July 12, 2023

Ukraine over the tipping point; more on July 22 event in Los Alamos; comment on generic "nuclear disarmament"

Friends,

Good morning.

First, we urge you to read, and forward, the daily selections on our Ukraine page. If you are a member of any formal or informal group with a passing interest in whether we have a planet to live on or money to spend on any social, environmental, or infrastructure need, or if you or anybody you know is an educator, these selections might be useful as bases for discussion.

Today's selections, which reflect the outcome of the NATO meeting which ended today as well as an interesting documentary, are particularly interesting. Larry Johnson notes the change on the battlefield ("The War in Ukraine Shifts Decisively in Russia's Favor," Jul 11, 2023):

What France and the U.K are proposing [providing long-range missiles] is an open provocation and, if carried out, represents a direct attack on Russia. Putin and members of his national security team have signaled clearly that there will be a response. This means we are entering a very dangerous phase in this war because the frantic desperation of the West is leading it to entertain military operations that will elicit retaliation. Russia is not going to consent to being a punching bag. At some point I anticipate that Putin will order the Russian military to start shooting down sophisticated U.S. and NATO ISR drones and disrupt, if not eliminate, the Elon Musk’s Starlink network. Russia also is likely to attack and destroy Joint and Tactical Operation Centers in Ukraine as part of its overall effort to degrade Ukraines ability to carry out offensive operations.

Russia reportedly hit Odessa’s port yesterday (Monday) with a missile strike as a prelude for ending the grain deal and asserting its control of the Black Sea. That will be a blow to Ukraine and Turkey and there is little the West can do in response without creating a casus belli for Russia to hit targets where NATO advisers are located.

In one of yesterday's selections Michael Brenner ("The New ‘New World’, Jul 10, 2023) asks what happens when "when reality confronts narcissism:"

The oddity in this woeful performance lies not in the serial misjudgments per se. It is that most are not the outcome of a deliberate policy process. Rather, they appear as rash, compulsive and disconnected effusions.

These decisions and actions express an irrepressible urge to fill a want, a desire, a selfish need. They are expected to achieve their aim because that is the natural outcome due the privileged self. This behavioral pattern is pure narcissism — writ large for the collective elite persona.

What happens when reality punches the narcissist(s) in the face? When the Russian army is on the Dnieper? When deindustrialization joins with inflation to drag the EU into depression? When the Sino-Russian bloc of BRICS breaks the American controlled phalanx of financial overlords?

These are good questions. We don't know the answers -- Brenner suggests some -- but dangers do run very high.

Second, please help us recruit in-person attendees (some of whom will car-pool with others, right?) for the July 22 event in Los Alamos:

You can save and insert the image file in social media as needed for spreading the word, or use Bulletin 330, which has much more detail and also a Zoom link for those who cannot travel or are too far away to come in person.

By "conversation" we mean a conversation between the live audience and the two speakers, after their presentations -- a panel-of-two with Q&A and audience comments.

It is significant and important that this event is in Los Alamos, where the largest investments in the world are being made to produce a) additional, and b) new nuclear warheads.* (*Other countries are also investing, but here in the U.S., thanks mostly to the uniquely weak bargaining position of government relative to contractors, the work is hyper-expensive. See "Structural Features Making NNSA an Unusual Federal Agency," White House memo for VP Biden, 2016.)

Why are we doing this?

• Basically, what happened in 1945 is terribly relevant today because neoconservatives in the U.S. have created a state of proxy war and near-war with Russia, AGAIN, as anti-New-Dealers and a cabal of capitalists and military leaders including Groves did then. I think Dr. Kuznick will help us understand this better than most of us do.

• Unlike in 1945, Russia is now a peer nuclear state. It has a robust economy and a much more unified polity than the U.S. does, or NATO countries do. From the realist perspective, what is being done by our leaders today is REALLY stupid (see Brenner, above, and our whole Ukraine page).

• For decades, the (Trinity-)Hiroshima-Nagasaki anniversaries have focused largely on the past. To the extent they have focused on the present and future that focus has not usually been concrete. It is past time for the sharp realization that we are living in a crucial moment in living nuclear history, with events taking place right here and now in our neighborhood, events that echo those of 1945. We can't change the past. The only time in which we can act is the present, and the only place we can powerfully act is where we stand.

• This state of near-war with Russia has dramatic ramifications in our region and for the U.S. as a whole. The crash program to build new pits at LANL is falsely portrayed as necessary to deter (a resurgent, malevolent) Russia.

• If these narratives are not challenged, humanity and most of the biosphere could well be destroyed. There is no better time or place to do so. History does not often provide such a wonderful, clear-cut, opportunity to a specific region and group of people (that's you and me) to avoid a looming catastrophe.

• The wasteful, poorly-strategized LANL program is beset with problems, as NNSA foresaw. It is weak. It requires an absence of opposition to succeed. Public dialog is deadly to stupid, greedy plans for more weapons of mass destruction. That is why it is suppressed. We are not going to be suppressed. The largest capital endeavor in the history of New Mexico, which due to its scale and shocking purpose has the potential to paralyze all competing political agendas, should have a little public exposure, don't you think?

Third, we are less and less impressed with generic calls for eventual "nuclear disarmament." Absent opposition to the Ukraine war, and absent opposition to plans to build a nuclear weapons factory on our very doorstep, such calls don't make sense to us. We said as much in a published comment in the Santa Fe New Mexican ("Archbishop to denounce nuclear arms on Trinity test's 78th anniversary, Jul 10, 2023, on our web site with published comment). We are aware of powerful efforts by national grantmakers and other organizations to support pit production at LANL -- basically to advance the nuclear colonization of the state. The same grantmakers are also "all in" on supporting the war against Russia. We oppose them. It is important to understand, as we wrote, that "fine words alone butter no parsnips."

Best wishes,

Greg, Trish and the Study Group gang