‘OPPENHEIMER’ AND WITCH HUNTS
Upon leaving the theater after experiencing the movie Oppenheimer, I thought of two “standout” individuals from World War II who shortened the war: Alan Turing, who invented the first computer while deciphering the Nazi code, and Robert Oppenheimer, who coordinated the “Manhattan Project.”
They were both heroes who, after the war, had their lives destroyed by uptight conservative blowback. It became a national sickness of obsession, with the illusion that there was a communist under everyone’s bed.
For being gay, Turing eventually committed suicide after the British government chemically castrated him.
For having the wrong friends before and during World War II (including communists and other “undesirables”), Oppenheimer lost his federal government security clearance, after the fact. That serious demotion came during the McCarthy era witch hunt lunacy of the early 1950s. It was a time of unbounded madness, in which Oppenheimer was even grilled over his support of anti-fascists fighting in Spain (the Lincoln Brigade).
If similar McCarthy-like witch hunts had occurred during the Vietnam era, at least half of us who served in the military would have been jailed or worse for what we believed, and who we associated with (“dirty hippies,” etc.). The truth was, our military couldn’t have done that or they would have found it impossible to have enough soldiers and sailors to conduct an insane war.
The parallels between the witch hunts 70-plus years ago and today’s witch hunts in Congress, conducted by “Gym” Jordan and others, is striking and frightening.
It makes the Oppenheimer movie a must-see.
— Pete Simon / Arvada
THE MATH OF GLOBAL BURNING
We are victims of a conspiracy between the government, corporate media and the oil and gas industry. Actually, they are all the same single entity. Oil and gas buys the government, government tells the media what to say and do, and the media advertises the oil and gas, and does PR for the government.
Fifty years ago, after the first Earth Day Celebration, gas in the U.S. cost $.39 a gallon. In Europe, gas was sold by the liter, and it came to about $4 a gallon. In America the policy was to keep the price low and the consumption high. In Europe, the policy was to keep the price high and the consumption low.
During those 50 years, the global population doubled. And now a gallon of gas costs $4 in the USA.
That’s the simple math of global burning.
— Seemanta / Boulder
