Dr. John Barentine FRAS

I am pleased to report that my paper on the history of the early 1960's U.S. Project West Ford is published today in the Journal for the #History of Astronomy.

In short, at the height of the #ColdWar, the U.S. military proposed the test of a passive microwave relay system in near-Earth orbital space that posed a very real threat to ground- and space-based #astronomy. Astronomers were pretty upset at the prospect, and they banded together to use the bully pulpit of public opinion to change the direction of the test. Project West Ford relates to the modern international #SpacePolicy framework through its influence on what became the Outer Space Treaty a few years later.

The forceful response of the astronomy community more than 60 years ago offers distinct lessons for how that same community might confront the ongoing threat of large satellite constellations and rapidly proliferating #SpaceDebris.

journals.sagepub.com/eprint/HZ

#Space #SpaceEnvironment

Grant

In the ~10yrs that I've been thinking about the possibility, I've never seen a single thing, to dissuade me from the conclusion that Trump is a Russian asset. Not one. I'm waiting...

Extraordinary that this is on a respected national tv channel. The conclusions are almost uniform in degree.

channel4.com/programmes/trump-

#Trump #Putin #Krasnov #Zelensky #Ukraine #Russia #US #USPolitics #Politics #Fascism #Europe #EU #Kompromat #Oligarchy #ColdWar

Deka Black

H.G. Wells would be proud of the way they use to get rid of those space parasites.Not very spy-like... Buf effective, clever and in a way. respectful tothe environment-

#TheTomorrowPeople #TheLivingSkins #Part2 #ColdWar #TVSerial #ClassicBritishTV #ClassicBritishSciFi #SciFi #NicholasYoung #ElizabethAdare #MisakoKoba #MikeHoloway #NigelRhodes #PhilipGilbert

IHC

📕 Amanhã, é dia de lançamento do mais recente livro da colecção 'Trânsitos' da Imprensa de História Contemporânea: "Libertação e Guerra Fria. A União Soviética e o Colapso do Império Português em África (1961-1975)", de Natalia Telpneva.

O encontro está marcado na Tigre de Papel, às 18h30, com apresentação a cargo de Giulia Strippoli e Rui Lopes.

ℹ️ ihc.fcsh.unl.pt/events/liberta

#Histodons #ColdWar #USSR #Colonialism
#LiberationMovements #GuerraFria #URSS #África #MastoLivros #MastoBooks #NovoLivro

MikeDunnAuthor

Today in Labor History July 15, 1955: Eighteen Nobel laureates signed the Mainau Declaration against nuclear weapons, later co-signed by thirty-four other Nobel laureates. Werner Heisenberg, of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, was 1 of the signers. A new Mainau Declaration was signed in 2015. This one calls for urgent action on the Climate Crisis.

Part of the original Mainau Declaration reads as follows: “We do not deny that perhaps peace is being preserved precisely by the fear of these weapons. Nevertheless, we think it is a delusion if governments believe that they can avoid war for a long time through the fear of these weapons. Fear and tension have often engendered wars. Similarly, it seems to us a delusion to believe that small conflicts could in the future always be decided by traditional weapons. In extreme danger no nation will deny itself the use of any weapon that scientific technology can produce. All nations must come to the decision to renounce force as a final resort. If they are not prepared to do this, they will cease to exist.”

While both threats remain, the nuclear threat will destroy the planet, and life on it, much more suddenly. And the U.S. and Western European powers, including Israel, seem much more prepared to use them than any time in the past. Indeed, in part because of this increasing willingness to use nuclear weapons, willingness to escalate military conflicts that risk nuclear miscalculation, and the rapid proliferation of a new nuclear arms race between the U.S., Russia, and China, in 2023 the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (founded by Einstein and Oppenheimer in 1945) pushed the Doomsday Clock forward to 90 seconds before midnight, the closest it has ever come to Armageddon (at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis it was at 2 min. before midnight). And then, in 2024, advanced it further, still, to 89 seconds before midnight. The first paragraph of their current status warning reads:

“Ominous trends continue to point the world toward global catastrophe. The war in Ukraine and the widespread and growing reliance on nuclear weapons increase the risk of nuclear escalation. China, Russia, and the United States are all spending huge sums to expand or modernize their nuclear arsenals, adding to the ever-present danger of nuclear war through mistake or miscalculation.”
thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock

#workingclass #LaborHistory #nukes #nuclearweapons #bomb #nobel#peace #coldwar #russia #china #imperialism #cubanmissilecrisis #ukraine #armsrace #einstein #Oppenheimer #Heisenberg #ClimateCrisis #armageddon

Janne M. Korhonen

This piece about the new "autocratic international" got me thinking the #history of the last time Europe was under threat from both without and within - the #ColdWar - could hold many useful lessons for the future. So: how #Finland was finlandized in 1958. euobserver.com/eu-and-the-w...

