The Nuclear Abolitionist

The HOUR is getting late!!!

2012-01-11T16:32:00.000-08:00

Friends,

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists says "It is Now 5 Minutes to Midnight."

It should come as no surprise that this respected organization has moved the clock (on January 10th) an inch closer to the witching hour. It is black magic, indeed, that causes the clock to inch closer to midnight. As described on their Website:
The Doomsday Clock conveys how close humanity is to catastrophic destruction--the figurative midnight--and monitors the means humankind could use to obliterate itself. First and foremost, these include nuclear weapons, but they also encompass climate-changing technologies and new developments in the life sciences that could inflict irrevocable harm.
Just two years ago The Bulletin spoke hopefully as it set the clock back one minute (away from Midnight) saying,"We are poised to bend the arc of history toward a world free of nuclear weapons." That tempered enthusiasm was rooted in negotiations between Washington and Moscow for a follow-on agreement to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, along with ongoing negotiations for further reductions in the U.S. and Russian nuclear nuclear arsenals. There were also "pockets of progress" addressing climate change.

Yet, in just two years those hopes quickly faded as it has become evident that nations, in particular the United States and Russia, are not only hesitant to disarm, but are re-arming at an alarming rate; not much of an example for the rest of the world. As for climate change, it is clearly evident that Nero fiddles even while Rome burns. As The Bulletin summarizes the situation:
The challenges to rid the world of nuclear weapons, harness nuclear power, and meet the nearly inexorable climate disruptions from global warming are complex and interconnected. In the face of such complex problems, it is difficult to see where the capacity lies to address these challenges.
The Bulletin's Doomsday Clock is in a very real sense a prophetic voice, a clarion call to all who will listen. And listen we must, or turn away at humanity's peril. The longer we put off facing these issues, the greater the probability that the clock will once again start ticking,moving closer to midnight.

In 1953 the clock reached 2 minutes to midnight, the closest in its history, after the U.S. tested its first thermonuclear bomb. In its 1953 statement The Bulletin said:
Only a few more swings of the pendulum, and, from Moscow to Chicago, atomic explosions will strike midnight for Western civilization.
Disarmament is obviously not forthcoming from the halls of The White House, Congress or the Pentagon (or the Kremlin for that matter). It is up to We The People to rise up and demand good faith efforts toward disarmament, and of course simultaneous efforts to control global proliferation and move all nations toward a nuclear weapons free world. It is time to re-energize the global movement toward that goal.

Watch from Hiroshima

It is time to shout out in every capital city,

"Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Never Again!!!"

Peace,

Leonard

Read the announcements at The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists:

Doomsday Clock Moves 1 minute closer to midnight

Doomsday Clock moves to five minutes to midnight

Read the timeline of the Doomsday Clock: http://thebulletin.org/content/doomsday-clock/timeline

NUKE DEBATE??? Let's have the real one...

2012-01-09T16:14:00.000-08:00

Friends,

The front page of today's Seattle Times is embazoned with the headline:

Plan for $715 million Bangor wharf fires up

NUKE DEBATE

Under the headline is a mammoth photo of a Trident nuclear submarine somewhere in Puget Sound near Squim. Each of these behemoths has 24 launch tubes, and is capable of carrying 24 Trident II (D-5) missiles, each with a capacity of 8 warheads, each warhead being either a W76 (100 kiloton) or W88 (475 kiloton). In contrast, the Hiroshima bomb yield was somewhere between 12 and 15 kilotons.

Even if a single Trident sub carries only 24 missiles, each with only 4 warheads (as is supposedly the case due to current arms control agreements), that's a mighty big bang. One Trident sub - and there are a total of 14, with 8 of them at Bangor - can easily wipe any nation off the face of the map in a matter of minutes... POOF!

The Times article stated that “the entire fleet carries enough nuclear warheads on its Trident missiles to obliterate every major city in Russia and China.” Wow!!! If that seems like overkill, consider that the statement understates Tridents killing capacity. Each warhead can incinerate hundreds of thousands or millions of civilians in an attack on a "major city." With over a thousand warheads in the entire fleet, well... You do the math.

Should our government be crazy enough to start launching Tridents with armed nuclear warheads towards any nation all bets are off. Besides the mass murders of scores of innocent men, women and children, the fallout and residual radiation - much of which would exist for countless generations - would render much of the planet uninhabitable, and would cause major climatic effects resulting in global famine. Then, of course, there would be multi-generational birth defects, cancers and other radiation-related diseases.

It's safe to say that Trident is a "Cold War relic'" as retired Navy captain Tom Rogers referred to it in the article:

"Why are we doing this [building another Explosives Handling Wharf at Bangor]? We're spending a whole lot of taxpayer money on a Cold War relic," Rogers said in an interview. "All we are doing is making defense contractors rich."

Indeed it is making weapons makers extremely rich, and if the Navy goes ahead with its plans to build a next generation ballistic missile submarine to replace the current Trident fleet the amount to be spent on the new wharf will seem like chickenfeed. Just the construction cost of the news subs will likely be around $100 billion.

Admiral Gary Roughead, chief of naval operations, has told Congress that the new wharf is "critical to nuclear weapons surety and our national security." One has to wonder how, in an age when the Cold War is over and the greatest threat related to nuclear weapons or the fissile materials needed to make them likely would come from terrorists, a nuclear weapons system like Trident ensures our national security. If anything, it's an impressive (and extremely expensive) symbol of military might.

At a time when we need to be shifting from our reliance on nuclear weapons in order to bring stability to (and ensure progress in) global disarmament and nonproliferation efforts we need to reduce our nuclear arsenal and its delivery systems. If we do the math it is obvious that we have far more nuclear weapons than necessary to "deter" any adversary (that is assuming that the concept of deterrence is even applicable anymore).

Perhaps broader questions than those being debated about a Second Explosives Handling Wharf are in order. Why does the U.S. assume a continued Cold War posture? How can we possibly contemplate using weapons that kill indiscriminately and contaminate our environment for generations?

We need to grasp the dangers that nuclear weapons present, and further accept the fundamental risk that the longer we continue to produce and deploy them, the greater the probability that they will one day be used either accidentally or intentionally. And when that happens, it will be a dark day indeed.

As Tom Rogers pointed out - even with over a thousand nuclear warheads on all those Trident subs - we’re “not deterring anyone.” What a waste! So let's skip the small stuff and have the real debate -

Are nuclear weapons essentially obsolete??? Do we not need to learn to live together without threatening each other with annihilation???

As Martin Luther King Jr. said one year before his death, “We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation.” These were (and continue to be) prophetic words. Indeed, we have a choice and we are at the crossroads. Let us make the right choice, if not for ourselves, at least for future generations. We must work towards global nuclear disarmament, and the U.S. can (and must) lead the way.

In Peace,

Leonard

Note: URL for Seattle Times article: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2017193326_navywharf09m.html

Skewing science to justify nuclear power

2012-01-09T12:26:00.000-08:00

Friends,

Nuclear power and nuclear weapons are inextricably linked in many ways. They both produce ionizing radiation that, when released into the environment, exposes people to a wide variety of radioactive isotopes. Some are extremely short-lived, while others exist for countless lifetimes. One thing they all share? When they enter the body they act at the cellular level, causing damage, potentially to the cell's genetic material, and even at low exposure levels present some risk of a wide variety of effects.

Over a period of more than 66 years - through releases of radioisotopes to the environment from both nuclear power generation (routine operations and accidents) and nuclear weapons production and testing - vast quantities of radioisotopes have accumulated around the globe, creating a captive population of human guinea pigs.

However, "science" has not always been practiced as would be expected (of ethical scientists) throughout the nuclear age. The U.S. government has pursued a policy of nuclear power and nuclear weapons at all costs, and for many decades has sought to pacify the public, convincing it that there are no measurable risks from the production of nuclear power. Most recently we have been told (by people who obviously know better) that nuclear power is a "green" form of energy - aah, greenwashing at its best (or should I say worst).

For an excellent uncovering of the thin facade that perpetuates the myths of radiation safey, read Science with a Skew: The Nuclear Power Industry After Chernobyl and Fukushima, by Gayle Greene, just published in The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 10, Issue 1 No 3, January 2, 2012. Just as with Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, Greene pulls back the curtain to reveal the ugly truth behind the great facade of the nuclear power-weapons complex.

Even as the Fukushima disaster is already being largely forgotten by the mainstream news media, Greene reminds us of decades of deceit and obsfucation regarding the risks of radiation related to both nuclear power and nuclear weapons, focusing on a variety of subplots including the Chernobyl disaster, which has been mostly ignored by mainstream media, and has given barely a mention in news reports about Fukushima. As Greene reminds us:

Chernobyl is a better predictor of the Fukushima consequences than Hiroshima, but we wouldn’t know that from mainstream media. Perhaps we would rather not know that 57% of Chernobyl contamination went outside the former USSR; that people as far away as Oregon were warned not to drink rainwater “for some time”; that thyroid cancer doubled in Connecticut in the six years following the accident; that 369 farms in Great Britain remained contaminated 23 years after the catastrophe; that the German government compensates hunters for wild boar meat too contaminated to be eaten – and it paid four times more in compensation in 2009 than in 2007. Perhaps we’d rather not consider the possibility that “the Chernobyl cancer toll is one of the soundest reasons for the ‘cancer epidemic’ that has been afflicting humankind since the end of the 20^th century.”
Skewed science is not science at all. Rather, in the case of all things nuclear, it is simply a propaganda tool of a government narrowly focused on policies that, rather than serving humanity, serve the narrow interests of the nuclear industry and the national security state. It is up to the people to speak out and challenge the lies, and material like Gayle Greene's investigative reporting is extremely valuable in our task. Future generations deserve a sustainable, nuclear-free world.

Toward a nuclear-free world,

Leonard

Note: source URL for Greene's article: http://japanfocus.org/-Gayle-Greene/3672

Another 70 years of Trident?!

2011-12-28T21:18:00.000-08:00

Have you heard the news??? The U.S. Navy has been working on plans (since 2007) to replace those aging Trident submarines with a new fleet of ballistic missile submarines. The Navy plans to replace the 14 Ohio class submarines currently in service with 12 new subs, each with 16 missile tubes (the current subs have 24), and they will initially deploy the current Trident D-5 missile. Based on construction plans coupled with the new sub's projected lifespan the last one built will be on duty until 2082!!! Government auditors have estimated the total construction cost at nearly $100 billion!

Assuming the politicians, top brass and weapons contractors behind this project get their way – and this project has substantial backing - we are destined to be stuck with Trident for decades to come, assuming we don't destroy ourselves before 2082 (70 years from now!!!). Even with only 16 missile tubes those subs will still carry a whole mess of those 100 or 475 kiloton nuclear warheads, which are good for only one thing – incinerating millions of human beings and rendering the land uninhabitable for generations.

Before we spend hundreds of billions (if not trillions) of dollars building and operating a first strike weapons system designed during the Cold War – while we cannot even afford to fund necessary social programs at home - we must consider the destabilizing effects this will have on nonproliferation and disarmament efforts. We must challenge the government’s plan on both moral and legal grounds, and Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action will be launching such an effort. Help us scuttle the Navy’s dangerous plans in 2012.

Postscript: More information on Ground Zero's plans to challenge the next generation of Trident will be shared will be shared at the January 14th Martin Luther King day of action against Trident. This article originally appeared in the January 2012 Ground Zero Newsletter.

STOP Pushing Iran Toward the Brink!

2011-12-01T09:02:00.000-08:00

Friends,

If people took the headlines in the corporate press seriously - and far too many do - we would all be building bomb shelters and hoarding supplies in advance of the coming Armageddon. Two major factors are involved in pushing (what appears to be) the U.S. government's (and Israel's) agenda of a violent conflict - can you say "WAR" - with Iran.

First - The U.S. has never conducted serious, open discussions and negotiations with Iran. The political baggage from a long history of U.S. meddling (installing and supporting the Shah) followed by the 1979 overthrow of the Shah and the hostage crisis of the same year are too deeply embedded in our exceptionalist conscience to allow us to act objectively. Instead, the U.S. continues to pursue an endless succession of sanctions, which only serve to strengthen Iran's resolve.

Second - The media's misreading of the IAEA's report on Iran's nuclear weapons activities along with its parroting of inflammatory statements coming from The White House only serve to fan the flames of what could become nuclear flames should Israel go nuclear at some point should war break out (if Israel were to attack alleged nuclear sites in Iran).

I strongly suggest reading the following article by Greg Thielmann and Benjamin Loehrke in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists that provides an objective perspective on the IAEA's report on Iran's nuclear program. You can also read it below. Chain reaction: How the media has misread the IAEA's report on Iran, published November 23, 2011 in The Bulletin's online edition.

When you are done reading the article, please forward it to the editor of your local newspaper, and then go to the Just Foreign Policy action page and tell President Obama to conduct real negotiations with Iran. Let's try nonviolent conflict resolution for a change (and for our future).

Peace,

Leonard

*****************

Chain reaction: How the media has misread the IAEA's report on Iran

By Greg Thielmann and Benjamin Loehrke | 23 November 2011

When, earlier this month, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) released a report on Iran's nuclear program, several media agencies and politicians walked away with two messages: that the Vienna-based agency now refutes past estimates of the US intelligence community, and that Iran is now making a break for the bomb. Both representations are false. Yet these assertions have been repeated often enough to give them traction with the public and Congress.

Most analysts familiar with the report agree that there "is nothing in the report that was not previously known by the governments of the major powers" -- a nuclear Iran is "neither imminent nor inevitable." While it is clear that Iran's continuing research on nuclear weapons is a serious concern for international security, there "has been no smoking gun when it comes to Iran's nuclear weapons intentions."

So why the conflicting analyses over a highly bureaucratic and technocratic paper?

Washington talks a lot, but does not read very much. That is the simplest way to explain why commentators overlook the consistency between the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran and the latest IAEA report on Iran's nuclear program.

The 2007 NIE on Iran made the headline-grabbing, high-confidence assessment that, in fall 2003, Iran halted its nuclear weapons program (as distinct from its uranium enrichment and ballistic missile programs). Additionally, the NIE said:

We also assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Tehran at a minimum is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons. ...

We judge with high confidence that the halt lasted at least several years. (Because of intelligence gaps discussed elsewhere in this Estimate, however, [the Energy Department and the National Intelligence Council] assess with only moderate confidence that the halt to those activities represents a halt to Iran's entire nuclear weapons program.)

We assess with moderate confidence Tehran had not restarted its nuclear weapons program as of mid-2007, but we do not know whether it currently intends to develop nuclear weapons.

That is remarkably consistent with the IAEA's latest report, which noted:

[Iran's nuclear weapons effort] … was stopped rather abruptly pursuant to a "halt order" instruction issued in late 2003 by senior Iranian officials. According to that information, however, staff remained in place to record and document the achievements of their respective projects. … The agency is concerned because some of the activities undertaken after 2003 would be highly relevant to a nuclear weapon programme.

The NIE left open the possibility that Iran could continue its weapons-relevant activities. With four years of additional perspective, the latest IAEA report gives greater detail on the weapons work that Iran did prior to 2003, then updates the available information on what lesser work occurred after 2003. The new activities included:

•Engaging in experimental research, after 2003, on hemispherical initiation of high explosives.
•Further validation, after 2006, of a neutron initiator design.
•Conducting modeling studies, in 2008 and 2009, that could determine the yield of a nuclear explosion.

Carrying on scattered research activities does not amount to a full-fledged restart of an integrated weapons program. That type of activity still appears to have halted in 2003. The activities since seem more like Iran is refining its previous understanding of nuclear weapons design -- not breaking for a bomb.

Hence, in explaining the latest classified NIE on Iran released in March of this year, James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, told the Senate Armed Services Committee:

We continue to assess Iran is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons in part by developing various nuclear capabilities that better position it to produce such weapons, should it choose to do so. We do not know, however, if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons.

Clapper's testimony was in keeping with the recent IAEA report, which added considerable detail to the sanitized summary of the 2007 NIE.

The IAEA's comprehensive report is a strong indication that US intelligence in 2007 on Iran's nuclear program was based on solid evidence that has not been upended by the latest information. Iran's situation is not static; continuing reevaluation and updated analyses are necessary for any dynamic and professional intelligence process.

Moreover, sharing the information with the public on the conclusions reached is vital to informing ongoing debate. The IAEA deserves credit both for the quality of its analysis and for sharing its expert opinions with the wider public on these critical issues -- particularly since no summary of the latest NIE update has been released.

Pundits and politicians who use the latest IAEA report to attack the 2007 NIE are distorting the information, at best -- and, at worst, are playing politics with national security.

Copyright © 2011 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. All Rights Reserved.
source URL (retrieved on 12/01/2011 - 09:49): http://www.thebulletin.org/node/8947

A Hibakusha asks, "Who will continue the struggle..."

2011-11-01T11:39:00.000-07:00

Friends,

Ai Satoh of the Japan Council against A & H Bombs (Gensuikyo) shared the following speech given by Ms. Setsuko Thurlow, a Hibakusha of Hiroshima, to the First Committee of the United Nations General Assembly just the other day. Like so many other Hibakusha, Setsuko has dedicated herself to sharing the tragedy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and preventing future nuclear war.

It is right that Setsuko spoke at the United Nations, an organization brought forth "to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war." Of course, nuclear war would be a scourge unlike anything humankind has ever known, and the nations that have "united" to "live together in peace" must work with a will to abolish nuclear weapons.

Setsuko Thurlow, Hibakusha of Hiroshima

It is unconsionable that one nation would withold its financial debt to this family of nations to which it belongs, no matter how imperfect the U.N. might be. Rather than trying to tear it down the United States should be working to build it up, and updholding all its obligations both those of a financial nature as well as legal ones.

The duty, under international humanitarian law, to bring an end to the threat of nuclear weapons is clear. Of all the voices that speak, only those of the Hibakusha speak from the direct experience of nuclear horror, a horror that if ever unleashed again will make the horrific experiences of Hiroshima and Nagasaki pale in comparison.

For the 18th consecutive year, the General Assembly's First Committee passed a resolution on October 26th calling for the eradication of nuclear arms. Japan submitted the resolution, which had broad support. A plenary session of the General Assembly is expected to vote on the resolution this December.

May we hear the message of the Hibakusha, and may we support the efforts of the United Nations to abolish nuclear weapons once and for all. May we stimulate younger generations to (in Setsuko's words) "continue the struggle to outlaw and eliminate the last remaining weapon of mass destruction: nuclear weapons."

Peace,

Leonard

****************

United Nations General Assembly First Committee
October 26, 2011
Ms. Setsuko Thurlow

Dear Members of the First Committee and guests,

I am privileged to have this opportunity to share with you a small part of my experience of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

On August 6, 1945, as a 13 year-old grade 8 student in the Student Mobilization Program I was with about 30 other girls working at the Army headquarters as a decoding assistant. The building was 1.8 km from the hypo-centre. At 8:15 a.m., the moment I saw a brilliant bluish-white flash outside the window, I remember having the sensation of floating in the air. As I regained consciousness in the silence and the darkness, I found myself pinned by the ruins of the collapsed building. I could not move, and I knew I was faced with death. I began to hear my classmates’ faint cries, “Mother, help me” “God, help me”. Then, suddenly, I felt hands touching my left shoulder, and heard a man’s voice saying, “Don’t give up! Keep moving! I am trying to free you. See the light coming through that opening. Crawl towards it and get out as quickly as possible.” As I came out, the ruins were already on fire. Most of my classmates who were with me in the same room were burned alive. A soldier ordered me and two other surviving girls to escape to the nearby hills.

I looked around. Although it was morning, it was dark as twilight, with dust and smoke rising in the air. I saw streams of ghostly figures, slowly shuffling from the centre of the city towards the nearby hills. They were naked and tattered, bleeding, burned, blackened and swollen. Parts of their bodies were missing, flesh and skin hanging from their bones, some with their eyeballs hanging in their hands, and some with their stomachs burst open, with intestines hanging out. We girls joined the ghostly procession, carefully stepping over the dead and dying. There was a deathly silence broken only by the moans of the injured and their pleas for water. The foul stench of burned skin filled the air.

At the foot of the hill was an army training ground, about the size of two football fields. It was covered with the dead and injured, who were desperately begging, often in faint whispers, “Water, water, please give me water.” But we had no containers to carry any water. We went to a nearby stream to wash off the blood and dirt from our bodies. Then we tore off our blouses, soaked them with water, and hurried back to hold them to the mouths of the injured, who desperately sucked in the moisture. We kept busy at this task all day. We did not see any doctors or nurses. When darkness fell, we sat on the hillside and all night watched the entire city burn, numbed by the massive and grotesque scale of death and suffering we had witnessed.

Thus, my beloved city of Hiroshima suddenly became desolation, with heaps of ash and rubble, skeletons and blackened corpses. Its population of 360,000, most of whom were non-combatant women, children, and elderly, became victims of the indiscriminate massacre of the atomic bombing. By the end of 1945 approximately 140,000 had perished. As of the present day, at least 260,000 have perished because of the effects of the blast, heat, and radiation. My own age group of over 8,000 grade 7 and 8 students from all the high schools in the city were engaged in clearing fire lanes in the centre of the city. Many of them were killed instantly by the heat of 4,000 degrees Celsius. Radiation, the unique characteristic of the atomic bombing, affected people in mysterious and random ways, with some dying immediately, and others weeks, months, or years later by the delayed effects, and radiation is still killing survivors today, 66 years later.

I am incapable of describing fully the extent of human suffering caused by this unprecedented catastrophe, from the loss of human lives, shelter, food and medical care to the rapidly spreading rumours and discrimination against the “exposed ones” and “contaminated ones”. In addition people suffered from psycho-social trauma caused by the sudden collapse of their belief system, with Japan’s surrender in the war, and by the oppressive control imposed on them by the Occupation Forces, in the form of censorship and the confiscation of evidential materials of human suffering to be kept secret from public view.

With the end of the occupation the flood of information suddenly became available, enabling the survivors to contemplate the meaning of our survival in historical perspective and global context. We became convinced that no human being should ever have to repeat our experience of inhumanity, illegality, immorality and cruelty of an atomic bombing, and that our mission was to warn the world about the threat of this ultimate evil. We believe that humanity and nuclear weapons cannot coexist, and for the past several decades we have been speaking out around the world for the total abolition of nuclear weapons, as the only path to security and the preservation of the human community and civilization for future generations.

But has the world heard our plea? Has it listened to the cries of billions from around the world who desire peace not war, life not death? Is it justifiable for nuclear weapon states to possess and keep modernizing their nuclear weapons while keeping the world hostage in fear, not making efforts to fulfill in good faith their obligation under Article 6 of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and promoting the trade in nuclear materials with the state who refuses membership in the NPT? It was empowering to hear President Obama’s acknowledgement in Prague in 2009 of the US moral responsibility to work for nuclear disarmament, as the only nation that actually used nuclear weapons. Japanese Prime Ministers have repeatedly stated that Japan, as the only nation victimized by nuclear weapons, should be at the forefront of the global campaign for the abolition of nuclear weapons. I urge Japan and the United States to provide the initiative and enlightened leadership for the world’s most urgent and needed movement. Is this a fool’s dream? Still, I respectfully offer this proposal on behalf of all the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima, and elsewhere.

With the horrific earthquake, tsunami, and the nuclear power facility accident in Japan earlier this year there was an incredible outpouring of sympathy and support from around the world. It was a painful reminder to the world that within our life times we were witnessing once again people being exposed to radiation, this time through the force of nature combined with the fallibility of human ingenuity. Japanese people have gained a heightened awareness of the risk involved in nuclear power generation, and of how their government rushed to build 54 nuclear power facilities in the past several decades while avoiding public debate on this issue.

As Douglas Roche, Canada’s former Ambassador for Disarmament to the UN and the former international chairman of the Middle Power Initiative, has warned, use of the fissile materials in nuclear reactions – enriched uranium and plutonium – is spreading. “The same reactors that produce energy for peaceful purposes can also be used to turn out nuclear bombs. Will the expansion of nuclear energy in the world lead to the spread of nuclear weapons and increased dangers of nuclear terrorism?”

