Would you work in a munitions factory?

[Ned]

Weapons have a life of their own. They find ways to be used.

Oppenheimer and his team found it out to their horror.

[Hjarloprillar]

When it’s all over
with nothing accomplished,
our leaders will make
noble speeches
while wreaths will be hung
over crosses in neat rows
in white forests,
flags draped over caskets,
and the heroic wool
over stupid, stupid, gullible minds,
lamenting the fate
of the glorious dead.


You wrote this?
As a mil[itary] historian.
i bow in respect.
The japanese are so misrepresented. All they do is deeply embedded in culture. Face is turned to action in depth of bow and eye contact.
A worthy opponent, is a declaration of war
the code bushido is alien to us and their poetry oft elusive.

-------- i was fault finder in pacemaker factory. technicals and logic. my realm

to go all hollywood. the last samurai had the last word for the west to think on.
"they are all perfect"

[phyllo]

I should be said that a strong case can be made for using weapons in an offensive manner... to free 'oppressed' people, for example.
What do we mean by 'oppressed'?

[phyllo]

to go all hollywood. the last samurai had the last word for the west to think on.
"they are all perfect"

Who are 'they'? The Japanese samurai?

[Ned]

You wrote this?

Unless I give credit, all poems I post are mine. I am pleased that you liked it.

This one I wrote after watching an episode of M*A*S*H -- it should be compulsory viewing for everyone.

[Hjarloprillar]

Weapons have a life of their own. They find ways to be used.

Oppenheimer and his team found it out to their horror.

[i have become death, destroyer of worlds]

When Bainbridge commented. "now we are all sons of bitches"
the supposedly neutral class scientist now owned a part of history, soon to be demostrated at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.Why i still have hope is that near 70 years
on no nuke has been used on a city.
I studied nukes for a decade. they are weapons we dont want to use . maybe even the dirtbag politicians knew that death is not in their best interests.

[phyllo]

Weapons have a life of their own. They find ways to be used.

Oppenheimer and his team found it out to their horror.

Dropping the bomb ended the war. Was it better to fight with conventional weapons for months or years? Was it better not to build the bomb and possible lose the war?

What goals do you have? What do you want to achieve? Are your goals moral?

[Ned]

Quote from my book (soon to be published): "Humane Physics"

"Robert Oppenheimer expressed his fears more forcefully on his last day as director of the Manhattan Project:

“If atomic bombs are to be added as new weapons to the arsenals of a warring world, or to the arsenals of nations preparing for war, then the time will come when mankind will curse the name of Los Alamos and Hiroshima. The people of the world must unite, or they will perish. This war, that has ravaged so much of the earth, has written these words. The atomic bomb has spelled them out for all men to understand.” (Richard Rodes: “The Making of the Atomic Bomb” pg 758)

Some of the scientists disagreed. Edward Teller (who later lead the effort to develop the hydrogen bomb) wrote:

“The reason they gave just made me mad…The important thing in any science is to do the things that can be done. Scientists naturally have a right and a duty to have opinions. But their science gives them no special insight into public affairs. There is a time for scientists and movie stars …to restrain their opinions lest they be taken more seriously than they should be.” (Richard Rodes: “The Making of the Atomic Bomb” pg 770)

This opinion was expressed, much more forcefully, by Nikita Khrushchev to Andrei Sakharov (father of the Russian hydrogen bomb, who later became a prominent dissident) when Sakharov suggested suspension of further tests:

“Sakharov writes that we don’t need tests…He’s moved beyond science into politics. Here he’s poking his nose where it doesn’t belong. You can be good scientist without understanding a thing about politics…Leave politics to us – we are the specialists. You make your bombs and test them, and we won’t interfere with you; we’ll help you. … Sakharov, don’t try to tell us what to do or how to behave. We understand politics. I’d be a jellyfish and not the Chairman of the Council of Ministers if I listened to people like Sakharov” (Andrei Sakharov: “Memoirs” page 216)

Translation: "give us the weapons we want and shut up about what to do with them". What the naïve scientists did not realize was the unfortunate fact that they were talking to madmen intent on exploiting the terror they had created and maximize the profit they could make from this terror.

[Hjarloprillar]

You wrote this?

Unless I give credit, all poems I post are mine. I am pleased that you liked it.

This one I wrote after watching an episode of M*A*S*H -- it should be compulsory viewing for everyone.

You are very good poet. though my range is yeats/arnold and several others.. all cloudwatchers.
"the center does not hold."

Agree. I i molded my wit around Hawkeye in youth. I was a 50's child.And my pragmatism on Potter.
I also watched ever original epp of star trek, beverly hilbillies and lost in space. My Da was WELL off. i had color tv in my bedroom a month after it came out.
MASH [Mobile Army Surgical Hospital] was later.
Impressed by Kirk and even at that age amazed a negro woman on bridge. And sulu a precursor to times they are a changing.

