That was today’s show in a nutshell… Well, the nut part was the talk about the rapture.

But let’s start with the serious stuff first. Nuclear power.  When the end of the world does come, it’ll be due to nukes… whether of the plants of mass destruction (my new name for nuclear power plants) or nuclear weapons. And the way things are going, it could happen soon. Very soon.

But we do have a chance to save the world.

Harvey Wasserman – the guy behind MUSE (Musicians United for Safe Energy) back in the 70s – has never stopped fighting for the No Nukes cause.  The author of Solartopia reunited with his MUSE allies, Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, Graham Nash and others to form NukeFree.org.

Harvey joined me on the show this morning to talk about the latest apocalyptic news from the Fukishima Daiichi plant of mass destruction.  What we now know is that the core in reactor #1 melted down within 16 hours of the earthquake/tsunami, and two others appear to be in meltdown mode.  Things there are really bad and getting worse, with little hope that the situation will get any better in the foreseeable future.

This is the latest news out of Japan.  This interview with  was  broadcast on RT  earlier this week.

The situation at the Fukushima plant is currently out of control, says Professor Christopher Busby from the European Committee on Radiation Risks, who gave RT his insight into the recent developments in Japan.

The situation at the Fukushima plant is currently out of control, says Professor Christopher Busby from the European Committee on Radiation Risks, who gave RT his insight into the recent developments in Japan.

“Of course, it’s time for the Japanese government to take control. But having said that, it’s very hard to know how you could take control of the situation. The situation is essentially out of control,” Busby stressed.

“I believe personally that it’s a global problem – and not the Japanese government’s problem only,” he added.
Earlier on Tuesday, Japan’s Prime Minister Naoto Kan said that his government was determined to “take responsibility” for Japan’s crippled nuclear plant “right to the end” as the operator of the plant said a revised roadmap to resolve the crisis would stick with the existing timeline.

Speaking to the media on Tuesday, Tokyo Electric Power Co. Vice President Sakae Muto said the operator would maintain the revised plan but will add new tasks, such as boosting preparedness for tsunamis and improving conditions for workers.
Reports say there are signs that two further reactors, Nos. 2 and 3, at Japan’s troubled Fukushima plant may have gone into meltdown. Earlier it was confirmed that similar problems had occurred at the number one reactor during the first 16 hours following the plant’s being hit by the earthquake and tsunami.

The main thing you can do is call your representatives in the House and Senate and tell them to stop the funding for any new nuclear plants of mass destruction, and to shut down the ones that are still operating.  It’s time to embrace safe, renewable energy.  Find all the information you need at www.NukeFree.org.

Now on to the liberals.  I’m just about as liberal as we come… but I know that on November 6, 2012 (if the earth is still standing) I’ll be voting to re-elect Barack Obama for a second term.  Do I wish I could be voting for Bernie Sanders for president? You bet your ass.  But that’s not going to happen.

Today, a new progressive group called Roots Action launched an attack on Obama from the left.  Good. I think he needs a kick in the ass to move him in the right (left) direction.

I agree with every point they made, but as I told Roots Action Executive Director Aimee Allison on the show this morning, I think their efforts would be more effective if they followed their own advice at the end of that video (move the country to the left and the president will follow) by finding and helping to elect true progressives to local, state and congressional offices.

The other problem I think a campaign like this will have is getting traction from what little “liberal” media there is. I read Ted Rall‘s latest column, “ The Rise of the Obamabots” aloud this morning to point out that liberals have a very tough time finding venues from which to criticize President Obama:

It feels a little weird to write this, like I’m telling tales out of school and ratting out the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy. But it’s true: there’s less room for a leftie during the Age of Obama than there was under Bush.

I didn’t realize how besotted progressives were by Mr. Hopey Changey.

Obama lost me before Inauguration Day, when he announced cabinet appointments thatdidn’t include a single liberal.

It got worse after that: Obama extended and expanded Bush’s TARP giveaway to the banks; continued Bush’s spying on our phone calls; ignored the foreclosure crisis;refused to investigate, much less prosecute, Bush’s torturers; his healthcare plan was asellout to Big Pharma; he kept Gitmo open; expanded the war against Afghanistan; dispatched more drone bombers; used weasel words to redefine the troops in Iraq as “non-combat”; extended the Bush tax cuts for the rich; claiming the right to assassinate U.S. citizens; most recently, there was the forced nudity torture of PFC Bradley Manningand expanding oil drilling offshore and on national lands.

I was merciless to Obama. I was cruel in my criticisms of Obama’s sellouts to the right. In my writings and drawings I tried to tell it as it was, or anyway, as I saw it. I thought—still think—that’s my job. I’m a critic, not a suck-up. The Obama Administration doesn’t need journalists or pundits to carry its water. That’s what press secretaries and PR flacks are for.

Does Obama ever do anything right? Not often, but sure. And when he does, I shut up about it. Cartoonists and columnists who promote government policy are an embarrassment.

But that’s what “liberal” media outlets want in the age of Obama.

I can’t prove it in every case. (That’s how blackballing works.) The Nation and Mother Jones and Harper’s, liberal magazines that gave me freelance work under Clinton and Bush, now ignore my queries. Even when I offered them first-person, unembedded war reporting from Afghanistan. Hey, maybe they’re too busy to answer email or voicemail. You never know.

Other censors are brazen.

There’s been a push among political cartoonists to get our work into the big editorial blogs and online magazines that seem poised to displace traditional print political magazines like The Progressive. In the past, editorial rejections had numerous causes: low budgets, lack of space, an editor who simply preferred another creator’s work over yours.

Now there’ s a new cause for refusal: Too tough on the president.

I’ve heard that from enough “liberal” websites and print publications to consider it a significant trend.

That’s just a taste of a very juicy missive that you can, and should, read in its entirety.

But the point I was making is that we can’t change who the Dems will run for POTUS in 2012. We CAN change the makeup of the congress and our local governments, and that’s where efforts like those of Roots Action should concentrate now.

And now back to the end of the world.  Being someone who has absolutely no use for organized religion or the idea that there’s some God in the sky who controls what happens here on earth, the whole notion that some tv/radio evangelist believes that Saturday is Judgement Day or The Rapture has me in stitches.

I called on my friend John Fugelsang who was raised by a former priest and nun to explain it all to me.  After he got done slamming the fear mongers who are making the stupid really scared about what they say will happen on Saturday, he let us know what insanity they’re promoting.

According to Harold Camping of the absurdly named Family Radio, here’s what will happen.  When local time hits 6pm, earthquakes will destroy cities… it’ll be a rolling thing, so as each time zone hits 6:00, it’ll be hit with its own earthquake.

The true believers will be transported “up” and the rest of us will be left to suffer as the world descends further and further into chaos, with the END coming on October 21.  But, wait a minute, what do you mean “up”?  Up to heaven, to be with God, of course.  Oh, silly me.  (Just see the picture at the top of the post!)

So that explains the need for After the Rapture Pet Care and other such entrepreneurial businesses that have been popping up of late. Well, if the world is going to end on October 21, at least we’ll get to live the final five months without the holier-than-thou Christians telling us how to live our lives.

If you need some music for your Rapture party, you can always enjoy REM’s It’s The End of the World as We Know It, Cake’s awesome cover of Gloria Gaynor’s I Will Survive, or perhaps this mash-up of The Doors’ Riders on the Storm and Blondie’s Rapture…

As for me, David and I have plans to see Lewis Black on Saturday night, showtime 8pm. Cool. All the self-righteous religious freaks will be gone by then.

Talk to you Monday… radio and rapture or not!