The NPT guarantees the so-called “inalienable right” of states to access nuclear energy in exchange for agreeing never to acquire nuclear weapons. Thus hibakusha, survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, who witnessed the atrocity of the first two uses of nuclear weapons 66 years ago, now confront the horror that sufficient nuclear fuel exists in dozens of countries to make another 120,000 nuclear bombs. Has not the time come to consider replacing the pillar of the NPT guaranteeing access to nuclear energy technology with a guarantee for access and technological assistance for renewable energy from the sun, wind, and tides?

At a quickening pace the Hiroshima and Nagasaki hibakusha are dying, filled with foreboding alarm and horror that their dream of a nuclear free world has not yet been achieved. The world community has outlawed biological and chemical warfare. Who will continue the struggle to outlaw and eliminate the last remaining weapon of mass destruction: nuclear weapons? You and I, together, we can. We must.

The Power of Direct Action: Lessons to be learned.

2011-09-30T22:16:00.000-07:00

Friends,

As we watch events unfolding on Wall Street (which could easily be renamed War Street), that financial heartland of companies that make up the vast military-nuclear-industrial complex, we see the power of direct action - of people taking to the streets and speaking truth to power. Of course, it doesn't get much more visible than on Wall Street. Even then, the corporate news media does its best to tone down events such as these.

Even less visible are the decades of countless direct actions undertaken by generations of peace activists attempting to shine a light on the massive waste of human and financial capital by military planners, politicians and the corporations with whom they dance and whose stocks are traded on Wall Street.

One of those recent direct actions that registered a blip or two on the national (corporate) news scene was last May's gathering at the new Kansas City bomb plant. This was a wonderful example of citizens speaking truth to power when those who claim to represent them sell out to the Military-Industrial Complex.

The struggle to stop the Kansas City bomb plant has received at least more national attention from the press than other local struggles against nuclear weapons-related activities. It's definitely one for us to study and learn from.

Here's some related reading on Kansas City:

52 arrested protesting nuclear weapons plant, by Joshua McElwee, in National Catholic Reporter

Kansas City Here it Comes: A New Nuclear Weapons Plant! by Lawrence Wittner, in the Huffington Post

Up Against the War Machine, by John LaForge, in Common Dreams

Together in the struggle,

Leonard

U.S. Desecrating the very idea of Peace

2011-09-09T09:28:00.000-07:00

Update (9/16/2011): The US Air Force has just announced that this test [referred to in this post] will not take place on the International Day of Peace. They have not yet announced a new date for the test. In the meantime, please consider sending a message opposing continued reliance on the theory of nuclear deterrence.

Friends,

In an incredibly blatant act of hubris the US Air Force (NOT IN MY NAME) is planning to test-launch a Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missile on September 21, the International Day of Peace.

That day is officially recognized each year by the United Nations General Assembly as a day for “commemorating and strengthening the ideals of peace both within and among all nations and peoples.” In 2005, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for the worldwide observance of a 24-hour cease-fire and day of nonviolence to mark the Day.

It is hard to imagine that scheduling a missile test launch - the armed Minutemen in their silos carry 170 kiloton nuclear warheads and can be launched within one minute of receipt of the launch order - on September 21st is by pure chance.

Should that be the case (or in any case for that matter) President Obama should order the launch cancelled! Scheduling a test launch of weapon that is expressly designed to incinerate tens of thousands or even millions of people and cause massive long-term suffering of survivors, and if ever used would very likely result in an omnicidal nuclear exchange, is unconscionable and sends a dangerous message to the rest of the world.

We must send a clear message to President Obama and urge him to cancel the launch and (I would add) call on the President to re-dedicate himself to his original call for nuclear abolition stated in his now famous Prague speech on April 5, 2009.

Please visit the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation's action page and send your own personalized message to the President today!

And please - Spread the word!

Peace,

Leonard

A Thermonuclear Fable for Our Time

2011-08-24T17:13:00.000-07:00

Friends,

You probably never thought you'd see rock videos at The Nuclear Abolitionist. Well, check out this brilliant rock video by The Decemberists, called "Calamity Song," written for their recent album "The King is Dead."

As a New York Times music review describes it,

The video, which made its online debut on Monday, depicts the playing of Eschaton, a game invented by [David Foster] Wallace that he describes about 325 pages into [his novel] “Infinite Jest.”

Adolescents from a New England tennis academy are seen ritualistically serving balls on a court onto which a map of the world has been superimposed. The balls, which represent five-megaton nuclear warheads, are aimed at objects labeled as military targets — power plants, missile installations — while a lone child oversees the game from a nearby computer terminal.

Powerful music, visual imagery and message! As Stephen Kobasa said, it's "a visual fable for our time," and we had certainly better give it serious consideration.

Peace,

Leonard

Former submarine commander now anti-nuclear weapons activist

2011-08-19T13:54:00.000-07:00

Friends,

The Central Kitsap Reporter ran the following article today about Captain Tom Rogers, US Navy, Retired, who served on nuclear submarines and was also the commander of one during the Cold War.

Years later Tom is now an active member of Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action, an organization of peace activists who study nonviolence and work for the abolition of all nuclear weapons with an emphasis on Trident, which is quite literally in its back yard. Less than two weeks ago Tom, along with four other activists, was arrested while trying to block traffic into the Bangor Trident sub base in a symbolic act of closing the base.

This interview provides a perspective rarely found among anti-nuclear activists, yet one that is extremely important. Tom is intelligent, articulate and passionate in his calm way. His is a voice that needs to be heard.

You can also see a video of the August 7th action, photos, and more at the Puget Sound Nuclear Weapon Free Zone Blog.

Peace,

Leonard

****************************

Sub commander is now an anti-nuke activist — Tom Rogers was arrested while blocking Bangor gates

By TOM JAMES
Central Kitsap Reporter Staff Writer
Aug 19 2011

Tom Rogers, a former submarine commander turned antinuclear protester, was arrested Aug. 8 while blocking the gate at Naval Base Kitsap Bangor, home to a large nuclear weapons stockpile.

The date of his protest was chosen to commemorate the Aug. 6 and Aug. 9 bombings of Heroshima and Nagasak, Japan in 1945.

What led you to protest at the gate at Bangor?

In the years following the end of the Cold War I became less and less comfortable with the concept of nuclear deterrents when there really wasn’t anybody out there that we were deterring. What we were doing was spending a whole lot of money not to be any safer. It made me mad as a former naval officer who dedicated my life to the Cold War – that’s what I did – and as a taxpayer, and as a resident of Kitsap County, because the continuing presence of the weapons at Bangor is a danger to people and the environment, even though the folks out there do as good a job as they can.

You knew what was going to happen?

It was the culmination of a process of discernment and deciding if it was the right time for me to do that. Getting arrested was a step I hadn’t taken. I’d been at ground zero for eight years and I’d been very active, I’d testified at trials, I’ve written things, I’ve done a lot of work. But I was always dubious about the value of getting arrested. Four of us decided we would symbolically close the base by dragging that big inflatable missile into the road, and closing the base. And that’s what we did.

Was it hard to step over those barricades?

No. Not at all. Once I had gone through the process of discernment, and decided that it was time for me to do that and we made a plan and we rehearsed it, and had three other people with me that were going to cross the line with me there was no looking back, there was no recrimination.

You excelled in the military, and you say you're still promilitary?

I was a child of the ‘60s. I lived in Haight-Ashbury for a little while in the mid-’60s, the summer of love, I was a hippie. Then I got drafted – the Vietnam War was raging – it was 1966, so the first thing I did was I went home, to Connecticut, and I went to the local Navy recruiter and I said, ‘I’m not into this Army thing, what can you do for me?’ … and I said thank you very much, let’s do it. And that’s how I stayed out of the Vietnam War.

So I was an unlikely candidate for my subsequent career, but I kind of fit. I was technically proficient, smart, knew how to work. Then they just kept making me offers I couldn’t refuse. I never was really committed to making the Navy a career, it just sort of happened. They kept promoting me. I was surprised at every promotion board.

What is it about nuclear weapons that makes it OK to break the law protesting them?

Because I’ve testified for people who’ve broken the law – felonies – and here’s the deal. In 1996 the international court of justice, which is the judicial arm of the United Nations, was asked for a judgment on whether nuclear weapons were illegal. And after a year of hearings and deliberations, they came back and said unequivocally, that the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons is illegal under international law. That came out of … the Geneva Accords. If you look at those, its obvious that the use of nuclear weapons is illegal under those accords.

Now here’s the leap. I believe that deployment of nuclear weapons on board Trident submarines who are on alert patrol and can shoot those weapons within 30 minutes at anybody in the world constitutes a continuing threat of use. So we believe that the United States is doing something illegal.

Is it hard to go on base now that you've taken part in the continuing protest?

Absolutely not. I exercise my rights and obligations as a citizen of being an activist off the base. When I’m on the base I’m a Navy veteran, I use the facilities, and I feel very justified in doing so. I really have no relationships with anybody who is actively working on the base now, but if I did I would not compromise those relationships. I can live these two lives very happily within myself.

Central Kitsap Reporter Staff Writer Tom James can be reached at tjames@bremertonpatriot.com or (360) 308-9161 ext. 5062. The URL for the article is http://www.pnwlocalnews.com/kitsap/ckr/news/128084923.html.

Kucinich Calls for Freedom from Fear, Nuclear Weapons and War!

2011-08-16T12:27:00.000-07:00

Friends,

Congressman Dennis Kucinich spoke at Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action on Sunday, August 7, 2011 during the organizations annual gathering to commemorate the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. His speech was timely and powerful, calling on the United States to take concrete steps to work toward a nuclear weapon's free world. He also called on the US to forge a new doctrine of Strength through Peace. Kucinich wrapped up his speech by reminding us that it is up to we the people to "resolve that we shall become as architects of a new world free of fear, free of nuclear weapons, and free of war."

The following is the entire, unabridged transcript of Kucinich's speech. You can also watch the entire speech as well as the question and answer period by clicking here.

Peace,

Leonard

*******************

(Note: audio starts here)… last night, and I see one of my brothers here. Some of you might have been there for Hiroshima to Hope, and that was a very important occasion. Given the importance of this organization and your dedication to nuclear abolition, I’ve decided to prepare some remarks especially for this occasion that would reflect the potential that we have to take a new direction

The human heart is Ground Zero. It’s in the human heart where blind fear hides in dark chambers. It’s there where murderous intensity is unleashed against our brothers and sisters and the world. It is there where nuclear explosions first take place. It’s there where the world ends.

The world also begins in the human heart. It’s where courage creates new possibilities. It’s where nuclear weapons can be abolished, and where war itself can be no more. The human heart is where the impulse for life resounds with such a powerful pulsation that one person, indeed all of humanity, experiences love through the energy of the heart, the rhythms of the heart, the luminosity of the heart. We draw from our hearts our own transformational potential and the ability to re-create the world.

Here we are free of the death wish. Here we summon the strength to wrest the nuclear Sword of Damocles from the hands of fates we ourselves have fashioned from the projection of our fears. Three score and six years ago that nuclear Sword of Damocles was dropped not once but twice upon the people of Japan. Today we require ourselves to lay our ears on the heart of the world and to listen to the cries of the souls of our Japanese brothers and sisters who perished in two flashes or who were poisoned by radiation, and to be mindful of the suffering of the Hibakusha who live to testify to the nullification of our own humanity through the use of the ultimate weapon.

We gather here not only to assert that doctrines of unilateralism, pre-emption and first strike must be set aside as profoundly dangerous relics. But we come together in recognition that nuclear weapons represent the ultimate escalation of war, and that it is our responsibility to make war itself obsolete through direct actions and through concrete steps that can take is in the direction of peace. For we cannot hope to abolish nuclear weapons unless we change the thinking that created those weapons and unless we change dramatically the U.S. role in the World.

We need a new doctrine of strength through peace, which relies on diplomacy the size of human relations addressing the needs of people everywhere for sustainability, for housing, for education, clean water, clean air and freedom from fear. A new doctrine of strength through peace will provide for a strong defense with a powerful basic fighting force of Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force and Coast Guard that will re-establish America’s role in the world mindful of the cost and consequences of the US’ current global presence and the benefits of international cooperation for security through the United Nations.

The doctrine of strength through peace rejects counterinsurgency through recognition that every insurgency is precipitated and fueled by occupation. Provisions of a doctrine of strength through peace will call for the United States to withdraw from Afghanistan and Iraq by the end of 2011. Call upon the US to participate in a negotiated settlement to end the war in Libya. Call upon the US to stop the use of drone missile strikes. Call upon the US to lead a negotiated settlement in the Middle East which protects Israel’s survival and the Palestinians’ absolute right to self-determination while working to strengthen democratic principles, nonviolence, human rights and non-sectarianism in Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and Tunisia.

A doctrine of strength through peace calls upon the United States to renounce all policies of assassination. It forbids the Central Intelligence Agency from having any command and control over weapons systems. It calls upon the Air Force to drop its pursuit of Vision 20/20, which is a plan for the US to try to achieve superiority over space through putting weapons in outer space.

The doctrine of strength through peace sees that the US will fully comply with all international treaties and insist that our allies and partners do the same, including full compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Biological Weapons Convention, the Chemical Weapons Convention, the Small Arms Treaty, the Land Mine Treaty, and it calls on the United States to join the International Criminal Court, and that US officials would have to be accountable to that criminal court.

A doctrine of strength of strength through peace sees the US in support of the Ground Zero movement, and that will lead us to nuclear abolition by taking the following steps:

1. to revise and repeal the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review, which calls for sustaining nuclear forces,
2. to cancel the order for 12 new ICBM-capable subs,
3. to cancel the $29.4 billion in R&D in connection with that program,
4. to cancel the Air Force’s R&D for ICBM follow-ons,
5. to eliminate $600 million in funding under the National Nuclear Security Administration fiscal year 2012,
6. to eliminate $4.1 billion in funding for nuclear weapons modernization over the next five years,
7. to eliminate plans to spend an additional $85 billion for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s weapons activities over the next decade,
8. to focus the CIA on identifying and if necessary interdicting and seizing nuclear materials from non-state actors.

Now consistent with that, the most valuable provision in the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review calls for, and I quote, “enhancing national and international capabilities to disrupt illicit proliferation networks and interdict smuggled nuclear materials and continue to expand our nuclear forensics efforts to improve the capabilities to identify the source of nuclear material used or intended for use in a terrorist nuclear explosive device.

The 2010 NPR declares, quote, “The US will not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against any non-nuclear weapons state that are in compliance with this nation’s non-proliferation obligations.” This is a telling loophole though in the NPT, which opens the door to the threat of a nuclear attack upon Iran or North Korea, and as such this provision must be changed to forego the use of nuclear weapons against any nation.

The 2010 Nuclear Posture Review declares the US is not prepared to adopt a universal policy deterring a nuclear attack, declaring that a nuclear attack is the sole purpose of nuclear weapons, and would “only consider the use of nuclear weapons in extreme circumstances to defend the vital interests of the US, its allies or partners.” Here again the door is left open to interpreting circumstances, which would allow for the use of nuclear weapons. This provision must be deleted from future Nuclear Posture Reviews and deleted from the policy of the United States today.

It is time for us to challenge the doctrine of deterrence, and reveal it for what it is – a corollary to mutually assured destruction, which is the opposite of survival. The US must ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty once and for all, and we must stop subsidizing the nuclear power industry and its concomitant use of uranium where the byproduct creates material, which can be used for nuclear terrorism.

We can prevent nuclear terrorism by not ourselves threatening it against other nations. We can prevent nuclear proliferation by not participating in it, and thereby become a model for all nations. It’s time for us to deepen our partnership with Russia, and to expedite the arms reduction promise in the Moscow Treaty and START II. It’s time for a new partnership with China, for nuclear abolition and a new defense partnership with China to stop a new arms race from occurring and to stop the disagreements of the present from becoming the conflicts of the future.

Today as we gather in this beautiful setting we have to remember that our destiny and the fate of the planet is not outside our reach. It is within our grasp if it is within our hearts to abolish all weapons and to abolish war itself. On this great day when we reflect upon the great human tragedy of war and the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki let us resolve that we shall become as architects of a new world free of fear, free of nuclear weapons, and free of war.

Thank you very much. [sustained applause] Thank you. Great to be here with you.

###

Notes: This transcript from the audio recording of Congressman Kucinich’s speech was made by Leonard Eiger, Media & Outreach Coordinator, Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action. Congressman Kucinich’s speech was videotaped by Todd Boyle, and is posted at YouTube at http://youtu.be/Qo4fItuL8Zw.

Founded in 1977, Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action offers the opportunity to explore the meaning and practice of nonviolence from a perspective of deep spiritual reflection, providing a means for witnessing to and resisting all nuclear weapons, especially Trident. We seek to go to the root of violence and injustice in our world and experience the transforming power of love through nonviolent direct action. Learn more at www.gzcenter.org.

Dealing with the Nuclear Genie

2011-07-18T15:15:00.000-07:00

Friends,

July 16th marked the day 66 years ago when the United States let the nuclear genie out of the lamp.

On July 16, 1945, at 5:29:45 AM at the Alamogordo Test Range, on the Jornada del Muerto (Journey of Death) desert, in the test named Trinity, the experimental device known as the "Gadget" was detonated, creating a light "brighter than a thousand suns." A mere 6 kilogram (13.2 pound) sphere of plutonium, compressed to supercriticality by the surrounding high explosives, created an explosion equivalent to 20,000 tons of TNT (20 Kilotons).

Was this, as thought nuclear physicist Robert Oppenheimer, the beginning of the end? These scientists had "become death", and they had created what could become (quite literally) "the destroyer of worlds." Oppenheimer quoted a verse from the Bhagavad Gita which read "I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." The nuclear genie was out of the lamp and now, 66 years later, we have one final wish left. Will it be for the genie to return to the lamp?

Less than one month after the Trinity test, the United States dropped two atomic bombs - on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - that killed over 100,000 people in less time than it took me to type a few of these words. As many as 220,000 were dead from the effects of radiation by the end of 1945. Even today, 66 years later, survivors and subsequent generations suffer the effects of radiation.

So began a journey (with the test known as Trinity) that has led humanity down the perilous road of preparation for its own destruction. Scientists have continued to seek the power of gods, creating ever more destructive nuclear devices over the years, and many in our government and others continue asking for more of these awful weapons in every shape and form (and method of delivery).

Today the U.S. government is building new bomb-making facilities at Kansas City and Oak Ridge, while it develops new nuclear capable bombers and ballistic missile submarines (just to name a few key projects). What message do you think this sends to other nations contemplating developing or building more nuclear weapons???

Our leaders, including President Obama, are forging ahead towards nuclear darkness, and it is up to the people to call for an end to this madness that consumes vast quantities of economic capital while preparing for the end of life as we know it. We can participate on many levels, from advocacy to nonviolent direct action, from our hands to our feet - there is something everyone can do to help put the genie back in the bottle.

It is no simple task, and many people would say that we are naive to think such a thing is possible. We will never know if we don't try. Even the U.S. Conference of Mayors, at its recent meeting, called for the abolition of nuclear weapons.

Get involved in an upcoming event commemorating the anniversaries of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Many cities have ceremonies commemorating these events. Click here for events occurring around Puget Sound. Take one of many advocacy actions, including cutting the 2012 nuclear weapons budget, at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation or any number of other organizations (see the list of "Hot Links" in the right hand column of this blog).

After 66 years it is high time we put the nuclear genie back in the lamp.

Peace,

Leonard

The High Price of US Nukes

2011-07-16T19:45:00.000-07:00

By William Hartung - July 13, 2011Originally published by TalkingPointsMemo

As President Obama and Republicans in Congress go down to the wire in negotiations over a package of budget cuts that would clear the way for raising the debt ceiling, we shouldn't lose sight of one key source of reductions: military spending. Although it was not mentioned in the President's press conference earlier this week, there has been a press report suggesting that the budget negotiators may have considered cuts of up to $700 billion over ten years -- a healthy sum if it represents real reductions, not funny money projections based on misleading estimating techniques.

As Joseph Cirincione of the Ploughshares Fund has demonstrated in a piece that ran today on the web site of the Atlantic magazine, one area ripe for cuts is the nuclear weapons budget. Current projections call for the expenditure of hundreds of billions of dollars over the next decade on maintaining and upgrading the U.S. nuclear arsenal, including everything from new nuclear weapons factories to new bombers and ballistic missile submarines.

Here are just a few examples of nuclear weapons-related projects that could be done without at a time when nuclear arsenals are on the decline:

--One hundred new bombers, at a currently estimated price of $55 billion;

--A dozen new ballistic missile launching submarines, at a cost estimated by the Congressional Budget Office at $8.3 billion each, for a total of nearly $100 billion;

-- A Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement (CMRR) facility at Los Alamos National Laboratories that would produce plutonium "pits" or triggers, an essential component for building a nuclear weapon, at an estimated price of up to $6 billion;

--A Uranium Processing Facillity at the NNSA's Oak Ridge, Tennessee site, at a cost estimated by the Army Corps of Engineers of up to $7.5 billion.

At this stage in history, U.S. nuclear weapons serve no useful purpose other than preventing another nation from using nuclear weapons against the United States. And a study by two professors of military strategy at U.S. military colleges has suggested that that mission could be accomplished with roughly 300 warheads, compared with the 1,550 deployed warheads permitted under the New START treaty, and the roughly 5,000 currently in the U.S. stockpile if one counts all categories of non-deployed weapons. Going down to these levels would save additional billions in reduced operating and maintenance costs for the arsenal as a whole.

Not only have a growing list of former secretaries of state and defense, presidents and prime ministers, scientists and retired military officials called for the elimination of nuclear weapons, but if pushed by budgetary realities so would many current U.S. military leaders. While they won't say so publicly, if forced to choose between nukes and major conventional systems it is my bet that nukes would lose out in that particular budget battle.

So as the president and the Congress continue to look for places to reduce spending, the nuclear weapons budget should be high on the list.

William D. Hartung is the director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy and the author of Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex (Nation Books).

A Nuclear Generation Palindrome

2011-07-13T08:52:00.000-07:00

Friends,

In a time of endless war and nuclear weapons it is easy to become despondent about the future, yet there is always hope. That hope lies in people who can see inside the madness, understand it and refuse to accept the darkness. It also requires a different way of seeing. Jonathan Reed, in his palindrome "Lost Generation," did just that.

Lawyer, international humanitarian law expert and creative spirit Anabel Dwyer was inspired by Jonathan's palindrome to write one of her own that speaks to us with a message of hope about nuclear weapons. After all that is what we are - people of hope.

Peace,

Leonard

**************

A Nuclear Generation Palindrome

by Anabel Dwyer 6/28/11 with thanks to Jonathan Reed's "Lost Generation."

Read this from the top down and you’ll get the problem.
Read from the bottom up and you’ll get the reality.

We need nuclear weapons
I refuse to believe that
disarmament is possible
I realize that this may be a shock but
“We live by the rule of law, nonviolently”
is a lie and
"Security comes from greater force"
So we can tell our children
they are not important in our lives
Our military corps will know
We have our priorities straight because
secrecy
is more important than
truth
I will tell you this
Once upon a time
The judiciary was considered independent
but this will not be possible
This is a quick buck society
Experts tell me
30 years from now B&W will still make nuclear weapons
I do not concede that
I will live in a country where citizen whistleblowers will be honored
In the future
chemical and radioactive contamination will be the norm
No longer can it be said that
We can stop the destruction of life
It will be evident that
Our times are only violent and fruitless
It is foolish to presume that
There is hope

"All this will be true unless we choose to reverse it..."

ENDING NUCLEAR EVIL

2011-07-01T18:32:00.000-07:00

By Desmond Tutu

Eliminating nuclear weapons is the democratic wish of the world’s people. Yet no nuclear-armed country currently appears to be preparing for a future without these terrifying devices. In fact, all are squandering billions of dollars on modernization of their nuclear forces, making a mockery of United Nations disarmament pledges. If we allow this madness to continue, the eventual use of these instruments of terror seems all but inevitable.

