April 11, 2024 (EIRNS)—"How is it that the most clear and present danger to humankind—a danger even more immediate than climate change and more devastating by magnitudes than mass migration, inflation, crime, or terrorism—is so completely out of sight and mind for the vast majority of Americans?”
That is the crucial question raised by the Editorial Board of the Boston Globe in an April 9 editorial, “Why We Need To Start Worrying about the Bomb.” The Globe, which calls itself the leading newspaper in New England, warns Americans that they had better wake up and get active to ensure that the U.S. government, Congress, and presidential candidates recognize the overwhelming danger of nuclear war and stop raising “the temperature on global tensions.”
“The horror of a nuclear attack would be unimaginable. The impact would last generations. And all of it is eminently feasible with only a fraction of the weapons that already exist in the world,” the editors warn. Yet when Gallup and Pew polling agencies asked Americans this year what their biggest concern was, nobody mentioned nuclear war. Nor did President Biden mention it in his State of the Union speech.
The American people must sound the alarm, “demanding attention to the threat of nuclear war with the same vigor it demands, rightfully, action on climate change. That kind of mass movement four decades ago probably helped push the consummate cold warrior, Ronald Reagan, to negotiate major arms control agreements with the Soviet Union. It isn’t crazy to think the same could happen again with a President Biden—or even Trump.
