Discussion of the Film Oppenheimer

Everyone who desires a far better world: join us to discuss what is provoked by the upcoming release of Oppenheimer; plan to see the film, and bring your ideas and questions. Put before people, and right at the film showings, the new Declaration from the Revcoms.

On Thursday, July 20, Oppenheimer, a major motion picture based on the life of Robert Oppenheimer, will open all across the U.S. J. Robert Oppenheimer, a theoretical physicist, was instrumental in the development of the world's first atomic bomb in the 1940s as part of what was called the Manhattan Project.

July 16, 1945, “Trinity”, the first test of the atomic bomb blasted “successfully” across the New Mexico desert. A few weeks later, on August 6, a blazing, million-degree fireball suddenly appeared just above the Japanese city of Hiroshima, instantly killing, burning alive, or vaporizing tens of thousands. Firestorms engulfed the city. Shockwaves and winds over 1,000 miles an hour came next, shattering bodies and buildings, hurling men, women, and children through the air. Nearly all structures were destroyed over a mile from ground zero. 140,000 people, almost all civilians died in Hiroshima. Three days later a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.

The dropping of two atomic bombs on Japan was a fitting ghastly start to what the U.S. Imperialist have called “the American century." Never a word of regret from the US government for this crime against humanity, and the U.S. still has first use of nuclear weapons enshrined in its military doctrine.

This film is coming out at a time when the world is closer to world war, to nuclear Armaggedon, than it has been for decades. The U.S. is escalating its proxy war with nuclear-armed Russia over Ukraine; it is also ramping up its military threats and war preparations against China, which also has nuclear weapons. This is a time of grave existential danger to humanity and the planet.

But this is also a period of intensifying tearing apart of U.S. society, with the rulers at the top at each other's throats—a rare time when there is also a greater chance to make emancipating revolution.

No World War 3—It Is This System, Not Humanity