So just when you thought nukes were 80s nostalgia, Dubya wants you to learn to love the bomb again.

I was born into the Cuban missile crisis. By grade two I had joined my first anti-nukes march, protesting at our two room rural school against nuclear tests in Alaska -- thankfully it was past the time of taking "duck and cover" seriously. By high school it was Rock against Radiation. And by university, I had become a regular participant in the Peace walk.

I also spent a year regularly waking up in the middle of the night from nightmares of nuclear holocaust. Even as "gay cancer" entered my newly liberated gay life, it was emerging to find I had survived and was in the midst of nuclear winter which most terrified me.

Then after much yelling and protest and fear, it seemed world leaders and the military-industrial complex had figured out that nobody would win a nuclear war.

But here it is the 21C and as if the barbarity of the IMF/WB, WTO and 11 Sept 01/"War on Terror" were not enough, now we have a nutcase like we have never before seen playing war games in the White House, and promising to up the stakes.

The world leaders he deserves comparison to are not just war criminals like his father, but the real greats like Stalin, Sharon, Mussolini and Hitler, and recall he is, just like all these totalitarian leaders supported and kept in power by corporate and bureaucratic means. I must constantly remind myself that Dubya like Hitler is a gloss for a power structure, and that there are many people equally as guilty as Bush Jr. in the nuclear threat which just exploded in public.

So here it is the first day of spring on territory which one hundred years ago supported the Kwantlen Nation. Outside six inches of snow blankets the fields. More than many winters I have seen, and not even my neices are excited. The snowdrops and crocuses have been covered by snow.

My father looks to it as proof global warming is myth -- I recall the chemtrail I saw on English Bay, feel ill and block it out with a peace sign (like the relaxation therapy tape says to). And I stop myself from raising my blood pressure by thinking about Cheney's 19C energy policy.

In Italy a political assassination recalls the 20s and 30s, when as in Colombia today murder was a matter of media spin. A device to win the war and terrorize people into submission. How dare Greens or Catholics speak of peace in Colombia when there is money to be made from cocaine, oil and American military aid.

And of course the connotation in our media is that the Left is to blame in all this. Politically motivated... working on labour code revisions.... mass labour demonstration coming up....

(I bet Gordo was getting a woody when he heard of that assassination. Please note I do note understand this as libel as I believe "Gordo" signifies a group or class or other ideological bloc, and not the individual family man or busyness man or former Vancouver mayor.)

And nuclear winter has set in again, complete with the McCarthyism and bold-faced lies.

And we are back again to rocking against radiating and building peace quilts and human chains. I pray this fall we will all be planting snowdrops in our Greenham Commons.

Anyone with an ounce of power who is not now standing up and saying no to nukes, is a TERRORIST. We should be demanding a full public list of all you make profits from this TERRORISM and demand seizing their assets, whether they be General Electric, the Carlyle Group or the Bush family.

What happened after 11 Sept was an attack by our own leaders and media on our rights and emotional lives. Dubya's nuclear policy review is another attack.

In keeping with the new line of economic culpability WE MUST CALL FOR THE SEIZURE OF ASSETS CONNECTED TO NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION because otherwise we are submitting our children to terrorism, not to mention risking the future of the earth. What is valid to do to Zimbabwe or Somalia or Afghanistan is equally applicable to the United States of America under the Bush administration.

We have been battling a heightened media terrorism since 11 Sept. And we were complicit if we allowed others to watch uncritically (or in masochistic pleasure) the terror of CNN and the new high concentrated media. What took place after the attacks on the WTC was emotional terrorism.

One could call it brainwashing, but there is not need to lighten the critique, particularly given those in Afghanistan whose deaths it has allowed, and those locked up in sealed containers and other cages in Cuba and elsewhere, whose basic human rights are denied. Yet we live in a society in which our media does not even report if the hunger strikes at Camp X-ray are continuing.

If we are going to get this planet through the Bush Globalization years, we will have to say no to nuclear proliferation everyday and everywhere and anyway we can. From boycotts to letters to talk back to protests to ads to refusal to particpate at any level in nuclear suicide.

We must immediately teach our children what we know and help them cope with the terrorism of the Bush administration.

We must empower them to know no fear in the face of nuclear madness. Teach them to write letters to world leaders so they will prepared to block the nightmares with a peace sign. Teach them media literacy and the workings of spectacular society, and we must do it quickly. There is no place for Mickey MouseTM.

I believe we should even ask our children to lead this campaign. Show that we trust them to care for this planet and ask their guidance in stopping the Dubyas, just as we again listen to our granparents and the wars they new but TimeLifeWarnerTM forgot.

We can start by sitting down together with our kids and writing letters to our leaders. Send them crayon drawings of what peace looks like. Something the western world has forgotten in its clammering for profits.

So take out the crayons and start your own war on terrorism. Write the Prime Minister and ask he take a lead in seizing the assets of General Electric and all nuclear profiteers.

Ken Anderlini
Kwantlen Territory
First Day of Spring 2002

-30-