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Blog Entry 1: Not Waving, But Drowning[/FONT]
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[FONT="]“And when, still calling to each other, one of them fell at last into the molten lava stream, the other still refused to save itself. Last of its kind, masters of the air and earth, strongest, swiftest creatures that ever breathed, now they sank against the earth like weary children. Each had refused to live without the other, and so they were dying together. I wondered whether I, twentieth century man, could ever hope to die as well” – Rodan, Toho Studios, 1956[/FONT]
[FONT="]“Sometimes, I’m afraid that the good lord put me on earth to start a nuclear war”- John F. Kennedy
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[FONT="]I recently read a book about a fictional machine invented after the Second World War that is able to predict how you die. Now the machine cane sometime be very specific, but generally it is vague and sometimes misleading. Like it will say old age and that could mean you get old and die or you get hit by a car driven by an old person. The device doesn’t predict nuclear war, instead it would say things like “incinerated”, “poisoning”, “extreme heat”, “crushed”, all things caused by the nuclear war. When people born after the war pull their death card it just says “born dead”…[/FONT]
[FONT="]Kennedy’s Legacy[/FONT]
[FONT="]In most end of the world stories I’ve read the collapse of humanity is brought about by a plague or some kind of massive natural disaster (though in a Counterfactual History I once read the Last War is avoided only for an even worse and more total nuclear conflict to arise twenty years later). In these stories there really isn’t anyone to blame, well except maybe God, but most people tend to blame the real world apocalypse on former President Kennedy. Dying in 1979 of lung cancer, few people wept for Kennedy in fact a much larger number wished he had died back in the Second World War so that he never would have screwed the United States over. The USSR of course gets its fair share of hate and blame for the war, but I don’t think any man in American history has ever been as hated as Mr. Kennedy (maybe Benedict Arnold). I don’t think it’s fair to blame Kennedy and treat him so harshly, after all his decision not to engage in a first strike was out of a naive hope of preserving humanity not out of any kind of malice, but people needed a scapegoat after the war and Kennedy was that scapegoat. Though his successor, President Nixon, would pardon Kennedy as a preemptive strike against more radical Republicans and American Independence politicians looking to string Kennedy up for the War it would not stop these more right-wing conservatives from making him the most hated man in America and as a poster boy for why the Democratic Party was bad for America. Men like Goldwater and Wallace used Kennedy as a weapon against the Democratic Party, forcing the splintering of the Party as politicians scrambled to abandon ship, after all no one wanted to be tied to the man who was responsible for the death of the most American citizens in history. Kennedy’s decision against a first strike was used as political weaponry to get the Nuclear Proliferation Ban passed and would also be used to justify the Anti-War Treaty. These pieces of international legislation act as totalitarian and arguably omnicidal laws that take the philosophy of “the ends justify the means” to a hellish level that after decades of use are finally getting criticized by the public.
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[FONT="]Now I’m not saying that I love Kennedy, because I don’t. The man presided over the United States after the war until the election of Richard Nixon in 1964. During the period of Martial Law thousands of Americans were shot without trial and Habeas Corpus was suspended. This being the main reason why many modern Anarchist movements look at Kennedy as being no better and in some ways worse than the Right-wing leaders that would rise to power after the war, holding the firm belief that he should have simply allowed the nation to fall into the same collapse that occurred in several of the European nations. [/FONT]
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[FONT="]A land of Ashen Waste[/FONT][FONT="]
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[FONT="]The Last War burnt much of Europe to the ground, millions were dead, and vast swaths of land were heavily contaminated by nuclear fallout. This war ravaged continent where black snow and poison rain fall to the earth to further destroy the land was no longer a hospitable place for much of its populous. France, like the United States, instated brutal martial law and forcible silenced leftists within their nation (though many were either killed in the war or by private citizens). By 1964 De Gaulle will pull all French troops from Algeria as they are needed to assist in France proper to deal with the massive refugee crisis. The French will not leave Algeria in one piece though; they will enact a brutal policy of scorched earth that would horrify anyone not already emotionally torn asunder by the Last War. There is a vow upon the lips of many French generals that they will return to retake what they had lost; the Algerians will eventually find out that the French were not lying.
