Tag Archives: nuclear war

Good madman, bad madman

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I once met a very nice madman, at a monastery in Ireland. I was 21 and living on my uncle’s farm. I needed a break, so I left for a week-long retreat at a Trappist monastery in County Tipperary.

There, I met Jerry, also on retreat. Jerry was an intense but harmless madman. His madness stemmed from a believe that he’d been ordained by God to bring peace to Northern Ireland.

Fair enough. A noble goal. Harmless enough — even after Jerry’s behavior turned bizarre.

Quite bizarre, actually. One evening, we went to a nearby pub. In walked a man wearing a trench coat, handing out copies of the IRA newspaper. Jerry lost it, yelled at the man, called him an infidel, and dragged him to the door intending to throw him out.

The attempt failed. Instead, Jerry and I were grabbed, picked up, and tossed out of the pub. That was how I discovered both flight and the unforgiving firmness of pavement.

Next morning, Jerry amped up his madness. He interrupted the monks’ prayer by donning a robe and prostrating himself at the altar. That convinced the Abbot to ask Jerry if he’d voluntarily commit himself to a psyche ward in Dublin. Jerry agreed, and I was commissioned to escort him there.

That’s the abridged story of my friend, Jerry. A madman, yes. But a benign, well-intentioned madman.

Alas, not all madmen are warm and fuzzy. Given enough power, a madman can be incredibly dangerous — existentially dangerous, as history has shown too many times.

I won’t recount the Who’s Who of history’s most deadly madmen, because you know where this is going.

Donald Trump. If he wasn’t a madman during his first term, he is clearly now off the rails. Continue Reading →

How I made the nightmares stop

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I want to focus on a topic not covered in this week’s program: the 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Every year since the late 1970s, a coalition of Iowa peace groups has commemorated the bombings with song, speeches, and ringing the Japanese Bell of Peace and Friendship at the Iowa State Capitol.

That bronze bell weighs 2,000 pounds and was gifted to Iowa in 1962 by our sister state, Yamanashi Prefecture, in response to Iowans providing humanitarian aid following two devastating typhoons.

Every year, the commemoration reminds us of the horror of nuclear war. That horror has haunted me for over sixty years. In 2018, I wrote about it in my memoir, Marcher, Walker, Pilgrim:

War terrified me from an early age. I first learned about Vietnam when I was six. I’d lie in bed paralyzed by fear at the roar of jet engines being tested at General Electric two miles away. I thought the Vietnamese were coming to kill us.

Mom tried to reassure me that there was nothing to worry about. The noise came from the factory where she and my dad used to work, where they’d met in fact. It was a good place, nothing to be scared of.

She made no mention of the napalm being dropped that night on sleeping Vietnamese children by planes powered by those very engines. Like most Americans in the early 1960s, Mom dutifully swallowed the anti-communist propaganda, ignoring the occasional images of truth and horror that slipped through the pro-war ideologues’ shield of deceit.

For many years, I had nuclear nightmares. In one recurring dream, I would stand in a city devastated by a nuclear attack, handing out water and food to scarred and burned victims.

The nightmares ended when I became a peace activist, at first in Ireland in 1984, then with deeper commitment in Iowa in 1985. By 1986, I was full-time engaged with peace work — coordinating the Iowa stretch of the Great Peace March and later founding Des Moines Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Continue Reading →

Sailing for a nuclear free world

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On this week’s program, Helen Jaccard of Veterans for Peace joins Charles and me to discuss a bold initiative elevating the urgency of nuclear disarmament.

I got my start working for a better world in 1984 out of deep concern over the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

The danger of nuclear war remains very real, yet it doesn’t register as a high priority for most people, publications, and politicians. That’s changed a bit recently, as Russia’s war against Ukraine continues to elevate the profile and risk of a nuclear confrontation.

Enter the Golden Rule — a powerful call-to-action organized by Veterans for Peace. The ship is currently sailing down the Mississippi River, with plans to continue an extensive voyage running through the end of 2023. Continue Reading →

The Nuclear Threat

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I really hate talking about this, and I imagine you do, too. But let’s be adults. Humanity has a nuclear weapons problem that could wipe out everything — yes, everything! Americans were more woke (yeah, I said woke) about the nuclear threat back in the 1980s.

Real change was accomplished at that time, including a ban on nuclear testing, in large part because of the huge global, grassroots movement to end the nuclear arms race.

It was fear of nuclear war that compelled me to become politically active in 1984. I was farming my family’s ancestral land in Ireland that year. In between planting potatoes and making hay, I participated in protests organized by Irish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament against then-president Ronald Reagan’s unsuccessful proposal to station nuclear missiles in Ireland. Continue Reading →