-ogle News search using the term “nuclear drill” only Kazakhstan never closed down.19 I agree with this
turned out a few thousand results, but the search term assessment as well and personally believe the media have
“Malaysia Airlines shot down Ukraine” returns several an obligation to help revive the antinuclear movement and
million results. Although many online news reports do that they should place an equal amount of emphasis on the
discuss the nuclear connection between the current risks associated with the continued threat of nuclear war
Ukraine conflict, very few provide any significant and nuclear accidents in every country they have a
background or detail to provide viewers with a realistic presence in. It is the information and knowledge the media
picture of the threat the world faces from nuclear related bring to the world’s citizens that can lead to the type of
conflicts. This is dangerous.
large scale social and political actions which bring about
No, we shouldn’t all panic and hide under our reductions in nuclear inventories, better verification
desks every ten minutes, but the general public does need methods, more transparency, citizen oversight, and
to be aware of the reality of the dangers we face from stronger implementation methods of laws and treaties. It is
nuclear accidents and war. If the people are not informed in the interest of the media to help do this, not only for
than they will not have the information needed to take the moral reasons, but also because the media industry is
appropriate action in order to help reduce the risk level made up of real human beings who have real families and
they face over conflicts like the one in Ukraine. It is my friends who need cared for and who deserve the same
belief, along with many others, that it was because of the basic right to live without fear of their own annihilation
lack of attention paid to the nuclear industry by the media through nuclear war as do the rest of humanity, to include
and antinuclear organizations after the end of the Cold War the CEOs and board of directors of the largest of these
that the nuclear industry became so powerful and such a media companies.20 But perhaps this is the problem problem for the world that it is today. By the early 1980s people just aren’t thinking about humanity, but rather just
the world peace and anti-nuclear movements were already their own personal survival and the future of their wealth,
on the decline, and the large anti-nuclear organizations that which of course brings us to the Ukraine oligarch issue.
thrived specifically because of the nuclear threat humanity
It’s clear that we love our billionaires and oligarchs
faced during the Cold War became but splinter groups, - in Ukraine, Russia, and yes, the United States as well.
many of which would disintegrate completely by the time The one per center billionaire club seems to be so popular
the U.S.-Soviet conflict had come to an end. Although that we can’t help but to keep putting them in power. Viktor
there has been some rekindling of interest in nuclear Yanukovych, Ukraine’s former president who was ousted
pacifism among global peace groups following the U.S. by popular protest earlier this year, was himself a bit of an
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there were virtually no oligarch, due much in part to his ability to swindle state
protests in the United States, Russia, or elsewhere
funds.21 Allegations of Yanukovych’s corruption include a
regarding the recent nuclear drills and even fewer reports in
personal takeover of the state owned Mezhyhiriya, a 340
the media of how activists were pressuring leaders to put
acre piece of land near the Dnieper river formerly used as a
an end to the juvenile-like nuclear tit-for-tat games that
dacha for leaders of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist
continue to put the world’s population in peril. According to
22
nuclear pacifists and scholars of the anti-nuclear Republic. More than $9 million was spent on fittings and
23
movement James Downtown and Paul Wehr, “Where they additions to Yanukovych’s Mezhyhiriya residence alone.
exist together, opportunity and hope can help to keep Despite Ukrainians disapproval of Yanukovych’s corruption,
activists involved over the long term. But threat, such as they had no problem electing Petro Poroshenko as
that of nuclear war, can also be a crucial determinant of Yanukovych’s replacement, an oligarch listed as the
24
activist commitment.”18 This is but one good reason why “seventh richest man in Ukraine today.”
the media should better report the nuclear threats we
actually face in the world today.
Petro Poroshenko,
I agree with Downtown and Wehr completely and
Ukraine’s 7th
believe that the mainstream media, nuclear power
richest person, has
company owned or not, has an obligation to make the
fought to secure a
public aware of the real threats we face from nuclear wars
financial deal with
and accidents, and that the media should be using their
the EU which set
events into motion
efforts to not just inform us of these nuclear events, but to
that could’ve
also encourage the public to pressure their leaders to take
started a nuclear
the type of actions that will prevent and reduce the risks
war.
associated with these threats. According to Lawrence
Wittner, professor of history and scholar of the the antiPhoto Credit:
nuclear movement, if it wasn’t for the global protests
W i k i m e d i a
against nuclear weapons testing in the 1960s and 70s, the
Commons
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty may have never been
signed and the Semipalatinsk nuclear test
site in
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