The nuclear power crisis at Japan’s Fukushima power plant has served as a dreadful reminder that events thought unlikely can and do happen. It has taken a tragedy of great proportions to prompt some leaders to act to avoid similar calamities at nuclear reactors elsewhere in the world. But it must not take another Hiroshima or Nagasaki – or an even greater disaster – before they finally wake up and recognize the urgent necessity of nuclear disarmament.

This week, the foreign ministers of five nuclear-armed countries – the United States, Russia, Britain, France, and China – will meet in Paris to discuss progress in implementing the nuclear-disarmament commitments that they made at last year’s Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference. It will be a test of their resolve to transform the vision of a future free of nuclear arms into reality.

If they are serious about preventing the spread of these monstrous weapons – and averting their use – they will work energetically and expeditiously to eliminate them completely. One standard must apply to all countries: zero. Nuclear arms are wicked, regardless of who possesses them. The unspeakable human suffering that they inflict is the same whatever flag they may bear. So long as these weapons exist, the threat of their use – either by accident or through an act of sheer madness – will remain.

We must not tolerate a system of nuclear apartheid, in which it is considered legitimate for some states to possess nuclear arms but patently unacceptable for others to seek to acquire them. Such a double standard is no basis for peace and security in the world. The NPT is not a license for the five original nuclear powers to cling to these weapons indefinitely. The International Court of Justice has affirmed that they are legally obliged to negotiate in good faith for the complete elimination of their nuclear forces.

The New START agreement between the US and Russia, while a step in the right direction, will only skim the surface off the former Cold War foes’ bloated nuclear arsenals – which account for 95% of the global total. Furthermore, these and other countries’ modernization activities cannot be reconciled with their professed support for a world free of nuclear weapons.

It is deeply troubling that the US has allocated $185 billion to augment its nuclear stockpile over the next decade, on top of the ordinary annual nuclear-weapons budget of more than $50 billion. Just as unsettling is the Pentagon’s push for the development of nuclear-armed drones – H-bombs deliverable by remote control.

Russia, too, has unveiled a massive nuclear-weapons modernization plan, which includes the deployment of various new delivery systems. British politicians, meanwhile, are seeking to renew their navy’s aging fleet of Trident submarines – at an estimated cost of £76 billion ($121 billion). In doing so, they are passing up an historic opportunity to take the lead on nuclear disarmament.

Every dollar invested in bolstering a country’s nuclear arsenal is a diversion of resources from its schools, hospitals, and other social services, and a theft from the millions around the globe who go hungry or are denied access to basic medicines. Instead of investing in weapons of mass annihilation, governments must allocate resources towards meeting human needs.

The only obstacle we face in abolishing nuclear weapons is a lack of political will, which can – and must – be overcome. Two-thirds of UN member states have called for a nuclear-weapons convention similar to existing treaties banning other categories of particularly inhumane and indiscriminate weapons, from biological and chemical arms to anti-personnel land mines and cluster munitions. Such a treaty is feasible and must be urgently pursued.

It is true that nuclear weapons cannot be uninvented, but that does not mean that nuclear disarmament is an impossible dream. My own country, South Africa, gave up its nuclear arsenal in the 1990’s, realizing it was better off without these weapons. Around the same time, the newly independent states of Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine voluntarily relinquished their nuclear arms, and then joined the NPT. Other countries have abandoned nuclear-weapons programs, recognizing that nothing good could possibly come from them. Global stockpiles have dropped from 68,000 warheads at the height of the Cold War to 20,000 today.

In time, every government will come to accept the basic inhumanity of threatening to obliterate entire cities with nuclear weapons. They will work to achieve a world in which such weapons are no more – where the rule of law, not the rule of force, reigns supreme, and cooperation is seen as the best guarantor of international peace. But such a world will be possible only if people everywhere rise up and challenge the nuclear madness.

###

Editor's Note: The original article can be found at the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). Desmond Tutu is a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and long-time advocate for abolishing nuclear weapons.

A Test is a Test is a Test...

2011-05-27T18:50:00.000-07:00

Friends,

There has been lots of buzz lately about whether the United States has conducted nuclear tests over the past year. Yes Virginia, the US did, in fact, conduct tests intended to make sure that those thousands of nasty nukes in its arsenal will perform as they are designed should someone actually be crazy enough to launch one.

Of course, there was no mushroom cloud like the bad old days of atmospheric testing, or seismographic mayhem that was a telltale sign of underground tests of yore. Over the decades since the beginning of the nuclear age the U.S. conducted 1030 tests involving the detonation of a nuclear device (215 atmospherice and 815 underground) up until 1992.

The two tests (in November 2010 and March 2011) were conducted at Sandia National Laboratories Pulsed Power and Z Facility, and involved bombarding relatively small plutonium samples with extremely high energy X-rays to determine how it functions under extreme temperature and pressure.

This type of testing isn't anything like the detonation of a full scale nuclear weapon, but is still a "nuclear" test. Don't take my word for it however. The Sandia Labs press release for the March 2011 test said (in describing the test) that the:

"controlled radiation or magnetic pressure creates conditions on a small scale similar to those caused by the detonation of nuclear weapons, which is why from its earliest days pulsed power has been used to study weapons effects."

Of course, this testing at Sandia is just one of many aspects of continuing efforts by the U.S. government to not only maintain, but to upgrade the nuclear weapons stockpiled and deployed in its arsenal. In addition to the work at the weapons laboratories - Sandia, Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore - the entire manufacturing infrastructure is being completely rebuilt in order to continue modernizing the nation's nuclear arsenal.

Design, manufacturing, refurbishment, testing, upgrading... It all boils down to perpetuating a reliance on nuclear weapons, which have no purpose except to incinerate huge numbers of people and leave a radioactive wasteland in their wake. Testing is testing no matter how you cut it, and it is time to STOP.

The program of reliability testing and maintenance of U.S. nuclear weapons is referred to as "Stockpile Stewardship." The term stewardship is defined (by Merriam Webster) as "the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one's care."

If we are to be good stewards of the Earth and the life that inhabits it (including human life), how do people reconcile being stewards of weapons that by their very nature, if used in even a limited exchange, would contaminate the planet and create conditions that might extinguish life as we know it???

Peace,

Leonard

Note: The Japan Council against A and H Bombs (Gensuikyo) sent a protest note to President Barack Obama on May 23, regarding a news report that it had conducted a new form of nuclear tests in November 2010 and in March 2011. Following is the note.
------------------------------

May 23, 2011

Mr. Barack OBAMA
President
United States of America

We protest against your conducting a new form of nuclear tests and urge you to make efforts in good faith to achieve a world without nuclear weapons.

The U.S. Department of Energy (the National Nuclear Security Administration) made public by May 21 that it had conducted the new form of nuclear tests twice in November 2010 and in March 2011.

Your Government claimed that these tests were meant to maintain the reliability and efficacy of the nuclear weapons the U.S. already have in its possession. However, any nuclear-weapon test, irrespective of it may involve explosion or not, is aimed at ensuring the use or/and continued deployment of these weapons. This act obviously runs counter to both the objective of achieving “the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons” agreed upon by the NPT Review Conference in May 2010 and the promise you yourself made in Prague in April 2009.

We strongly urge you to abandon any plan of nuclear testing and nuclear development, and immediately undertake efforts for the ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and the conclusion of a treaty totally banning nuclear weapons.

YASUI Masakazu
Secretary General

Navy Plans Rebuild of Trident Nuclear Weapons System

2011-05-22T08:01:00.000-07:00

by David C. Hall, MD

The Pentagon and US Navy are planning to rebuild the Trident submarine nuclear weapons fleet over the next fifteen years at a cost likely to exceed $1 trillion over the life of the program. Currently eight of the fourteen Trident warships allowed under the START treaty homeport on Hood Canal at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor in Washington State. The other six homeport at Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, Georgia.

In what may well be an opening salvo announcing the rebuild of the Trident fleet, the Navy plans to build a new and expanded Explosives Handling Wharf at Bangor next to the one currently servicing these warships. Price tag: $783 million. The Navy claims to need 400 operational days a year to load and unload missiles from the warships over the next 30-plus years, and they can only get 300 operational days from the current Explosives Handling Wharf. (Editor's Note: Public comment on the Second Wharf Environmental Impact Statement was solicited through May 17, 2011 at www.nbkeis.com/EHW.)

What goes unsaid is the impact of current treaty negotiations to reduce the number of warheads and launch vehicles. While Trident warships are patrolling the world's oceans at Cold War levels, the number of warheads on the Trident subs has probably been reduced by half according to what data is available in the public record. The Navy, however, wants to upgrade the missiles and warheads, so presumably will want more handling days available.

This at a time when across the country we are cutting back basic medical care for indigent children, more people are out of work than at any time since the Depression, and people continue to lose their homes.

And then there is the unimaginable devastation these weapons are designed to create. Hiroshima was leveled in 1945 by a 12 kiloton atomic bomb. Trident warships can carry W-76 warheads rated at 100 kilotons and W-88 warheads rated at 450 kilotons, up to 192 warheads on a single warship. A single Trident submarine warship has the capacity according to recent climatalogical calculations to black out the sun in an entire hemisphere for weeks to months, an event named “nuclear winter” by Carl Sagan and colleagues in the 1980's. What sane motives continue to compel us to rebuild this doomsday system? How can human freedom hope to survive once such a weapon is used?

A single Trident-launched warhead could create a fireball with the heat of the sun over an area that would incinerate the heart of any city, and then the blast, firestorms, and radiation would expand that zone in waves of destruction over five miles and several generations.

On whose country would we deliver such wholesale killing, suffering, and environmental devastation? China would seem to be the principal target of the Pacific Trident warship fleet. We remember World War II, the Nazi holocaust, Stalinist Russia, and Mao Tse Tung's China – political and military catastrophes in themselves for people with any will to freedom and human rights. Yet there will be no democracy under nuclear fire. And if the United States is held responsible for the crime against humanity that a modern nuclear weapon would perpetrate, then what of the international backlash against us?

Imagine if the earthquake and tsunami assault on Japan had instead been caused by one or two nuclear weapons. The destruction could have been comparable with many more deaths, but what then would be the world's reaction against the perpetrator of such a crime? And where does it end?

This is not the world I want to leave for my grandchildren or their grandchildren.

Our world is much too interdependent and vulnerable to have its multifarious problems and injustices solved by military force, much less by weapons of mass destruction. We need national, international, and non-governmental institutions to broker negotiations across the panoply of threats to life on Earth.

It is time to outlaw and abolish nuclear weapons, not rebuild them. What is hopeful about abolishing nuclear weapons is that it is doable within a relatively short time frame, and it would propel other efforts at cooperative security and cooperative development to the benefit of all.

Our safety resides in our capacities to get along with each other. What sense does it make to threaten China daily with incineration by a Trident-launched hydrogen bomb when China now manufactures half of our consumer goods and holds nearly a trillion dollars of our debt? How about instead of spending another $783 million for a redundant and outmoded facility to service (illegal) weapons of mass destruction we instead invest in securing fissile materials worldwide, pass a nuclear weapons convention to abolish them, and develop cultural and educational exchanges with China, Russia, Iran and even North Korea to empower mutual understanding. That was a huge part of what helped to end the Soviet era of domination in Eurasia and bring an end to the Cold War.

David C. Hall, MD
Past President, Physicians for Social Responsibility and Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility (psr.org and wpsr.org)
Member, Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action (gzcenter.org)
Seattle, WA
206-235-8245 cell
206-957-4702 office voicemail

Editor's Note: You can read other posts on the Second Explosives Handling Wharf and watch video of public testimony at the Puget Sound Nuclear Weapon Free Zone.

The Truth: Nuclear Weapons are Illegal AND Immoral

2011-05-02T17:15:00.000-07:00

Friends,

The Y-12 National Security Complex in Oakridge, Tennessee is one of the major cogs in our nations nuclear weapons machinery. The facility has been rebuilding and gearing up to the tune of $$$$$$ Billions, and although its Website would lead us to believe that it is simply "a premier manufacturing facility dedicated to making our nation and the world a safer place," the fact is that Y-12 is engaged in the production of nuclear weapons, weapons that, under the laws of this land as well as international law, are illegal (and immoral to boot). How nuclear weapons make "the world a safer place" is a mystery to me.

The trial of thirteen nuclear resisters who were arrested at Y-12 protesting the government's continued disregard for national and international law will begin May 9th in Federal Court in Knoxville, Tennessee. At the heart of this trial is the defendant's right to present a full defense. In this case, as in so many previous Federal trials, the judge has chosen to preclude a just trial. Read about it in the following news release.

Fr. Bix Bichsel, SJ, going through the gate at Y-12 last July

May the truth prevail, and may the members of the jury allow conscience to move them to a just decision on behalf of the defendants.

Peace,

Leonard

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FEDERAL JUDGE ISSUES GAG ORDER IN TRIAL OF OAK RIDGE NUCLEAR RESISTERS: REVEALS GOVERNMENT’S FEAR OF “THE WHOLE TRUTH”

Magistrate Judge Bruce Guyton issued a ruling on April 29, 2011, gagging thirteen defendants who will appear in federal court in Knoxville, Tennessee on Monday, May 9 to face charges of trespass at the Y12 Nuclear Weapons Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee during a Celebration of Resistance on July 5, 2010.

The Judge's ruling sweeps away the defendants’ right to tell the jury why they committed their act: “The fact that the Defendants felt compelled to enter onto the Y-12 National Security Complex by their own moral, political, and religious beliefs; their desire to exercise their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech or religion; their desire to comply with international law; or their desire to prevent future death and destruction from the use of nuclear weapons does not constitute a legal defense to the charge in the Information and is not relevant at trial. Testimony to this effect is not admissible at trial.”

“With this sweeping ruling, Judge Guyton clearly intends to deny the defendants the right to tell ‘the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,’” said Ralph Hutchison, coordinator of the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance. “These defendants did not trespass on private property; they didn’t cross a line at WalMart. Their action was an act of conscience, an act of nonviolent civil resistance, at a facility that produces nuclear weapons. The judge doesn’t want the jury to hear anything about that.”

The judge's ruling came in response to a hearing held March 4, 2011 on motions presented by the defense and the prosecution. At the March 4 hearing, Professor Charles Moxley of Fordham University testified that nuclear weapons not only violate international law, but also contravene US law and the military code of conduct of US armed forces. Defendants Mary Dennis Lentsch and Beth Rosdatter also testified on March 4 about their reasons for trespassing at the Y12 complex, where the United States continued to manufacture thermonuclear components for nuclear weapons.

“This ruling actually underscores the government’s fear that a jury, if it were told the whole truth, might turn the indictment on its head and hold the government accountable for its violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty—a treaty which becomes the law of the land under the US Constitution,” Hutchison noted. “Despite the judge’s ruling, it is likely the defendants will insist on telling the whole truth to the jury.”

Jury selection for the trial of the thirteen Y12 Resisters is scheduled for Monday, May 9 in federal court in Knoxville, Tennessee.

more information: Ralph Hutchison 865 776 5050 (contact for news release)

Nuclear Weapons: Building an Informed Public

2011-05-01T13:04:00.000-07:00

Friends,

Not too long ago Steven Starr summarized our challenges in communicating the issues surrounding nuclear weapons to the public, and how we need to communicate in order to get people's attention and get them engaged with this most important of issues. Essentially, we need to engage people both emotionally and intellectually regarding the potential effects of nuclear weapons as well as the huge economic costs. It's serious food for thought.
Peace,

Leonard

P.S. - Be sure to check out Steven's Website, Nuclear Darkness.

******************

"Although most people, if asked directly, will say that they favor the abolition of nuclear weapons, very few have any real idea of the threat which existing nuclear arsenals pose to humans and other complex forms of life. In fact, here in the U.S., most people do not even know that immense nuclear arsenals still exist, that their own nation (and Russia) have 95% of the 22,000 nuclear weapons in the world, and that they keep 2,000 strategic nuclear weapons ready to launch with only a few minutes warning. They have no idea that just one of these weapons can instantly ignite tens or hundreds of square miles of the Earth's surface into a gigantic nuclear firestorm, and that a hundred such firestorms could produce enough smoke to cause deadly climate change, leading to global nuclear famine.

"An uniformed public cannot make informed decisions. We are still conducting our political discussions about nuclear weapons in Cold War terms, focusing upon how we are "behind" if we don't "modernize" our nuclear arsenal, that we are "locked into a position of permanent inferiority" by agreements with the Russians to limit our nuclear weapons. There is absolutely no discussion of the consequences of the use of existing arsenals, particularly those maintained by the US and Russia, the dialogue is dangerously out of touch with the peer-reviewed scientific predictions that *any* nuclear conflict which detonates as little as 1% of existing nuclear arsenals in cities will likely kill at least 1 billion people through nuclear famine. We must bring current scientific understandings of what nuclear war would do to the biosphere, agriculture, ecosystems and global climate into the active debate about the need for nuclear weaponry.

"Furthermore, In a time when we cannot find enough money to maintain our schools, highways, hospitals and basic infrastructure, do we need to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to rebuild our nuclear weapons manufacturing complex and "upgrade" nuclear weapons systems? No, just the opposite, we need stop or prevent funding for such projects, which guarantee that there will be no "world without nuclear weapons." I am going to start ending my presentations with a chart which shows what we could do with the endless billions we spend on nuclear weaponry, something like what Eisenhower did with his "Cross of Iron" speech. We have to give concrete examples of what could be immediately gained through the elimination of insane spending for nuclear doomsday machines. We can combat the idea that nuclear spending creates jobs by giving examples of what could be done to construct, for example, needed alternative energy systems (wind, solar, tidal, etc.) that can begin rebuilding our own industrial infrastructure, which has been dismantled and shipped overseas.

"If we are going to get into a race with other nations, let it be a race towards a better human future. Building nuclear weapons does just the opposite, it paves the way for mass extinction of complex forms of life, including human life."

-- Steven Starr, senior scientist with Physicians for Social Responsibility

Confronting the Bomb - A Message of Hope

2011-03-08T20:13:00.000-08:00

Friends,

The more I immerse myself in the movement to abolish nuclear weapons, the more I am humbled by the dedication of so many others engaged in the movement now, and since even just before the dawn of the nuclear age.

These are the people who make up what H.G. Wells called an "open conspiracy" of people who have come to their right minds, and who are deeply engaged in the struggle to move humanity beyond the state-of-war to build a world community based on genuine justice and peace.

Historian, Lawrence Wittner, begins his book "Confronting the Bomb: A Short History of the World Disarmament Movement" with a prophecy that relates to this "open conspiracy":

This notion of a society of the righteous, committed to saving the world from its own folly, had deep roots in world history. It can be traced back at least to the fourth century, to the Babylonian Talmudic teacher Abbayah. According to this Jewish savant, in each generation there existed at least thirty-six righteous people (lamed-vav-tzaddikim, in Hebrew) upon whom the survival of the world depended. Jewish fiction and folklore took up the idea of these hidden saints, who played a prominent role in kabbalistic folk legend of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and in Hassidic lore after the eighteenth century.

This paragraph (and prophecy) sets the stage for Wittner's well-documented and dramatic history of the movement to abolish nuclear weapons and for the central premise of his book - that it is not the conventional explanation of "deterrence" that has saved the world from nuclear annihilation over the past 65 years, but a "massive nuclear disarmament movement." This is the true story of how real, grassroots citizen activism brought very real pressure to bear, not only only on the U.S. government, but many other governments as well, to control the arms race and prevent nuclear war.

Wittner peels away layers to describe the early critics of "The Bomb" even when it was only a concept in the minds of physicists. We get a sense of the tension that existed between the scientists of the Manhattan Project and government officials. A number of those scientists attempted to warn President Roosevelt of the dangers of the use of atomic weapons, not the least of which was that it would "precipitate a race in the production of these devices between the United States and Russia..."

Alas, the bombs were dropped, and Wittner takes us chapter by chapter, through the entire history of nuclear weapons and the tension between governments and abolitionists. We see the ups and downs of the movement, along with governments' (sometimes drastic) responses. We see that presidents, politicians and diplomats really were influenced by the pressure brought to bear by what was at times a huge movement to ban the bomb.

Toward the end of the book Wittner shows us how and why the nuclear disarmament movement faded after the end of the Cold War. However, he also describes positive steps that occurred during this time, such as the variety of treaties created, signed and ratified that effectively banned "nuclear weapons from most of the southern hemisphere."

Lawrence Wittner (Photo by L. Eiger)

As Wittner reflects on the past and ponders the future he states that "most government officials - particularly those of the major powers - had no intention of adopting nuclear arms control and disarmament policies." His conclusion is that it was the "vast wave of popular resistance" that forced them to compromise and exercise restraint.

Wittner's book is a tribute to what he refers to as possibly "the highest form of democracy" - "citizen activism." For all the "pathology of the nation state" Wittner has hope, but he is also clear that "if nations continue to follow the traditional 'national security' paradigm, then - sooner of later - their leaders will resort to nuclear war..." So he asks us if we are up to the task of meeting this challenge, of changing the status quo.

He ends on a note of hope.

But an examination of the history of the nuclear disarmament movement inspires a greater respect for human potential. Indeed, defying the national barriers and the murderous traditions of the past, millions of people have joined hands to build a safer, saner world. Perhaps, after all, they will reach it.

Wittner, with his academic discipline coupled with an engaging style, has given the nuclear abolition movement a great gift - a book that provides us with not just a linear history of the movement, but a holistic understanding of how the movement has succeeded and how we can (and must) re-vitalize the movement to continue the struggle for a nuclear weapons-free world.

Peace,

Leonard

Help Mayors for Peace Grow!

2011-03-05T20:09:00.000-08:00

Friends,

As the only cities to have suffered the horrific effects of nuclear weapons, Hiroshima and Nagasaki have consistently sought to persuade the world that nuclear weapons are inhumane, continually calling for their total abolition. In 1982, the mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki established Mayors for Peace to promote the total elimination of nuclear weapons as a vital step toward genuine and lasting world peace. The Conference was registered as a NGO in Special Consultative Status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council in May 1991.

Since its inception Mayors for Peace has gradually built up its membership of mayors of cities around the world acting in solidarity towards a world without nuclear weapons. By 2003 when they launched their 2020 Vision Campaign, Mayors for Peace had 500 member cities. As of March 2011 there are 4540 members in 150 countries and regions around the world.

The 2020 Vision Campaign aims for the global abolition of nuclear weapons by the year 2020, the 75th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Working with many other organizations the 2020 Vision Campaign has built momentum with "The Hiroshima-Nagasaki Protocol", a road map to its goal of nuclear abolition by 2020, and "Cities Are Not Targets (CANT)", that sends a clear message to nuclear weapon states that cities are no longer willing to be held hostage to the threat of use of nuclear weapons.

There are currently 150 mayors for peace members in the U.S. As one of the world's two largest nuclear powers, we can do better. Washington State, and particularly Puget Sound, is home to the single largest concentration of operational nuclear weapons, and that makes it even more important for mayors in our region to join Mayors for Peace in solidarity with other mayors working toward a nuclear weapons-free world.

Washington State has two current mayors who are members; Mayor Marilyn Strickland of Tacoma and Mayor Mary Verner of Spokane. Other participating cities - where previous mayors were members - include Seattle and Olympia.

Maren Clifton and Kyle Jorgensen have started a Washington Mayors for Peace Campaign. Their goal is to contact every mayor in Washington State and invite them all to join and support the goals of Mayors for Peace. They can't do it alone! Here is their request:

WE NEED YOUR HELP

As we send information to mayors (which we have organized by county), we would like to coordinate with local individuals and groups to follow up, write letters, or visit mayors in person to express the need for nuclear disarmament. If you are interested in getting involved or would like to know more, please contact us via telephone at (253) 219-6409, or email M4PWashington@gmail.com.

Best Regards,

Maren Clifton and Kyle Jorgensen

This is going to be a tough one; we live in a state with not only Hanford and Bangor (two major nuclear installations), but also one with a very large overall military presence. It will take a great deal of work to break down the old thinking that nuclear weapons create security and are a credible "deterrent".

