British Labourite Corbyn and nuclear war, by comedian Mark Steel

This video from Japan is called Survivor Dr Hiromi Hasai recalls the horror of Hiroshima.

From daily The Independent in Britain:

There must be something wrong with Jeremy Corbyn if he doesn’t want to cause a nuclear holocaust

It’s such a shame Labour didn’t elect somebody more moderate who would be willing to press the button, such as Kim Jong-un

Mark Steel

Thursday 1 October 2015 18:49 BST

We knew Jeremy Corbyn was mad, but now we know he’s psychotic. It turns out he won’t press the button to annihilate cities in a nuclear holocaust. How could anyone be that mentally unstable?

Corbyn revealed himself as a danger to us all by saying quietly “no”, in response to a calm and measured radio presenter yelling “Would you be prepared to press the button?” at him.

This should be a test in institutions for the criminally insane, to check whether an inmate should be released back into the community. If they suggest that, on balance, they wouldn’t obliterate a geopolitical region in radioactive firestorms slaughtering millions of civilians and rendering a continent uninhabitable for 50 billion years, they should go back in a straitjacket like Hannibal Lecter. Only when they’ve learned to shout “I WANT TO PRESS THE BUTTON AND MAKE EVERYONE’S SKIN DISSOLVE” should they be let free to mix safely with their fellow citizens.

Next week he should be exposed even more, with an interviewer asking: “Would you personally, Mr Corbyn, attack Putin with a chainsaw? Answer the question, Corbyn, yes or no? If someone mocked you at a United Nations conference, would you sever his head and shriek like a hyena as you smeared his blood on your bare torso or can you not be trusted with our security?

“What about crocodiles, Mr Corbyn, would you release them at the French if necessary? If you knew a wizard would you get him to turn the Iranian ambassador into a centipede, or are you too soft? Would you be prepared to laugh as you used a Death Star? Even if you did press the button to launch nuclear missiles, would you sing the national anthem as you did it, or would you do it silently because you hate Britain?”

This is just one more consequence of Labour choosing an extremist as a leader. It’s such a shame they didn’t select a moderate who would be prepared to press the button, such as Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader.

The shadow Defence Secretary Maria Eagle said Corbyn’s answer “wasn’t helpful”, and you can see why she was so shocked by it. He sprung this idea of opposing Trident on his party with no prior warning – except for a lifetime of vocal support for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and campaigning to be Labour leader on the policy of opposing Trident.

He would have come across as far more trustworthy had he said: “Having spent my life opposing Trident, of course I’ll press the button. I’ll do it now by practising on Weymouth, if you like.”

Now we’ve established that the country would be in terrible danger without Trident, the biggest worry is that only a few countries have nuclear missiles at all. All those places must be living in constant terror. Not only should we renew Trident, we should make extra Tridents, for all the countries that don’t have them, starting with Iceland and Vanuatu, or we’ll never be able to relax.

But the main reason we must keep making weapons that could blow up the planet is to preserve jobs. The Conservative Party is especially anxious about this, which you can understand, because for the past 40 years it thought about little else apart from making sure everyone has a job.

When the minimum wage was suggested, the Conservatives opposed it because it would cost hundreds of thousands of jobs. They were the same with the fox-hunting ban, which they said would cost thousands of jobs. It’s the same with Trident; if there was a nuclear war there would be loads of work to be had sweeping up, so we’d all feel the benefit.

They care so much about jobs they’re prepared to pay £100bn for Trident, so you’d think for that amount of subsidy, they could be paid to carry out any number of useful acts, such as teaching wasps to dance, turning old nuclear warheads into luxury apartments for Russian businessmen, or spending all day trying to annoy Noel Edmonds. Then, when he complained, the Conservatives could say, “Mr Edmonds’ outrageous demands will cost this country 40,000 jobs.”

Unfortunately, these moderate policies haven’t been explored much, as the media seems to lag behind changing attitudes. For example, after Jeremy Corbyn’s speech, the TV coverage turned to three “experts”, for their analysis – all of whom were fans of Tony Blair, whose favoured candidate won 4.5 per cent of the vote in the election for leader.

This would be like following a Blair speech in 1997 by saying: “Now let’s turn to our panel to see what they thought. With me are experts Jeremy Corbyn, along with an anarchist in a black mask from Arson Unite, Hugo Chavez, and the deputy leader of the Peruvian Marxist Peasant Army of Pure Hatred. Let me turn to you first, deputy leader, did this speech reach out to your guerrillas or was it only aimed at the people in the hall?”

But, together, we can all address Corbyn’s difficulties. Because as with any mental health issue, maybe his problems can be resolved with therapy. An analyst could show him film of Hiroshima exploding, and ask in a soothing voice: “Why do you feel uneasy about firing missiles 100 times more powerful than that? Is it because you had an argument with your father?”

Then he could be gently coaxed back to rational behaviour. He could start by injecting kittens with radiation, then spray plutonium around a school until the happy day when he answers a question about pressing the button by screaming “yes, yes, YES” like decent, normal, moderate people.

See also here.

Trident, Corbyn and Labour in Scotland: here.

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