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April 24, 2007

Talking Points from the Armageddon Lobby
Posted by Lorelei Kelly

Not too long ago, I did a live radio show and one of the callers told me I sounded like a socialist. Hmmmmm. I thought. Silly man! don't you know that only the private sector enjoys the benefits of socialism in this country? Take last week's conservative onslaught about the "guv-mint wanting to take over your health care" In other words, taxpayer subsidized health care corporations don't want the government to negotiate lower prices on prescription drugs. Or the glorious bounty of public financing going to the school testing industry? (No Child Left Behind is a social engineering endeavor that even Lenin couldn't have dreamed up. Rise Up! And Obey! ) But the most insidious one of all is the subsidization of companies making billions off of our legitimate fear. That would be those members of the defense industry who cling to the Cold War like barnacles on a Trident sub. And they get a boost from conservative activists who are trying to send us back to the bad old days of nuclear inspired nightmares.

The Armageddon Lobby has even sent out talking points. A friend who works on the Hill sent me this example:

"I support new and improved nuclear warheads for the U.S. I also support creating smaller warheads.

Even though we would prefer to never use a "nuke", some of our enemies have to believe that we might use it. Warheads deployed today are so large and destructive that they will never be used. I know it, you know it, everyone knows it. What kind of deterrent is that?"

This talking point refers to a new generation nuke called the "reliable replacement warhead"


Remember when that kind of crazy-talk had its own crazy-talk acronym "Mutual Assured Destruction" or MAD for short? But in so many ways those bad old days were far more progressive than today. I found some moldering files this past weekend, one held a stack of old government publications...The first was State Department Publication 7277 from 1961 entitled "Freedom from War: The US Program for General and Complete Disamament in a Peaceful World". Try saying that in one breath, Senator Helms.

Most are from the now defunct Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA). in the form of reports to Congress. Even the essays produced during Republican reign were full of dreamy American ideals. Çheck out these chapter headings from 1972: "Controlling Conventional Arms" and "Military Expenditures and Economic Impact" and "World Disarmament Conference".

These old documents made me think that I don't even care how much it costs anymore. We would be far safer if we just paid all of our brilliant physicists and scientists their yearly wages to do self-designed security projects. "Run wild and free, scientists!" should be our policy statement. We do this, after all, for former Soviet scientists because we don't want them to end up cooking borscht in some unsavory underground bunker in, say, Libya.

Then I found an old American picturebook about the Soviet Union. Did you know that the second level of the communist youth organization were called the Pioneers? Those would also be President Bush's second best fund raisers The communist roots of conservative royalty!

I wonder what Mr. radio caller would have to say about that.

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