pai mei

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...arch&plindex=0

A movie about what happens after a nuclear war.
If the atomic bomb was not invented I am sure that there would have been more wars, possible a world war 3. But WW3 with no nuclear weapons is nothing compared to what this invention can bring us

flat5

nothing there

debaser

Nuclear war is scary and all that, but who would start it? Remember, anyone with the resources to obtain a bomb is self interested enough not to ever use it (terrorist organizations included). The Bomb is a political tool, not a military one.

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powerclown

I wonder about that. These are religious fanatics we're talking about here, with apocalyptic visions of the afterlife and all that shit. To some, this life, with all its vice and injustice, could perhaps pale in comparison to the utopian life supposedly waiting "on the other side".

Infinite_Loser

^Anyone not deterred by MAD, hence of the many reasons why the US is hellbent on preventing countries like Iran from further developing their nuclear programs.

Also... LMAO at the woman who pissed her pants.

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snowy

Fucking scary as all hell, and that was one gruesome movie.

This reminds me that one of my summer projects is to establish and organize an emergency pantry. After the wild weather we received this winter, it's a practical thing to do, given that we lost power a few times. I don't want to get caught unprepared in a situation like my parents were in, without power and heat for three days. Plus, I'll be set if the bomb does drop.

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Baraka_Guru

Um... what?


The Fat Man mushroom cloud resulting from the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki rises 18 km (11 mi, 60,000 ft) into the air from the hypocenter.


The mushroom cloud over Hiroshima after the dropping of Little Boy.

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Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
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Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
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n0nsensical

A computer..

tecoyah

Likely, any beginning of a Nuclear War would be the result of a small fanatical nation using one or two limited devices on America or the EU. The immediate result would be many thousands incinerated, and millions affected. Reaction would be swift and overwhelming from the attacked entity most probably leading to the elimination of the aggressor nation by conventional force (+tactical nukes) by the world body as a whole.
I find it somewhat unlikely we, or the EU would use a large scale nuclear attack on Iran or any other rouge nation unless the initial blow they inflicted was absolutely devastating to western influences. One can only hope Humankind is smart enough to avoid an over reaction that would possibly destroy its own future.

Charlatan

I can remember living in the 80s, dead sure that a nuclear holocaust was just around the corner. I used to have dreams about where I could feel my flesh melting off.

It was just a fact of life in the time of Reagan and the evil empire.

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Bill O'Rights

Would. You. Like. To. Play. A. Game?

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MageB420666

As Baraka_Guru pointed out, the bomb is a military tool. Hence, it being called a nuclear bomb and not a nuclear speech.

Is it possible for a nuclear war to happen? Yes, if two nations with nuclear technology start fighting, as soon as one nation realizes that it has no chance to win, expect nukes to start flying.

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snowy

I feel like with the rise of North Korea and its development of nuclear weapons, this is where we'll end up again--feeling like a nuke is inevitable. My mom and dad have both talked about growing up during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and my grandparents lived down the street from a public bomb shelter built during that era (one of the coolest things ever, by the way) in a park. My mom, growing up in the PacNW, was taught to duck and cover. Where my dad grew up in Miami, they didn't bother. They figured if the bomb was going to drop, they would be vaporized anyways. I can't even imagine that feeling.

After September 11th and the rash of terrorist actions against the United States, plus school shootings and large-scale disasters, I often wonder what the morning's news will hold when I click on my link to the NYTimes. I feel like sometimes time is something that runs on between events like Sept. 11th, Katrina, and Virginia Tech, and that the true markers of the global calendar are events of devastation and death. That is the downside of instant news on a global scale.

My parents currently live near a base for Trident submarines. I'm fairly sure that if the PacNW ever does get attacked by a nuke...they're gone.

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Mister Coaster

I always liked in the movie Contact when Jodie Foster's charicter can ask "the question" hers was "How did you do it? How did you get past this 'technilogical adolesence' without destroying yourselves?" (or something along those lines)

... good question. I often wonder if we (the human race) ever will get over these stupid, petty cultural and geographic differences and simply start living for the sake of living.

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Walking Shadow

I was a teen during the '80's living outside of washington DC and every month all of the air raid sirens would bet set off just to see that they were working properly.

