Wednesday, February 17, 2021

NUCLEAR WEAPONS ABOLITION NEWSLETTER #24, FEBRUARY 17, 2021.

 

OMNI

NUCLEAR WEAPONS ABOLITION NEWSLETTER #24, FEBRUARY 17, 2021.

STRUGGLE FOR THE TOTAL ELIMINATION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION

 Post-UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and Ecology

http://omnicenter.org/donate/

 

CONTENTS of ABOLITION PUBLICATIONS AFTER JANUARY 22, 2021

History from the Inside: Ellsberg’s The Doomsday Machine.

Organizing to Abolish Nuclear Weapons

United Nations

United Nations' Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

Anticipating the Treaty

September 26: United Nations International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons

Hopes for NEW START Treaty

Non-Governmental Organizations

New: Campaign for Peace, Disarmament and Common Security

Sr. Ardeth Platte and Plowshares

Feminist Critique of Patriarchy

 

TEXTS

History from the Inside: Ellsberg’s The Doomsday Machine.

 

Daniel Ellsberg.  The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner.  Bloomsbury, 2017.

Shortlisted for the 2018 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction

From the legendary whistle-blower who revealed the Pentagon Papers, an eyewitness exposé of the dangers of America’s Top Secret, seventy-year-long nuclear policy that continues to this day.

Here, for the first time, former high-level defense analyst Daniel Ellsberg reveals his shocking firsthand account of America’s nuclear program in the 1960s. From the remotest air bases in the Pacific Command, where he discovered that the authority to initiate use of nuclear weapons was widely delegated, to the secret plans for general nuclear war under Eisenhower, which, if executed, would cause the near-extinction of humanity, Ellsberg shows that the legacy of this most dangerous arms buildup in the history of civilization--and its proposed renewal under the Trump administration--threatens our very survival. No other insider with high-level access has written so candidly of the nuclear strategy of the late Eisenhower and early Kennedy years, and nothing has fundamentally changed since that era.

Framed as a memoir--a chronicle of madness in which Ellsberg acknowledges participating--this gripping exposé reads like a thriller and offers feasible steps we can take to dismantle the existing “doomsday machine” and avoid nuclear catastrophe, returning Ellsberg to his role as whistle-blower. The Doomsday Machine is thus a real-life Dr. Strangelove story and an ultimately hopeful--and powerfully important--book about not just our country, but the future of the world.

Reviews

“The Doomsday Machine is being published at an alarmingly relevant moment, as North Korea is seeking the capability to target the United States with nuclear missiles, and an unpredictable president, Donald Trump, has countered with threats of ‘fire and fury.’” –  New York Magazine

“A groundbreaking and nightmare-inducing account of how the whole mad system works.” –  Esquire

“One of the best books ever written on the subject--certainly the most honest and revealing account by an insider who plunged deep into the nuclear rabbit hole’s mad logic and came out the other side.” –  Fred Kaplan, Slate

“Daniel Ellsberg’s The Doomsday Machine (Bloomsbury) unpacks the power of our atomic arsenal.” –  Vanity Fair

“Ellsberg, the dauntless whistle-blower, has written a timely plea for a reassessment of a weapons program that he describes as ‘institutionalized madness.’” –  Best Books of the Year 2017, The San Francisco Chronicle

“A passionate call for reducing the risk of total destruction . . . Ellsberg’s effort to make vivid the genuine madness of the ‘doomsday machine,’ and the foolishness of betting our survival on mutually assured destruction, is both commendable and important.” –  Editor’s Choice, New York Times Book Review

“Brilliantly and readably tackles an issue even more crucial than decision-making in the U.S. intervention in Vietnam, which is policy on the handling of nuclear weapons.” –  10 Excellent December Books, Huffington Post

“Gripping and unnerving . . . A must-read of the highest order, Ellsberg’s profoundly awakening chronicle is essential to our future.” –  starred review, Booklist (“High Demand Backstory”)

“Ellsberg’s brilliant and unnerving account makes a convincing case for disarmament and shows that the mere existence of nuclear weapons is a serious threat to humanity.” –  starred review, Publishers Weekly

