Eighty years ago today, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, leveling it and killing an estimated 140,000 people. Three days later, the United States hit Nagasaki with a second atomic bomb, killing another 75,000. Since then, humanity has lived under the constant danger of complete destruction by nuclear weapons.
Though it no longer gets the same amount of public attention it received during the Cold War, the threat of nuclear annihilation remains frighteningly possible today. There are currently over 12,000 nuclear warheads in the world. The vast majority are held by the United States and Russia, the rest by seven other countries. These weapons include hydrogen bombs, which have one thousand times the destructive potential of the bombs used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Responding to the increasingly reckless militarism of major nuclear powers, atomic scientists earlier this year set the “Doomsday Clock” closer to “midnight” than it has ever been, signaling that the world is moving perilously close to catastrophe.
Rather than earnestly engaging in arms-control talks or shifting budget priorities away from the trillion-dollar war machine, the US government under both Democrats and Republicans has been busily carrying out an historic upgrade to its nuclear arsenal by building new submarines, bomber jets, land-based missiles, plutonium pits, uranium-processing facilities, and underground silos across the country (but not without grassroots pushback in the affected communities). This is all projected to cost $1.7 trillion over thirty years, or $77 billion per year — even as Republicans cut funding for health care, education, nutrition, and other vital public services.
Many of the skilled workers…
Auteur: Jeff Schuhrke
