propaganda and a way to influence your emotions and behavior

U.S. Rethinks Strategy for the Unthinkable
By WILLIAM J. BROAD

The Obama administration wants to convey how to react to a nuclear attack but is worried about seeming alarmist.

Reactions:

Laughingdragon
California

Funny story...I was working at Sandia National Labs in Livermore, CA 1993-1996 as a technical information specialist/librarian and then acting librarian. And this is no secret...
One day, one of the secretaries came in to talk to me. And she said that she had boarded a plane, traveling as a private individual. And that, as the aircraft was ready to take off, someone came onto the plane and made a production of finding her and ordered her to deplane, while holding the plane and all the passengers. And that no one explained or said anything to her about it but they took her into the terminal and held onto her for awhile. Eventually they let her board the plane again and they let the plane and all it's passenger's take off. No one said anything to her and no one gave her an explanation. She was still slightly shook-up when she told me this and she asked me what I thought of it. Now I'd been a low level analyst in the military and I had known people on spoofing teams, the kind that test security on military bases so I told her then..."I don't know why but they were testing something. They chose you because you work here, at the lab, and if you wanted to make a fuss they could influence you not to. But I have no idea why." And that's where it lay. Until I saw what happened post 9/11.
My opinion, now, is that there were "civil defense" research projects going then to see just how docile people were. And what kind of reactions could be expected if the government wanted to order them around. And I don't like this nonsense about nuclear shelters and such, as protection from nuclear attack.
Because, you can bet your bottom dollar that if nuclear attack ever comes...you will be out there, unprotected and without refuge. Just as the people in New Orleans were under Hurricane Katrina.
Everything else is just propaganda and a way to influence your emotions and behavior.


pm
brooklyn

The Bush 9/11 tactics, TSA, and now this... I'm more angry than I could ever be afraid.


Community Gardens
Plum Tree

This sounds bad... Is this how he plans to stay in power? Perhaps the creation of a situation like this?



Maria
NY

I was a young elementary school girl and lived through those days. Marched out into the hall to stand in perfect silence, away from doors and windows. It created a backdrop of anxiety that it was possible we could be blown away at any time.


matt
long island

How interesting that this story coincides with Israel's announcement that its missile defenses will not protect civilian targets, only military ones. we are indeed cannon fodder.

Here is UPI story (copyright, I'm sure)

Israel general drops missile defense bombshell

by Staff Writers
Tel Aviv, Israel (UPI) Dec 14, 2010
Maj. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, commander of Israel's northern front, has dropped a bombshell by disclosing that the anti-missile systems the defense industry has developed are intended to protect the country's military installations, not its cities and civilian population.

"The residents of Israel shouldn't be under the illusion that someone will open an umbrella over the heads" in the event of a massive missile and rocket
attack by Israel's enemies, he declared in a speech Sunday at the University of Haifa.

"The systems are designed to protect military bases, even if this means that citizens suffer discomfort during the days of battle."



ShowMe
Missouri

The last straw!!! The lies that have been promulgated by many in government and the media make me believe that a little nuclear attack may be the strategy for the unthinkable, when free citizens of the USA are finally sheep-herded into complete control by the plutocracy.


chris leide
upstate NY

Other explosion results: Lots of good comments about the cold war, bomb shelters, and the need to recognize shelter should you see a blast in the distance. No one seems to be talking about other results nuclear explosions.
Many think that the next war involving nuclear weapons will not be ground attacks that devastate cities and parts of countries, but will be a few strategic atmospheric blasts sending electro-magnetic pulses (EMP's) that will disable computers and electronic systems, either in a smaller scale as explosions over the US or the Russia or China, or that may disable systems globally.
EMP's disable electronic devices. With computers and all things controlled by microprocessors, our known world may end. No micro waves ovens, no cars controlled by computers. No TV's, no sewer processing plants, no DVD players. No iPods, no government action. NO CELL PHONES!!!! The end might not come from radiation poisoning, or direct destruction from the actual explosions, but from our reliance on computers and micro processor that will be disabled by the EMP's.
Cities will go black, ships will founder at sea, and planes will fall from the sky.
It will be cold and dark in the hell that we created. Death will come slowly to many of us accustomed to modern conveniences.
Sorry for the gloomy future cast. Just analyzing well-known options that few seem to want to discuss.