuclear detonation. Today, 80 years later, the University of Chicago — the site of the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction — is host to the Nobel Laureate Assembly for the Prevention of Nuclear War, an event that brings Nobel laureates and nuclear experts together to confront the growing global risk of nuclear war. The event features a performance by the award-winning string ensemble Kronos Quartet, who have spearheaded two new renditions of Bob Dylan's "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" featuring nearly 50 more artists from around the world. Titled "Hard Rain" and "Hard Rain (Drone)," the new pieces aim to raise awareness of the ongoing threat of nuclear war.
As the global political situation becomes increasingly unstable, says professor Daniel Holz, chair of the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and one of the organizers of the assembly, "the likelihood that we'll sort of stumble into a nuclear war and the end of civilization … has gone way up."
Holz joins Democracy Now! alongside violinist, artistic director and founder of the Kronos Quartet, David Harrington, to share what inspired them to commission and create "Hard Rain," which debuts today. "We need everyone in the world to know how dangerous and how awful this is for all of us. And if music and musicians can step up and project those kinds of concerns about all of our futures, then music is doing its job," says Harrington.
16-minute video
Nothing — and nobody — we are pre-occupied with now will matter one damn bit.
'Nuclear War: A Scenario' -- Conversation With Annie Jacobsen On The 'Razor's Edge' Of Global Destruction
As the bipartisan enthusiastic support for the perverse US/Isr^el genocide in Gaza proves, neither political party cares a damn for human life or stopping military war crimes. BOTH political parties are grotesque, treasonous bought-off criminal operations.
By Mark Taylor
DeMOCKracy.ink (2/2/25)
Eight-nine seconds. Just a tad under a minute and-a-half. That’s how far the Doomsday Countdown Clock of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists now is from the midnight of global nuclear annihilation.
In a time of Donald Trump’s rapid-fire impulsive, egotistical, ignorant, corrupt brainfart “leadership” matched by Democratic Party timidity and corporate subservience, it is easy to get caught up in the flushing toilet bowl of American politics and ignore the crushing reality of just how close the world is to complete destruction.
Once the first missile launches, Elon’s looting of the American state, leadership of the Wall Street-owned Democratic National Committee or how well Trump’s orange mango face creme has been applied that morning will not matter. Everything and everyone you know will be gone. The planet will be a seared, rubble strewn radioactive wasteland of crumbled concrete, vaporized steel and ragged charred scraps of humanity.
Nothing — and nobody — we are pre-occupied with now will matter one damn bit.
“Humans are wired to advance. Humans do whatever it takes.
And yet, nuclear war zeros it all out.
Nuclear weapons reduce human brilliance and ingenuity, love and desire, empathy and intellect, to ash.”
― Annie Jacobsen, Nuclear War: A Scenario
In the interview below with author Annie Jacobsen, Jeffrey Sachs discusses her recently published book, “Nuclear War: A Scenario” (2024). Despite decades of academic work and international economic policy consulting with leaders around the globe and his close involvement with government and the UN, Sachs found Jacobsen’s book shocking. He admits to a certain wishful naivete in denying the full ramifications of the “razor’s edge” reality Jacobsen documents in her step-by-step unrolling of how a single missile launch would lead — in less than an hour — to nuclear destruction of the world.
Jacobsen’s sequence of events are not conjecture or guesses. It is based upon interviews with nuclear scientists and officials, military officers and government documents. She tracks the choreographed pathway to Armageddon second by second.
‘The Day After’ 42 years on
During the interview, mention was made of the 1983 ABC News movie “The Day After”, which I had watched at the time but forgotten about. The movie lays out what the world and ‘life’ would look like in the aftermath of a nuclear war, focusing on residents of Lawrence, Kansas and Kansas City, Missouri. As grim and hellish the scenario, the movie’s producers noted — in actuality — the aftermath would be much worse.
The 42-year old movie carries over very well. It is timely and instructive and — given our current state — even more appropriate to the times than when originally produced. Chillingly, the international situation leading to nuclear war outlined in the movie could have been drawn from today’s headlines.
In 1987 the movie was broadcast in the Soviet Union without any editing or commentary. You can watch the movie trailer here, but I would urge you to take the time to watch both the Jacobsen interview and then the full movie below.
As exhausting and darkly entertaining and carnival like the state of our lives is under Trump 2.0 and the Democratic Party pantomime of resistance, we need to be fully aware of the disaster we, our families, neighbors and world are just 89 seconds away from. Truly, the stakes are far greater than Donald Trump ticking up or down in the polls.
As the bipartisan enthusiastic support for the perverse US/Isr^el genocide in Gaza proves, neither political party cares a damn for human life or stopping military war crimes. BOTH political parties are grotesque, treasonous bought-off criminal operations.
Finish up watching Carl Sagan’s starkly beautiful “Pale Blue Dot” to confront the reality of our lonely position in the universe. And no, Elon, there is no delusional scam of running off to Mars or anywhere else for humanity to begin anew.
