SARE CAMPAIGN TOWN HALL

‘The World Is Looking at Us’

The following are excerpts from two speeches delivered at the April 22, 2023 Sare for Senate Campaign-hosted event, by former USMC intelligence officer and UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter, and U.S. Senate candidate for New York, Diane Sare.

Watch the entire event here.

Scott Ritter: You know, the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki as part of what we would call a “preemptive doctrine” of use in nuclear weapons. Now, some people would say, “No, Scott, you’re wrong. History shows that we dropped the bombs to break the will of the Japanese people to continue resistance, so that we would not lose a million Marines across the beach!”

Wrong! The Japanese were ready to surrender. They had actively reached out, and [President] Harry Truman knew this. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, or the equivalent at that time, knew this. They knew that Japan was ready to surrender, but they also “knew” that there was a growing “threat” in the world confronting the United States, and that was a threat from a nation that had suffered 27 million dead, taking the lead in defeating the scourge of Nazi Germany: That, of course, was the Soviet Union. And we couldn’t handle what the Soviet Union was doing, in terms of liberating territories from Nazi Germany. We viewed the Soviet liberation, especially in places like Poland, as an existential threat to us, to democracy, to the forces of freedom.

So, we decided to send them a “signal.” We were going to drop [atomic] bombs on the Japanese: We were going to kill hundreds of thousands of Japanese to send a signal to the Soviets: “Don’t mess with us!”

Speaking of the greatest threat to the world today, we live in the nation that represents the greatest threat to the world today. Because we live in a nation that has shown, through its own actions, a proclivity of using nuclear weapons preemptively, to “send a signal.” Now, one might forgive the United States for not understanding the horror of what they released. I do not, but one might. “Because we didn’t know, you see.” Although we did know. We knew exactly what we were doing—but we did it anyway.

Now, we’re in a situation, where many years later, we’re taking a look at nuclear weapons and the role they play in how the United States interfaces with the rest of the world. Have you taken a look at the nuclear posture of the United States? The official nuclear posture promulgated by the Biden Administration? The Nuclear Posture, I’ll cut to the chase, says: the United States can use nuclear weapons preemptively in a non-nuclear environment, any time we want.

… So, here’s the next challenge: Before the 2024 election, we need to speak again. We need to get as many people as possible in the streets. Not just here in New York City, but all across the country, and indeed, all across the world, to send a signal: That we demand disarmament! We demand arms control! We demand that the establishment be pushed aside by people we elect to office, so they can do what we want, which is to live! It’s a simple request, ladies and gentlemen! We want to live. We want to love, we want to enjoy life, and we can’t do that with the threat of nuclear weapons.

In June of 2024, there will be an appeal, on or about June 24, for every American possible to take to the streets, and send that signal: That when the 2024 election comes, of all the issues that are out there—and there are many, and I’m not here to denigrate any of them—there’s only one that matters, because there’s only one that represents life and death now, and that’s nuclear disarmament/arms control. We need to make nuclear disarmament and arms control the defining issue of the 2024 election: Why? So we can buy time to solve the other problems! I’m not pretending there aren’t other problems; there are many problems! But we can’t solve them if we’re dead! So, in order to live, let’s make nuclear disarmament, let’s make disarmament the number-one issue of the 2024 election, and let’s put people like Diane Sare into the Senate.

Diane Sare: I want to take up something which has just broken, about which we’ve just learned: that it was our dear, current Secretary of State Tony Blinken, who told the then acting CIA Director, Mike Morrell, to line up 50 intelligence agents to write a letter saying that the Hunter Biden laptop story was “Russian propaganda.” Now, was it that Vladimir Putin personally flew in, picked up the laptop, and dropped it off at the repair shop? Is that how it got there? Is that how we know? The guy thought it was Hunter Biden, but it was really Vladimir Putin, dressed up like Hunter Biden, who left the laptop there.

… Or, take Nord Stream: The whole world knows that the U.S. blew up the pipelines! The whole world knows it! Seymour Hersh wrote an excellent, well-documented article, and he is a highly authoritative writer! He left out the part about Liz Truss sending a text message to Tony Blinken, which is also part of the story.

Why has no one been indicted? Why is Victoria Nuland still running around?…

We have the case of Julian Assange: He’s been in prison for four years, now! For being—well, if you count the time he had to stay in the embassy, yes. And, for what? For being a journalist.

… One thing I want people to really consider, is, the world is looking at us, and they’re saying: “What the heck is wrong with the American people?” You’re not all in jail! You can still speak, you can go in the streets—we see they’re trying to take that away, now.

Why haven’t you stopped this?

And that’s why, really, I decided to run for U.S. Senate. Because there has to be a voice, and voices—as Jose [Vega] said—of leadership, of people who conduct themselves as U.S. Senators ought to conduct themselves, as representatives worthy of the consent of the governed should conduct themselves.

… What is the point of our existence, each of us? We are here for a very short sliver of time. If the Earth’s been here 5 billion years, even if we each live to be 100, you can do the math: I don’t know what fraction of 1% of time that is. Is that really what it’s all about between those two bookends of your life? That’s what immoral, greedy, selfish people think. But what is it, really? Don’t you want to do something with your life, that ensures that someone you love—Beethoven, or Plato, or Harriet Tubman—that their life is meaningful in the future, and by your dedicating your life to ensuring that their lives are meaningful in the future, then the people in the future will be able to exist and be able to build on the things that have been contributed.

I think that this, actually, is the meaning of “the pursuit of happiness” in our Declaration of Independence, the idea Leibniz came up with. What really makes us happy, is to know that we are not, indeed, that little sliver, in however many billions of years of eternity, but that we’ve done something to contribute to the immortality of mankind.