Watch New York City's Weird PSA on What to Do in Nuclear War
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Photo: NYC Emergency Management
It's summertime in New York, which means that city officials are warning us about crime. Most often, that means Mayor Eric Adams or the NYPD is advising residents how to stay safe during holidays like the Fourth of July. But this year the Department of Emergency Management went a little bigger, informing residents what to do if the city is on the business end of a crime against humanity.
On Monday, the department released a 90-second spot on how to survive in the aftermath of a nuclear attack. In the cadence of a flight attendant giving a preflight safety spiel, the narrator provides some pretty basic info: Go inside, stay inside, and wash your clothes, body, and hair (but no conditioner) if you think you might have been exposed to fallout. Oh, and don't forget to subscribe to Emergency Management updates!
The PSA's timing is nearly as strange as its material. Gone are the worries of terrorists getting their hands on a dirty bomb, first in the aftermath of the Soviet Union's collapse — and later during the more active years of the War on Terror. Gone, too, are the early years of the Trump administration, when fears of a nuclear exchange spiked after the president threatened North Korea with "fire and fury" on Twitter.
Bringing up a nuclear threat when the prospects (here, at least) are extremely low might not be the best idea, since even the mild scenarios are so much worse than you might think. Besides, don't they want office workers to come back to Manhattan?
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What do they know that they aren't telling us?
Some possibilities:
1. Trying to scare US citizens into noticing the Ukraine/Russia conflict.
2. Trying to scare US citizens into caring about the Ukraine/Russia conflict.
3. Trying to scare US citizens into supporting a direct war with Russia instead of using Ukrainian soldiers as proxy.
And the one I am really hoping is not even a possibility -
4. Sending weapons to Russia's border to bomb Russian cities and expecting that Russia might answer with a nuclear warhead.
What are the other likely possibilities?
I remember you from "Disinformation Nation" back in the day at Newsvine. Good times.
I've radically reduced my intake of information from sites like truthdig and counterpunch since those days.
But I will say that you've done a pretty good job of looking at this from a "manufacturing of consent" point of view.
What do I think? I think that the think tanks and government agencies have upgraded the risk assessment for a nuclear attack and there is now a budget line for an informational video on what to do in a nuclear attack.
This may not be about Russia and Ukraine. It may be more about North Korea.
I remember having some interesting discussions back in the day. I wish I could re-read them and see if the discussions would seem relevant today.
The US populace is war weary. I am not sure that even another 9/11 would create enough hysteria to make people support funding another two decades of war. Our government leaders are going to have to stumble on a different strategy to improve economic conditions in the US that funding and fighting endless wars.
Does North Korea have a nuclear weapon capable of hitting NYC? What do you believe that China would do if North Korea fired nuclear weapons at the United States?
I don't think North Korea has a weapon capable of hitting NYC yet but they have made shocking progress on that front. The thing is, the video was describing practices that are more appropriate for dealing with fallout than a direct hit. When I grew up in the 1960s apartment buildings and public buildings had signs indicating where the designated fallout shelters were. Every apartment building had these army green 50 gallon drums of drinking water. All that advice in the video about changing your clothes and going to the basement is stuff you do in case of fallout. A cloud of nuclear bomb dust could blow across the USA.
I have no idea. China and the USA are frenemies at this point. It makes me sad that the USA and China did not cooperate more with Covid vaccines. North Korea is probably a problem that China wishes it did not have. I can't imagine they see much use having North Korea as a buffer between them and South Korea. As far as I know China doesn't even have its nukes mounted on missiles. They have the technology and everybody knows it works but they show their good faith in not having a first strike capability by not walking around with loaded weapons.
Your questions got me Googling and I found this:
We ranked the world's nuclear arsenals — here's why China's came out on top
China seems to be the least of our worries and Russia the worst.
I'm not a fan of Russia. I see them as sending troublemakers and disinformation into the west for the last 100 years. Sure, sometimes the truth is the best propaganda but that doesn't mean Russia is ever a force for good in the USA. Many people who became unwitting Russian assets by appearing on RT have finally wised up and stopped doing that.
All these talking points about how we provoked Russia by expanding NATO are BS. Russia is the empire with expansionist ambitions in Europe and not the USA. Look at how Russia is slaughtering its neighbors in Ukraine. An imagined threat that Ukraine will be used as a base to slaughter Russians in Russian territory is ridiculous. Russia has turned millions of Ukrainians into refugees today, not tomorrow.
I live in NYC and I am not laughing at the PSA announcement telling me what to do in a nuclear attack. I thought the threat was going one way and now it seems to be going in the wrong direction again.
Oh, and we have moneypox in NYC too.
Good times.
Look at a map of Europe after the fall of the Soviet Union; and now. Then tell the Russians that the US/NATO hasn't moved onto their borders.
We wouldn't tolerate it if Mexico became a Russian satellite. We sure as hell didn't tolerate it when Russia wanted to give Cuba nukes. The nuclear weapons Cuba was going to get couldn't even threaten all of the US. The bunkers they were going to be placed into couldn't have survived a nuclear strike. They were for deterrence only.
NATO is not a defensive pact only. Serbia was no threat to NATO; yet NATO went to war with Serbia over Kosovo (which was a Serbian province at the time). Same with Libya & Syria.
Putin does want to remake the Soviet Union. He just doesn't have the military strength or population willing and able to do it. If he did Ukraine would already be a Russian vassal state again.
Pretending Russia is the main threat to the world while ignoring China is a mistake we will come to regret.
Europe is much closer to Russia. Germany is still buying oil/gas from Russia (as are other nations).
Maybe, you were correct in saying North Korea is a threat. However, I agree, with Ronin2, that China is a far greater threat to the US than Russia is.
I just watched a cute Youtube video that highlights some of the differences in living (and thinking) between German citizens and US citizens. Some of the comments are more amusing than the video.
They forgot to mention duck and cover?