War, Censorship and a Spacebridge
Paula Day, Center for Citizen Initiatives, 7/3/25
A simultaneous event happened in Kingston, New York, and St. Petersburg, Russia on June 18, that must encourage all who favor peace between our countries: a new Spacebridge was thrown out to two audiences of ‘ordinary’ citizens. The purpose was to provide a live forum for Russians and Americans to speak to each other, face-to-face, to introduce themselves to one another, to ask questions, express concerns and otherwise engage in the halting, sometimes awkward business of getting to know one another.
This Citizens’ Summit was for the people – not academics nor professional analysts, not opinion promoters nor influencers or leaders, but members of the class of human beings who make up 99.9999% (rough guess) of our species who populate this planet. I would suggest that they are the people CCI refers to as citizen diplomats and I am happy to report that there were three CCI travelers in attendance (including yours truly) and financial support from a fourth as a show of solidarity.
The original Spacebridges took place in the 1980’s, as some of you may remember, and there were clips from the 1985 program hosted by Vladimir Pozner and the late Phil Donohue inserted throughout this year’s event. (A full video of the ‘80’s landmark is included in the link below.) This year’s version was not a polished network production, and the hosts were not news media celebrities. The New York host was Scott Ritter, United States Marine, weapons’ inspector, military analyst, while his counterpart in St. Petersburg was businessman Pavel Balobanov. The audiences consisted of +/- 30 people in each location.
Asked after the event what I thought were the significant take aways, I came up with two:
Most significant – IT HAPPENED. Scott and Pavel took the first step in recreating a format that originated in a period when US/USSR relations were at an all-time low and the fear of a nuclear war between the two nuclear superpowers at an all-time high. Forty years later, both according to the experts and to what our eyes and senses tell us as we view the daily news, the real danger of nuclear war is higher than ever in history. Fear of that pending catastrophe affected the participants in both audiences but so did a palpable feeling of relief at being able to share that fear.Next most significant – THERE ARE PEOPLE OUT THERE WHO DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW IT HAPPENED. A week before the event we posted to our listserv a video of an interview with Ritter and Balobanov in which they discussed the upcoming Spacebridge. Some of our readers were able to view it but a few days before the event, Youtube censored and removed it on the pretext that it “violated community standards.” We then heard from other readers, including friends in Russia, that they were unable to view it. Likewise, we have learned that the Youtube video of the June 18 event has been removed for the same “violation of community standards.” Joe Lauria, editor of Consortium News, attended the event and stood up to express his most concerning fear in today’s world – censorship. It is well to note that the threat of nuclear war is just that, a threat. Censorship is real, it is happening to us, and it affects our ability to understand and function rationally in the world around us and that includes our ability to fight the threat of nuclear war.
It is every encouraging to be able to report that the censors are not winning, not yet, anyway. Scott and Pavel are planning more such citizen-to-citizen meet-ups, Vladimir Pozner hopes to celebrate the December 15 date of the original Spacebridge with another similar production, plans are being discussed for student-to-student bridges in colleges, universities and even elementary schools. A former CCI traveler hopes to have one such grade school Spacebridge ready this fall.
Since the subject of ‘fear’ was a clearly animating motivation for the Spacebridges, of 1985 as well as 2015, we might as well face it squarely; in all of nature, fear is critically necessary for life. When confronted by deadly danger fear motivates and when frightened we humans are motivated to save ourselves by either fleeing or fighting. If our fear is of nuclear destruction, then we must acknowledge there is nowhere to flee to – fight is our only option.
And if our fear is of censorship, of losing our right to speak, to assemble and to share our thoughts with others, then what do we do? I would suggest that we take a good look at the so-called ‘community’ Youtube wants us to be a part of and shun it. And then we should speak louder and more often as we get together and share those words with others. Nuclear war is neither acceptable nor inevitable, not if enough ‘ordinary’ people in our world say it isn’t.
With lawlessness, mayhem, bombing, murder, genocide and every other previously ‘unimaginable’ atrocity under the sun seemingly becoming the expected order of the day, you may be left feeling just a little bit helpless or depressed – I know I do. This state can lead to paralysis, another symptom of fear, which really is deadly. Fortunately, there are wise people among us to throw out a lifeline when needed and I wish I knew the name of the person who said, “The antidote to hopelessness is not hope. It’s a plan.”
The engineers of Spacebridges have a plan. Hats off to them and let us join them.