“Noted gadfly Ellsberg returns with a sobering look at our nuclear capabilities . . . When the author hurriedly copied the contents of his RAND Corporation safe to reveal, in time, what would become known as the Pentagon Papers, that was just the start of it. He had other documents, even more jarring . . . Especially timely given the recent saber-rattling not from Russia but North Korea and given the apparent proliferation of nuclear abilities among other small powers.” –  Kirkus Reviews

“His point is simple: We and our political leaders must stop thinking of nuclear war as a manageable risk. We must stop thinking of the possibility of nuclear war as normal.” –  St Louis Post-Dispatch, “Our Favorite Books of 2017”

“The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner blends personal recollections and historical analysis with a set of considered proposals for reducing the threat of apocalyptic war. Many years in the making, it’s a book that arrives at an opportune moment.” –  San Francisco Chronicle

“Ellsberg’s book, perhaps the most personal memoir yet from a Cold Warrior, fills an important void by providing firsthand testimony about the nuclear insanity that gripped a generation of policymakers . . . The Doomsday Machine is strongest as a portrait of the slow corruption of America’s national security state by layer upon layer of secrecy. He relates how the Cold War, the nuclear build-up and trillions of dollars of defense spending were compromised by information purposely withheld from the policymakers and politicians who debated and shaped our path” –  Washington Post

“History may remember Ellsberg as the whistleblower who leaked the Pentagon Papers and helped end the Vietnam War, but his alarmingly relevant new book should also assure his legacy as a prescient and authoritative anti-nuclear activist. The Doomsday Machine, which takes its title from Dr. Strangelove, reads like a thriller as Ellsberg figures out that America’s pledge never to attack first was fiction and that the so called ‘fail-safe’ systems are prone to disaster.” –  Los Angeles Times

“Ellsberg writes briskly in the service of opinions formed by long and sober study. What he means is never in doubt and it is always interesting . . . He is a vigorous writer with a gift for dramatic tension and the unfolding of events as they cascade toward disaster.” –  Thomas Powers, New York Review of Books

“Ellsberg presents his thoughts on how best to dismantle a program that could lead to global annihilation, while once again proving how deeply disturbing and radically ignorant our country’s leaders are when it comes to thermonuclear warfare.” –  SF Weekly

“The Doomsday Machine is chilling, compelling and certain to be controversial.” –  Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Is it really necessary to declare that a knowledgeable, detailed and passionate book about the odds-on danger of cataclysmically destroying all human life on earth is important? Daniel Ellsberg’s The Doomsday Machine demands to be widely read. Its claims should be examined by experts, corroborated, rebutted, taken up by Congressional committees (alas, unlikely) and generally forced into public consciousness . . . The Doomsday Machine is engrossing and frightening.” –  Peter Steinfels, America Magazine

“In the era of barbed insults regarded as precursors to nuclear threat, the warnings yielded by The Doomsday Machine have become required reading. . . . Daniel Ellsberg’s title evokes Kubrick’s film on purpose, a metaphor that culminates in his definition of the ‘Strangelove Paradox.’ The United States has thousands of ‘Doomdsay Machine’ weapons and hundreds of ‘fingers on the button.’ The question the reader must ask, now mortified by the necessary horrors of Ellsberg’s masterpiece, is how to save the world” –  Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

“The Doomsday Machine is, in fact, a Bildungsroman, a tale of one intellectual’s disillusionment with the country in which Ellsberg had placed so much trust. It reveals how the horrors of US nuclear war planning transformed a man of the establishment into a left-wing firebrand.” –  Los Angeles Times

“[The Doomsday Machine is] an important tome that’s as optimistic as it sounds. It’s vital reading that reminds people that both poor planning--such as the US under Dwight Eisenhower having no contingency in place for only bombing the USSR into dust, but it being a package deal with China, something that confirmed the rigidity of these planners as well as their blithely democidal tendencies--and the potential for simple mistakes still run rampant in US nuclear policy.” –  antiwar.com

“gripping . . . The Doomsday Machine is essential reading--both a terrifying ‘Doctor Strangelove’ saga and a hopeful consideration of future scenarios.” –  Mercury News

“Ellsberg’s book is essential for facilitating a national discussion about a vital topic.” –  starred review, Library Journal