Please support Maren's and Kyle's efforts. Contact them and find out how your city can join Mayors for Peace. A nuclear weapons-free world is possible - with our efforts.

PEACE,

Leonard

P.S. - If you live outside Washington State click here and then click here to download materials to present to your mayor.

Nuclear Weapons: An Even More Inconvenient Truth!!!

2011-03-04T20:16:00.000-08:00

Friends,

"Environmentalists: Wake up! There is a greater and more urgent threat to the climate than even global warming: the threat posed by nuclear weapons." Thus begins a provocative and compelling post by Time.com Ecocentric Blogger Eben Harrell on February 25, 2011 (Why Nukes are the Most Urgent Environmental Threat).

Nuclear weapons, and the phenomenal risks they have always posed to the environment as well as the very survival of humanity, have long been off the radar of the environmental community. Let's face it; they have enough to worry about with major issues like climate change, air and water pollution, ozone depletion, and genetic engineering just to mention a few. The last thing they need on their already loaded plate is NUCLEAR WEAPONS!!!

I think it is safe to say that nuclear weapons ARE an environmental issue, and in fact probably the ultimate one at that. Let's face it, even though global warming and its associated climate change is going to produce some pretty disastrous consequences we CAN (and will have to) deal with them. However, should even a very small percentage of the world's nuclear weapons (think India and Pakistan) detonate all bets are off. We will be helpless to deal with such huge consequences.

If anyone thinks current air pollution problems, ozone depletion, and climate change predictions are bad, just think about the massive (radioactive particulate) air pollution, major ozone depletion and astronomical climate change (think really cold temperatures) that would follow the scenario that scientists have been studying. Scientific studies over the past decade on the effects of limited nuclear war have demonstrated that even a limited nuclear exchange with 100 or less Hiroshima-sized weapons (and that's nothing compared to the size of the warheads in the U.S. and Russian arsenals) would cause unprecedented climate change.

We are talking major cold temperatures, a huge reduction in sunlight reaching the ground, and thanks to the really big hole it would create in the ozone layer most of us would be living in a giant unregulated tanning salon (extreme levels of UV radiation). All this would cause massive agricultural failures and subsequent global famine. Steven Starr has written extensively on this subject. And just one more thing; the survivors would (thanks to all that radioactive fallout) suffer mutations that would produce harmful reproductive effects to subsequent generations.

Temperature changes due to limited nuclear war (Source: Steven Starr)

While I found Harrel's initial post a compelling read, it seems that many environmentalists did not! Harrel posted again on March 3rd (Nuclear Weapons and Climate Change: Part Two), saying that he had received a lot of "feedback" from environmentalists who don't have a problem with the studies, but they just don't think it's a problem that should be on their radar based on the low probability of a nuclear war ever happening.

Harrel does an excellent job of discussing probability and statistics, and the fact that no matter how small the probability of such an event is the catastrophic global consequences of nuclear war are so great that it is simply an unacceptable risk!!! And how do we reduce such an unacceptable risk to zero??? Get rid of every nuclear weapon; an astronomical task indeed, but one we have to take on and continue until the job is done.

Harrel's post reminds me that the issue of nuclear weapons affects everyone and everything. They ARE an environmental issue, and in a very real sense they are an even more inconvenient truth than global warming and its associated climate change. If that is the case, perhaps we should all take them more seriously and work together to abolish them.

Peace,

Leonard

Click here to learn more about the consequences of nuclear war at Steven Starr's Website.

Thoroughly Modern Nukes for FY2012

2011-02-20T16:12:00.000-08:00

Friends,

Abolitionists beware! It would be easy to go through an entire bottle of ibuprofen (not in one sitting of course) while attempting to make any sense of all the analysis of the U.S. Fiscal Year 2012 Budget! As for the "defense" budget the great shell game continues. It gives peacemakers a tremendous headache.

As for issues of a nuclear nature, actions speak even louder than numbers. While it is easy to get sidetracked by the figures (and I don't mean to discount the costs; they ARE important), it is crystal clear from the projects currently in the works and those on the planning table that the U.S. Government's focus is much like a horse with blinders - Can you say "DETERRENCE?"

Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists has summarized The Nuclear Weapons Modernization Budget in the FAS Strategic Security Blog (Feb 17, 2011). Between "maintenance and modernization" the government is ensuring that the nuclear weapons development, construction, maintenance deployment and delivery infrastructure is thoroughly protected from the budgetary axe. If spending is the true indicator of intention, then President Obama's disarmament rhetoric rings hollow.

Nuclear weapons, based on FY2012 budget request, continue to stand at the forefront of U.S. foreign policy, and if the government's current plans are realized the prospects for global nuclear disarmament before the year 2100 - should we not commit nuclear omnicide before then - look grim.

From missiles to bombs, "the budget includes significant investments in maintaining and modernizing the nuclear weapons in the stockpile through the life-extension programs (LEPs)." But that's not all folks! The Obama administration will make sure that the "missiles, submarines and bombers designed to deliver the warheads" are also "modernized."

But wait! We are talking about way more than mere modernization here. As Kristensen states, the Minuteman III ICBM is analogous to the Six Million Dollar Man (but way more expensive) and "is essentially a new missile." The Air Force's heavy bombers and fighter-bombers will be upgraded, and in the case of the B-52 "will provide for further nuclear weapons in both bay and under wings." Great - More nuclear weapons!!!

The biggest and scariest news of all is the intention (and research has been underway for some time now) to build a new generation of ballistic missile submarines (SSBN(X). Although Kristensen covers this only briefly, it is a huge issue as Trident is the nations premier first strike weapon, and according to estimates would be in service through 2082!

And finally, the infrastructure that has developed, built and maintained the nations nuclear weapons continues to receive more than adequate funding to continue rebuilding itself. Construction at Los Alamos and Y-12 in Tennessee are well under way and well over budget, and the Kansas City Plant (not mentioned by Kristensen) is on a roll.

As for the "Implications and Outlook" of the current nuclear weapons budget, here's what Kristensen has to say:

With massive investments in widespread modernization of nuclear forces and industry, the FY2012 budget shows that the Obama administration is following through on its promise to make significant investments in modernizing the U.S. nuclear deterrent.

The “generational” modernizations proposed in the budget represent a commitment to extending the nuclear era as long into the future as it has lasted so far. A challenge will be whether nuclear modernization will overshadow nuclear disarmament in the administration’s public nuclear image.

Following on the heels of the Prague speech and the New START treaty, it remains to be seen whether other nuclear weapon states and the international non-proliferation community will see the nuclear modernization programs as progress toward reducing the role and numbers of nuclear weapons and putting an end to Cold War thinking, or business as usual only at lower numbers.

To what extent the Congress will fund these programs is another unknown. With unprecedented deficit and a new Congress that appears determined to cut government spending, several of the nuclear modernization programs will like come under considerable scrutiny.

It is obvious that the Obama administration is locked into a decades old pattern of thinking linked to a deeply entrenched military-nuclear-industrial complex that perpetuates a potentially deadly reliance on weapons that by their very design indiscriminately kill civilians, and if ever used in even a limited conflict would result in devastating immediate and long-term global effects. The world cannot afford a continuation of "business as usual" at any numbers!!!

I urge everyone to read Kristensen's summary and analysis, and consider how we can respond. We need to send a clear message to President Obama and Congress that planned modernization efforts are antithetical to the President's stated "goal of a world without nuclear weapons." We need to ask the President just what kind of legacy he wants to leave the world when he leaves office.

Peace,

Leonard

60 Years... How Many More???

2011-01-29T20:15:00.000-08:00

Friends,

Following is a reflection on the 60 year anniversary of the first atomic bomb test in Nevada that took place January 27, 1951, written by Jim Haber, Coordinator of Nevada Desert Experience. As Jim says in the last line, "This anniversary should serve as a time to work for peace and disarmament." May it be so.

Peace,

Leonard

P.S. - Jim and seven others marked this year's anniversary of the first Nevada test on land belonging to the Western Shoshone Nation by crossing onto the Test Site and risking arrest. Details at The Nuclear Resister.

***************

60 Years of Disaster

January 27 marks 60 years since the first atomic bomb test in Nevada. Codenamed “Able” it was tiny for a nuclear weapon: the equivalent of 1,000 tons of TNT, about 1/15 the size of the bomb that killed upwards of 130,000 people in Hiroshima. Anniversaries are times to reflect, so what is the legacy of the Nevada Test Site (NTS), now called the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS)? What is the current state of the NNSS and what is going on there? Are the nation and world safer for all the Cold War and post-Cold War efforts? As the NNSS re-purposes itself to focus more on detecting and containing national security threats, it still stands as a world-wide symbol of the making of weapons of mass destruction. The name change is intended to reassert its relevance in the absence of exploding nuclear devices, but the inherent problem of the NTS remains. The NNSS is always able to resume testing nuclear weapons within two years should the president order it.

Testing of nuclear weapons didn't only happen at the Nevada Test Site. Historians even argue that using the bombs on Japan rather than demonstrating them on an unpopulated location constitute human experimentation. Treating victims as research subjects rather than patients was widely reported in Japan, as well as from victims of atmospheric testing in the 1950s. Targeting civilians was and remains a crime against humanity, as does threatening nuclear attack on non-nuclear states, no matter how repressive their leaders.

We, as a people, caused much worldwide grief for our part in the Cold War, which used small countries as battlegrounds with no concern for local populations or environments. Official tours of the NNSS and the displays at the Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas exhibit great pride in the NTS' Cold War role. There is little mention in their history about efforts to stop testing and other parts of the nuclear weapons complex. Efforts to shut down the Soviet nuclear test site in Kazakhstan or French test sites in Africa and the South Pacific garner barely a word. Only a limited view is presented.

At the NNSS which is run by the Department of Energy (blurring the lines between civilian and military in this country), military nuclear waste is buried even as remediation efforts elsewhere are undertaken. The detection and first responder trainings are only defensive in nature if we concurrently support the leadership of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in its mission to monitor nuclear programs around the world. Unilateral or bilateral agreements that ignore the mandate of the IAEA actually encourage other states to seek nuclear weapons to be seen as worthy players on the international stage.

The United States military budget is on par with military spending of all other countries combined. When the US attacks countries that don't have nuclear weapons, it makes the possession of nuclear weapons seem like a necessary deterrent. But if more countries have deterrent forces, then we've lost the disarmament fight.

Taking the land of the Western Shoshone and other native peoples to use it for nuclear testing is not just. Forcing the people of Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands to live on tiny Ebeye Island, creating one of the most densely populated places on Earth is not just. Stealing and contaminating native hunting and fishing grounds is not just.

Thank God so few countries have tested or possess nuclear weapons. The global consensus is clearly to eliminate all nuclear weapons. "Stockpile Stewardship" tests at the NNSS, along with missile tests in the Pacific are undermining the credibility of the U.S.'s agreement to seriously reduce nuclear stockpiles. Sharing nuclear technology with violators and abstainers of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty while threatening countries not in egregious, well-documented breaches of the NPT is not just and promotes horizontal proliferation. Hence, continued testing whether they're full-scale tests or not, signals to the world that the US will keep its finger on the button and will brook no new players in the nuclear game.

When we devise ways for nuclear weapons to be more precise and kill fewer civilians, to be more militarily useful, we undermine the international consensus against all weapons of mass destruction. And how many design upgrades and revisions can be implemented and still not require a real test? At some point, unless we in the United States get serious about pressuring our government to cut its nuclear weapons arsenal, the Nevada Desert will again quake with detonations...and be filled with peacemakers crashing the gates like in the 1980s to shut it down once and for all. This anniversary should serve as a time to work for peace and disarmament.

Honoring Dr. King by Resisting Nuclear Weapons

2011-01-17T22:43:00.000-08:00

The Seattle Raging Grannies set the mood for honoring Martin Luther King, Jr’s birthday, Saturday at the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action in Poulsbo, Washington.

Eighty three people from the Center participated in a vigil at the Kitsap Mall in Silverdale with the help of a full scale, 44 foot long, inflatable Trident D-5 missile. Each D-5 missile, deployed on Trident nuclear submarines, carries up to 8 warheads, each with an explosive yield of up to 475 kilotons. Each D-5 missile costs approximately $139 million.

Participants carried signs and banners calling for an end to war and nuclear weapons. Notable was a quote by Dr. King: "When scientific power outruns moral power, we end up with guided missiles and misguided men."

Back at the Center for, Dr. David Hall, former president of Washington Chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility, presented the threats posed by these nuclear weapons stored at Strategic Weapons Facility-Pacific and deployed on the Trident nuclear submarines based at Bangor Navy Base in Kitsap County.

The Seattle Raging Grannies chorus entertained participants with a series of musical parodies celebrating the day’s theme of “Billions for Life, Not Billions for Death.” The theme reflected Dr. King’s words: “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”

After nonviolence training 12 activists risked arrest by symbolically closing the Trigger Avenue gate during the afternoon shift change as an act of resistance to Trident, a first strike weapons system. Blocking traffic symbolizes stopping the horrific threat of Trident missiles, for a short time.

Rosy Betz-Zall, 60, of Seattle, WA; Anne Hall, 65, of Seattle, WA; Larry Kerschner, 64, of Centralia, WA; Brenda McMillan, 77, of Port Townsend, WA; Denny Moore, 66, of Bainbridge Island, WA; and Shirley Morrison, 88, of Seattle, WA walked onto Trigger Avenue with a banner reading “BILLIONS FOR LIFE, NOT BILLIONS FOR DEATH.”

Kitsap County Sheriffs arrested the six protesters. After initial processing they were transported by Sheriff’s van to the Kitsap County Jail for further processing. They were issued citations for blocking traffic and released.

Then another six Ground Zero Center activists crossed the ‘blue line’ designating federal control. Patricia “Patti” Bass, 63, of Poulsbo, WA; Carolyn Dorisdotter, 72, Seattle, WA; Norm Keegel, 71, of Bainbridge Island, WA; Gordon Sturrock, 52, of Eugene, WA; Sam Tower, 68, of Tacoma, WA; and Robert Friend Weber Whitlock, 32, of Olympia were arrested by naval security personnel, processed and released after being issued citations for trespassing.

Relating to the day’s theme of “Billions for Life, Not Billions for Death, according to Western Washington Fellowship of Reconciliation, “Washington State is planning to cut schools, health care, public safety and other programs by more that $4 billion. While Washington State taxpayers have paid $28.6 billion so far for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.” That figure does not include the annual defense budget or nuclear weapons spending.

The Trident submarine base at Bangor, just 20 miles from Seattle, is home to the largest single stockpile of nuclear warheads in the U.S. arsenal, housing as many as 2000 nuclear warheads. In November 2006, the Natural Resources Defense Council declared that the 2,364 nuclear warheads at Bangor are approximately 24 percent of the entire U.S. arsenal. Current estimates place the number of warheads at approximately 1000.

For over thirty-three years Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action has engaged in education, training in nonviolence, community building, resistance against Trident and action toward a world without nuclear weapons.

Contact: Leonard Eiger, Media and Outreach

Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action

www.gzcenter.org

subversivepeacemaking@gmail.com

(425) 445-2190

Sailing into the New Year with The Golden Rule

2011-01-09T22:59:00.000-08:00

Friends,

At the recent trial of the Disarm Now Plowshares activists a retired U.S. Navy Captain who had commanded nuclear submarines during the Cold War testified on behalf of the Plowshares activists. Tom Rogers long journey had brought him to an understanding of the need to abolish these horrible weapons of mass destruction, that the government was not paying attention to people's "legal" means of free speech, and that the Plowshares activists' methods were justified.

In 1958 another retired U.S. Navy Captain embarked on his own journey of conscience and civil resistance when he and his peacemaking crew sailed the 30-foot ketch the Golden Rule toward the U.S. government's atmospheric test site in the Marshall Islands in an attempt to stop nuclear weapons testing despite government prohibitions and a court injunction. They were arrested, tried, convicted and put on probation, and undaunted, set sail a second time. This time the government decided to put Albert Bigelow behind bars.

Bigelow was not acting on a whim. The atomic bombing of Hiroshima horrified him, and in the postwar years he took a number of steps on his peacemaking journey. Among them, according to historian Lawrence Wittner, "working with the American Friends Service Committee, Bigelow sought to deliver a petition against nuclear testing to the White House, but was rebuffed by U.S. government officials." Bigelow made every effort to get the government to listen, but his words fell on deaf ears.

Bigelow said of his nautical actions: “In the face of the threats that nuclear warfare preparations put to all mankind, it is my duty, as a man and as an American citizen, to voice both my protest against these preparations and my pleas for a constructive policy instead. If I remain silent, how am I to answer later, should some high court ask: '…and what, knowing these things to be wrong, were you, a free, responsible citizen of a democracy doing to prevent them?'” (Source: The Voyage of the Golden Rule)

The Golden Rule suffered years of decay in a shipyard after being raised off the sea floor near Eureka, California, and its fate seemed sealed until two Northern California chapters of Veterans for Peace (VFP) established The Golden Rule project. VFP volunteers have been restoring the ketch, and hope to complete the restoration by July 2011. They still have a long way to go to reach their fundraising goal of $50,000 needed to complete the project.

The Golden Rule is an important piece of history of the nuclear abolition movement, and it is somewhat of a miracle that it has been (literally) raised from the deep to have a second life sailing the West Coast "in opposition to militarism and the use of nuclear weapons." It is my hope that the nuclear abolition community will come together in support of The Golden Rule Project.

Many thanks to Historian Lawrence Wittner for keeping The Golden Rule on our radar.

Peace,

Leonard

You can learn all about the Golden Rule Project (and contribute toward its completion) at http://www.heritech.com/goldenrule, or by contacting Fredy Champagne at fchampagne@asis.com, or by writing to Veterans for Peace, P.O. Box 5097, Eureka, CA 95502-5097.

Read The "Golden Rule" Will Sail Again, by Lawrence Wittner, December 21,2010, at the Huffington Post

Read The Long Voyage: The Golden Rule and Resistance to Nuclear Testing in Asia and the Pacific, by Lawrence S. Whittner

Beyond New START in the New Year

2010-12-23T16:24:00.000-08:00

When the star in the sky is gone and the shepherds are back with their flocks, the REAL work of Christmas begins – feeding the hungry, healing the broken, and bringing peace to the people. – theologian Howard Thurman.

Friends,

May we all be re-energized, as we move into the New Year, to expand on the small victory represented by ratification of the New START Treaty, keeping our eyes on the prize.

Peace,

Leonard

Photo: (from left) The Subversive Peacemaker, Leonard; Scottish Trident Ploughshares activist Angie Zelter; Steven Leeper, Chairperson of the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation; Retired Col. Ann Wright and Father Bill "Bix" Bichsel, member of Disarm Now Plowshares, during the recent Disarm Now Plowshares trial week.

Resistance is Not Futile!

2010-12-20T16:50:00.000-08:00

Friends,

In my December 7th post I not only asked you to push your Senators to ratify New START, but told you about the Disarm Now Plowshares trial that was starting that day.

Well, the trial is now history, and the government got what it wanted; it reduced the conversation to one primarily about trespassing, destruction of government property and conspiracy, rather than one about the real issues of illegal weapons of mass destruction with which our nation continues to threaten the world and around which it builds its foreign policy.

Disarm Now Plowshares represents part of a greater movement that seeks to resist the immoral and often illegal actions of our government. Those who engage in acts of nonviolent civil resistance, whether at a nuclear weapons storage depot, at School of the Americas or at The White House (as on December 16, 2010) are engaged in a great conspiracy of hope.

Chris Hedges, who participated in and spoke at last Thursday's White House action, stated it directly and eloquently, as did Daniel Ellsberg. Essentially, we choose to become enemies of the state or we are enemies of hope. As we move into a new year may we engage ever greater numbers of citizens in acts of nonviolent resistance until our elected officials can no longer ignore us. That is our hope.

Resistance is not futile. It is, in fact, necessary in order to save the soul of this spiritually impoverished and warring nation. Let us resolve in the coming year to resist with all our hearts and souls, lighting the way and creating a path for others to follow.

Peace,

Leonard

DISARM NOW!!! Pass New START!

2010-12-07T06:46:00.000-08:00

Friends,

I woke up this morning at Jean's House of Prayer in Tacoma, Washington where I am helping prepare for the trial of the Disarm Now Plowshares 5 that begins today in U.S. District Court. As I looked out the window around 6:00AM I saw the bright lights of the Port of Tacoma, and wondered what it must have been like just before dawn on November 2, 2009 as the Disarm Now Plowshares 5 topped the hill overlooking the Strategic Weapons Facility, Pacific (SWFPAC), bathed in bright light, looking like the mythical Mordor in J.R. Tolkein's stories.

Mordor was a terrible, dark place, as is SWFPAC, which (along with the Trident nuclear submarines based at Bangor) contains enough nuclear weapons to end life as we know it on our small planet. Every step taken, whether by Plowshares activists like the Disarm Now Plowshares 5 or by our elected leaders to ratify treaties like New START are IMPORTANT.

Here is an important letter from past presidents of Physicians for Social Responsibility stressing the need to ratify the New START. Please read this and then take action to push the U.S. Senate to ratify New START now! And please hold the Disarm Now Plowshares 5 in your thoughts and prayers as they go on trial for attempting to do what all citizens are called to do - abolish these immoral and illegal nuclear weapons.

There will regular updates each day this week at the Disarm Now Plowshares Website and Blog.

Peace,

Leonard

The diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks this past week show a dangerously escalating nuclear confrontation in South Asia. This growing danger is one more reason why the US Senate should ratify new START without further delay.

Both US and British intelligence experts believe that Pakistan is rapidly expanding its nuclear arsenal, which now numbers 70 to 90 bombs, despite increasing economic and political instability. India has 60-80 warheads in its nuclear arsenal. According to the leaked reports, Pakistan fears that it would be overwhelmed in a conventional war, and looks to establish nuclear superiority to offset India’s advantage in conventional weapons.

The leaked cables also describe an Indian contingency plan, code named Cold Start, to launch just the kind of conventional invasion the Pakistanis fear. While Cold Start is meant to be a purely non-nuclear attack, the Pakistani nuclear build up suggests that it is likely that any future conflict in South Asia would escalate to nuclear war.

A regional nuclear war in South Asia would be catastrophic for the whole world.

Recent climate studies have shown that if only 100 warheads were directed at urban areas, the resulting fire storms would inject upwards of five terragrams ( 5 million tons) of soot into the upper atmosphere. In a matter of days temperatures across the globe would drop an average of 1.3 degrees C., more than twice the warming that has occurred in the last 130 years. There would also be a major decline in rainfall worldwide. These changes would persist for nearly a decade.

While there are no detailed studies of the decline in food production that would result from these climate changes, there is reason to believe that it would be very significant. A cooling event caused by the Pinatubo volcano eruption in 1815 dropped global temperatures only .7 degrees, and the fall in temperature lasted only 1 year, but that was enough to cause widespread famine in Europe and Asia, and the “Year Without a Summer” here in New England when killing frosts throughout the summer devastated crops.

There are over one billion people in the world today who live on the brink of starvation, and global food stockpiles are perilously low. A study that we presented at the Royal Academy of Medicine in 2007 concludes that we have reason to fear that all of these people might starve to death in the event of a nuclear war in South Asia.

What has this to do with New START? Everything.

US efforts to limit nuclear proliferation have been hobbled by our own continued reliance on nuclear weapons despite our having the strongest conventional forces in the world.

New START does not eliminate our arsenal. The 1550 warheads we still retain are enough to destroy India, Pakistan, Iran, North Korea, China and Russia—and to kill most of the people on Earth in the process. But New START is an important next step in limiting the US and Russian arsenals, and it is essential to the improved relations with Russia necessary for us to work with the Russians to limit nuclear proliferation. Further it restores our ability to monitor Russia’s nuclear arsenal, an ability we lost when the original START expired just one year ago.

