Andrew+Mosquera's+Artifact+2+Expository





Andrew Mosquera W. Tucker ENGL 408 04/18/12 What the Future Holds: Nuclear Destruction or Disarmed Peace? The Cold War is a subject in our history books: a time when major world powers, primarily the United States and Russia, launched no artillery on each other more than a barrage of threat. The world was afraid. It is an important topic in modern history courses: the most recent most influential era on today. The world superpowers never launched any nuclear missiles, but the production of these weapons of mass destruction never ceased. Is the world still afraid? I was but a child back when I watched in naivety the news covering the emerging supposed threats from Sadam Hussein back in the 90’s. I was terrified. (I wanted to run away because I knew that this mad man was going to drop a bomb directly on Westland, Michigan! Soon I learned the futility of running.) Years later the Iraq War took place. The world superpower defeated this mad man; neither country ever launched any nuclear missile. But has the production of these weapons of mass destruction ever ceased? It has been said that there never were any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq to be dismantled. That is a reassuring thought, except that now our attention is drawn to the arsenal of the new mad men of North Korea. If one seeks further unsettling thoughts, consider the many nations that are “not” ruled by mad men but, in the event that their sanity breaks or their ambition flares, still command even more weapons of mass destruction. Is the world still afraid? Let’s skip such subjective conjecture and ask more informative questions: have we forgotten the destructive power of these weapons? What would our world look like in a future of nuclear armament? Can we explore a world without nuclear potential? I Have We Forgotten? Let us go back again in our history books to the Second World War, further in the past but even more influential to our present world. What with the insurmountable national pride that prevented either the United States or Japan from surrendering, the friendly personified atomic bombs “Little Boy” and “Fat Man” have been credited with ending the war. However, the two explosives did not join a military conference and sign a treatise. Rather, they blasted a nation into outright despair in the face of the world’s most atrocious war crime. I cannot make such a harsh accusation upon my own nation without a rational argument. Here are the numbers: Over 200,000 non combatant civilians from Hiroshima and Nagasaki died from this war crime. “The real mortality of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Japan will never be known,” a physician at UCLA clarifies. Apart from the instant deaths and the burn victims from the explosion, this same study describes “the combined effects [of radiation] were lethal for those out in the open within 1,500 meters of the hypocenter, even for those who were not injured by the trauma.” (Yamazaki) [1]

[2] Genetic disorders plagued the children of that generation: innocent infants brought into a burning life. Nuclear fallout caused the most health damage: an endless wave of torment for years and years more for some, and years more for others. Homes and businesses, schools and churches were crumbled: as if some human decided to unleash a tsunami or an earthquake. The natural environment was wrecked similarly: thousands of more than human lives lost and effected and unconsidered. Many many more forms of destruction so that for me to dare to describe it would be the worst disrespect for a living voice who actually survived that hell. Now, the same weapons that caused this infernal destruction are still allowed within the ranks of our most revered military. How can we allow such an atrocity to still exist? Have we forgotten what happened in Japan? Not only this one event in the past, but also the very many reminders of the evil such as Chernobyl or Fukushima even today still smack our sleepy awareness. Can we still even choose to forget, right now, even as we read this? II What Will Our World Look Like? What will happen if we continue to choose to forget, or rather to be blind to this awful reality: to close our eyes, pull up the blanket, and hope that the monster will go away? This is the more pressing question since even as we read, we grow ever more distant from our past mistakes and lessons and ever closer to the recurring consequences and repetitions of those mistakes that lie in the future. Let us explore what our world will be like if we continue to allow weapons of mass destruction to exist. Bear witness to the number of atomic bombs in our world: 7200 strategic missiles for the United States, 6000 strategic missiles at least for Russia, about 300 strategic missiles for France, and the list goes on. [3] Do the math, and you have some 15,000 strategic missiles. This doesn’t count the non strategic (still nuclear potential) arms which almost doubles that (don’t forget) suspected total. Take the death toll of Nagasaki and Hiroshima and times that number by the number of nuclear arms. Do the math. Is it greater than or less than 7 Billion, the earth’s total population? If this very sad, very sobering mathematics equation does not worry you, remember that the most damage results after the actual explosion. Educators from the Atomic Archives project explain the magnitude very well: If we apply these very rough yardsticks to a large-scale nuclear war in which 10,000 megatons of nuclear force are detonated, the effects on a world population of 5 billion appear enormous. Allowing for uncertainties about the dynamics of a possible nuclear war, radiation-induced cancers and genetic damage together over 30 years are estimated to range from 1.5 to 30 million for the world population as a whole. This would mean one additional case for every 100 to 3,000 people or about 1/2 percent to 15 percent of the estimated peacetime cancer death rate in developed countries. As will be seen, moreover, there could be other, less well understood effects which would drastically increase suffering and death. [4]

