Obama Shared Vision Of "Nuclear Free World" In College Magazine

New York Times:

In the depths of the cold war, in 1983, a senior at Columbia University wrote in a campus newsmagazine, Sundial, about the vision of "a nuclear free world.He railed against discussions of "first- versus second-strike capabilities that "suit the military-industrial interests" with their "billion-dollar erector sets, and agitated for the elimination of global arsenals holding tens of thousands of deadly warheads.

The student was Barack Obama, and he was clearly trying to sort out his thoughts. In the conclusion, he denounced "the twisted logic of which we are a part today and praised student efforts to realize "the possibility of a decent world. But his article, "Breaking the War Mentality, which only recently has been rediscovered, said little about how to achieve the utopian dream.

Read the whole story: New York Times

Comments

[MaineOwl]

I'm impressed, but...

Glenn Greenwald: "The speech was fairly representative of what Obama typically does: effectively defend some important ideals in a uniquely persuasive way and advocating some policies that promote those ideals (closing Guantanamo, banning torture tactics, limiting the state secrets privilege) while committing to many which plainly violate them (indefinite preventive detention schemes, military commissions, denial of habeas rights to Bagram abductees, concealing torture evidence, blocking judicial review on secrecy grounds)."

Now that refers to the May 21 speech, but can the same observation be applied here?

[MaineOwl]

Yes, I posted this on the wrong story...

[donttasemebro]

To all you tr0lls that somehow think this is relevant, consider how much your own views of the world may have changed since your college days.

Nevermind. I just realized how many things are wrong with what I just wrote.

[Doofus]

A Nuclear Free World. Imagine that! Very
cool. First in, last out, just to be safe, ok?

[Doofus]

The article, is written as objective journalism, not as an opinion piece,
to the extent that's possible from an impressionable college senior.
Note also that this was in the hey-day of the Reagan Era, US vs the Evil
Empire, the last of the big US ICBM programs under way: Reagan's pet
project, the Peacekeeper. Many were worried, college students included.

The article concludes: 'By adding their (Columbia student anti-war/arms-race
groups) energy & effort in order to enhance the possibility of a decent world,
they may help to deprive us of a spectacular experience--that of a war.
But then, there are some things we shouldn't have to live through in order
to want to avoid the experience­.'

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/images/nytint/docs/obama-s-1983-college-magazine-article/original.pdf

[MajorKong]

I fear that even if we could somehow rid the world of nuclear weapons (and that's a very big if) we'd just be making the world safe for conventional war.

[Talossa]

Amen!

[Artamentous]

I'm pretty sure a Nuclear-Free world would led to world wars.

Who here thinks the US and Russia wouldn't have gone to war had MAD not be in play?

[iceage7]

What did bush dream. Did he have thoughts like these other than do nothing in the whitehouse, hide and eat pretzels and fall.

[Concerned American99]

Was it while he was on cocaine (as he writes in his book)??

[filo]

Oh! Like you read the book. Instead you spew venom and forget about all the cocaine that Dubaya did.

[JZ735]

What Obama said in 1983 is irrelevant to today...

[denicci1977]

You took the time to read it so it must be relevant to you :)

[iceage7]

But he is now president. I guess that was irrelavant now.

[Talossa]

Didn't we all have dreams of a nuclear free world in 1983?

[iceage7]

But he had dreams of president where he can change the world

[fairdebate]

RULES FOR RADICALS

[fairdebate]

KING OBAMA.....­the left will be his servants

[denicci1977]

Awww must be a slow day on Faux dot com.

[YouDisgustMe]

smart guy. glad he's president.

[fairdebate]

if your a commie

[Jameszina]

commie's live better than most Americans thanks the George Bush

[YouDisgustMe]

being called a "commie" by a halfwitted republican is a compliment. thanks.

[fairdebate]

I think Obama is Economically challenged­....Destro­ying the poor in Chicago is a lot easier than destroying a country

[Jameszina]

George Bush beat Obama to destroying and bleeding Americans dry. Were al suffering because of George Bush and the greedy bakns.

[flash LI]

REALITY: If you had a job, you wouldn't be behaving so incestuously. Of course, you could be an eternal student that 'can't'. HAHA lol Give the Chairman my love. :)

[Rayme]

I don't want the US to get rid of our nuclear bombs, look at countries like Iraq and Afghanistan, they get invaded by a foreign military and have hundreds of thousands of their people killed and Iran gets threatened with war by foreign countries on a daily basis. Without nukes, we could be in serious jeopardy of being invaded by a foreign country.

[Talossa]

Unlike Ronald Reagan, no Democratic president ever proposed getting rid of all our nukes. Deterrence is not policy, it is reality; it is the way the world works. The problem is, it only works when both sides are rational and value their own lives. In a world of suicide bombers, there is no "deterrent" that would dissuade them from blowing themselves up. Nuclear weapons deterred the USSR from attacking the USA (and vice versa). They are useless against terrorists.

[bascombe]

the reality is that his visions are corporate-­sponsored.