“Alarming, galvanizing, and brilliantly written.” –  Barnes & Noble Review

“Given the current crises, both domestic and international, the timeliness of Ellsberg’s exposures-and warnings-is unnerving... The Doomsday Machine is not for the faint of heart, but its sense of urgency should make it required reading, and-more importantly-a call to action.” –  BookPage

“Shocking . . . The Doomsday Machine is full of deeply disturbing revelations. The book sometimes reads like a thriller, as Ellsberg describes his mounting horror and revulsion over the discoveries he made over the years.” –  Five out of Five, Berkleyside

“An absolutely imperative read in this day and age of Trump, Putin, Kim Jong Un, and global instability.” –  Helen Caldicott, Founding President, Physicians for Social Responsibility,

“This long-awaited chronicle from the father of American whistle-blowing is both an urgent warning and a call to arms to a public that has grown dangerously habituated to the idea that the means of our extinction will forever be on hair-trigger alert.”   Edward Snowden,

“Nobody could have told this horrifying story better than Daniel Ellsberg. He introduces us to the men who have coldly and with a God-like sense of righteous entitlement, put in place a plan that can, on a whim--not virtually, but literally--annihilate life on Earth. What a book.” –  Arundhati Roy, anti-nuclear activist and author of THE MINISTRY OF UTMOST HAPPINESS and the Pulitzer Prize-winner THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS,

“A fascinating and terrifying account of nuclear war planning by a consultant from the RAND Corporation at the highest levels of government in the Kennedy administration. Ellsberg tells us of the close calls with nuclear war and of the policies developed then that still threaten the planet with annihilation. I couldn’t put the book down.” –  Frances FitzGerald, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of FIRE IN THE LAKE,

 

 

ORGANIZING FOR THE ABOLITION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS


UNITED NATIONS: 

Treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons – UNODA

https://www.un.org › wmd › nuclear › tpnw 

The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons was adopted by the Conference (by a vote of 122 States in favour, with one vote against and one abstention) at the United Nations on 7 July 2017, and opened for signature by the Secretary-General of the United Nations on 20 September 2017.


United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

https://treaties.un.org › Pages › ViewDetails › src=TRE...

478.2020. TREATIES-XXVI-9 of 26 October 2020 (Entry into Force). The Treaty was adopted on 7 July 2017 by the United Nations conference to negotiate a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination, held in New York from 27 to 31 March and 15 June to 7 July 2017.

Nuclear weapons ban treaty to come into force Jan. 2021

Honduras ratified the United Nations' Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons on Saturday, giving the agreement the 50 ratifications required for it to come into force. The treaty, which calls for the destruction of all nuclear weapons and bans development, production, testing, stockpiling or using nuclear weapons, will come into effect Jan. 22.

 Full Story: Voice of America/Agence France-Presse (10/24),  Anadolu Agency (Turkey) (10/25) 

LinkedIn Twitter Facebook 

 

September 26: United Nations International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/proxy/AVvXsEiOp60kDoaKi0A-z0NSDpdJgzmtl-Fu3KT_KeD74fme-ZCywsbzLgS6LI5a2UhXtt_gBxfLrZQCuTUTSF-bWFuaPDXmnPc2w06GG2NvGfGWJSr_Raeg_eioeWQn6q2oNn81UNd2YFO5Yxn2_uTe2s5YKjZCwcVdUTjJgMv_zU25zQe1wS7Xws8NqTV0hKi6Lm1fhKs4XrRgWTCUlWwivuwpx14TUoefEq-EmXybwLjHFqYYgzIiLiO1vV4jxizU2csMqNo7Qi2xvdWCh-PRTVptMwsrVeoiHpZMGEpD=s0-d-e1-ftOn September 26, the UN International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, as a member of the #WeThePeoples2020 coalition, UFPJ took part in a 10 hour Nuclear-Weapon-Free World global civil society program, including a plenary session and a workshop on using the law to advance the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons. A Global Appeal to end the nuclear threat, abolish nuclear weapons and shift the weapons budgets and investments to support public health, COVID-19 recovery, the climate and sustainable development was also launched. READ MORE   UFPJ (10-26-20)