What kind of “less understood” effects will rise out of this modest sum? Beyond the human devastation of nuclear fallout explained above, this same study describes all of the various effects a nuclear war would have on the entirety of the planet, including the destruction of the atmosphere’s ozone: [5]

According to the recent National Academy of Sciences study, the nitric oxide produced by the weapons could reduce the ozone levels in the northern hemisphere by as much as 30 to 70 percent… It is possible, however, that a major increase in solar ultraviolet might overwhelm the defenses of many terrestrial life forms. Both direct and indirect damage would then occur among the bacteria, insects, plants, and other links in the ecosystems on which human well-being depends. [6]

With ozone already so scarce, it’s near depletion has will open the planet to another radiation attack from the sun. The organic food supply will be depleted. The animal world will perish: never rationally understanding why this is or who caused it. Cities will be leveled: society shattered. Homes will be consumed: dear loved ones torn apart. Innocent individuals will be incinerated, slowly roasted to death, even more slowly burned from the inside out from radiation: hopes and dreams obliterated at the speed and ease of a flash of light. And all of this death at the push of one launch button. All of this crime is possible by the conscious choice of a few powerful men. All of this atrocity while nations of bystanders watch on, some helplessly, more carelessly, some others in a rage of despondency, screaming and cursing a generation they had warned so many time over. We are all familiar with the many fantastical imaginations of a world post-apocalypse, and we are often thankful for living in a better time. However, the dreaded nuclear holocaust is so much closer to reality than imagination. III Can We Imagine Another Way? Perhaps, we are all less culpable than the crude faces I have drawn above. Perhaps, our citizens truly desire another world than this apocalypse. They just can’t imagine living in another world without the prosperity of nuclear energy. Maybe, they just can’t imagine the human race stemming the flow of relentless technological progress. Whatever our popular dilemma of imagination may be, let us now – and for generations to come – //explore// what a future without nuclear armament could be like. Can we explore a world without nuclear potential? We are not all as apathetic as we sometimes fear. The United States, the very originator or the awful weapon has begun the trend of disarmament. Here is a selection from a U.S. delegate’s speech in Geneva for the Mission of the United States: As far as strategic weapons are concerned, the START Treaty reduced U.S. and Russian deployed strategic warheads from well over 10,000 to 6,000 each by the end of 2001. This year, the U.S. met its Moscow Treaty reduction obligation and now has fewer than 2,200 operationally deployed strategic nuclear warheads. [7]

Hopeful news, indeed! This brings us further from the apocalypse envisioned before and closer to a safer world. While our nation can be rather hypocritical on topics of military power, this is evidence of at least the start disarmament. Imagine, then, if only we could get the rest of the world on board, we could eventually disarm the remaining 18%. Imagine, that as our future leaders ease the fear of their economic competitors launching an attack at the first sign of pacifism, as the shooters of the global showdown all slowly drop their weapons in that characteristic tension of truce— imagine a world where our grandchildren will not have to wish they could run from that fearsome, inevitable, inevasible blast: a world without the despairing realization that no matter how fast you run, you could never escape. This negation is not enough to truly explore. Let us go beyond envisioning the future //without,// to consider the future of what more we could have. The nations of the world will have so much more potential for healthier growth in areas other than military and other killing systems. The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament is working in Britain for a very specific goal of convincing the nation not to replace Trident, their submarine nuclear weapons system bearing the 180 strategic warheads mentioned above. Part of their rhetoric is revealing the excess funding necessary for maintaining such a weapons system: Yesterday's Budget announcement has underlined the skewed priorities of the government. While public services are being dismantled the government refuses to discuss the £100bn+ it is committing to maintaining and replacing Britain's Trident nuclear weapons system. [8]

The most important consideration is the mass of government services that must suffer budget cuts for the sake of this nuclear weapons system. The British government’s decision is still pending: a future of freedom from nuclear power and the consequent public economic prosperity could become a reality for one nation very soon. Imagine such a future for our own nation. After ceasing funding for the weapons systems necessary for as many as 40 times the scale of the British warheads, could we end up living in a generation that will see almost 40 x £100bn (whatever that would be in dollars) in budget availability? What an amazing prosperity would we enjoy if we ceased pouring our tax resource into military technologies! If only the whole world could get on board! As we have seen, one nation has taken partial measures and another nation may probably take full measures. We could explore so many other examples of other nations taking steps towards disarmament. Let us not forget, though, that other nations continue producing nuclear weapons, more like the real trend. The work is far from done. The future of holocaust and the future of peace are at a point of equal probability. To which side will we turn the tide of history?

