Almost everything living thing is destroyed down to the dogs and squirrels.

Cockroaches are popularly considered to be capable of surviving a nuclear war being up to 15 times more radiation resistant than humans, however this insect is the one most likely to still be around.

Fruit fly radio resistance

Those in power would prefer the whole Earth to be populated by those of the same mindset.

During the Cold War it is doubtful there would have been a sufficient mix of females inside the nuclear bunkers in the United States to enable the elite to repopulate the world with their own.

Lupe opens this verse with a vivid description of the consequences of nuclear explosion, providing the imagery of “uninhabitable avenues” which would result from the radiation and fall out from a nuclear bomb.

image from Chernobyl which has been abandoned since 1986 as a result of nuclear contamination

By mentioning men, women and children, Lupe is implying that nuclear explosions aren’t selective and that they obliterate everything in their wake. They generate so much energy and temperature that their bones are literally turned to ash within a certain radius of the blast.

Visually the destructiveness of war or natural disaster is often illustrated with objects associated with children which are left discarded or destroyed.

In this case the owner of the lunchbox must have been near the centre of a nuclear explosion.

The racist Jim Crow Laws, which promoted separate facilities for people of color, were not repealed until 1965 during the Civil Rights movement. During WWII, however, they were in full force, especially in the southern United States.

Lupe is pointing the hypocrisy of opposing Hitler because of his racial policies when racist laws were still being enacted in the United States.

The reality is that those in power were more concerned about the international balance of power rather than the victims of the Nazi regime.

Some soldiers (particularly from Europe) signed up to defeat Hitler but ended up being deployed to Asia to fight Japan.

note the racial stereotype of the yellow peril

The thought process in maintaining a so-called nuclear deterrent is based on doctrines such as Mutually Assured Destruction which appeared to have a rational or scientific basis.

However, the key point (crux) was the belief in the superiority of individual races or nations over others. “We” should have nuclear weapons, “they” should never have nuclear weapons.

There is the presumption by those nations (and the people that control them) that have nuclear weapons that they are the only ones who can be trusted with having a nuclear deterrent.

Many members of the “nuclear club” would prefer other members not to have them.

Note “us” may refer to the United States who possesses more active nuclear warheads than any other country.

Pack-approved tactic refers to President Truman and his staff approving the tactic of using nuclear bombs to force Japan to surrender and thus end World War II.

The image presented to the public and generally recorded in the history books is that the Japanese would not surrender as they were willing to fight to the death.

However there are those who believe that regardless of Japan’s willingness to surrender, the United States was determined to experiment “fully practice” by dropping two nuclear bombs which enabled them both to prove their technology as well as serving as a warning to the rest of the world about the power of its nuclear capability.