Hopes rise of extension of New START arms control treaty as Russia offers to freeze arsenal
.  Mronline.org (10-25-20)

Russia on Tuesday offered to freeze its current arsenal, and proposed an extension of the treaty by one year. The treaty signed in 2010 capped the number of nuclear warheads by the two countries and its deployment.  | more…

share on Twitter Like Hopes rise of extension of New START arms control treaty as Russia offers to freeze arsenal on Facebook

 

NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS

Campaign for Peace, Disarmament & Common Security Launches
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/proxy/AVvXsEh4SRV7uimnbzJTkmBT6ArWFDd-fdhoidZFJmU6Qx9t7ZP_FsGMs8Nl3p4Bz_lhok0M1SpCjhJv3uYisYo3B_pJPohMgLZWYvP63XSB30RX1QZoiEdNUW_OA8q2OckZOob636HN8iAkRcewy-F3pcK_IqhS6grQiQBaITvVRBDfIdwC9Jo4A3wg322IybX8=s0-d-e1-ftAs the American Friends Service Committee ends its Peace & Economic Security program, Joseph Gerson, the former director, is taking on a new position as president of the Campaign for Peace, Disarmament and Common Security. The Campaign will work to reduce great power tensions, promote the abolition of nuclear weapons, and protect U.S. democracy from authoritarianism. READ MORE   UFPJ  (10-26-20)

Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty Reaches 50 Ratifications and Nears Entry-Into-Force.  UFPJ (10-26-20)
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/proxy/AVvXsEioVqco8eQppB4617qlX-hqEpHci78c8GLm_78Uf8YjH7adq2Jn4n6SWdJTubSA9sxVOKAVFc2Dj9F70ULjiApD28xMpWOeg_LX2JWtlmIDceypcGixampLuYBG2VcJuJ-oXwn1g8D217nCfQ9YDnOVI_dQ76GBpU0NI4wOyakD3V6gVR0US0NHw0Mcz9U9ErgJ9BTggt1vjb2V8mkmQ45GJc52m3VSV6SfseoSI0Jv7JGEv1Ohiw=s0-d-e1-ftOn United Nations Day, October 24, Honduras became the 50th country to ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, bringing the total number of ratifications to 50. Having met this threshold, in 90 days the Treaty will enter-into-force for those countries, strengthening the norm against the possession, development, testing, use and threat of use of nuclear weapons. Read the statement issued by UFPJ member groups, Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy and Western States Legal FoundationREAD MORE….

UFPJ Notes with Sorrow the Passing of Sr. Ardeth Platte
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/proxy/AVvXsEiwmPg8fXaxtLEWNVV3Ce8wctqJlvrL9KKSu6b9j9z5kXBiW-Pvu6KeK30tG87eqkvRn0Fk9rEiygTwGyC-aymmMUJofSt1zUAkTLBqp99_BeR8vyG9D42lxZEObknbjS2zDfj0xcrLv2UBzy2nzSdEMSEvwAZLWKK9zBX9Sg_99tbLWRX6HeIhKt_h-eUqm1SZKYbzxrQlhBF3ZvIxhT9uDCgGEfWrYyDYuMP5_8m4im4S=s0-d-e1-ftRead a tribute to the long-time nuclear disarmament advocate, plowshares activist, and inspiration for a character on the Netflix show “Orange Is the New Black” by Patrick O’Neill of the Kings Bay Plowshares. The New York Times, which did not take note of Sr. Platte during her lifetime as an activist published an obituary celebrating her activism and commitment to the abolition of nuclear weapons.  UFPJ. (10-26-20)

 

FEMINIST CRITIQUE of  PATRIARCHY Google Search 2-17-21

feminist analysis can help us understand how nuclear weapons are a masculinity and patriarchal tool, and how it benefits the patriarchy to advocate for their continued existence in the arsenals of a select few governments.

What Do Feminists Think of Nuclear Weapons? – WILPF

https://www.wilpf.org › what-do-feminists-think-of-nuc...

Dec 7, 2020 — Why are Nuclear Weapons a Patriarchal Tool? As many feminist scholars and activists have revealed, patriarchy conflates masculinity with ...



What Does Feminism Have to Do With Nuclear Policy? | Outrider

https://outrider.org › nuclear-weapons › articles › what-...