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EARLY DRAFT

Andrew Mosquera W. Tucker ENGL 408W 3/29/12

Why so many bombs? I
 * //Inmate://** //Listen to me. Listen, I don't wanna leave here, all right? I mean, why would anybody want to? We hear things here about the outside world. About atolls, about H-bomb tests. Do you know how a hydrogen bomb works?//

//**Teddy Daniels:**With hydrogen...with hydrogen!//

//**Inmate:** Huh...that's funny. Other bombs explode, huh! But not the hydrogen bomb. It implodes, creating an explosion of the thousandth, the millionth degree. Do you get it?//

//**Teddy Daniels:** Yes! Yeah!//

//**Inmate:** Do you?//

//-Shutter Island, 2010// The Cold War is a subject in our history books. A time when major world powers, primarily the United States and Russia, launched no artillery on each other more than a barrage of threat. The world was afraid. It is an important topic in modern history courses: the most recent most influential era on today. The world superpowers never launched any nuclear missiles, but the production of these weapons of mass destruction never ceased. Is the world still afraid? I was but a child back when I watched in naivety the news covering the emerging supposed threats from Sadam Hussein back in the 90’s. I was terrified. (I wanted to run away because I knew that this mad man was going to drop a bomb directly on Westland, Michigan! Soon I learned the futility of running.) Years later the Iraq War took place. The world superpower defeated this mad man; neither country ever launched any nuclear missile, but the production of these weapons of mass destruction still hasn’t ceased. In fact, I have heard it said that there never were any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq to be dismantled. I have also heard it said that these weapons were better regarded as “spoils of war.” Is the world still afraid? Except for small terrorism… no? I know that I am still afraid. Please, do not misinterpret my intentional naivety that has survived my aging. I do not intend to speak as an authority on the infinitely complex politics surrounding any of these important historical events. I will leave this to the respected work of our politicians. But readers, politicians and terrorists, suburbanites and madmen all, I just want to ask you this question: why so many bombs? The “so many” part is not quite what I am aiming at either, perhaps less in focus than the political aspects. How prominent a problem is does not somehow enhance its nature of crisis. The number of boils on one’s skin does not somehow make one worry //more// about having contracted the variola virus. The numbers, as staggering and overwhelming as they are, are not what concern me. It is the thing itself, //res per se,// that concerns me. The quality of the thing in question, not the quantity. If you are a numbers person, by all means, discover the sheer mass of mass destructive weapons arranged throughout the world. Simply consult a chart on the website for the Center of Defense Information (cdi.org) [1]. Take a moment to look at these numbers, if you do not follow my concern, if you are a numbers person, or even if you believe that atom bombs are an urban legend of sorts. Take a moment, please if you don’t know or believe. A man before a firing squad is no more in panic before twenty rifles as he is before one rifle. Indeed, a man who goes about his day before a firing squad morning to night, home to work, always with the stare of a rifle before him… this man would be terrified, yes? He would be petrified or ever remorseful. Or perhaps he would become accustomed to the constant threat. Perhaps, having learned of his death sentence, he resolves to forget the inevitable blast and enjoy whatever meager life he has left. Perhaps he would even forget the rifles or even accept them as “just the way it is” like all other tolerated atrocities we live through. Now I wonder: would a nation behave the same way in the face of a weapon to scale, large enough to end a nation’s entire life? Why all of the bombs? Why any bomb? Why do we have an invention such as an atomic bomb? Rather, let me ask something that I hope will not alienate you, dear reader, any more than I have. Let me ask: Could we live in a world without an atomic bomb? Can we explore such a possibility? Now, you may ask me: why all of the concern? Here I would like to return to our epigram, a piece of dialogue from a decent movie. Perhaps not the gist of the movie, perhaps not the best way to begin a letter, yet it shows the depths to which this concern can effect an individual. This dialogue is actually spoken while an escaped inmate from a prison for the criminally insane has tackled and pinned down the investigating officer: a situation of high tension. The inmate suspects the detective of liberating him from the dungeon like ward and makes it very clear that he would rather remain in such confinement than to live in “the outside world,” the world constantly stared down the barrel of the gun. The passing on of this understanding of the destructive terror of an atomic bomb is so crucial that the inmate does not cease to strangle the detective until he acknowledges it thrice. I do not wish to tackle, pin, and strangle my reader. Nor would the threat of a nuclear holocaust compel me to remain in a prison. However, my concern is the same as this man’s. Moreover, I believe that the passing on of the understanding of the destructive terror of an atomic bomb is as crucial as this man believed. We all need to be concerned. Is the world still afraid even after the Cold War? Regardless, it ought to be. Now, you may ask me what about all this concern? What do you want us to do so you can be quiet? Again, I cannot claim to be a politician or a leader or a revolutionary. That is your work, dear readers, to lead and revolt and make policies. I only know that your work will never begin until you inquire as I have. Not only “why?” but also, “Could we explore a world without?” II //[After the storm]// //[|**Warden**]: Did you enjoy God's latest gift?//