This is it.
Everything is here.
And this is what we confront.
Resist
Persist
Don’t be complicit
Book Club With Jeffrey Sachs: ‘Nuclear War: A Scenario’
Book Club With Jeffrey Sachs (1/2025)
Join Professor Jeffrey Sachs and award-winning journalist Annie Jacobsen as they discuss Jacobsen’s chilling and rigorous depiction of nuclear war in her groundbreaking book, Nuclear War: A Scenario. With meticulous research and interviews with military and political insiders, Jacobsen takes us through a riveting, heart-pounding, second-by-second scenario of a world-ending nuclear war.
From the technological aspects of nuclear weapons and missile defense systems to the horrifying and total incapacity of modern society to survive a nuclear onslaught, Jacobsen depicts the razor-thin margin separating us from catastrophe.
Together, they delve into the sobering realities behind nuclear war games, miscalculated missile strikes, and the relentless risks of omnicidal escalation that history and simulations reveal. They reflect on the lessons of Cold War diplomacy, near-miss incidents, and past disarmament efforts. This conversation isn’t just a wake-up call—it’s a rallying cry to face and address the ultimate existential threat of our age: nuclear war. Tune in for a discussion that is as riveting as it is vital.
58-minute video
THE MOVIE THAT MOVED REAGAN TOWARD ARMS REDUCTION: ‘The Day After’ (1983)
The Day After (1983)
In the mid-1980s, the U.S. is poised on the brink of nuclear war. This shadow looms over the residents of a small town in Kansas as they continue their daily lives. Dr. Russell Oakes (Jason Robards) maintains his busy schedule at the hospital, Denise Dahlberg prepares for her upcoming wedding, and Stephen Klein (Steve Guttenberg) is deep in his graduate studies. When the unthinkable happens and the bombs come down, the town's residents are thrust into the horrors of nuclear winter.
2-hour, 7-minute video
80 Years After Trinity Changed The World
Why Was There So Little Dissent At Los Alamos & What Does It Mean Today?
“While acknowledging that the bomb might offer short-term military and political advantages against Japan, he warned that its deployment would ultimately prove morally indefensible and strategically self-defeating, a position which would also be held by six of the seven U.S. five-star generals and admirals of that moment.”
By Eric Ross
TomDispatch (7/16/25)
In recent months, nuclear weapons have reemerged in global headlines. Nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan approached the brink of a full-scale war, a confrontation that could have become an extinction-level event, with the potential to claim up to two billion lives worldwide.
The instability of a global order structured on nuclear apartheid has also come into sharp relief in the context of the recent attacks on Iran by Israel and the United States. That system has entrenched a dangerous double standard, creating perverse incentives for the proliferation of world-destroying weaponry, already possessed by nine countries. Many of those nations use their arsenals to exercise imperial impunity, while non-nuclear states increasingly feel compelled to pursue nuclear weapons in the name of national security and survival.
“Since there was no justifiable reason to hold the bomb secret from the Japanese many scientists felt that the purpose of deepened secrecy was to keep the knowledge of the bomb… from the American people.”
Meanwhile, the largest nuclear powers show not the slightest signs of responsibility or restraint. The United States, Russia, and China are investing heavily in the “modernization” and expansion of their arsenals, fueling a renewed arms race. And that escalation comes amid growing global instability contributing to a Manichean world of antagonistic armed blocs, reminiscent of the Cold War at its worst.
The nuclear threat endangers not only global peace and security but the very continuity of the human species, not to speak of the simple survival of life on Earth. How, you might wonder, could we ever have arrived at such a precarious situation?
The current crisis coincides with the 80th anniversary of the Trinity Test, the first detonation of an atomic weapon that would soon obliterate the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and so inaugurate the atomic age. So many years later, it’s worth critically reassessing the decisions that conferred on humanity such a power of self-annihilation. After all, we continue to live with the fallout of the choices made (and not made), including those of the scientists who created the bomb. That history also serves as a reminder that alternative paths were available then and that another world remains possible today.
A Tale of Two Laboratories
In the summer of 1945, scientists and technicians at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico worked feverishly to complete the construction of the atomic bomb. Meanwhile, their colleagues at the University of Chicago’s Metallurgical Laboratory mounted a final, ultimately unsuccessful effort to prevent its use. …
Link to story (scroll down)
Thank you for all you do and taking the time to post links to interviews and articles. I watched the interview with Jeffery Sachs and Annie Jacobson and will definitely read the book. I read Paperclip by her and couldn’t believe how cynically we engaged known Nazis in our space program. So much information is kept from the public or distorted—in a very real way it’s easy to see why things have gotten to this point. If some of the streaming services made movies about the realities of nuclear war instead of the tripe we now see maybe it would wake people up.
And some Israeli official said he thought nuking Gaza was a good idea. SIGH!