Only a handful of nations currently possess nuclear weapons. The Non-Proliferation Treaty grants China, Russia, France, the U.K., and the U.S. the right to ...



A Feminist Analysis of Nuclear Weapons: Part 1 - Hegemonic ...

https://centreforfeministforeignpolicy.org › 2016/12/30

Dec 30, 2016 — Nuclear weapons represent more than just weaponry in international discourse; they are a symbolic pawn in a game of global politics. They serve ...



A Feminist Nuclear Policy | Ploughshares Fund

https://ploughshares.org › issues-analysis › article › fem...

Apr 3, 2019 — There are several themes woven throughout US nuclear policy, stemming largely from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.



(PDF) A Feminist Perspective on the Nuclear Weapon ...

https://www.researchgate.net › ... › Discourse

Jan 6, 2019 — nuclear weapons discourse and the gendered consequences of the discourse. It examines the way in which. the nuclear weapons discourse ...



Feminism and Nuclear Weapons - Research - Politics and ...

http://www.pol.ed.ac.uk › gender_and_politics › news

Feminism and Nuclear Weapons. Claire Duncanson organised a panel on feminism and nuclear weapons at the PSA 60th Annual International Conference.



A feminist critique of the atomic bomb - Global Campaign for ...

https://www.peace-ed-campaign.org › a-feminist-critiqu...

Jun 27, 2019 — feminist analysis can help us understand how nuclear weapons are a patriarchal tool, and how it benefits the patriarchy to advocate for their ...



Five Reasons Nuclear Weapons are a Feminist Issue – WILPF ...

https://www.wilpf.org.uk › five-reasons-nuclear-weapo...

Aug 26, 2018 — 'Banning nuclear weapons can be an act of challenging the patriarchy and building space for a new alternative approach to politics, including ...

 

CONTENTS: NUCLEAR WEAPONS ABOLITION NEWSLETTER, #23, January 15, 2018

http://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2018/01/omni-nuclear-weapons-abolition.html

Two Books on Nagasaki Nuclear Bombing

   Stelson, Sachiko

   Southard, Nagasaki

World War III

   Michel Chossudovsky.  Towards a World War III Scenario. The Dangers of Nuclear War.
           2
012.   US and Israel v. Iran
   Trump’s “Usable” Nucs
Anti-Nucs Movement 2017
   Greenwood, UN Ban Treaty
   UN Treaty to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons and Nobel Peace Prize
       Awarded to ICAN
      Lieu/Markey Bill Barring U.S. president from starting a nuclear war without a
         declaration of war by Congress.

     Eiger. Film.  The Nuns, the Priests, and the Bombs.  Pacific Life Community,
       Disarm Now Plowshares v. Trident Submarines at Strategic Weapons
        Facility, Pacific, Bangor, Wash.
 
  Symposium at University of New Mexico
Organizations Against Nuclear Weapons
  Harvey, American Anti-Nuclear Activism, 1975-1990
  Zac, Almighty, Three Catholics break into the uranium-enrichment facility at Oak
      Ridge


  Analyses: Letters, Articles, Books

  Lichterman: Trump, Destroyer
  Wittner, Why So Little Public Protest 
  Krieger, Letter to Trump and Putin
  Sprey and Spinney, US MICC Drumming Up anti-Russian
        hysterics.

 

Special Focus:  Accidents

Nuclear Weapons Mishaps

Near Nuclear Disaster at Damascus, AR, Film and Book:

      Command and Control

      Nuclear War, the Damascus Incident, and the Illusion of Safety by Eric
          Schlosser   

 US/SU Nuclear Subs Collide,  Nukewatch Quarterly (pub. by the Progressive
          Foundation). 
Spring 2017. 

Special Feature of MICC we don’t hear often

Graff, Raven Rock, Save the Leaders

 

OMNI Opposition to Nuclear War

October 14, 2017, Celebrated UN Nuclear Ban Treaty and ICAN’s Nobel Peace Prize

OMNI’s Long Opposition to Nuclear Weapons

   Annual Remembrance each August

   Newsletters

 

Related:  Marshallese Education Initiative (MEI) 3-4-17.

No comments: