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Jon Olsen's avatar

My contribution:

Remembering Nagasaki

by Jon Olsen, Nagasaki Day, 2014

Our faith in government, once based on trust

Has now irrevocably turned to rust.

Oh yes, there are a few whose loyalty to us true.

But countless others felt the need

To attach themselves to corporate greed.

You think the president calls the shots?

Then it’s you who don’t connect the dots.

The corporate elite, that one percent

Have directed all the laws to be bent

In their favor, against us all,

Who, in their view, should be made to crawl.

Some kids, they now say, are now illegal

And must be chased by a trained beagle.

Yet all of us are really human

Except perhaps for Harry Truman

Who authorized those awful bombs

To fall on old folks, kids, and moms

Who had nothing at all to do with war

Yet paid the price to even the score.

Today as well, his kind survive

To make pesticides that kill the hives

Of our friends the friendly bees

And devastate majestic trees.

I could go on with this tirade

Concerning all the crimes they made:

The false flag events that place the blame

On others, that they wrongly claim

So many times to promote their wars.

Instead, they could have opened doors

To honor, truth, justice, and peace

And from misery deliver true release.

So now it is our turn to find a way

To liberate ourselves and make them pay

For all the devastation they have done.

Shall we count them all, one by one

Shattered economy, wars, and bankrupt folk,

To them it seems some kind of joke.

So now what is it that we must do

To free ourselves from their sticky glue

That binds us to their exploitation

Of us and Nature’s great creation?

I have some answers and so do you.

Together we can see this through,

Taking inspiration from words so true.

Legitimate government for me and you

Is consent of us, the governed,

Whether red, green, white, or blue

Any trust we once had

And to say it is so very sad,

Has all been vaporized like those

Whose lives were taken far away

On that unspeakable and horrid day.

Like the Founding Fathers of before,

It is our turn to discover the core

Of a new way, so precious and bold,

And reject this system cruel and cold

Clif Brown's avatar

It seems that "conventional" weapons have reached the equivalent of nuclear weapons if enough are used. I have seen several cases, including Gaza, where it is mentioned that the megatonnage used is "equal to all that was used in Europe in WW2" or similar and in every case the area upon which the weapons are used gets ever smaller.

It is outrageous that the restrictions on speech on campus in the US often include prohibiting making a comparison of what Israel is doing to what the Nazis did. It is astounding that making students feel uncomfortable is considered a greater wrong than silencing the far greater number of students who wish to speak out against what Israel is doing, and that these prohibitions can be so easily put through in school after school by a government that should be defending freedom of speech! We have to break America free of the grip of Zionism and that amounts to breaking the grip of the 1% over the 99%.

Jon Olsen's avatar

The parallel is obvious to anyone paying attention. Look what Hitler did to the previously respected civilization of Germany. Netanyahu is doing the same for Israel. Pariah regimes!

Lisa Savage's avatar

Conventional weapon tonnage used on Gaza does indeed exceed that of the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima or Nagasaki. However, the subsequent deaths due to radiation poisoning were significantly different. My friend Bruce Gagnon shared eyewitness reporting on that yesterday in his substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/brucegagnon177089/p/remembering-hiroshima-the-first-international

Peace Dog's avatar

Great work! Thank you, shared the webinar here: https://bsky.app/profile/scottoates.bsky.social/post/3lvqdjaqfp226 Peace, Gratitude, and Goodwill, Scott

J Palmer's avatar

Me too I wish. I wish.

But Sadly I think the US loves war, death and destruction too much. Too profitable. Lindsay Graham is a symbol of that to ever support a lasting peace..