by Andrew Lichterman

Publication note:

I have a piece titled “Nuclear Disarmament, Civil Society, and Democracy” in Disarmament Forum, 2010 No.4, full text available at

www.unidir.org/pdf/articles/pdf-art3022.pdf

A short excerpt:

Twenty-five years ago there were vigorous and diverse disarmament movements in the United States and elsewhere. In the United States today, those movements are largely gone. What remains is the “arms control and disarmament community,” an insular subculture of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that focuses most of its resources on policy debates and proposals in national capitals and international negotiating forums. These groups mainly deploy the standard repertory of interest group political pressure techniques, with expert policy analysis and top-down publicity and public opinion mobilization used to muster support for proposals initiated by segments of governing elites that can be portrayed as moving toward disarmament.

The disappearance of the movements and the gradual transformation of most of the institutions left behind into professionalized single-issue pressure groups, I believe, are less the result of choices by the particular people and organizations than manifestations of deeper trends affecting not only disarmament work but other efforts for a more fair, democratic and ecologically sustainable way of life. These broader transformations have left us with less voice in the decisions that affect all of our lives than we had two or three decades ago. If we want to have an effect on something as central to the order of things as the ultimate weapons in a system underwritten by overwhelming violence, we must at the same time address the fragile state of what little democracy we have.

Jackie Cabasso

Late the other evening, while semi-watching the Olympics on TV, I was mulling over a problem I’ve been struggling with when talking to the media. Our language doesn’t seem up to the task of describing the darkly wacky political world of 2006. In these over-the-top times, some new terminology is called for. A few examples for which the words I know fail me:

• The week’s dominant news story: Vice-President Cheney’s accidental shooting of a Texas GOP bigwig who suffered a heart attack as a result of migrating bird shot. Barely noticed: new photos showing Iraqi prisoners abused by U.S. guards at Abu Ghraib. Not mentioned: the 30,000 or so people who die each year from gun violence in the United States.
• The cartoon wars that have erupted halfway around the world, and show no sign of calming down. Fortunately, nonviolent methods of protesting the offending cartoons have emerged. The Iranian confectioner’s union has decreed that the pastries formerly known as “Danish” will hereafter be called “Roses of Mohammed” (shades of “Freedom Fries”). Apparently, while it is a no-no to depict the Prophet’s image, it’s OK to name a pastry after him!
• Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, an elite member of a questionably elected, unquestionably secretive, decidedly militarist and increasingly unpopular administration, has compared Hugo Chavez, the democratically elected, wildly popular, progressive socialist President of Venezuela, to Hitler.
• President Bush, in his recent State of the Union address, warned that a nuclear-armed Iran would pose “a grave threat to the security of the world,” the same language he used prior to attacking Iraq. One week later, his budget request to Congress openly disclosed that the United States is planning to redesign and replace every weapon in its huge nuclear arsenal, and with Russia, to launch a global plutonium economy.

For a committed surrealist, it doesn’t get any weirder than this. But the old terminology just isn’t up to the task. Describing U.S. nuclear weapons policy as “hypocritical” doesn’t even begin to address the magnitude of the geopolitical discrepancies. Describing as “Orwellian” the Quadrennial Defense Review’s recasting of the war on terrorism as a never-ending “long war,” just doesn’t cut it. (Is anyone else getting tired of all the violence?) We need a whole new lexicon to describe our current predicament. Watching the Winter Olympics is mildly distracting. But it gave me an idea: we’re not just “going to hell in a handbasket,” we’re going to hell in a luge — head first, at 80 miles an hour!