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[FONT="]In the Iberian peninsula Spain and Portugal are under the massive strains of a deluge of refugees. The Portuguese government, having relocated to Porto and the Spanish government, still firmly under the control of Franco after a few uprisings which had attempted to take advantage of the confusion after the destruction of Madrid not realizing that Franco had fled on the 29th as soon as the Russians sunk two American ships blockading Cuba, had come to an agreement to send refugees to Angola and Mozambique. The plan will afford both Portuguese colonies greater autonomy while simultaneously tying them closer to both Spain and Portugal. Thousands of these refugees will die in refugee camps before they can be relocated to settlements, but more will survive establishing a massive European minority in the two regions.
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[FONT="]Angola and Mozambique will not be the only two regions of Africa that will be seeing a massive influx of Europeans. South Africa, the Federation of Rhodesia, and Bechuanaland will accept tens of thousands of European refugees as long as they measure up to a few standards. The main standard of course being that they White. With the Germany ceasing to exist as functioning state many survivors flock to the Baltic to escape the hellish nightmare that is central Europe. Though many are left behind those that meet the standards of the African governments are given escape from the refugee camps of Northern Ireland, the Free Republic of Poland, the Scandinavian nations, and the newly formed Baltic Republic. The fridged temperatures that characterized the global temperatures after the Last War made the conditions of the refugee camps in Northern Ireland and Scotland not exactly the most conducive environments for keeping people alive. With the resignation of British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, Rhodesian Prime Minister Sir Roy Welensky saw a chance to use the situation to his advantage. The New British Government and the Rhodesian government were able to create their own streamlined policy of refugee evacuation. Unlike South Africa’s policy of only allowing White refugees into the nation, the progressive Welensky allowed for broader standards of admission into the country. Though educated whites were of course preferred by the government, Rhodesia would accept thousands of educated Indians, Blacks, and Asians along with the less educated white laborers. Many of these British refugees would be settled in Northern Rhodesia and of course (perhaps more tragically Nyasaland). This move was made by the Welensky to stave off Black rule in the regions, and would lead to decades of endemic war between the Europeans and the more radical African Nationalists. As part of his agreement with the British government to streamline the movement of refugees into the Federation, Welensky ensured British diplomatic support for the movement of Rhodesian troops into Katanga to aid President Moise Tshombe’s attempt to ensure Katangan independence. With UN troops having already pulled out of the region to return to their devastated homelands, the Rhodisians walked over the Congolese troops and grabbed victory out of the jaws of defeat. Katangan President Moise Tshombe would prove to be an ardent supporter of the Federation and would seek to ensure continued support from the Federation and Europe by offering safe haven for thousands of Belgians escaping their now dead nation. These new immigrants along with the return of most Belgians, who had fled to Southern Rhodesia after the withdrawal of the Belgian troops from the Congo, would make the Katangan-Belgians the largest European ethnic minority in any single African Nation.
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[FONT="]Back in Europe Southern Germans and Austrians would flee from their homeland to Hungary and Yugoslavia. Hungary had survived the Last war with only Budapest being partially destroyed (the nuclear missile the targeted the city went off course and landed too far away to destroy the city in its entirety). With the war’s end and the surviving Warsaw Pact members have surrendered unconditionally the Communist government in Hungary hadn’t lasted very long and popular unrest unseated the surviving government. The new government allowed for an influx of German and Austrian refugees at first but would soon be forced to close its borders after the refugee crisis became too great. Yugoslavia would likewise accept refugees from, Romania, Austria, and Bulgaria for a time, but was forced close its borders to the refugees and began using extreme force to maintain border security. This would also be true with Switzerland, Poland, and the Baltic Republic who would close their borders at around the same time.
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