Eve of Destruction: Music and The Bomb

[dilbert1]

more about nuclear power but then it seems the punx were keen to draw the connection to the arms industry as in the Flux tune above

Nuclear energy is a con / Its just a cover for making their bombs

Anyone know if there is or was ever any substantial truth to this claim? Seems we can make nukes no matter what, and with nuclear power coming up more and more in contemporary discussions about alternative energy sources, the concern today is never about weapons but hazardous waste, feasibility and the like

 

[version]

I tried to talk about nuclear energy with a nuclear scientist once, but I was coked up, it was 7am and it was my mate's dad who'd just come down for his breakfast.

 

[dilbert1]

Never seem able to become convinced about it or find definitive answers one way or the other, so that scenario seems almost too appropriate

 

[Mr. Tea]

Anyone know if there is or was ever any substantial truth to this claim? Seems we can make nukes no matter what, and with nuclear power coming up more and more in contemporary discussions about alternative energy sources, the concern today is never about weapons but hazardous waste, feasibility and the like

Well over 30 countries have civilian nuclear reactors for energy, while only a handful of those countries have the bomb, so I guess that answers that.

This is a good war tune.

 

[chava]

Obvious example, and maybe one of the best tunes ever:

 

[martin]

You don't really hear about neutron bombs anymore. I think the idea was that they killed humans but left buildings standing, presumably so estate agents could scoop them up the next week. The US punk bands seemed to reference neutron bombs more than the Brits, dunno if they were more of a serious proposition over there?

 

[william_kent]

Groundhogs - Thank Christ For The Bomb ( 1970 )

But, in the final year of that war, two big bangs settled the score,
Against Japan, who'd joined the fight, the rising sun didn't look so bright.
Since that day it's been stalemate, everyone's scared to obliterate,
So it seems for peace we can thank the bomb, so I say thank Christ for the bomb

 

[martin]

 

[version]

 

[Mr. Tea]

I like the PTV cover of this:

 

[martin]

Nuclear energy is a con / Its just a cover for making their bombs

Anyone know if there is or was ever any substantial truth to this claim?

Oi Polloi are being a bit melodramatic here (not for the first time). There was crossover in nuclear research in the '50s and '60s but the form of uranium used in power reactors isn't the same as the weapons-grade plutonium you'd need for an A-bomb. There've been about 700 nuclear-powered subs and warships floating around in the oceans since the '50s and nobody seems bothered.

I interviewed a few nuclear experts a few years ago as part of my day job - the general consensus is that Fukushima, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, etc, were all monumental fuck-ups caused by human error and negligence and could have easily been prevented. It would also make energy dirt-cheap, provides power for years and has killed/incapacitated way fewer people than coal has. It's quite interesting but, if it goes wrong, it really goes wrong.

 

[Mr. Tea]

the general consensus is that Fukushima, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, etc, were all monumental fuck-ups caused by human error and negligence and could have easily been prevented. It would also make energy dirt-cheap, provides power for years and has killed/incapacitated way fewer people than coal has. It's quite interesting but, if it goes wrong, it really goes wrong.

That's very much the impression I get. A counter-argument could be that people are not getting cleverer, and that if mistakes have been made in the past then they can be made in the future, which is a reasonable objection. A counter-argument to that counter-argument is that modern reactor designs are objectively much safer than older designs.

 

[DLaurent]

This is the guy that sang The Long Goodbye theme and some songs in Cassavetes films.

 

[martin]

A counter-argument could be that people are not getting cleverer,

Yeah...if Britain's struggling with raw sewage discharges...

 

[Mr. Tea]

Yeah...if Britain's struggling with raw sewage discharges...

That's not stupidity though, it's just greed.

 

[0bleak]

It's kind of weird how the original German version was such a big hit here and on regular rotation on MTV and the radio:

although I guess reading about it now on Wikipedia, it was the (apparently considered weaker) English version that was more specifically about nuclear war (we didn't have youtube subtitles 😄

As a kid, I remember often going to bed worried tonight was going to be the night.

It probably didn't help that my recently turned into a fundamentalist Christian uncle would be going on about nuclear war and playing stuff like this and just randomly singing "waiting for ground zero"

lame prog rock song by member of Kansas that had made a big turn towards Christianity - don't listen unless you really want to torture yourself - don't say I didn't warn you - it's even worse than I remember!

Between all of the songs that were either about or referenced nuclear war/cold war in some way, a lot of news revolving around the state of things, tv miniseries like The Day After (there was Threads the next year in the UK), role playing games like Gamma World, and other things adding to the tension I personally felt like when an aunt screamed, after Reagan got elected the first time, OH MY GOD THERE IS GOING TO BE A NUCLEAR WAR!

 

[Murphy]

 

[Murphy]

It's kind of weird how the original German version was such a big hit here and on regular rotation on MTV and the radio:

although I guess reading about it now on Wikipedia, it was the (apparently considered weaker) English version that was more specifically about nuclear war (we didn't have youtube subtitles 😄

As a kid, I remember often going to bed worried tonight was going to be the night.

It probably didn't help that my recently turned into a fundamentalist Christian uncle would be going on about nuclear war and playing stuff like this and just randomly singing "waiting for ground zero"

lame prog rock song by member of Kansas that had made a big turn towards Christianity - don't listen unless you really want to torture yourself - don't say I didn't warn you - it's even worse than I remember!

Between all of the songs that were either about or referenced nuclear war/cold war in some way, a lot of news revolving around the state of things, tv miniseries like The Day After (there was Threads the next year in the UK), role playing games like Gamma World, and other thing adding to the tension I personally felt like when an aunt screamed, after Reagan got elected the first time, OH MY GOD THERE IS GOING TO BE A NUCLEAR WAR!

we had The Mad Death too, just the kind of excuse required to get your tools out and shoot at dogs

 

[bassbeyondreason]

 

[william_kent]

USER=16186]@william_kent[/USER] are/were you ever an anarcho fan? Am I the only one on the forum?

@dilbert1

is it even possible to be a 'fan' of anarcho punk?

I liked it, my gram of bathtub speed challenge was to listen to "YES SIR I WILL" **** in its entirety at maximum volume, but when you've met and got pissed with the "then current" ( not on recordings ) drummer of Flux while on a budget holiday and failed to cop off with his punkette companion ( she preferred the denim bedecked Status Quo enthusiast from Workington, and my brother was a "[cock] blocker" in that situation because he passed out and I had to carry him back to the caravan ), and the number one anarcho punk in manchester lived on the next block and got a lung infection from snorting mushrooms, IS IT POSSIBLE TO BE A FAN!? You can like it, but "fan" is a word I associate with K-Pop weird devotion

so no, I never sat outside Dial House, but maybe that was due to a an earlier failed attempt to penetrate the ZORCH commune

****

[

CRASS - YES SIR I WILL

can you snort a gram of cat piss smelling bathtub speed and be lectured to?
can you handle it?

YES SIR I WILL!

edit: CRASS "Yes Sir I Will" would probably feature in my PRE MDMA top ten drug albums