Pacifism
16 watchers
22 Feb
9:03am, 22 Feb 2024
16,545 posts
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jda
I don't think it is really correct to describe the UN as any sort of government. It's a talking shop and power resides at the national level. The EU was perhaps a bit closer but even then the power was held not in the elected body but the nationally appointed representatives.
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26 Mar
9:33am, 26 Mar 2024
21,279 posts
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Chrisull
I read this excellent piece on substack "Is nuclear deterrence ethical or legal?" (also posted on politics by fozzy) - samf.substack.com on the same day that I finished "The separation" by Christopher Priest - a fictional sci-fi alternative history book about the events leading to Churchill being forced to sign an armistice in 1941. (ie no nuclear bombing of Hiroshima, Nagasaki), which although totally fictional bases a lot of the story on facts (the treatment of conscientious objectors, Churchills shameful party switching trickery whenever he didn't get what he wanted, Rudolf Hess's berserk solo flight to Scotland) and spins an interesting (if somewhat fantastical narrative) with some difficult conclusions that the book never engages with - which is better, what actually happened or a world without the holocaust (Jews are relocated to Madagascar), nuclear bombings but with a Nazi run Germany, and a defeated Soviet Union? Both pieces delve into some of the reasons for pacifism, although there are no easy answers. As Lawrence Freedman points out in the former it was a result of him attending "a workshop on law, ethics and nuclear weapons organised by Professors Janina Dill of Oxford and Scott Sagan of Stanford which addressed this topic." In the latter, the beliefs of conscientious objectors are represented thoroughly, the main character refusing any kind of work if it helped perpetuate the war machine, ending up working for the Red cross as an ambulance driver. I hadn't reflected on this much, but like vegetarianism and veganism there are differing degrees of pacifism. I first came across in the writings and graffiti of conscientious objectors held in Richmond castle, the reasons for people objecting were wide and varying - from religious views to socialism - more details here on the English heritage site: english-heritage.org.uk The nuclear weapons piece looks at the possibility of deploying limited tactical nukes, and suggests that their association with wider mutually assured destruction inhibits this. However as it ominously concludes, if the weapons can't be eliminated entirely, then neither can the risks of the worst imaginable outcomes. |
17 Apr
7:19am, 17 Apr 2024
4,320 posts
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Pou Pou le Phook
The Russian meat grinder. Scary stats on how long (recruited prisoners) survive. I don't know if non-prisoner recruits survive any longer. bbc.com Something I heard a while back went roughly 'if I'm fighting in a war, I don't want to be in the trench between a HR manager and a shoe-shop assistant'. |
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