//** [|Teddy Daniels] **: What?//

//** [|Warden] **: God's gift. Your violence.//

//[Daniels looks at him blankly]//

//** [|Warden] **: When I came downstairs in my home, and I saw that tree in my living room, it reached out for me... a divine hand. God loves violence.//

//** [|Teddy Daniels] **: I... I hadn't noticed.//

//** [|Warden] **: Sure you have. Why else would there be so much of it? It's in us. It's what we are. We wage war, we burn sacrifices, and pillage and plunder and tear at the flesh of our brothers. And why? Because God gave us violence to wage in his honor.//

//** [|Teddy Daniels] **: I thought God gave us moral order.//

//** [|Warden] **: There's no moral order as pure as this storm. There's no moral order at all. There's just this: can my violence conquer yours?// //-Shutter Island, 2010// Why do we need so many bombs? To maintain peace by threat, one could respond. Consider the Second World War: the United States used the atom bomb as more than a mere threat. Indeed, over 200,000 civilians from Hiroshima and Nagasaki (take another moment to consider the numbers again, if you need to. A physician at UCLA studies this incident in more depth.) [2] Over 200,000 non combatant civilians from these two Japanese cities died from this “threat.” Quite an effective threat if it stopped the war, yes? (Then again, the two bombs didn’t sit down to write a declaration, did they?) Should we not already have figured out a way end conflict besides the massacre of innocents? But this “threat”, the having of the weapon is rather the answer to the “how”. This is just how we do business. But I wish to know the “why”. Are we fond of killing each other? Indeed, the //homo sapiens// with all its reason is the only living being that engages in mass killings of its own species. Not only to we kill each other but we also enslave each other and make everyone’s life miserable. The American Civil War (just as an example of the endless history of other civil wars) resulted in the deaths of 620,000 [3] citizens from both sides of one nation. And why? So that the South could keep their own African slaves and make money and so the North could dominate economically and make wage slaves of every future generation of industrial America. We kill each other in order to keep killing each other. We love technology, especially our generation. We love inventing new things without thinking about what their consequences may be. Looking at the atomic bomb, one could reasonably suggest that it is about as far ahead in technology as we ought to go. Perhaps its massive power is a bit too much technology for our own good. Yet, some one before the a-bomb thought that its predecessor was not enough. Each generation finds that its rocks and swords and guns just don’t kill as effectively or as much as a nation needs them to. Moreover, there is much affection for warfare technologies. So many gun collections, war history aficionados, shoot-em-up video games, competitive economies, glamorized action heroes… Consider this casual regard for the beauties of weapon technology from civilwarartilery.com: //During the American Civil War more varieties of artillery projectiles and cannon were used than in any other time in military history. The outbreak of hostilities in 1861, found inventors on both sides searching for the perfect blend of sabot, body, and fuse to create the artillery projectile that would give the military advantage to their respective cannoneers. This seemingly unending search for that elusive, perfect projectile continued even after the end of the Civil War.// //-// Jack W. Melton, Jr. [4]