Trump is working on regime cha...

Trump is working on regime change in Europe — fact, not conspiracy theory

On 27 May, an official document, The Need for Civilizational…

EUobserver
MikeDunnAuthor

Today in Labor History July 9, 1947: The Greek government ordered the arrest of 11,500 people on charges of plotting a Communist revolution. It occurred during the Greek Civil War (1943-1949), between Royalists (supported by the UK and US) and various Communist factions (supported by Yugoslavia and the USSR). It was the first US proxy war against Russia during the Cold War. Well over 200,000 people died and over 1 million were displaced. Nearly 80 years later, the U.S. continues its attempts to usurp Russia’s regional hegemony through another proxy war. This war has a similar number of deaths and refugees, but in only one-third the amount of time. And this time, both nations possess nuclear arsenals large enough to destroy the planet several times over.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #greece #communism #nationalism #russia #coldwar #imperialism #Revolution #proxywar #freespeech #prison #civilwar #ukraine #nuclear #bomb

MikeDunnAuthor

Today in Writing History July 7, 1907: Robert Heinlein was born. Heinlein was a pioneer of “hard” science fiction, which emphasized scientific accuracy in science fiction stories. He was considered one of the big 3, along with Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke. Some of his best-known works include “Starship Troopers,” “Stranger in a Strange Land,” and “The Moon is a Hard Mistress.” He often used technological advances to explore provocative political and social issues, and to speculate how they might affect the future. The social commentary in the fiction of H.G. Wells and Upton Sinclair influenced him. He believed that some form of socialism was inevitable and that some aspects of it were already developing in the U.S. However, in his later years he became very conservative. He became a member of the Citizen's Advisory Council on National Space Policy, which made policy recommendations that were later transformed into Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, or Star Wars.

#sciencefiction #scifi #author #writer #novel #books #heinlein #asimov #arthurcclarke #socialism #fiction #starwars #reagan #coldwar @bookstadon

Nonilex

In opening remarks to the summit, #Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva drew a parallel w/the #ColdWar's #NonAlignedMovement, a group of developing nations that resisted joining either side of a polarized global order.

"#BRICS is the heir to the Non-Aligned Movement," Lula told leaders. "With multilateralism under attack, our autonomy is in check once again."

BRICS nations represent >½ the world's population & 40% of its economic output, Lula noted…, warning of rising protectionism.

IHC

📕 O mês de Julho ainda está cheio de actividades, como o lançamento do mais recente livro da Imprensa de História Contemporânea:

"Libertação e Guerra Fria. A União Soviética e o Colapso do Império Português em África (1961-1975)", de Natalia Telpneva, vai ser lançado na Tigre de Papel a 17 de Julho, com apresentação de Giulia Strippoli e Rui Lopes.

ℹ️ ihc.fcsh.unl.pt/events/liberta

#Histodons #ColdWar #USSR #Colonialism #LiberationMovements #GuerraFria #URSS #África #MastoLivros #MastoBooks

avi2022

@Faithslayer202

Here's the bottom line

Eastern Europeans were promised a choice but denied the chance to exercise it. Between 1945 and 1949 every country behind the new “Iron Curtain” ended up with a Soviet-style single-party system—sometimes through rigged ballots, more often through outright coercion. Only the areas the Red Army did not control avoided that fate, underscoring how little real choice most people in the region had.

#ColdWar #EasternEurope #Europeans #Communists

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avi2022

@Faithslayer202

🇾🇪 Yugoslavia & 🇦🇱 Albania were liberated by their own partisans, but 1945 ballots offered only Tito’s or Hoxha’s single lists. #ColdWar

Why promises collapsed
• Red Army occupation = decisive leverage
• NKVD advisers ran police & counted votes
• “Salami tactics” dismembered rivals
• Land reform & antifascist prestige won some support, but coercion sealed power. #WWII #IronCurtain

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avi2022

@Faithslayer202

🇭🇺 Hungary
The 1945 election was truly free—communists won only 17 %. Mátyás Rákosi’s “salami tactics” (arrests, show trials, forced party mergers) sliced rivals away; by 1949 just one party remained. #Hungary #History

🇨🇿🇸🇰 Czechoslovakia
Communists took 38 % in the fair 1946 poll. When non-communist ministers resigned, armed “people’s militias” backed a February 1948 coup; all other parties were purged. #CzechHistory #ColdWar

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