The treaty is seen as vital to US security by our entire military leadership and a veritable “Who’s Who” of Republican defense experts. The original START treaty received overwhelming bi-partisan support in 1992, passing 93-6. But today’s Senate Republicans are threatening to block this replacement treaty unless the Senate agrees to extend the Bush era tax cuts for people making more than $1 million a year.

Republicans, including Senator Gregg, need to stop playing partisan politics with our national security and support this treaty NOW.

John Pastore, MD

Ira Helfand, MD

The authors are past Presidents of Physicians for Social Responsibility, US Affiliate of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, Recipient of the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize

Contact: Ira Helfand, MD at ihelfand@igc.org or 413 320 7829

Drinking and Driving (NUKES) Don't Mix!

2010-11-26T19:04:00.000-08:00

Friends,

In a previous post (Nuclear 18 Wheelers; Yee Haw!!! , Sept. 6, 2009) I wrote about the government's "Safeguards Transporters", those big rigs that travel the nation's highways and byways, delivering nukes to naval and air force bases, and who knows where else.

As an Occupational and Environmental Health professional I spent a great deal of time dealing with risk assessment and risk management. Bottom line: Everything entails some level of risk, no matter how small. Of course we have to look at not only the probability that something might happen (accident), but what would be the severity of the outcome(s).

We all know that the outcomes from messing around with (let alone using) nuclear weapons are not pretty. Whether it be an accident involving the handling or a warhead, or losing track of one, we're dealing with potentially serious outcomes. Of course we should expect that the folks transporting nuclear weapons are the best of the best, right???

Think again!!! Read the beginning of the November 22, 2010 Associated Press article, Report: Nuclear weapon drivers sometimes got drunk.

Federal agents hired to transport nuclear weapons and components sometimes got drunk while on convoy missions, a government watchdog said Monday. In an incident last year, police detained two agents who went to a bar during an assignment.

The Energy Department's assistant inspector general, Sandra D. Bruce, said her office reviewed 16 alcohol-related incidents involving agents, candidate-agents and others from the government's Office of Secure Transportation between 2007 through 2009. Nearly 600 federal agents ship nuclear weapons, weapon components and special nuclear material across the U.S.

Two incidents in particular raised red flags, the report said, because they happened during secure transportation missions while agents checked into local hotels while on extended missions. In these cases, the vehicles were placed in "safe harbor," meaning they were moved to secure locations.

In one case, in 2007, an agent was arrested for public intoxication. The other occurred last year, when police handcuffed and temporarily detained two agents after an incident at a bar.

"Alcohol incidents such as these, as infrequent as they may be, indicate a potential
vulnerability in OST's critical national security mission," the report warns.

So much for the government's Office of [IN]Secure Transportation!!!
You can read the whole report yourself, but when taken along with other documented incidents in the overall care and handling of nuclear weapons - whether it be loading nuclear armed Cruise missiles on a bomber by "mistake", putting a ladder through a Trident missile nose cone or transporting nuclear weapons while drunk - it should make us ask the question, "Is all this worth the risk for weapons that can never be used unless we want to commit mass murder (or omnicide)?"

National Nuclear Security Administration spokesman Damien LaVera responded to the report: "NNSA's Office of Secure Transportation maintains a highly trained, highly professional force that has safely and securely transported nuclear materials more than 100 million miles without a single fatal accident or any release of radiation."

That should give us all great comfort, right? Wrong. It only takes one accident, and there is no such thing as absolute safety. And in this case the stakes are too high. It's just a matter of time. And speaking of time, it is most definitely time for our government to take its disarmament responsibility seriously.

Peace,

Leonard

P.S. - The Office of Secure Transportation is currently accepting applications (according to their Website. I certainly hope they are tightening up their hiring practices.

Also - A related (and well researched) article in the Kitsap Sun, Navy's Trident Nuclear Warheads Hit the Highway, Bound for Texas, from November 27, 2010.

START: The Winter of Our Disconnect

2010-11-21T10:18:00.000-08:00

Friends,

I can feel Winter settling in here in Washington's Cascade Mountains as the snow falls this evening; there is a definite chill in the air. While the changing seasons are something to which we adjust, it is critical for continued progress in the control and ultimately the abolition of nuclear weapons that we avoid any "chilling" of relations between the U.S. and Russia.

Right now the Senate must ratify the New START Treaty in order for the Superpowers to get back on track to inspecting each other's arsenals and exchanging information. This connection is necessary to secure ongoing cooperation and produce real security. Without the agreement we can forget about any reduction in the existing nuclear weapons stockpiles.

While ratification of New START is of such importance, there is a very real disconnect in Washington, DC., and not just among a few rogue senators who are trying to scuttle the treaty. Some senators, such as Jim Demint (S. Carolina), James Inhofe (Oklahoma) and Jon Kyle (Arizona) are holding New START hostage in exchange for increased funding of the nation's nuclear weapons complex.

One of their claims is that the Obama administration isn't doing enough to "modernize" the nations nuclear weapons. Judging by the current "modernization" of the nuclear weapons infrastructure along with the ongoing nuclear weapons work that includes the "stockpile stewardship program" (read "rebuilt warheads") I'm not sure how much more they expect the administration to do.

As for the broad scope of this nuclear disconnect, the numbers speak for themselves; the administration had already pledged $80 billion over 10 years to maintain and modernize the nuclear weapons complex. As if this was not enough, Kyl has demanded an additional $4 billion over 5 years, and it appears that Obama is giving in. Even with this offer, it is not looking good for passage of New START by this Congress. Even though we have the 67 votes needed to ratify the treaty, Kyl is trying to prevent a vote until the next Congress!!!

It is inexcusable that these politicians who are supposed to represent "the people" are playing games with the nation's (and the world's) security. First of all, passage of New START is of the utmost importance. Secondly, increasing funding to modernize the nuclear weapons complex and build new weapons neutralizes any previous efforts to reduce our reliance on nuclear weapons (and send a message of hope to other nations).

Non-ratification of New START is NOT an option! Neither is building up an essentially NEW nuclear weapons infrastructure. Both indicate a disconnect between the people's desire to abolish nuclear weapons and the special interests of those who claim to represent us, but who are far too heavily invested (literally and figuratively) in the Military-Industrial Complex and its parent, the National Security State.

We must not cut anyone even an inch of slack on an issue of such critical importance as New START. Although many senators have shown their support for New START (and we should thank them for that) we now need to demand that they apply some serious pressure to those who hold it hostage.

Click here to send a message to your Senators now! Then click here to download the Phone Bank Tool Kit from the Campaign for a Nuclear Weapons-Free World, and you and your organization can help mobilize grassroots support for New START! This is our last chance on this one folks!

And just think how far $84 billion would go towards programs of social uplift!!!

Peace,

Leonard

Wadioactive Wabbits ah no waughing matter!

2010-11-06T09:45:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends,

No, I haven't lost my mind (contrary to popular opinion); I was just channeling Elmer Fud for a brief moment in response to recent radioactive reports about pesky wadioactive wabbits.

In south central Washington state, tucked away behind barbed wire fences, lies an accumulation of radioactive substances that are byproducts of decades of the U.S. nuclear weapons program; some legacy indeed. The U.S. Government is spending vast sums of money in an attempt to clean up the radioactive contamination; a daunting task considering the extent of contamination of soil, groundwater (seeping into the Columbia River), and the bizarre mix of highly radioactive and reactive substances in the aging underground storage tanks.

Yesterday's headline in the Tri-City Herald, Radioactive rabbit trapped near Richland, is a sobering reminder that radioactive substances, once released into the environment, are difficult, and sometimes impossible) to remove or render "safe". And while the government pays people to keep contaminated animals from escaping the boundaries of one of the planets significantly contaminated places, there is another place where it is more than the occasional radioactive rabbit that is of concern.

The Chernobyl disaster, which for most people is no more than a historical footnote, is still just that - a disaster - for the people living in areas where they continue to be exposed to the residual radiation from the catastrophic events of April 26, 1986. The radioactive Cesium found in that cute, little Hanford bunny (assuming it was Cesium 137) has a half-life of roughly 30 years, and if one ingested rabbit stew made from the little critter one would end up distributing Cesium 137 around the body where it would continually (and fairly intensely) irradiate (from within) muscle cells and organs; think CANCER!

The Cesium 137 released from the Chernobyl accident has most likely affected millions of people downwind of the accident as it was deposited (along with a variety of other radioactive substances) in various concentrations, and silently and invisibly irradiated its victims and increased the risk of radiation-related genetic damage and subsequent cancers and birth defects.

As bad as Chernobyl was, one or more modern thermonuclear weapons detonated anywhere on Earth would unleash an even worse, horrific mixture of deadly radioisotopes that would, beyond the immediate effects in areas of high radioactivity, leave a legacy of chronic health effects affecting countless generations. Any measure that brings stability to the relationship between the nuclear powers and reduces the numbers of nuclear arms reduces the probability of this unthinkable event.

Now that the U.S. elections are over it is high time that the Senate get to work once again on ratifying the New START Treaty. Although the treaty contains only modest reductions in U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons stocks, more importantly it improves and extends the verification and monitoring measures of the original START Treaty, which have been important in maintaining nuclear stability after the end of the Cold War.

With U.S. military leaders supporting ratification there is no reason for Republicans to stonewall. It has been nearly a year since the original treaty lapsed, and the clock is ticking; if the Senate doesn't ratify the treaty before year's end the ratification process has to start all over, casting a shadow over its fate, and thus a shadow over the planet.

Even if you previously wrote your Senators in support of the New START Treaty, DO IT AGAIN! Click here to urge them to ratify the New START Treaty now! Keep the heat on; the time for New START is NOW!

Peace,

Leonard

30 Years of Plowshares Disarmament!

2010-09-09T08:44:00.000-07:00

Friends,

September 9, 2010 marks the thirtieth anniversary of the Plowshares movement!!!

30 Years ago on September 9, 1980, a small group of peacemakers - Elmer Mass, Daniel Berrigan, Philip Berrigan, Dean Hammer, Carl Kabat, Anne Montgomery, Molly Rush, and John Schuchardt - entered the General Electric Nuclear Missile Re-entry Division in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, where the nose cones for Mark 12-A nuclear warheads were being manufactured. They carried hammers and their own blood with which they symbolically enacted the biblical prophecies of Isaiah (2:4) and Micah (4:3) to “beat their swords into plowshares” by hammering on nose cones, pouring blood onto documents and offering prayers for peace.

The Plowshares Eight

It was a deeply spiritual act intended to symbolically (and literally) disarm these horrific weapons the government was building in huge numbers in preparation for the ultimate omnicidal act. Of course all eight waited to be arrested, were tried and convicted in Federal court (the government frowns on people messing with their nuclear weapons), and sentenced to prison terms from 1 ½ to 10 years (they also like to make an example). Ten years later, after lengthy appeals, they were re sentenced.

That first group of citizen disarmers became known as the Plowshares Eight, and had started a movement, known as Plowshares, that continues to do its subversive work of turning swords to plowshares (or ploughshares as our friends across the sea refer to it). One thing unique to the Plowshares movement is that it has no formal organization per se, no storefront, no non-profit status, no licensed merchandise. It is an organic movement in which peacemakers act individually and in community, entering military bases and weapons facilities, symbolically (and in many cases literally) disarming weapons of war (with a particular emphasis on those of mass destruction).

These are no crackpot peaceniks mind you! “Parents, grandparents, veterans, former lawyers, teachers, artists, musicians, poets, priests, sisters, house-painters, carpenters, writers, health-care workers, students, gardeners, advocates of the poor and homeless” have all participated in Plowshares actions, and they take their task seriously, routinely going through an intensive process of discernment, spiritual preparation and nonviolence training. They are also very clear on the risks involved, accept full responsibility for their actions, and are prepared for the consequences.

There have around 100 Plowshares actions around the world since the Plowshares Eight wielded their hammers in 1980; Trident II Plowshares, Thames River Plowshares, Gods of Metal Plowshares, Sacred Earth and Space Plowshares II, and Waihopi ANZAC Ploughshares to name just a few. Plowshares activists have “disarmed” all kinds of armaments, including components of missiles, submarines, surface ships, aircraft, radar and satellites. And yet, Plowshares actions rarely, if ever, show up on even the innermost pages of any newspaper (and the government likes it that way; "out of sight, out of mind").

Nearly 30 years since that first Plowshares action, on September 2, 2010, a Federal grand jury in Tacoma, Washington handed down indictments against the five members of Disarm Now Plowshares. Anne Montgomery, Bill “Bix” Bichsel, Susan Crane, Lynne Greenwald, and Steve Kelly, each face up to ten years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted on the government’s charges of “conspiracy, trespass, destruction of property on a naval installation, and depredation of government property,” associated with their November 2, 2009 Plowshares action. Oooh, "depredation"; now that's a scary word!

Disarm Now Plowshares

Montgomery, who was one of the Plowshares Eight in 1980 recently said that, “It is distressing that 30 years later the nuclear weapons are still here, and the reason that I’m acting is that they’re still here. As citizens of a nation ‘of the people, by the people, and for the people’ we must take our responsibility to use every nonviolent means necessary to eliminate these illegal weapons of mass destruction.” At 83, Montgomery is the oldest of the Disarm Now senior citizen disarmers, the youngest of whom is 61.

These hearty souls entered the Trident nuclear submarine base at Bangor, Washington through the perimeter fence in the early morning hours of November 2nd, walked for 4 hours across the base carrying a banner, “Disarm Now Plowshares: Trident: Illegal + Immoral”, left a trail of blood, hammered on the roadway and fences around Strategic Weapons Facility – Pacific (SWFPAC) and scattered sunflower seeds throughout the base. They cut the last two fences to enter the secure nuclear weapons storage area where they were detained (with hoods over their heads, laying on the ground for about 4 hours)), and after extensive questioning by base security, FBI and Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS), cited for trespass and destruction of government property, given ban and bar letters and released. All in a day’s work!

Finally, after ten months of waiting for the wheels of “justice” to grind along, the Disarm Now Plowshares defendants are ready to face trial and, in the words of Fr. Bill “Bix” Bichsel, “We hope to expose the fact that these weapons create absolutely no security. They bring nothing but fear and further proliferation of weapons and war.” These Plowshares activists hope to "expose" and shine a bright light on a very dark subject.

As Daniel Berrigan once said, “Plowshares began disarmament in 1980, doing what the government refused to do for 35 years. With equal concern, Plowshares appealed to the hearts, minds and spirits of the American people—‘You must share disarmament!’ The twin goals of Plowshares—symbolic yet real disarmament and sharing disarmament—have reciprocity. The weapons exist because our fear, violence and hatred built them. Plowshares must address these realities…”

And now, even after 65 years the government still builds the weapons of humankind's destruction, even while it engages in the rhetoric of disarmament.

When they get their day in court the Disarm Now Plowshares defendants hope to break through the government’s veil of secrecy and fear, and make their case to hold the government accountable to abolish nuclear weapons. They seek to disarm not only the weapons, but at the heart of it the "violence and hatred" that simmers deep within our hearts. Let’s hope their voices are heard, and may we all be listening.

Read more about Disarm Now Plowshares (including statements by all the members) at the Disarm Now Plowshares Blog. While there add your name to the list of the many individuals and organizations who have signed on in support of the Disarm Now Plowshares.

And then keep speaking out for disarmament; tell your Senators to speak out publicly in favor of and vote for ratification of the New START Treaty!

Peace,

Leonard

END NOTES:

The Trident submarine base at Bangor, just 20 miles west of Seattle, Washington, is home to the largest single stockpile of nuclear warheads in the U.S. arsenal, housing more than 2,000 nuclear warheads. In November 2006, the Natural Resources Defense Council declared that the 2,364 nuclear warheads at Bangor are approximately 24 percent of the entire U.S. arsenal. The Bangor base houses more nuclear warheads than China, France, Israel, India, North Korea and Pakistan combined.

The base has been rebuilt for the deployment of the larger and more accurate Trident D-5 missile system. Each of the 24 D-5 missiles on a Trident submarine is capable of carrying eight of the larger 455 kiloton W-88 warheads (each warhead is about 30 times the explosive force as the Hiroshima bomb) and costs approximately $60 million. The D-5 missile can also be armed with the 100 kiloton W-76 warhead. The Trident fleet at Bangor deploys both the 455 kiloton W-88 warhead and the 100 kiloton W-76 warhead.

Kansas City, Kansas City Here It Comes...

2010-08-30T17:14:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends,

August 29th marked the first observance of the International Day against Nuclear Tests, proposed in 2009 by the Government of Kazakhstan at the sixty-fourth session of the United Nations General Assembly. The Preamble of the resolution emphasizes “that every effort should be made to end nuclear tests in order to avert devastating and harmful effects on the lives and health of people … and, that the end of nuclear tests is one of the key means of achieving the goal of a nuclear-weapon-free world”.

In his message for the Day, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that “there is real momentum behind this great cause”, and that he looked forward to “working with all parties to rein in spending on nuclear weapons and rid the world of the nuclear threat”.

Meanwhile, back on the Homeland "reigning in spending on nuclear weapons" is not on the table, and ironically the very efforts the U.S. government is putting into building up the U.S. nuclear weapons complex is doing nothing to "rid the world of the nuclear threat", but everything to increase it. And what of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning President Obama??? According to Nukewatch:
President Obama has declared that he intends to increase next year’s funding for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA’s) nuclear weapons research and production programs by 14%. Further, despite crippling national debt, he claims their budgets will rise by more than 40% from $6.4 billion in 2010 to $9 billion by 2018. This means that eight years from now, nearly three decades after the end of the Cold War, spending on NNSA research and production programs for nuclear weapons will be 75% higher than the annual Cold War average of $5.1 billion. Is this the right path to Obama’s declared long-term goal of a nuclear weapons-free world?
Now isn't that special! As part of the "modernization" of the U.S. nuclear weapons complex, the government will soon break ground on a brand new bomb production plant in Kansas City. Rougly 85 percent of the non-nuclear components for the nation's nuclear weapons come from the current Kansas City plant. Don't worry about the employee health concerns and huge environmental contamination at the current plant though; they'll probably get it right the second time around. Won't they???

Well, there are lots of us out there who don't want to see a second time around. The nation has plenty of nukes with plenty of shelf life left, and we should be spending a whole lot more energy working towards that "nuclear weapons-free world" the Pres has been touting (although his deeds have not followed his words).

What is extra special about this project is that the local Kansas City, MO government is subsidizing private developers, who will build and eventually own the plant (can you say PRIVATIZATION???), using over $750 million in municipal bonds, while the City closes schools and hospitals. What's wrong with this picture?!?!?!

On September 8, 10:00 AM Central Time, federal, congressional and municipal officials will hold a groundbreaking ceremony for the new Kansas City Plant (KCP), and there will be some additional guests (who aren't on the government's guest list). What I hope will be a huge group of nuclear resisters will be showing up at Highway 150 and Botts Road to tell the government, "NO NEW BOMB PLANT!"

I know that most of us can't drop everything and swing over to Kansas City, but we can certainly show our support and solidarity with those who will be there, some of them likely engaging in acts of resistance that will get them arrested.

Please send your message of support (either individual or organizational) to Ann Suellentrop (annsuellen@gmail.com) Kansas City Physicians for Social Responsibility, one of the co-sponsors of the September 8th action. Then ask others to do the same.

I can only hope that some Raging Grannies will show up at Highway 150 and Botts Road on September 8th and perform an appropriate (or should I say inappropriate) version of that great song, Kansas City in dishonor of the new bomb plant.

Supporting our comrades in the struggle for a nuclear weapons-free world.

Peace,

Leonard

Read the Statement of Resistance to Nuclear Weapons Production that was delivered to workers and officials during the August 16th civil resistance at the site of the new Kansas City nuclear weapons production plant where 14 resisters were arrested.

CLICK HERE to learn more about the Kansas City bomb plant and the upcoming September 8th civil resistance. Here you will find a huge archive of materials courtesy of the Greater Kansas City Chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility and Nuclear Watch New Mexico.

Building Bridges (To Peace)

2010-08-19T21:42:00.000-07:00

Friends,

I had the good fortune and honor of spending the weekend commemorating the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with fellow nuclear abolitionists, people of a deep, abiding faith in the ability of humanity to one day rid our world of the scourge of nuclear weapons, and build one that is just, peaceful and sustainable.

Rodney Herold videotaped much of that weekend at Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action, and put together a remarkable video that documents the nonviolent direct action that took place on Monday, August 9th, the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, at the Trident nuclear submarine base at Bangor, Washington. Rodney did much more than simply document the event; he created a powerful statement of hope and the need to build bridges of understanding.

A few years ago the Rev. Joe Hale posed the question, “Is it ever possible to make peace by destroying bridges?” He was speaking in reference to Israel’s indiscriminate destruction of Lebanon, but he could have been speaking of any number of foreign policy decisions made by the U.S. government since September 11, 2001.

The events of that fateful day in 2001 sewed the seeds of fear, anger and hatred, and fueled decisions in the highest levels of government that have made our nation and the world a much more dangerous place. However, things could have taken a much different course, and we still have the opportunity to change course before it is too late.

To change course we must start building bridges rather than destroying them. To do so will require that our nation stop threatening other nations with regime change, fulfill our obligations under the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty and stop holding the threat of nuclear weapons over other countries, and start using civilian diplomacy rather than military action as a tool of foreign policy. It will also require major shifts in our patterns of energy consumption that have created such a huge reliance on oil. Our priorities must change dramatically.

But none of this can happen without changing ourselves and how we define and address the evils in our world. Not long after 9/11 and before completing the mission in Afghanistan, President Bush laid out the next stage in his war on terror and announced his plans to confront the infamous “axis of evil”, rogue states that threaten the world with weapons of mass destruction. Many years before, Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke of a completely different axis of evil, one of racism, poverty/materialism, and war that mire people in misery, divide people against one another, and threaten the world with extinction.

President Obama has taken President Bush's lead in trying to rid the world of evil primarily through military action, and foreign aid/poverty assistance linked to what we determine to be "good" government and "good" economic practices. Dr. King, however, believed in addressing racial and cultural tensions, committing unconditionally to free the world of the scourge of poverty, and utilizing nonviolent intervention in international conflicts.

What ultimately sets the two strategies apart are their motivations. The current one is based on fear and hatred and the need for power and desire for resources; the other on faith and compassion and the quest for justice, which are values shared by the world’s great religions. And beyond the motivations, we have seen the consequences of coercion and violence. We, as people of a common humanity, are called to seek a different approach in which we build bridges instead of destroying them.

As Dr. King once so eloquently stated, “Love is the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or to bow before the altar of retaliation. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals who pursued this self-defeating path of hate.” (from Where Do We Go From Here. Chaos or Community? C1968).

Dr. King’s prophetic voice calls us to follow the well-worn path of love and nonviolence, building bridges along the way, connecting with ALL of humanity. I invite you to watch Rodney's video. I hope it will provide you with a glimpse into the hearts and minds of dedicated nuclear resisters, and the network of people who support them. They are people of hope, people who work to build bridges rather than destroy them.

One final note about the video is the poignant music, "Able, Baker, Charlie and Dog", by musician and songwriter Joe Crookston. The song is a very personal story about Joe's grandfather who was part of a U.S. Navy construction battalion in World War II that built the runways on Tinian Island from which the bombers carrying the atomic bombs took off for Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Joe's song is far more than background music; it is an integral element, providing yet another person's contribution to our deeper, human understanding of the atomic bombings and the nature of war itself. The song is the perfect accompaniment for Rodney's video.

Peace,

Leonard

This post is a revised version of an article originally written for Every Church a Peace Church.

Note: In 2006, the Natural Resources Defense Council declared that the 2,364 nuclear warheads at Bangor are approximately 24 percent of the entire U.S. arsenal. The Bangor base houses more nuclear warheads than China, France, Israel, India, North Korea and Pakistan combined. For thirty-three years Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action has engaged in education, training in nonviolence, community building, resistance against Trident and action toward a world without nuclear weapons.