Mash and star trek. a huge subliminal kick in butt for thinking well

[phyllo]

Should the Soviets have developed (or stolen the plans for) nuclear weapons?

If they do not have nuclear weapons then they are potentially dominated by American politicians (madmen?) who are following their own agenda.

[Hjarloprillar]

gimmee 5 , i need to roll some smokes and

Quote obe wan Mcgregor in the 'island'
"hes taking a dump? wheres he taking it .. in the can

this is what steve buscimi does, his art is sublime. He WAS the psycho greene in con air.

[Ned]

Seems like impasse.

Suggest we wait and see if anyone else wants to answer the question in the OP and explain the reasons for the choice.

[phyllo]

How did you arrive at the figure of double the salary to equalize the three cases? Why not ten times the salary?

[Ned]

You are very good poet. though my range is yeats/arnold and several others.. all cloudwatchers.

Thank you, Prill.

While I admire the classics, I am most moved by contemporary poets, like Margaret Atwood and Polish Nobel Laureate Wislawa Szymborska.

Here is one of my favourites:

The End and the Beginning - By Wislawa Szymborska

After every war
someone has to tidy up.
Things won't pick
themselves up, after all.

Someone has to shove
the rubble to the roadsides
so the carts loaded with corpses
can get by.

Someone has to trudge
through the sludge and ashes,
through sofa springs
the shards of glass,
the bloody rags.

Someone has to lug the post
to prop the wall,
someone has to glaze the window,
set the door in its frame.

No sound bites, no photo opportunities,
and it takes years.
All the cameras have gone
to other wars.

The bridges need to be rebuilt,
the railroad stations, too.
Shirtsleeves will be rolled
to shreds.

Someone, broom in hand,
still remembers how it was.
Someone else listens, nodding
his unshattered head.
But others are bound to be bustling nearby
who'll find all that
a little boring.

From time to time someone still must
dig up a rusted argument
from underneath a bush
and haul it off to the dump.

Those who knew
what this was all about
must make way for those
who know little.
And less than that.
And at last nothing less than nothing.

Someone has to lie there
in the grass that covers up
the causes and effects
with a cornstalk in his teeth,
gawking at clouds.

[Hjarloprillar]

Quote from my book (soon to be published): "Humane Physics"

"Robert Oppenheimer expressed his fears more forcefully on his last day as director of the Manhattan Project:

“If atomic bombs are to be added as new weapons to the arsenals of a warring world, or to the arsenals of nations preparing for war, then the time will come when mankind will curse the name of Los Alamos and Hiroshima. The people of the world must unite, or they will perish. This war, that has ravaged so much of the earth, has written these words. The atomic bomb has spelled them out for all men to understand.” (Richard Rodes: “The Making of the Atomic Bomb” pg 758)

Some of the scientists disagreed. Edward Teller (who later lead the effort to develop the hydrogen bomb) wrote:

“The reason they gave just made me mad…The important thing in any science is to do the things that can be done. Scientists naturally have a right and a duty to have opinions. But their science gives them no special insight into public affairs. There is a time for scientists and movie stars …to restrain their opinions lest they be taken more seriously than they should be.” (Richard Rodes: “The Making of the Atomic Bomb” pg 770)

This opinion was expressed, much more forcefully, by Nikita Khrushchev to Andrei Sakharov (father of the Russian hydrogen bomb, who later became a prominent dissident) when Sakharov suggested suspension of further tests:

“Sakharov writes that we don’t need tests…He’s moved beyond science into politics. Here he’s poking his nose where it doesn’t belong. You can be good scientist without understanding a thing about politics…Leave politics to us – we are the specialists. You make your bombs and test them, and we won’t interfere with you; we’ll help you. … Sakharov, don’t try to tell us what to do or how to behave. We understand politics. I’d be a jellyfish and not the Chairman of the Council of Ministers if I listened to people like Sakharov” (Andrei Sakharov: “Memoirs” page 216)

Translation: "give us the weapons we want and shut up about what to do with them". What the naïve scientists did not realize was the unfortunate fact that they were talking to madmen intent on exploiting the terror they had created and maximize the profit they could make from this terror.

I gladly would pay well for a signed copy of Humane Physics.
I read a lot.. and collect authors. And a poet no less. how could i ask for more?
double that with authors who explore nuclear weapons and science ethic in general.
I actually classify
Oppenhiemers quote of bagvada ghita as 'the new age' of reason. sad as the age is driven by profit . not knowledge. i usually post youtube in comedic way.. here, like jfk and his speaches its from belief.

http://youtu.be/ZuRvBoLu4t0

he looks terribly distressed in camera. i cannot imagine the pain the guilt . Tho he is not guilty.
All of us could use a bit of humbleness before the awesome of this reality. this bubble of a 40m l'yrs. and its designer.
[thats about as religious as i get]