How many of us human beings regard weapons of destruction with words such as “perfect”, traditionally attributed to the Divine. Could this “endless search” for something that can kill more people than the last have anything to do with a mindset (no matter how pervasive) that can view destructive power with the same lust as one would a sports car or a beautiful woman? Or perhaps we are like the inventor, Mr. Guillotine who had all of the best intentions when he invented a device that can execute an individual with more efficiency and therefore more mercy. Merciful or just, painful or quick, the killings must go on, right? Please, take my naïve groupings for what they are. I accuse everyone but I accuse no one. There is no doubt a mentality that we unconsciously leave unchecked or even foster. There is, however, something animal in us, perhaps even natural. There is, undeniably, something in us like the God of Violence mentioned in the cinematic epigram above. Now, you may object to my blanket statements, grouping you, dear readers, and me, a madman, and everyone else into this pronoun “we”. I write this intentionally because a wise man once said, “It is the duty of members of the oppressive class to distinguish themselves from the oppressors. Not the duty of the oppressed.” (Derrick Jensen) //We// as human beings have an inherited history of murdering each other, so it is all of //our// responsibility to not only actively distinguish ourselves apart from that violence but also to fix the inherited mess before we pass it on to our children to fix. This is a dare, dear reader! Right now, I have grouped you into the mass of murderers. What will you do to distinguish yourself?

III //‘…There is no way the party can be overthrown. The rule of the party is for ever. Make that the starting point of your thoughts.’// //He came closer to the bed. ‘Forever!’ He repeated. ‘And now let us get back to the question of “how” and “why”. You understand well enough how the party maintains itself in power. Now tell me why we cling to power. What is our motive? Why should we want power? Go on, speak,’ he added as Winston remained silent.// //…// //‘Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake.//

//-1984// So if it’s not us, then who is it? Who is the murderer? We all know how “we” keep the peace, and keep the power, and threaten the bad, and murder the masses. We all know how //we// continue to amass weapons of mass destructions. But if you, dear readers, have taken the dare and distinguished yourself from the oppressive class and sworn yourselves against mass murder, if you have done this then you can join me in declaring that //we// are not they. It is not we who are holding the rifles at our own faces; it is //they// who have arranged this life long death sentence, this worldwide firing line. We are not murderers of ourselves. (I refuse to admit anyone into this “we” who has not taken the dare to distinguish!) It is the people in power who are arming nuclear warheads. It is the people in power who decide to bomb a city. It is the people in power who decide when and where an army will march to its death. It is the //party,// so to speak, in every nation in every time, which maintains power for its own sake. It is the //party// that assembles weapons of mass destruction for no good reason other than to hold onto power. It is the party, which, if we do not keep it in check, will lead us into the dystopia prophesied by Orwell. Who specifically are the “powers that be”… let’s face it, The United States as the world superpower, as the first user of the atomic bomb, and as the brazenly self-righteous dismantler of foreign weapons of mass destruction has constructed this world of international threat. I am no politician: I shall not debate which policies and which policy makers are responsible or need to stay or need to go. This is your job, political reader. I am no revolutionary: I do not intend to rant about the evils of the current generation of leaders only so that I may recycle the same atrocities under a new name. Let us not just change the players of the same game as we always do. Let us change this game of international threat. The people of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons [5] and all of their predecessors have understood the necessity for keeping technology and thereby power (the party) in check. Why have we stopped with the terrible atrocities of the First World War? Why also did not anyone let the crazy Americans stop inventing new explosives after seeing what a cannon blast could do to a line of soldiers? Of course this consideration could take us to the beginning of time! I do not wish to preach anti-guns. However, the atrocity of an atomic bomb is something relevant to our time. It is one mistake, one 200,000 life worth mistake that we could avoid making again. Let us stop this game of international threat. I do not think that the party is forever. I do not think that the children of the party in Orwell’s //1984// will live the same life of cruelty just by inheritance. I do not believe that God is violence. But again, I will never know for sure unless you, dear readers, distinguish yourselves. We study the holocaust as an isolated event in the past. It is good to know our past mistakes, but I tell you that know about the Nazi holocaust is worth nothing if you do not take measures to prevent the holocaust of your own generation, for there have been thousands of holocausts, another nation, another death toll, forgotten in history. In our case it would not just be a few races of people exterminated, but the entire species, the entirety of life even. Most importantly, dear readers, please do not leave this paper believing that preventing the atrocities I have focused on here are the single, most important and only objective of our generation. If starting an anti-bombs movement is the only thing you do, I would be a great success. But if starting an anti-bombs movement is the only thing you do, //you,// dear readers, would be a great failure. The fear of a nuclear holocaust is not the only massacre we must stop. This is only one way in which our world has become a living hell.

Works Cited Orwell, George. //1984.// London: Everyman’s Library, 1992. //Shutter// //Island////.// Screenplay by Laeta Kalogridis. Dir. Martin Scorsese. Perf. Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley. Paramount Pictures. 2010. DVD.

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