The Bomb and the Hope

2010-08-13T16:40:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends,

Nuclear weapons are, for most people, an abstract concept; a concept that exists in the mind (if at all), without any concrete existence. Today's nuclear weapons are kept out of sight and out of mind, not just to protect them from those pesky terrorists (and plowshares activists) but also from the public's awareness. But for the victims of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, some of whom are alive today, these weapons are anything but an abstraction, and they are very much aware of the existence of today's nuclear weapons.

Sixty-five years after the atomic bombings we continue working to keep the memory of these horrific events alive, and we typically do so by sharing the facts about and experience of the bombings through written and spoken word, photographs, art, as well as through testimony of survivors of the bombings (Hibakusha).

At last week's From Hiroshima to Hope lantern floating ceremonies at Green Lake in Seattle, Washington, the Hiroshima-Nagasaki Poster Exhibition (from the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum) was on display. I was, however, most deeply touched by a presentation of dance accompanied by music that artistically portrayed the bomb and its effects on people far beyond its physical effects. The Bomb and the Hope, an original dance choreographed by iori Yoshimura, is a powerful and moving piece that is (as the title states) about the Bomb, but even more so about Hope.

In the dance a widow comes in searching for her husband, sees him dead, and experiences terrible grief. Then the bomb enters, and when it sees what it has done it feels the magnificence of its power and intimidates the widow, who initially succumbs, feeling fear that reaches such a peak the bomb gets excited and strikes at the widow. Her fear is so great that the widow falls back, feeling that she can't go on - a turning point.

The bomb questions itself; "Is this all I have? Fear? The widow finally approaches the bomb, and touches it. At that moment the bomb questions how the widow can forgive. The bomb then goes off in awe, transformed. The widow takes off her shawl, which has hidden her grief, and walks off, ready to go on.

The Bomb and the Hope was choreographed by iori Yoshimura, danced by iori Yoshimura (as the widow) and Heather Porter (as Pika, the white lightening of the atomic bomb), with accompaniment by Denny Moore on the Native American flute.

I was deeply moved by the spirit of this beautiful dance. It is a testament of the power of the arts to touch our innermost reaches, allowing us to see things in a different light, and perhaps helping lead to our own inner transformation along the nonviolent path. Perhaps The Bomb and the Hope will reach many who have not yet been able to see the atomic bombings as anything more than historical events or sets of statistics. Perhaps it will transform people by helping them see the power of forgiveness.

Watch the video and decide for yourself.

Peace,

Leonard

Nuclear Weapons: Resistance Is NOT Futile!

2010-08-11T09:34:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends,

The anniversaries of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have come and gone. The weekend surrounding those two anniversaries was filled with activities commemorating the events. In Hiroshima it was the first time ever that the U.S. Government sent a representative to attend the ceremonies to mark the moment the first atomic bomb was dropped.

There were also other events around the world commemorating the atomic bombings. Some, such as the From Hiroshima to Hope Lantern Floating Ceremony at Seattle's (Washington State) Green Lake brought people together for peace and nuclear disarmament.

Other events also commemorated the atomic bombings in their own unique solemn fashion by condusting nonviolent resistance actions in which some participants engaged in creative acts intended to symbolically close facilities engaged in the design, production, storage or deployment of nuclear weapons.

People vigiled, demonstrated and acted (nonviolently), and some participants were arrested for their actions at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor (aka Sub Base Bangor), Vandenburg Air Force Base, California, Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico, The Pentagon, the Strategic (Nuclear) Command at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, Lockheed-Martin's nuclear weapons facility in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania and Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, California.

Nuclear resisters (from left to right) Alice Zillah, Macknight Johnson and Rev. Anne Hall holding a banner, blocking the entrance to Trident nuclear submarine base Bangor, symbolically closing the base, on August 9, 2010. A total of nine resisters blocked the roadway and were arrested that day. Resisters ranged in age from 21 to 88.

People sometimes ask why people choose to engage in such actions when there are other "legal" avenues available to voice one's opinions, avenues that include voting, letters to the editor, correspondence and visits with elected officials, and public demonstrations.

The answer most provide is that they have tried all of these methods, but feel that they have had little, if any, real impact. And in light of what many international legal experts cite as the illegality (and don't forget the immorality) of nuclear weapons and the threat of their use under international law, we (as citizens) must act; we believe that it is essentially our moral obligation and our legal right.

But don't take my word for it; you should hear it from someone who has been arrested more than once, and tried and convicted for her actions. Ann "Kit" Kittredge was recently tried for her action with another resister, Denny Moore, during a Ground Zero vigil honoring Martin Luther King Jr. on January 16, 2010, in which they set up a wooden ladder near the base entrance at the Trident nuclear submarine base and strategic weapons storage facility at Bangor, Washington, and attempted to climb over the barbed wire fence onto the base. They carried with them a letter to the base commander imploring him to disarm the base.

At Kittredge's trial on May 3rd she testified on her own behalf as to the reasons for her action in January. She spoke purposefully and passionately about her act; you can read a copy of her testimony (below), which she provided. My hope is that this testimony of one resister will help people better understand why some choose to resist.

I know many people see resistance as a futile gesture, but for those who make the difficult choice to resist, it is anything but futile. It is a statement of hope, of faith, of a deep abiding belief that we can create a peaceful and sustainable world free of nuclear weapons for future generations.

May it one day be so.

Peace,

Leonard

Testimony of Ann Kittredge in United States District Court, Tacoma, Washington on Friday, July 16, 2010.

My name is Ann Marlowe Kittredge.

I am a mother, grandmother, firefighter/EMT, Massage Therapist, Organic Farmer and Peace Activist. i am 11th generation American and a Daughter of the American Revolution. I was taught that the United States Constitution gives me the right to the petition for redress of grievances and that as a citizen of this Democracy and the world it is my patriotic duty and responsibility to do so.After exhausting countless other lawful avenues to advocate for the removal of nuclear weapons and the threat
and/or harm from their potential use I chose to attempt to reenter Naval Base Kitsap to bring to the attention of the relevant officer my concern.

When our Congress and the Federal Judiciary FAIL to ensure that the Executive Branch act within International and U.S. law, to limit method and means of the threat or use of military force, WE THE PEOPLE are compelled to act without being treated as criminals.

Under the Fourth Geneva Convention various types of weapons are prohibited under all circumstances. The Trident Nuclear missile submarines at Naval Base kitsap are one of these. These barbaric first-strike Weapons of Mass Destruction are incapable of distinguishing between combatants and civilians and therefore are in violation of International Law per Geneva Protocol of 1925 and by the US Army Manual 27-10 on the Law of the Land National Law. The Charter at the Nuremberg Tribunal made explicit that violations of the Law of War are criminal. Furthermore the United States is obligated under the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty to negotiate the elimination of it's nuclear weapons and is failing to do so.

I cannot look my children and grandchildren in the eye and tell them I am aware of this atrocious, destructive, unlawfulness and that I did nothing. I feel it is imperative that I take action in upholding the law for peace and justice or I am complicit in this illegal behavior either by cooperation or by silence.

This is why I chose to reenter Naval Base Kitsap.

Thank You

Our Shared Responsibility for a Shared Future

2010-07-29T22:20:00.000-07:00

Friends,

In our work to abolish nuclear weapons it is often easy to forget how such a complex issue as disarmament interrelates on so many levels with so many other issues.

SECURING A NUCLEAR WEAPON-FREE WORLD TODAY: Our Responsibility to Future Generations is a briefing booklet prepared for those participating in the 2010 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. It contains some very powerful, persuasive arguments aimed at the decision makers at the NPT Conference.

Beyond the recent NPT conference, the essays in this booklet speak out to all of us engaged in the struggle for a nuclear weapons-free world. The final essay speaks to a holistic vision of peace in which nuclear weapons are only part of a greater conversation because we will never fully disarm until we learn to resolve conflict peacefully, among other things.

The essay, although addressed to world leaders, is also addressed to each of us. It reminds us that nuclear abolition will only occur when all those in power (and indeed all of us) are committed (and here I paraphrase the Quakers) to a world free of war and the threat of war, a world with equity and justice for all, a world where every person's potential may be fulfilled, and an earth restored.

May we all continue working to make it so.

Peace,

Leonard

Appeal to World Leaders

Renew Our Hope for Our Shared Future

We assert our deep desire, our firm commitment,
and our inalienable right to live in harmony
with each other and with nature’s laws of
connectedness and interdependence.

We call upon you to realize how past decisions
and actions have threatened our common future
and have left us surrounded by an unjust and
destructive legacy.

Still, we believe that humanity can rise to its
highest ideals and change course to create the
just and peaceful future we know is possible.

We trust you will fulfill your obligations to us
and future generations by:

* Committing to abolish nuclear weapons and
all weapons of mass destruction.
* Resolving conflicts without resort to military
force, and ending the arms trade.
* Redirecting resources from militarism to
human and ecological security.
* Restoring the health of our Earth and
ending the exploitation of her nonrenewable
resources.
* Upholding human rights and the dignity
of all individuals, and fulfilling your
responsibilities under international law.

We urge you as world leaders to fulfill your
duty as guardians of our unique, beautiful and
endangered Earth. Renew our hope for our
shared future.
Signed by the World Future Councilors of the Disarmament Working Group:

Hafsat Abiola-Costello
Hans-Peter Dürr
Riane Eisler
David Krieger
Rama Mani
Count Hans-Christof von Sponeck
Pauline Tangiora
Judge C.G. Weeramantry

Bomb Shelters Making a Comeback: The Ultimate in Disaster Capitalism

2010-07-28T12:33:00.000-07:00

Friends,

What is it about fear that makes people go to such great(and seemingly futile) lengths (and cost) to feel safe??? A story as old as (recorded) time, fear has allowed people to profit from the fears of others over countless centuries. It's what Naomi Klein calls Disaster Capitalism, and today the disaster capitalists are doing quite well thanks to the mass fear mongering that has reached epic proportions as the Global War on Terror has continued to escalate.

Many of you remember the good old bomb shelter days of the bad old Cold War. Back in the 1950s many folks decided that "duck and cover" just d

idn't cut it for their families. Keeping up with the Joneses in the 50s often meant building a bomb shelter in one's back yard (or basement). People buried these huge steel drums outfitted with at least a few of the comforts of home - beds, lanterns, canned food and water - and waited for the sirens.

Cool bomb shelter; disco ball optional!

Many also had a radiation detector, a nifty device with which they could determine when it was safe to go outside and try to rebuild their lives in what would have been a vast, radioactive wasteland had the Superpowers unleashed even a portion of their massive nuclear arsenals (roughly 65,000 warheads at the peak of the Cold War).

Well folks, if you are waxing nostalgic right about now for the old days, look no further. USA Today just reported that "Doomsday Shelters" are making a comeback. This is Disaster Capitalism at its best (or should I say worst). At least a couple of companies are making some pretty good money capitalizing on people's worst fears and digging some pretty big holes in the ground and calling them "Catastrophe Shelters."

Think of it as the ultimate pre-catastrophe timeshare. You buy a share for $50,000 per adult, and only half that for kids. When something really nasty is about to go down, you just head down to your designated shelter and, assuming there isn't an angry mob also trying to get in, pop inside and wait out the worst (and wait, and wait, and wait...). Is that a great deal or what??? Of course, I don't even want to start asking how they are going to guarantee up to "five years with food, power, water and filtered air", not to mention how they will keep out the masses of zombies.

All kidding aside, the people behind this trend deny that they are profiting from people's fears. As Robert Vicino, a disaster denizen and founder of the Vivos underground shelter network, says:

"You don't think of the person who sells you a fire extinguisher as taking advantage of your fear," he says. "The fact that you may never use that fire extinguisher doesn't make it a waste or bad... We're not creating the fear; the fear is already out there. We're creating a solution."

I'm not so sure about the fire extinguisher analogy, but I can agree with him on one point; they are not creating the fear. Of course that is simply a matter of semantics. They are building (massively) on existing fears, and are doing a pretty good job of burying the Social Contract. This is the quintessential Naomi Klein vision of a world where only the wealthy are saved.

As for Vivino's claim that they are "creating a solution", I think that a more productive (and socially conscious) solution, particularly from the standpoint of nuclear weapons, might be to learn to address conflict nonviolently and abolish nuclear weapons. The terrorist nuclear threat is being overblown; the greatest threat from nuclear weapons currently is that of nuclear war.

Meanwhile back in the shelter, assuming that people don't go nuts after being cooped up underground for such a long period of time after a nuclear holocaust, once they see what they are returning to they just might wish that they had spent that $50,000 on one huge pre-Armageddon block party. As for me, I am spending my money and energy on nonviolent conflict resolution and nuclear abolition. So there!!!

Peace,

Leonard

P.S. - You just have to check out the Vivos Website for yourself; these people are playing up the End Times big time. Talk about fear; these folks are really scary. Here is what their home page has to say:

Vivos is the life assurance solution for you and your family to survive the next earth devastating catastrophe that either nature or mankind may create. Our network of hardened, nuclear blast proof shelters will provide for up to one year of autonomous underground survival for 200 people in each Vivos shelter. We invite you to apply for co-ownership of the Vivos shelter complex closest to your home area from our planned worldwide network. Where else would you go with just a few days' notice? You cannot predict, but you can prepare! Enter Vivos now to learn more.

Nuclear Weapons - A Time for The Clergy to Speak Out

2010-07-22T16:09:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends,

I write this to those of you in the clergy, that global body of people charged with leading the people to peace. In the Christian Church that, of course, means following the ways of Jesus, and as I read the texts of the New Testament, Jesus' life and teachings are unambiguous - we are not to kill.

As for the church and your role in it, I know how difficult it is for you to inhabit an institution that for roughly 1700 years has been inextricably chained to the very empire it is supposed to resist. Constantine was, indeed, a clever one; no one saw those heavy chains coming.

There have been those who have, from within, challenged us to be more than we are. The Reverend William Sloane Coffin is among those modern day prophets who warned the church and all its inhabitants of the dangers of the empire and its propensity for destruction, including its own.

Coffin worked tirelessly to abolish nuclear weapons. He started a nuclear disarmament program while senior minister at the Riverside Church, and in his later years founded Faithful Security, a coalition for people of faith committed to working for a world free of nuclear weapons.

The church has, for the most part, kept silent for these 65 years since (and about) the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And since those bombings the U.S. and Soviet Union have led the world in building up huge arsenals of nuclear weapons far beyond the destructive capabilities of the bombs dropped on Japan.

What could (and should) the church do if it wishes to recapture the spirit of the early church before it was co-opted. Here is what Gary Kohls, M.D., a founding member of Every Church a Peace Church, has to say:

Much of the responsibility for causing and, therefore preventing, military atrocities like Nagasaki lies with the Just War Theory American Christian churches and whether or not they will finally start teaching what Jesus taught and then living as he lived: the unconditional love of friend, neighbor and enemy the refusing to kill other children of a loving God.

The next Nagasaki can be prevented if the churches courageously and publicly resist militarism by active nonviolent means and refuse their government’s call for the conscription of the bodies and souls of their sons and daughters.

If the churches start to exercise their sacred duty to warn their young parishioners about what killing does to their souls, it may not be too late to save the suffering people of a dying, war-torn, financially and morally bankrupt planet.
In a little over two weeks people will come together to remember the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and rededicate themselves to the abolition of nuclear weapons. People of faith should all be at the forefront of this struggle (and many already are), and they need strong and courageous leadership to guide them on this difficult path.

On August 8th, the Sunday between the anniversaries of the bombings, ministers in the vast majority of churches will go about the usual Sunday business of worship. Perhaps a few will offer a brief litany or prayer related to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Even fewer will preach a sermon on the subject.

So I challenge each of you good clergy people - people of faith; people of a gentle, loving, merciful god - to ask what God wishes of you and what that gentle Jesus would say if he dropped by your office and you asked him about that August 8th sermon. I challenge you to give the sermon that will make the people sit up and listen, that will make many uncomfortable and perhaps even more of them angry, but above all to make them accountable. I challenge you to breathe life into the words that on so many Sundays are just that - words.

Rabbi Heschel once said that "There is the grain of the prophet in the recesses of every human existence." I challenge you to find that prophetic voice deep inside yourself and bring it out. The world can't wait and the people desperately need to be roused from their stupor.

Why now? Why the Sunday of the Hiroshima/Nagasaki 65th anniversaries? Why not!?!? Of all the abominations forced by humans on their fellow humanity, none is more diabolical than nuclear weapons. There is no other single weapon in the world capable of instantly incinerating hundreds of thousands of people in an instant.

So I ask you with all humility to speak up on Sunday, August 8th; speak up with all the faith and conviction possible. And then speak up some more. As the Rev. William Sloane Coffin once said in his book, Passion for the Possible, A Message to U.S. Churches:

It's my own deep feeling that most people in the pews are far more prepared for painful truths than we give them credit for. What they want their preachers to do is to raise to a conscious level the knowledge inherent in their experience. And the majority of them realize that the painful truths known and spoken sour and subvert life less than those known and unspoken. So let us not hesitate to speak up, to preach with clarity and compassion at true and lively biblical word, remembering always that our calling is to serve the Lord, not to be servile to our congregations.

In Peace,

Leonard

P.S. - One more thing you can do as leaders of the people is to participate in activities surrounding the anniversaries of the atomic bombings. Communities, large or small, have vigils, lantern lighting ceremonies or other gatherings on or around one or both anniversaries.

Click here to find an event in your state. If you are in Washington State, click here for events.

And just one more thing: check out the Two Futures Project and Faithful Security!

The quote by Gary Kohls is from one of his Duty to Warn essays, The Bombing of Nagasaki August 9, 1945: The Untold Story.

From Trinity to Trident: A Story of Resistance

2010-07-17T14:12:00.000-07:00

Friends,

On July 16, 1945 the first experimental atomic bomb was exploded at the site known as Trinity at Alamogordo, New Mexico in the desert called Jornada del Muerto (Journey of Death) . It marked the beginning of a journey toward what could someday be the end.

The rest, as they say, is history (and some of it particularly horrific history); but the history is still being written each day as many nations (led by the model of the United States) continue to rely on nuclear weapons while others seek to develop them. Monkey see, monkey do!!!

Our nation could be leading the world toward disarmament and ultimately abolition, but instead we continue to utilize the rhetoric of "deterrence" and "national security", and seem to find a host of enemies since losing the comfort of the Cold War enemy. As a result we are re-building the infrastructure that made Trinity - and over the years tens of thousands of nuclear weapons - possible.

Billions are being spent on new facilities at the Kansas City Plant, Y-12, Los Alamos and Pantex. These huge investments represent, as stated on the National Nuclear Security Administration's Website, "the investment need to transform a Cold War nuclear weapons complex into a 21st century Nuclear Security Enterprise."

Then there is Trident (Ohio class submarines), what the U.S. Navy calls “the nation’s most survivable and enduring nuclear strike capability.” Not only is Trident "survivable and enduring" (whatever enduring is supposed to mean), but it is a significant weapons system of mass destruction.

With 24 Trident missiles, each missile carrying up to 8 independently targetable nuclear warheads, and each warhead having an explosive yield of as much as 475 kilotons, just one Trident submarine is capable of incinerating much of any continent and rendering the land uninhabitable for anyone unfortunate to survive the initial blast and radiation effects. The U.S. has 14 Trident subs outfitted for the Trident D-5 missile.

On July 16, 2010, exactly 65 Years to the day that that first atomic weapon was exploded over the sands of New Mexico, a small band of people dedicated to the abolition of nuclear weapons gathered in front of the U.S. District Court in Tacoma, Washington to vigil in support of their fellow nuclear resisters who would be in court that day for their resistance to our governments continuing reliance on nuclear weapons as a tool of national policy.

Although nuclear weapons, and particularly the idea of abolishing them, are not on most people's radar, there are groups (mostly small) scattered around the world dedicated to abolishing nuclear nuclear weapons. They attempt to bring the subject to the forefront of public dialogue, reminding people that living beneath the nuclear Sword of Damocles is more than long enough. The string that supports that sword is aging, and we can only play with (nuclear) fire so long before we get burned.

This past July 16th there were 3 nuclear resisters in court. One, Jessica Arteaga, was arraigned for her previous action blocking the entrance to the Trident submarine base at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor in May during a May 3, 2010 vigil and action by Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action (GZ) coinciding with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference. Arteaga pleaded not guilty to a charge of trespassing and had a trial date set.

Two other resisters, Ann Kittredge and Denny Moore, were tried for their action on January 16, 2010, during a GZ vigil honoring Martin Luther King Jr. in which they set up a wooden ladder and attempted to climb over the barbed wire fence onto the Bangor sub base. Moore made it over, while Kittredge was tackled by Naval Masters at Arms before she could top the fence. Moore was taken down moments later.

Pre-trial vigil on July 16th in front of courthouse: photo by Gilberto Perez

Both Kittredge and Moore pleaded not guilty to charges of trespassing. When questioned by her defense attorney as to her motivation for her action, Kittredge related her action to the vision of Dr. King. Kittredge enumerated her ongoing efforts including letters and petitions to government, as well as marches and demonstrations to change our government's policy and reduce investments in nuclear weapons. She tried to convey the message that that nuclear weapons were physically threatening to her own children and grandchildren and families and people everywhere. Exhausted by her efforts and seeing no change she chose nonviolent resistance as her only available means to alert the courts and citizens at large about the dangers of nuclear weapons.

Moore, a Vietnam combat veteran with two sons-in-law in the military (one in Iraq and one in Afghanistan) chose to forgo legal counsel, and took the stand in his own defense. Moore stated that like Kittredge, he has tried all the usual means to confront our government about building and servicing nuclear weapons. He said, “Sometimes the country needs to be in the citizen's hands.” Moore had carried his personal letter to the base commanding officer asking him to act on behalf of undoing our nuclear arsenal. In the trial, Moore emphasized the need to get his letter to the commanding officer.

It was acknowledged by the government during trial that the letter was taken from Moore by one of the Masters at Arms after his arrest, but there is no record of it having been among his personal effects. Did it ever reach the base commander? Certainly Moore never had the opportunity to deliver it.

When all was said and done the judge found both Kittredge and Moore guilty of trespassing, and handed down sentences. Moore, who had never received a ban and bar letter, is to pay a fine of $100 and $35 in court costs, and serve 50 hours of community service. Kittredge, who has previously received a ban and bar letter, was fined $200 and $35 in court costs, given one year of probation, and must serve 50 hours of community service.

Twenty five supporters (and fellow abolitionists), who had stood vigil before the arraignment and trials, filled the courtroom to witness the proceedings. Beyond the personal conviction and courage that it takes to become (and sustain being) a nuclear resister, it requires a community to support each other on many different levels. Ultimately, however, it is these active resisters (like Arteaga, Kittredge and Moore), putting their personal freedoms on the (blue) line to bear witness to the insanity and criminality of nuclear weapons, and to bring it to the attention of those who have the ability (and responsibility) to move our nation (and ultimately the world) towards their abolition.

As we remember that first bomb, and soon remember the bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, let us give our enduring support to those who resist nuclear weapons and work for the day when there are no bombs, so that we will be able to look back on those bombs that were dropped in August, 1945 as THE LAST BOMBS. May it be so.

Peace,

Leonard

Many thanks to my colleague, Tom Shea, for covering the arraignment, trials and vigil, and supplying me with all the news that's fit to print! Thanks also to Gilberto Perez for the vigil photo!

Time to Think Outside the Bomb!

2010-06-21T22:24:00.000-07:00

Friends,

Albert Einstein once said, "We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them." At a time when the President (Obama) pledges to take steps leading the way to a nuclear weapons-free world, and in the next breath speaks of the importance of a strong nuclear deterrent (and funds new bomb-making facilities) it becomes dreadfully obvious that the same thinking that got us into our current nuclear mess will never get us out of it. What's up with $7 billion to construct 3 new nuclear weapons production facilities??? Talk about false hope!

There are many challenges facing the nuclear abolition movement, not the least of which is the essential, and unarguable, fact that the subject of abolishing nuclear weapons is simply not sexy. It doesn't have legs. It just doesn't keep, let alone get, most people's attention. But don't tell that to the Think Outside the Bomb's (TOTB) traveling show! These young people are thinking outside the box (and definitely way Outside the Bomb) as they connect with people - both young and old and everywhere in between - as they cross the nation, and they are determined. Here's how they describe themselves:

TOTB is a national network of youth activists and organizers for nuclear abolition who wish to create a world free of nuclear weapons and nuclear power. We seek to build community and working knowledge through our national tour, by offering critical information on the state of the US Nuclear Industrial Bombplex, as well as a critical look at how we engage in resistance. As we travel the country this summer, we will engage in dialogue with local activists and organizing groups. We will focus on the issue of nuclear abolition and stress its intersections with other global movements, including: movements for sustainable energy, environmental movements, labor movements, and movements that oppose the state of global capitalism, among others. We will also speak of creating a positive and affirming culture of resistance, speaking of the sustainable and reciprocal infrastructures of Permaculture, as well as focusing our messaging through artistic creative expression.

The lineup for any of the cities on TOTB's nationwide tour includes a presentation on their Disarmament Summer Campaign and Permaculture Encampment, information and reports on the human and environmental costs of nuclear weapons, puppet theatre, musical performance and "incendiary spoken word". Hot Stuff indeed! These are seriously (and passionately) creative gatherings by dedicated young people who hope to connect with other young people as well as those with many years of experience in any of the struggles for a sustainable, peaceful, nuclear weapons-free world. TOTB's nationwide tour is not a one way communication; it is an intentional dialogue in which they hope to build a grassroots, consensus-based, nonviolent direct action movement.

TOTB might very well be coming to your city or a city near you (if it hasn’t already been there); find out by clicking here. They are just about to hit the West Coast, and they are rockin along the way to their big New Mexico Encampment. This is definitely not “old school”. This is tying things together that should have been long ago. It is only our thinking and labeling that separates things, and it is that very thinking and labeling that is moving civilization toward the brink of ecological and economic collapse.

If you are in the Seattle area, Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action is hosting TOTB on Thursday, July 1st. Join us at 7:00 PM at University Lutheran Church in Seattle’s University District for an unforgettable evening of education, entertainment and sharing of ideas and experience. This is what a grassroots movement looks like at its best - passionate people connecting with others, working for a peaceful, sustainable world.

The generations that brought nuclear weapons into the world and maintained them well over six decades are not (if we are to believe Einstein) the ones who will bring about a livable world for future generations. It will more likely be the younger people with new, fresh ways of thinking who will bring about that change, and TOTB is working hard to empower them to do just that. These young people aren’t just talking about “hope”, they are building it every day, and it is the kind of hope in which we really can believe!

Peace,

Leonard

Time to watch (NPT) TV!

2010-05-27T14:54:00.000-07:00

Friends,

After nearly a month of trying to keep up with activities at the 2010 NPT Review Conference I finally decided that I needed to watch TV, but not just any TV. I've discovered NPT TV, a Website designed and run by a team of students from Germany. They have been running brief video interviews with a wide variety of people involved with the 2010 NPT RevCon; people like John Burroughs, Executive Director of the Lawyer's Committee on Nuclear Policy. Check out one of the interviews with him here as he talks about "watered down drafts" negatively affecting the outcome of the conference:

Changes in the drafts from NPT TV on Vimeo.

I've watched a few of these videos, and they have provided me with insights I would not get by following the UN 2010 Review Conference Website or even the excellent coverage at Reaching Critical Will (which I highly recommend!). There is nothing like the power of video.

I discovered a particularly powerful video created by NPT TV's art branch; it's called "Hair Trigger Alert", and through the stark contrast of everyday images woven through a series of interviews with people like David Krieger of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Hair Trigger Alert is intended to engage those who aren't yet convinced that all this disarmament work is worth the effort. Check it out (below), and then share it with your as yet unaware friends.

Hair Trigger Alert from NPT TV on Vimeo.

As for what the final day of the conference will bring, I would wager that those of us working to abolish nuclear weapons won't be breaking out the champagne. "Consensus" was a lovely pipe dream. It will be time to roll up our sleeves and continue the struggle. Until then, enjoy a little TV time...

Peace,

Leonard

Note: NPT TV is a project of the Heidelberg-based Student Peace Bureau, a grassroots organization, initiated, and organized by students, working on issues of peace and development.

Planting (and Nurturing) Seeds of Peace

2010-05-16T09:37:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends,

The movement to abolish nuclear weapons is not for those of faint heart. It requires a deep sense of commitment and sense of purpose because we are working not only to secure humanity's very future, but we are also working against extraordinary odds. This is no small task.

I have been fortunate to work with many extraordinary people, most of whom have many more years of experience than me; I learn from all of them. I recently learned a great lesson from one in particular, Father Bill "Bix" Bischel. One might think of Bix as a gardener of sorts. Here's the story.

One day in October, 2009 I was standing in front of the U.S. District Courthouse in Tacoma with fellow abolitionists during a vigil preceding court proceedings for a fellow nuclear resister. Bix was there, and he approached me and said, "Leonard; wouldn't it be wonderful if we could get a few Hibakusha to speak in Seattle?" My first thought was, "Wow, that is a great idea!" It was immediately followed by, "Uh oh; Bix is asking me to make this happen!"

If you ever have the honor of getting to know Bix you will learn that it is difficult to say "NO" to someone of his deep faith and commitment, demonstrated throughout his long, rich life. This gentle Jesuit embodies the essential elements of justice, mercy and peacemaking (and, of course, humility) from which the "church" could learn (if it would only free itself from the bonds of 1700 years of empire).

My simple answer to Bix was, "I'll start working on it." The rest, as they say, is history. Bix planted a seed within me; I watered and nurtured it (with help from many others), and it grew into something extraordinary. Along the way I had my doubts, but I persevered. I began right away, making contacts, sending emails and making phone calls. Rejection after rejection made me wonder if something would ever come together. Then, months later (in February 2010), I received an email from Yayoi Tsuchida, Assistant General Secretary of the Japan Council against A and H Bombs. He thanked me for my invitation, and informed me that a delegation of 40 persons representing Gensuikyo would be arriving in Seattle on May 5. Talk about a shocker!!!

Over the next few weeks I reached out to countless individuals (in a variety of organizations) who came through to make sure that the visiting delegation would be warmly welcomed. I organized an evening presentation at First United Methodist Church of Seattle, and Bix organized a series of activities in Tacoma for the following day (this man is tireless). Members of Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action (GZ) prepared a special welcome at GZ for the last leg of the delegation's tour.

As for the "history", the delegation arrived around noon on May 5th. My wife and I greeted them at SeaTac airport, and we then set off for Seattle. Besides enjoying the sites of Puget Sound, the delegation brought its message of peace and nuclear abolition, and established relationships (through people to people exchange) that will make our movement (to abolish nuclear weapons) a little stronger. It's very much like the Sister City Mission Statement (that Tacoma Mayor Marilyn Strickland quoted: "Promoting peace through mutual understanding and cooperation, one individual, one community at a time." We forged new and (what I deeply hope will be) lasting relationships with our new friends from across the Pacific.

As for me, after all is said and done, and my new friends and partners in nuclear abolition have gone home, I am savoring (if only for a brief moment before getting back to work) the joyful memories of their visit. But I am also feeling a profound sense of gratitude towards Bix for the gift he gave me on that day in October when he planted that seed, one that grew strong, and will continue to grow into something greater than any one of us; one that we all nurture with our individual contributions. My hope for each of us in this movement (and the peace movement as a whole) is that we will each find strength in role models like Bix and continue to plant and nurture seeds of peace.

Peace,

Leonard

P.S. - Enjoy this slide show of the Gensuikyo delegation's visit to Seattle.

View all

Get your own

Voices of the Hibakusha

2010-05-07T14:45:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends,

While all the BIG international citizen's events were going down in New York City leading up to the United Nations Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference, some pretty cool things were happening in other places as well. Here in the Puget Sound region of the Pacific Northwest we had a number of events (intended to raise awareness) including our own rally and march coinciding with last Sunday's march in New York.

The (personal) high point of the past week was the arrival in Seattle of the 38 person delegation representing the Japan Council against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs (Gensuikyo). The delegation consisted of Japanese citizens from many cities, including Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The most venerable member of the delegation, Tokie MIZUNO, is a Hibakusha of Hiroshima (a survivor of the atomic bombing of that city).

Ms. MIZUNO was 5 years old when the bomb exploded over her city, and she has never forgotten that day. She still bears the scars both visible and invisible that have affected her life and health. I could tell you more, but the story should be told by Ms. MIZUNO (in her own words). This is her story, and she wrote it down and then stood before people in Seattle, and then in Tacoma, and with great courage and conviction told her story, gave her testimony, and called on everyone to work together for a nuclear weapon-free world.

Ms. MIZUNO honored us with her testimony, and as witness to that testimony I feel a responsibility to pass on her words exactly as she spoke them on both occasions. You may read them here, and I hope that you will be touched by her words and pass them on to others, especially those who are still unaware that the nuclear-armed nations still brandish thousands of nuclear weapons, and are prepared to use them; the results of such action would be horrific.

We also heard from Mr. KIMURA Isamu, General Secretary, Fukuoka Council against A & H Bombs (Fukuoka Gensuikyo), who spoke eloquently of the need to abolish nuclear weapons, and all the members of the delegation were wonderful ambassadors of peace ("Heiwa" in Japanese). I am grateful for each of these ambassadors of peace and new-found friends; as their host I was honored to spend time with them and see their tremendous, steadfast dedication to building a peaceful world. They are people of deep, generous spirit.

The voices of the Hibakusha help keep the memory of those terrible events in 1945 alive so that we may choose (if we find our own courage) to not allow such things to ever happen again. For if we do not remember history, we are doomed to repeat it; this terrible history must never be repeated. Let us hear the voices of the Hibakusha with our hearts and minds so that we may carry their message with us wherever we go...

No more Hiroshimas! No more Nagasakis!

Heiwa (Peace),

Leonard

*************

This is the testimony of Tokie MIZUNO as it was written by Ms. MIZUNO in April 2010, and translated by Nobue KUGIMIYA; and presented by Ms. MIZUNO at First United Methodist Church of Seattle, Washington on May 5, 2010 and at the University of Washington Tacoma on May 6, 2010. The two black and white photos were also included with her testimony.

My name is Tokie MIZUNO and I am a survivor of Hiroshima. 65 years ago, when I was 5 years old, the atomic bomb was dropped on my city, Hiroshima. I was near my grandmother’s house, 1.2 kilo-meters from ground zero.

The City of Hiroshima was completely destroyed and was turned into rubble by the enormous destructive power of the atomic bomb. As other survivors, I was barely alive and the damage on my body and mind was unbearable.

I might have been lucky to survive but life hasn’t been easy on me financially, physically and mentally. This agony should not be repeated on anybody else on earth. That’s why I have become involved in anti-nuclear actions with other Hibakusha as well as many other Japanese people.

We have been collecting signatures for a nuclear-weapon-free world, and engaging in activities to defend the Japanese Constitution, especially the Preamble and Article 9, which pledges never to wage war again.

Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution clearly states “the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat of use of force as means of settling international disputes.”

And it adds “In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained.” Article 9 is our treasure.

This treasure for Japan was achieved with the sacrifice of precious lives of 20 to 30 million people in Asia and Pacific. This is one of the greatest achievements for the world, too, and we will hold on to it forever.

Let me talk about that day.......

On the morning of August 6th, 1945, just before Hiroshima was hit by the atomic bombing, one of the women in my neighbourhood came to my house and said “We have some sweets. Why don’t you come and have some?”

So my little 3-year-old brother and I happily followed her. In those days it was very difficult to have sweets. My neighbour’s son, a soldier, was back from the battlefront to treat his wounds. He brought some sweets with him for his family and the neighbour invited us in.

We were about to eat our sweets when the bomb exploded.

With a blinding flash, the whole house was flattened.

I found myself trapped under the rubble. I tried to look out from my little prison and saw my younger brother, rescued by a soldier, standing there with blood on his face and head.

I myself was pulled out of the rubble. My right arm was heavily injured and I had several cuts on my face. My neighbour tore her underwear into pieces and covered my arm to stop it bleeding. Later I was told that it was her treatment that saved my right arm.

I don’t remember how many hours had passed, but I saw my mother crawling to me over piles of rubble. She was desperately looking for me and my younger brother. She looked awful with only tattered patches of her clothing on her body and her hair standing on end.

My 12-month-old baby brother was still buried under the rubble. My mother and grandmother were desperate and were removing the debris saying they should get him back home, even if he was dead.

They also called out for help to people walking by but nobody stopped. They went on their way absentmindedly - they were like ghosts.

We saw flames in the distance coming towards us. Terrified, my younger brother and I were both crying. I don’t remember the pain of my injury, but many collapsed houses around us horrified me, although my father thought I was just stunned.

Fortunately, my baby brother was alive, and we managed to escape to a raft on the river. There were countless dead bodies floating and fire balls were falling all around. Red-hot galvanized plates darted towards us and made a huge noise when they dropped into the river. It was not a safe place to be.

At that time I was so young that I don’t remember exactly what happened. But my deceased parents and grandmother told me a lot about that day.

There was a woman on the raft who gave us food and water. She also gave my mother part of a Kimono to use as bandages and as a strap to carry me on her back.

In the evening, cooling our bodies with river water, we finally found a place to evacuate to. It was a shrine near a railway station called Koi.

Because my grandmother and I were seriously injured, we two were left at the shrine while my mother and brothers escaped to my aunt’s house in Itsukaichi City. My uncle who rushed to Hiroshima to search for us carried them on his handcart.Grandmother thought we could have some treatment at the shrine but nothing was available. We were given only one rotten rice ball. We finally evacuated to my aunt’s house.

They were farmers and gave us good food. I had tomatoes, cucumbers, pickled shallots etc. to my heart’s content. It may be this diet that has kept me healthy.

My father had to spend several nights at shelters in Hiroshima. He died abruptly from TB in August 1956, which we believe was due to residual radiation. Later when I was working to collect survivors’ stories, I learned that there were many Hibakusha who suffered from TB during those difficult times.

My mother died in Oct. 1967. I believe that both of my parents were killed by the atomic bomb. At that time I thought that it was our fate and that because Japan was at war we couldn't complain about it.

I also thought we were just unfortunate because we were in Hiroshima when the atomic bomb was dropped. Later I learned history, which completely changed my mind. I knew why the US had done it.

The US government has kept saying that the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended the war and saved millions of people’s lives. That’s what they teach at schools.

However, in 1944 there was scarcely any food left for Japanese people. People were dying from hunger. Japan’s ground and air forces and navy were almost completely destroyed. It was obvious that Japan was finished.

Nonetheless, 210,000 people were killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Why?

In 1945 the war ended, but another war, the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union had already started. The US wanted to have an advantage over the Soviet Union militarily and politically by showing the power of nuclear weapons. They also wanted to test their newly developed technology, atomic bombs.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen as testing grounds with real live people.

Let me share with you what the atomic bombing had done to us. The atomic bomb caused massive destruction and killed tens of thousands instantly and indiscriminately. It also emitted massive amounts of radiation which has afflicted us for decades.

Hibakusha describe the moment of the bombing as “The Sun dropped on us and burnt us”. When Bomb exploded, a huge fireball, 280 meters in diameter, was generated in the air.

Heat rays emitted from it raised the ground temperature, from 3000 to 4000 degrees Celsius (5500 to 7300 degrees Fahrenheit) near the hypocenter.

This was a boy, the charred remains. 700 meters from the hypocenter (Aug. 10. Nagasaki).

This is the shadow of a man (Shadow burnt into the granite steps).

Within 1.2 kilo-meters of ground zero, those who were directly affected by the heat rays suffered terrible burns and their internal tissues and organs severely damaged. Most of them died instantly or within a few days.

The explosion also created a powerful blast and destroyed most of the wooden houses in 2-kilometer radius of ground zero. People were blown through the air and many crushed to death under collapsed buildings.

Radiation left the human body with serious damage. It penetrated deeply into our bodies, damaged cells and diminished the blood generation function of bone marrow.

It also damaged inner organs. Even those who looked uninjured later became ill and died.

Residual radiation left on the ground affected many long after the explosion. Those who entered the city to search for their families/friends or for relief operations eventually developed similar symptoms and died.

Nuclear weapons are unspeakable weapons. They don’t allow us to live nor die as humans. They are weapons of absolute evil which can never co-exist with human beings.

3.2 million Japanese people lost their lives in the Asia-Pacific War. 20 to 30 million people were victimized by the Japanese military in Asia.

Learning from it, we have acquired the war-renouncing Japanese Constitution. However, military spending in the world is growing. Trillions of dollars are being spent for military purposes. If used for peaceful purposes, this money could solve many problems for human-kind.

20th century war is gone. Our responsibility is to hand over a peaceful and cultivated 21st century to the next generation. I strongly believe that we can hand over a nuclear-weapon-free world to future generations if we work together in solidarity with the people of the U.S. and with the people of the world.

Thank you.

Click here to download the PDF program for Ms. Mizuno's presentation with the complete translation.

Click here to view a slideshow from the May 5th evening at Seattle First UMC taken by Helen Jaccard.

Blogger's Notes: Click here to learn more about the Japan Council against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs (Gensuikyo).

The delegation came to Seattle from New York City after participating in international actions leading up to and beginning the May 2010 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference at the United Nations. Hosts for their Seattle visit were Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action, Tacoma Catholic Worker, Journey of Repentance and Bainbridge Island Nipponzan Miyohoji Buddhist Temple. Special thanks to First United Methodist Church of Seattle for hosting the Seattle presentation, and the chancelor, staff, faculty and students of the University of Washington Tacoma for their gracious hospitality.

"Disarm Now!", says UN Secretary-General

2010-05-02T12:41:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends,

It is the eve of the opening of the 2010 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference at the United Nations in New York City, and on the previous day UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon made a ground breaking speech at the historic, Riverside Church yesterday. Addressing an international conference of leading peace, justice and environmental activists, the Secretary-General gave the keynote address at the two-day conference, “For a Nuclear Free, Peaceful, Just and Sustainable World,” which has been organized by a network of 25 leading peace and nuclear weapons abolition organizations in the U.S., Europe, Japan and Israel.

Nearly 1000 participants from 30 nations have gathered to call on the nuclear nations to disarm, to honor their promises to work toward nuclear abolition; to build a world free of the nuclear Sword of Damocles. The Secretary-General's address is a clarion call as well as a clear reminder that the work of creating peace is too important to be left up to governments alone; it is up to the citizens of the world to bring pressure to bear on the world's leaders to do what is necessary (and right) to bring the nations together in peace, and abolishing nuclear weapons is a critical element that cannot wait.

You can read the Secretary-General's address below in its entirety. Following the rally in Times Square today, there will be a presentation to the Chair of the NPT Review Conference of more than seven million petition signatures urging that negotiations to eliminate the world’s nuclear arsenals begin without further delay. For more on the international gathering in progress in New York City, check out the Disarm Now Website.

Peace,

Leonard

P.S. - Thanks to Judith LeBlanc, Field Organizer, Peace Action & Peace Action Education Fund, and NPT Coordinator, Peace Action Fund of New York State, for providing the text of the Secretary General's speech.

****************

THE SECRETARY-GENERAL

REMARKS TO AN INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

“FOR A NUCLEAR FREE, PEACEFUL, JUST AND SUSTAINABLE WORLD”

Riverside Church , New York , 1 May 2010

Mr. Gerson,
Reverend Thomas, Minister with Education, Ecumenical and Interfaith relations,
Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba, mayor of Hiroshima
Ms. Maris Socorro Gomes, President , World Peace Council
Ms. Arielle Denis, Co-chair, Le Mouvement de la Paix
Ms. Jacqueline Cabasso, Executive Director, Western States Legal Foundation

Ladies and gentlemen,

Reading the list of organizations and individuals with us this evening, I want to say what an honour it is to be here.

I know of your hard work and dedication.

I know how much you have sacrificed in standing for your principles and beliefs.

I know how much courage it takes to speak out, to protest, to carry the banner of this most noble human aspiration … world peace.

And so, most of all, I am here tonight to thank you.

Let me begin by saying how humbling it is to speak to you in this famous place, Riverside Church .

It was here that Martin Luther King Junior spoke against the war in Vietnam .

Nelson Mandela spoke here on his first visit to the United States after being freed from prison.

Standing with you, looking out, I can see what they saw: a sea of committed women and men, who come from all corners to move the world.

It reminds us that what matters most in life… is not so much the message from the bully pulpit, but rather the movement from the pews.

From people like you.

And so I say: keep it up.

Our shared vision is within reach … a nuclear-free world.

On the eve of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference … beginning on Monday … we know the world is watching.

Let it heed our call . Disarm Now !

Ladies and gentlemen,

From my first day in office, I have made nuclear disarmament a top priority.

Perhaps, in part, this deep personal commitment comes from my experience as a boy in Korea , growing up after the war.

My school was rubble. There were no walls. We studied in the open air.

The United Nations rebuilt my country. I was lucky enough to receive a good education.

But more than that, I learned about peace, solidarity and, above all, the power of community action.

These values are not abstract principles to me. I owe my life to them. I try to embody them in all my work.

Just a few weeks ago, I travelled to Ground Zero — the former test site at Semipalatinsk, in Kazakhstan, where the Soviet Union detonated more than 450 nuclear explosions.

It was strangely beautiful. The great green steppe reached as far as the eye could see. But of course, the eye does not immediately see the scope of the devastation.

Vast areas where people still cannot go. Poisoned lakes and rivers. High rates of cancer and birth defects.

After independence, in 1991, Kazakhstan closed the site and banished nuclear weapons from its territory.

Today, Semipalatinsk is a powerful symbol of hope … it is a new Ground Zero for disarmament, the birth-place of the Central Asian nuclear-weapon-free zone.

In August, I will travel to another Ground Zero — Mayor Akiba’s proud city of Hiroshima . There, I will repeat our call for a nuclear free-world.

The people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki … and especially the hibakusha … know too well the horror of nuclear war.

It must never be repeated! .

Yet 65 years later, the world still lives under a nuclear shadow.

How long must we wait to rid ourselves of this threat!? How long will we keep passing the problem to succeeding generations?

We here tonight know that it is time to end this senseless cycle.

We know that nuclear disarmament is not a distant, unattainable dream.

It is an urgent necessity, here and now. We are determined to achieve it.

We have come close in the past.

Twenty-four years ago, in Reykjavik , Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev came within a hair’s breadth of agreeing to eliminate nuclear weapons.

It was a dramatic reminder of how far we can go — as long as we have the vision and the will.

Today’s generation of nuclear negotiators must take a lesson from Reykjavik:

Be bold. Think big … for it yields big results.

And that is why, again, we need people like you.

People who understand that the world is over-armed and that peace is under-funded.

People who understand that the time for change is now.

Ladies and gentlemen,

The NPT entered into force 40 years ago.

Ever since, it has been the foundation of the non-proliferation regime and our efforts for nuclear disarmament.

To quote you, Mr. Gerson: It is one of the seminal agreements of the 20th century.

Let’s not forget. In 1963, experts predicted that there could be as many as 25 nuclear powers by the end of the last century.

It did not happen, in large part because the NPT guided the world in the right direction.

Today, we have reason for renewed optimism.

Global public opinion is swinging our way.

Governments are looking at the issue with fresh eyes.

Consider just the most recent events:

Leading by example, the United States announced a review of its nuclear posture … foreswearing the use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states, so long as they are in compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

In Prague, President Obama and President Medvedev signed a new START treaty, accompanied by serious cuts in arsenals.

In Washington, the leaders of 47 nations united in their efforts to keep nuclear weapons and materials out of the hands of terrorists.

And on Monday, we hope to open a new chapter in the life of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

In 2005, when leaders gathered for the last review of the NPT, the outcome did not match expectations.

In plainer English, it failed — utterly.

We cannot afford to fail again.

After all, there are more than 25,000 nuclear weapons in the world’s arsenals.

Nuclear terrorism remains a real and present danger.

There has been no progress in establishing a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East .

The nuclear programs of Iran and the DPRK are of serious concern to global efforts to curb nuclear proliferation…

To deal with these and other issues, I have set out my own five-point action plan, and I thank you for your encouraging response.

I especially welcome your support for the idea of concluding a Nuclear Weapon Convention.

Article VI of the NPT requires the Parties to pursue negotiations on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under international control.

These negotiations are long overdue.

Next week, I will call on all countries … and most particularly the nuclear-weapon states … to fulfill this obligation.

We should not have unrealistic expectations for the conference. But neither can we afford to lower our sights.

What I see on the horizon is a world free of nuclear weapons.

What I see before me are the people who will help make it happen.

Please keep up your good work.

Sound the alarm, keep up the pressure.

Ask your leaders what they are doing … personally … to eliminate the nuclear menace.

Above all, continue to be the voice of conscience.

We will rid the world of nuclear weapons.

And when we do, it will be because of people like you.

The world owes you its gratitude.

Thank you.

Abolition: Do it for the Children!

2010-04-28T14:37:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends,

This is an exciting and challenging time for abolitionists. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference is nearing, and scores of abolitionists from all over the globe are converging on New York to engage in activities calling on the nations' representatives at the NPT RevCon to take serious steps towards abolition. Roughly 2000 of those converging on New York come from Japan, and nearly 100 of those are Hibakusha, survivors of the bombings of Hiroshima or Nagasaki.
Most victims of the bombings did not survive, and many of the victims were children. Sadako Sasaki (see photo) was one of those victims. Sadako was only 2 years old when the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. She survived the bombing and led an outwardly healthy life; she was said to be an energetic child who never missed one day of elementary school. She was also a fast runner. Things changed dramatically for Sadako in 1955 when she was diagnosed with Leukemia (a radiation induced disease) shortly after her class won the relay at the school field day.

While in the hospital another girl in the same hospital died of Leukemia, and now Sadako knew she faced the same fate. In August after 1000 paper cranes folded by high school students in Nagoya were delivered to patients in the hospital, Sadako learned of the legend that if a person folds 1000 cranes, one's wish will come true. Sadako decided to fold 1000 cranes with one wish - to get well. Sadako kept folding cranes, each one a prayer for healing, even through the difficult and sometimes painful days. Sadako finally succumbed to the radiation-induced disease on October 25, 1955 at the age of 12. She would never run again.

Sadako's former classmates wanted to do something to remember Sadako, and that wish grew into a desire to build a monument not just for Sadako, but for all the children who died from the atomic bombs. They began planning and fundraising, receiving money and letters from 3000 schools around Japan, and the Children's Peace Monument (with a statue of Sadako) was completed on Children's Day (May 5) 1958. It stands in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. The inscription carved in stone carries the hope that no more children will ever be victims of nuclear weapons:

This is our cry.
This is our prayer.
For building peace in the world.

As adults we have a duty to protect children, and so as we gather all around the world in the coming weeks to call for nuclear abolition we call on world leaders to fullfill their moral obligation to protect the children by building a strong foundation for peace and working towards the abolition of nuclear weapons from the face of the Earth. And we will not stop until they listen! No more Hiroshimas... No more Nagasakis!

You don't have to travel to New York to participate in actions surrounding the NPT RevCon. There are many events coming up right here in Seattle, Washington including a rally and march on May 2nd, and presentations by a visiting delegation representing the Japan Council against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs (Gensuikyo) on May 5th and 6th. A Hibakusha of Hiroshima will accompany the delegation and give her testimony and an urgent plea to abolish nuclear weapons.

Click here for information on "ABOLISH NUCLEAR WEAPONS: Set The Date Now", a rally and march in Seattle on May 2nd, beginning at 1:30 PM.

Click here for information on "Voices of the Hibakusha" at First United Methodist Church of Seattle, May 5th at 7:30 PM.

Click here for information on "Towards a Nuclear Weapons-Free World", a presentation by the visiting Japanese delegation at University of Washington Tacoma, May 6th at 12:30 PM.

Peace,

Leonard

Ratify START: Good Beginning on the way to the NPT Review Conference

2010-04-05T21:21:00.000-07:00

Friends,

In just one month (on May 3rd) the 2010 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) will convene. Over a grueling 28 days representatives of nations that are parties to the NPT will try to strengthen the NPT and come to agreement on language to clarify and tighten up the treaty's rather loose provisions (such as having no time frames or deadlines for disarmament).

With the Cold War a distant memory and potential new cold wars and proliferation looming it is absolutely critical that this NPT Review Conference not end with the lackluster results of previous conferences. However, there is a momentum building towards this year's meeting.

In just one year since President Obama gave his now famous Prague speech (April 5, 2009) endorsing disarmament - "I state clearly and with conviction America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons." - his administration has negotiated a new arms treaty with Russia, and is preparing to return to Prague later this week to sign the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START).

The new START Treaty is not what many of us were hoping for (Hey, we're idealists!) but it is a beginning, and a show of good faith between the U.S. and Russia. As Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists puts it, "the New START Treaty is not so much a nuclear reductions treaty as it is a verification and confidence building treaty."

After the President signs the START Treaty on April 8, it must be approved (ratified) by both the U.S. Senate and Russian Duma. I don't know about the Duma, but I do know that it will require at least 67 senators to approve this treaty. The Senate will need to consider the treaty and begin debate immediately, and ratify the treaty before the NPT Review Conference begins on May 3, 2010! Now is the time for the people to speak for ratification.

Please urge your senators to ratify the new START Treaty. It would be tragic to undo the months of hard work done by the U.S. and Russian negotiators on a treaty of vital importance to the continuing focus (and progress) on disarmament. Click here to send a message (courtesy of Women's Action for New Directions) to your senator. Then tell your family and friends to do the same. Tell them their grandchildren will thank them someday.

Onward to New York and disarmament!

Peace,

Leonard

Read an analysis of the START Treaty at the Federation of American Scientists Strategic Security Blog

Happy Anniversary NPT, but this is No Time for Celebration!

2010-03-05T16:41:00.000-08:00

Friends,

March 5th was the 40th anniversary of the Non Proliferation Treaty entering into force. The treaty is formally known as the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, or less formally as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT or NNPT).

The NPT is essentially a treaty to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, and 189 nations are parties to the treaty. They include the five major nuclear weapons states, the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, and China. North Korea, one of the signatories, acceded, violated and then withdrew from the treaty in 2003. India, Pakistan and Israel - all known to possess nuclear weapons - are not parties to the treaty.

The NPT came about out of a concern that should more nations build nuclear weapons, the security of all nations would be put at risk, and the risk of accidents, unauthorized use, miscalculation and escalation of small nuclear conflicts would increase. Frank Aiken, Irish Minister for External Affairs, initiated the NPT process in 1958, and by 1968 the treaty was negotiated and ready for signatures.

The nuclear powers have not, for the better part of the past 40 years, made good on the promises made in the NPT, and the U.S. has provided far less than a stellar example. The result has been, as one would expect, that nuclear weapons have proliferated, and we now stand at a crossroad. It is one at which we must stop and take a serious look, for the consequences of the wrong road will one day prove catastrophic.

With the next NPT Review Conference coming up in May 2010, we have much work to do! I will be focusing a number of posts on the NPT and our role (as citizens) in pursuing a strengthened non-proliferation regime. I highly recommend Joseph Gerson's article published today in CommonDreams.org titled Obama's Nuclear Credibility Gap. Gerson has been involved in the U.S. peace and justice movement since the 1960s, and is deeply involved in the movement to abolish nuclear weapons.

Thanks to Gerson's foresight and hard work, this May's NPT Review Conference will have plenty of company, including 2000 Japanese activists (and atom bomb survivors) who will travel to New York for the May 2nd International Day of Action for a Nuclear Free Future. I am grateful to Joseph for helping me arrange a visit to Seattle by members of the Japanese delegation on its way home after the New York gathering as part of our effort to build awareness, educate people, and get them engaged in the movement to abolish nuclear weapons.

For information about the 2010 NPT Review Conference International Planning Committee's activities, check out Peace And Justice Now. While you are there be sure to sign the petition to President Obama asking him to fulfill U.S. responsibilities to the NPT.

Peace,

Leonard

Remembering Castle Bravo (AND its Victims)

2010-02-28T21:17:00.000-08:00

Friends,

Here's one from the Infamous Moments in Nuclear History files:

At 6:45 AM (local time) on March 1, 1954 at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands the United States detonated its first dry fuel thermonuclear hydrogen bomb device in the test code named Castle Bravo. It was the most powerful nuclear device ever detonated by the U.S. with an explosive yield of 15 megatons (scientists expected a yield of 4 to 6 megatons), roughly 1,200 times more powerful than the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Castle Bravo was supposed to be a secret test, but because its designers underestimated its yield, things went dreadfully wrong in a flash. Because of the fission products, huge yield and shifting winds, radioactive fallout from the cloud spread quickly and far, contaminating over seven thousand square miles of surrounding ocean and nearby inhabited islands including Rongerik and Rongelap. The flash could be clearly seen 250 miles away (some secret!).

The nearby islands' inhabitants as well as U.S. soldiers stationed there for the test were exposed to the radioactive fallout, and subsequently evacuated. All were exposed to significant levels of radiation; although short term effects were mild, long term effects were significant for many.

Crewmembers of the Japanese tuna fishing boat, the Daigo Fukuryū Maru, or Lucky Dragon 5 were fishing outside of the declared exclusion zone when Castle Bravo detonated. The ship was covered in fine ash soon after the explosion. By the time the ship returned to Japan all 23 crew members were suffering from the effects of acute radiation syndrome - including nausea, headache, burns, pains in the eyes, and bleeding from the gums - and were admitted to hospitals.
One of the crew, chief radio operator Aikichi Kuboyama, died on September 23 from the effects of radiation exposure. His last words were:

I pray that I am the last victim of an atomic or hydrogen bomb.

The Daigo Fukuryū Maru was one of several hundred fishing boats and their crews exposed to the fallout from Castle Bravo. The Daigo Fukuryū Maru incident helped bring about a strong anti-nuclear movement in Japan.

The U.S. continued its atmospheric nuclear testing, conducting 67 tests at Bikini and Enewetak atolls between 1946 and 1958 leaving a legacy of contamination and death. "840 Marshall islanders are believed to have died of health problems caused by the tests. As of the end of 2003, more than 1,000 islanders were suffering from symptoms believed related to radiation exposure." Today (54 years later) the Marshall Islands are still contaminated, and radioactive cesium is found in water and fruits.

Today's anti-nuclear movement is a global movement that must continue to grow at a time when we need to bring strong pressure to bear on our governments to disarm. Let us hope that it will not take an incident like the one involving the Daigo Fukuryū Maru to make people rise up against the nuclear monster that continues to threaten humankind.

Let us pray (and work so) that there will be no more victims.

Peace,

Leonard

Reference: Japan Times editorial: Nuclear Tragedy in the Pacific, Sunday March 1, 2009

They found the WMDs! OMG - right in our back yard!

2010-02-26T14:38:00.000-08:00

Friends,

On this day in peacemaking history twelve years ago an international Citizens' Weapons Inspection Team from Vancouver, British Columbia, organized by the Canadian peace group End the Arms Race, and accompanied by members of Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action, Poulsbo, Washington attempted to enter Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, then known as Submarine Base Bangor, to document the presence of weapons of mass destruction and their delivery vehicles.

The Canadian team was led by Canadian Member of Parliament Libby Davies (NDP - Vancouver East) and was composed of nine Canadian community and religious leaders and peace activists. Ther group wrote to the base commander a few days prior to the inspection to request access to the base, announcing their intention to conduct:

a tour of the base and access to all documentation that confirms whether or not weapons of mass destruction or the delivery vehicles of any such weapons are present on the base. We also request access to inspect any nuclear weapons or their delivery vehicles that may be present at Naval Submarine Base Bangor.

Rear-Admiral William Center initially invited the team to tour the base, including one of the Trident submarines, but within hours rescinded the invitation. What was this guy thinking?!?!?! At any rate, the group travelled south-of-the-border, finally arriving at Bangor for the February 26 inspection.

The group hoped, among other things, to "illustrate the paradoxical behavior by nuclear weapons states ... threatening military force to ensure that a Third World Country has no weapons of mass destruction." Upon arrival at the gate they were met by the base public relations representative, who reiterated the Navy's refusal to admit the inspection team, and when questioned about the presence of nuclear weapons at Bangor, would neither confirm nor deny their presence.

Vancouver East Member of Parliament Libby Davies (NDP) at the Bangor gate

The inspection team did conduct a flyover - something one could do in the pre 9/11 world - to survey the base. They had a birds eye view of the entire facility, and observed the extensive nuclear weapons storage bunkers in the section of the base known as Strategic Weapons Facility-Pacific (SWFPAC) as well as nearby Trident nuclear submarines.

In their post-inspection, public report they noted that Bangor does, indeed, harbor weapons of mass destruction based upon their review of public documents, observations of submarine and truck movements in and out of the base by local activists, and the observation on February 26th from a chartered plane by inspection team members of Trident submarines berthed near the nuclear weapons storage bunkers.

Before the Canadian team left town, they posted this notice on the fence outside the Bangor gate:

THIS FACILITY CONTAINS WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION.

That certainly cleared up the rather nebulous statement by the Navy's public relations representative. And it's just 20 miles (as the gull flies) from Seattle!

So what are you waiting for. Go out and join your local Citizens' Weapons Inspection Team, or start one of your own. It's fun, and who knows what you might find behind those seemingly benign fences. The peope have the right to know!

Peace,

Leonard

Thanks to The Nuclear Resister for information and quotes used in this post (source: http://www.serve.com/nukeresister/nr112/bangor.html).

Let's Stop This Silly Nuclear Posturing!

2010-02-05T20:32:00.000-08:00

Friends,

In May 2010 nations will gather in New York City for the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference. This will be the year that the pressure will be on to set binding and enforceable targets for reducing and ultimately eliminating the signatories' nuclear arsenals. Of course, it will not be as simple as that since there are nations that are not signatories to the NPT that have developed nuclear weapons, the proverbial flies in the ointment.

No matter who currently has nuclear weapons, the entire world is at risk the longer nations maintain their arsenals. Some arsenals, such as the United States' and Russia's, are so massive as to be ludicrous. As of 2009, just the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile was estimated at 5,200 nuclear warheads, 2700 of those "operational" (in other words deployed and ready to go). Do we really need that many nukes to "deter" another nation from attacking us???

The fact is that even a limited exchange of nuclear weapons would have disastrous consequences for those people living in the immediate vicinity as well as people around the world. Aside from nuclear winter scenarios calculated during the Cold War, even a partial exchange between two smaller nuclear powers like India and Pakistan would be disastrous on a global scale. Besides killing most of their people, and making the land in and around their nations uninhabitable (and unsafe) for those remaining, the huge volumes of soot released into the atmosphere would likely cause dramatic loss of stratospheric ozone (which protects us from ultraviolet light) and also cause massive crop failures.

So what's a nuclear power to do??? Besides the immediate actions of taking weapons of alert status, removing warheads from weapons and a host of other actions that would serve to reduce the risk of either accidental or intentional launch, the nuclear powers must tackle the long term (hopefully not too much longer) goal of disarmament as stated in the NPT. To do so will require the leadership of the two largest nuclear powers, the U.S. and Russia.

The next U.S. Nuclear Posture Review, the document that lays out the role that nuclear weapons will play in U.S. military and foreign policy, will be (finally) released on March 1, 2010. What this document has to say will be critical going forward towards the NPT Review Conference in May. It is clear that President Obama and the Pentagon are not in agreement on some issues, one of them being whether the U.S. should commit a no-first use of nuclear weapons policy. Issues like this one are key to showing good faith and ratcheting down tensions.

We should hope that the upcoming Nuclear Posture Review will not open with a statement like this one that begins the 2002 Nuclear Posture Review (Page 7):

Nuclear weapons play a critical role in the defense capabilities of the United States, its allies and friends. They provide credible military options to deter a wide range of threats, including WMD and large-scale conventional military force. These nuclear capabilities possess unique properties that give the United States options to hold at risk classes of targets [that are] important to achieve strategic and political objectives.

Much can happen between now and March 1st, and President Obama is getting it from all sides - those who want to continue the status quo that has carried over from the Cold War, as well as those (including military and security experts) who say that the only solution to the threats posed by nuclear weapons is their elimination. The path to their elimination begins with reducing our reliance on them. It requires imagination and a re-thinking of their place (do they have one?) in "achieving strategic and political objectives."

The President made a pledge in Prague:

I state clearly and with conviction America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.

Hold him to it! Take a couple minutes to send President Obama an email asking him to be sure that the Nuclear Posture Review states a no first-use policy and that the U.S. will not build any new nuclear weapons. And when you are done, consider phoning The White House to make the message even stronger. You can personalize your email at Peace Action's Website, and you can also find The White House phone number there.

Don't you think that the best nuclear posture is a relaxed one?

Peace,

Leonard

The President's Nuclear (Tunnel) Vision

2010-01-31T12:11:00.000-08:00

Friends,

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden did an excellent impression of Chicken Little with his January 29, 2010 opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal titled, The President's Nuclear Vision. The subtitle would seem to be a prelude to the soon-to-be-released Nuclear Posture Review - "We will spend what is necessary to maintain the safety, security and effectiveness of our weapons" (read "BLANK CHECK with which to maintain our nuclear deterrent").

In one breath the Vice President refers to how "President Obama laid out a comprehensive agenda to reverse the spread [of nuclear weapons], and to pursue the peace and security of a world without them." In the next he states in no uncertain terms that, "For as long as nuclear weapons are required to defend our country and our allies, we will maintain a safe, secure and effective nuclear arsenal."

If you are confused after these two seemingly contradictory statements, the next one should clear things up:

The president's Prague vision is central to this administration's efforts to protect the American people—and that is why we are increasing investments in our nuclear arsenal and infrastructure in this year's budget and beyond.

If you don't think it can get any worse - IT DOES! Biden goes on to paint a gloomy picture of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile, infrastructure, and weapons labs. Here are some of the key phrases:

...slow but steady decline in support for our nuclear stockpile and infrastructure, and for our highly trained nuclear work force... growing shortage of skilled nuclear scientists and engineers and the aging of critical facilities... our nuclear complex requires urgent attention...

The Websites for Los Alamos, Sandia and Lawrence Livermore Paint a different picture of the state of the nuclear workforce and its work on the nuclear stockpile and other areas. As for infrastructure, plans to upgrade "critical" facilities have been in the works (and funded) for some time (Y-12 National Security Complex for example). Biden's concerns about "facilities that date back to World War II" ring hollow when one reads that Los Alamos has been demolishing old buildings and doing site cleanup thanks to generous funding from President Obama's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Yes, there have been cuts in recent years to the workforce at the weapons labs, but those cuts were in keeping with changes in U.S. nuclear weapons strategy; as the size of the nuclear arsenal has been reduced, so has the size of the complex that made and now maintains the arsenal. We simply do not need the massive complex that once supported 32,193 warheads and bombs (at its peak in 1966). That being said, the cuts have been small in relation to the overall size of the weapons labs, and their weapons budgets have actually remained steady over the past five years.

As for "confidence in our nuclear arsenal" - the government's own (and highly respected) JASON panel has studied the nuclear warhead Life Extension Programs and found them to be working quite effectively, and has also estimated credible lifetimes for Plutonium (and other) pits already in service to be between 85 and 100 years.

Our nuclear weapons labs are not, as V.P. Biden states, "a national treasure." It is time to blow away the smoke and smash the mirrors; the nation's nuclear weapons complex is not about to crumble to dust, nor is it running on empty. And we certainly do not need to pour more money into it at a time when we are approaching the most important Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty Review Conference in history (May 2010). It is time to send every signal that the U.S. is prepared to move towards disarmament (of course not unilaterally), and calling for "increasing investments in our nuclear arsenal and infrastructure" is not the way to do so.

Rather than demonstrating the President's broad vision articulated in Prague, Biden's WSJ opinion piece indicates a nuclear tunnel vision, a vision that if implemented, will neither "serve our security", nor help us move toward a nuclear weapons free future. We can and must spend our money more wisely.

Watch for an opportunity to sign a petition on this subject in the coming week.

Peace,

Leonard

Read Vice President Biden's January 29, 2010 opinion piece at The Wall Street Journal.

"WE MUST FIND AN ALTERNATIVE TO WAR"

2010-01-21T19:27:00.000-08:00

Dear Friends,

Here is a slideshow of a somewhat atypical celebration of the memory of Martin Luther King, Jr. Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action celebrated with a traditional vigil and nonviolent action at the gates of Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, West coast home of the U.S. Navy's Trident nuclear submarine fleet, and storehouse of roughly one-fourth of all U.S. nuclear weapons, probably the most nuclear weapons at any one site in the world. The theme of the event was "WE MUST FIND AN ALTERNATIVE TO WAR". I think Dr. King would have approved. Enjoy the show - Then go out and abolish those nukes!

Peace,

Leonard

View all

Get your own

Honoring Dr. King - Keeping the Prophetic Voice Alive

2010-01-20T22:31:00.000-08:00

Friends,

I honored the memory of Martin Luther King Jr. on Saturday, January 16, 2010 by gathering with other peacemakers at the site of one of the largest concentrations of nuclear weapons anywhere in the world. We were there to speak truth to power. Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, according to a 2006 report by the Natural Resources Defense Council, has 2,364 nuclear warheads, or approximately 24 percent of the entire U.S. nuclear arsenal. The base is home to Trident, the U.S. Navy's first strike nuclear weapons system. Members and supporters of Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action held a vigil and nonviolent direct action honoring the memory of Dr. King, much of which has been conveniently lost (or perhaps sanitized) by our nation by and large; the memory of a powerful anti-war prophet is seldom welcomed (and conveniently forgotten) in the land of hubris and violence.

Dr. Gary Kohls, in a recent email, reminded me of the reason for that memory loss; he quoted Dr. King:

As I have walked among the desperate, rejected and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But, they asked, what about Vietnam? They asked if our own nation wasn’t using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today – my own government.

Gary also shared a column by Carl Wendell Hines:

“Now That He Is Safely Dead”

Now that he is safely dead let us praise him,

build monuments to his glory,

sing hosannas to his name.

Dead men make such convenient heroes.

They cannot rise to challenge the images

we would fashion from their lives.

And besides,

it is easier to build monuments

than to make a better world.

Our challenge going forward is for each of us to find our prophetic voice and go out into a hostile world declaring King's "eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism." With knowledge and the powerful tools of nonviolence we can, with the support of other like-minded people, shine the light of truth for all to see. In the case of nuclear weapons, there is much truth that needs to be dredged out of the depths of the darkness (where governments prefer it to rest).

We can do it through participation in direct action (like the vigil and nonviolent direct action at Bangor last Saturday). We can do it through our participation in organizations like the Campaign for a Nuclear Weapons Free Future and the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (to mention just a couple). We can do it by directly engaging our elected officials. We can do it by educating our families, friends and co-workers.

Ridding the world of nuclear weapons which (if ever used again) would be the most "massive" of the "massive doses of violence", which the U.S. uses "to solve its problems" is one of the most pressing issues facing humankind. As we approach the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference (May 2010) we have much work to do. Right now we need to pressure President Obama to approach the NPT Review Conference with the strong conviction that he claimed in his now famous Prague speech.

Please sign the PeaceActionWest Petition calling for negotiations to eliminate nuclear weapons, and help President Obama make good on his promises. He is hearing plenty from the nuclear weapons complex and his military advisors, the ones Dr. King once referred to as "misguided men" (see photo). Now Obama needs to hear from the people (all of whom are threatened by the presence and proliferation of nuclear weapons) who understand the dangers of our continued reliance on nuclear weapons. May each of us find our prophetic voice, and in doing so keep the memory of the prophets of peace alive.

Peace,

Leonard

Note: The photograph was taken during the January 16, 2010 vigil and direct action at the main gate, Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor. Demonstrators were ordered to remain within the designated free speech zone designated by cones and yellow "crime scene" tape. The real crime scene is well beyond the main gate.