I don't EVER recallANYONE fearing or thinking or saying that the missles were going to be flying anytime soon. The world was much, much, much, much, much closer to a nuclear war during the Cuban Missle Crisis then we ever were during the 1980's.

The closest we ever came was some halfass remark Reagan made before his weekly radio broadcast when he thought the mic was turned off: "My fellow Americans, I've just signed legislation that will solve our problems with the Soviets forever. We beging bombing in five minutes."

alicat

Is that from "War Games" w/ Matthew Broderick? Or maybe 2001 or something along those lines, sorry too tired to Google at the moment (oh, just popped into my brain that it also sounds like something from Saw).

My teenage years were during the 80's and I remember being scared shitless by the (TV) movie "The Day After". Looking back, the effects are cheesy but they were top-notch at the time and given the political climate of Ronnie and Gorby, instilled a "bomb shelter" fear in me that my parents and others must have experienced during WWII.

I'm now 36 and the "cold war" has long been over but I don't have much faith in the nuclear game of chicken staying the same for very long. 9/11 showed that at least 19 people didn't care about death by retaliation (nuclear or otherwise) because they were already going to be dead. This new day and age of extremists has ushered in a whole new ball-game and I find myself once again as afraid as when I was a kid in the 80's before the "wall" came down.

Ali

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Fire

I hope it will not come to that, but with things in the world as dicey as they are, I try to keep a few supplies on hand, and some useful tools, and a lot of ammo................ course if its a big enough nuke fight, we are all toast anyway, but the way that I see it its more likely for a rogue state or crazy group to blow up a city or too- which would, I think, cause civil chaos all over the us.......

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Charlatan

sure we were closer during the cuban missle crisis but given that i wasn't around then it would be like me describing living in the 80s to a 20-year-old.

my point wasn't that we were *that* close to nuclear holocaust but rather that nuclear warfare *seemed* inevitable. the programs on tv, the books i read, the conversations at school, the rhetoric coming from politicians, the list goes on... it all lead to a heightened sense of tension. the cold war reached its peak at that time.

it really seemed inevitable.

I can remember having length discussions about whether it would be better to survive or just die in the blast (I voted for wanting to be at ground zero... preferably having sex at the time... i was 15, sue me).

It was a much different time from now. Sure there is conflict but it smaller states and decentralized powers. back then it was two super powers putting unconscionable portions of their budgets into the arms race. it seemed to be just waiting to happen.

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Bill O'Rights

Bingo!

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"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires." - Susan B. Anthony

"Hedonism with rules isn't hedonism at all, it's the Republican party." - JumpinJesus

It is indisputable that true beauty lies within...but a nice rack sure doesn't hurt.

Walking Shadow

No.

The rhetoric coming from the politicians was very much one-sided and was very mild, compared to some of the stuff that Khruschev said in the 1960's.

Yes, Reagan did a bit of saber rattling but it was little more then going to Berlin and giving his, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!!! speech. You obviously don't recall this, but the Soviet leaders before Gorbachev, Brezhnes, Chernencko & Andropov were all quite ill while Reagan was President and thus had little to say to him. In fact Reagan made a horrible joke when asked by a reporter why he had never met with a Soviet leader, "They keep dying on me."

Yeah, that's classy.

The Cold war was at it's zenith and it's hottest as I said in my previous post, during the Cuban Missle Crisis.

The 1980's can't begin to comapre.

OzOz

While that remark was certainly unhelpful, it wasn't anything likely to provoke nuclear war on its own. However, the world DID come close during the early 1980's, although not as close as during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The Soviet leadership came down with a severe case of paranoia during Reagan's first term, to such an extent that they instructed their agents in the West to undertake an all-out monitoring campaign to look for signs of an impending Western first strike. This Soviet intelligence operation was code-named RYAN. They believed that things like an increase in the number of lights on at night in Western defence departments would be tell-tale signs of an impending attack. At the same time there was a major NATO exercise that included a test of their nuclear command and control systems that nearly did push the Russians over the edge. I've read reports that, had this exercise continued just three or four days longer than it did, the Soviets would have concluded that it was in fact a prelude to war and reacted accordingly.

Apparently there was so much hype in the USSR about the threat of an impending NATO first strike that the Soviet leadership actually took steps to try to reassure their public that they would not be forced back onto a six-day work week. Things only calmed down when Margaret Thatcher told Reagan to cool it a bit, as the Russians were getting jittery.

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debaser

So?

You show two very visceral photos of the suprise introduction of the bomb to the world.

Let's examine all of the uses in the 60+ years since:

*crickets chirping*

Oh yeah...


Simple fact is that nuclear weapons and MAD prevented a shooting war between the Soviets and ourselves for over 40 years, and the world is enjoying one of the most peaceful periods it has known in the past 2000 years since the inception of the big scary bomb.

Again, if you can get your hands on a bomb, your cause is sufficiently advanced to merit protecting. Any use of a nuclear weapon assures the complete destruction of any and all assests and interests held dear to you. That is why Iran, who's government shows 29 years of vested interest in self preservation, will never use a weapon on Israel, who would vaporize them in turn. Likewise, even groups like Al Queda would not use such a weapon. The leadership of the group use their postion to expand their political power within the group itself and the wider Islamic world. They would not risk the reprisal, jihad is for the little guys, the big boys play for power.

But this is all elementary, if you wanna run around scared to death of the 1 big 1, go ahead.

I personally don't lose any sleep.

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Lady Sage

Two movie quotes come to mind.

"The clock is ticking."

"Stick your head between your knees and kiss your ass goodbye."

(Insert maniacal laughing here.)

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Baraka_Guru

Sorry, but you wrote that anyone with the resources to obtain nuclear weapons would be too self-interested to ever use them. But they were used.

And it's nice of you to suggest that experiencing the Cuban Missile Crisis was like a quiet evening in the country.

I understand what you mean by these weapons acting as political leverage more than weapons. But the fact remains, they are weapons.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Charlatan

Holy cow! I am sure I was writing about how it *seemed*, how it felt to a teenager (i.e. me). I am also quite sure that I agreed with you about the Cuban Missile Crisis being hotter... but that's OK. You just carry on ignoring what I've written...

Cheers

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"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

Redlemon

I also was nuclear-war-obsessed in the early 80s. I grew up outside of Boston, so I was pretty confident that I didn't have to worry about surviving the initial strike - between Boston, Route 128 technology, and Hanscom Air Force Base, I was a gonner fer sure.

I still have this book on my bookshelf:

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thingstodo

I grew up during the Cuban missle crisis. In fact, my father worked on B-52 bombers. We had drills every other day at school, hiding under our desks. As if that would do anything. Half the people we knew had bomb shelters, mainlky to protect them from fallout. Every building that was substantial had a nuclear sign on it, indicating a fallout shelter.

The early 60s was a pretty critical time with all the posturing, etc. Anything could have happened at that point because this stuff was all so new. Sure, they had seen the damage in Japan but really had no idea what might happen with all the new stuff.

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snowy

Wow, I'm going to have to get a copy of that. I am morbidly obsessed with the idea of nuclear war and a nuclear holocaust. If anyone has any literature or movies they recommend on the topic (besides Threads, The Day After, anything by Ray Bradbury, Jericho, Hiroshima, 'On the Beach by Nevil Shute or its film, or any of the propaganda films from the 50s/60s) I'm very interested.

In fact, after seeing those Protect and Survive PSAs in Threads I went and found a couple more clips on the web. I find the sound effect at the end of those PSAs to be very creepy.

And if anyone here hasn't seen Atomic Cafe, I highly recommend it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_Cafe

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thingstodo

onesnowyowl :

There is a great, little known book by Robert McCammon called Swan Song. It is sort of epic along the lines of Stephen King's The Stand. I found it in an airport in 1987 while moving. McCammon also has a few other good books...and then he just stopped writing. There never was a movie but he writes so well you can really imagine things in your mind. And it is the classic good vs. evil as the story deals with the few years after the holocaust.

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If you're wringing your hands you can't roll up your shirt sleeves.

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lakeOFfire

I agree with the people who said the political purpose and the computer thingee.

Everybody knows, that it's irrelevant who "pushes the button first", because there are so many atomic missiles on the planet, that one tenth of it would be way enough to destroy our civilization...

it's a good question though why the US -or the president- doesn't want to go lower in the number of nuclear heads in the treaty with russia.