WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS #13
3 ITEMS
IN THIS WWW
Nuclear
Bombs Factory at Rocky Flats
NUKES OUTLAWED JANUARY 22, 2021
On this day The
Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons became international law.
President
Biden and Pentagon Budget
From Auschwitz to Rocky Flats
WE DIDN’T KNOW (Germans who lived nearby Auschwitz, US
citizens who lived near Rocky Flats, CO)
Almost the final
words of The Doomsday Machine were
written by Robert Ellsberg, Daniel’s eldest son. He and his father sat on railroad tracks
at Rocky Flats, trying “to stop the production of plutonium triggers there, ”trying
to show that we the people have “the power to change ourselves and history” by
“accepting the risks of peacemaking.”
“Rocky Flats is the
Auschwitz of our time. Behind that
barbed wire…intelligent, decent family men in their white suits and their
security badges” are preparing “for the Final solution to the Human
Problem. In each bomb prepared at Rocky
Flats is another Holocaust—perhaps for the children of Moscow, Peking,
Hanoi—those who build them don’t know.
At one of the
German concentration camps. . .the American troops who liberated it forced the
townspeople to tour the camp. . .the
piles of corpses, the ovens that had disposed of the dead. And of course they were numbed and shocked
and they said, ‘We didn’t know—we didn’t know what was in those boxcars—we
didn’t know what came out of those chimneys.”
So son and father and friends stood on the
railroad tracks at Rocky Flats on May 12, 1978, outside Arvada, CO, not far
from Denver, where plutonium
detonators, used in nuclear bombs from 1952 until 1989, were produced by the
plant's operator, Rockwell International Corporation, the protesters “trying to
warn the people” what kind of cargo” travelled over those tracks in those
boxcars, even if it meant arrest.
Based upon the final 2 pp. of The Doomsday Machine pp. 337-9.
--Dick
NUKES OUTLAWED JANUARY 22, 2021
On this day The
Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons became international
law. (It had been approved 122-1 by the
UN General Assembly in July 2017.) Nuclear
weapons are now illegal under international law. Earlier, nuclear weapons were the only
weapons of mass destruction not banned under international law, despite their
catastrophic consequences. The US and the other nuclear weapons nations have
not signed the Treaty, and the US is working to undermine it
Now they are prohibited weapons of mass destruction, and the Treaty provides a
legal framework for lasting nuclear disarmament.
The nine nuclear-armed countries are also
still violating the 50 year-old Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which
requires them to negotiate to eventually eliminate all Nuclear weapons. Instead, the nuclear powers are developing
new generations of nuclear weapons. The US
plans to spend $494 billion over the next ten years, and over 1.7 trillion in
the next 30 years to “upgrade” its arsenal.
The military-industrial complex driving the expenditures, will make
billions of dollars, part of which they give to politicians in Congress and
White House, who are part of the complex, to sustain the nuclear regime.
ACTION
What Can We Do?
Demand that the US and all the nuclear powers sign the Treaty and begin the
de-nuclearization of the planet. How do
we DEMAND?
Internationally:
Support ICAN The International Campaign
to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (Nobel Peace Prize winner), a coalition of
non-governmental organizations in a hundred countries promoting the
Treaty. Icanw.org . The easiest and most effective action against
nuclear danger is to support established abolition organizations. See WWW on Global Zero, 3-10-21.
Locally:
Join OMNI’s demonstrations at Martin Luther King, Jr., and Razorback Road,
where we also protest UAF’s participation in the complex. King called for ending the nuclear arms race
in his Nobel Peace Prize speech in Dec. 1964: “we must shift the arms race into
a ‘peace race.’” In this particular,
King speaks against Razorback UAF, which should divest itself from armaments
research..
Be ready to reply to people, who complain we can’t afford the best education
and health care: the money is available from the nuclear weapons industry, and
join us abolish nuclear weapons.
Dick
BIDEN’S PENTAGON
BUDGET
PRESIDENT BIDEN (and try warmaker Rep. Womack again) needs to
hear from you on the Pentagon budget
|
11:17
AM (3 hours ago) |
|
Dick — 2020 blew the
lid off one of the greatest lies
told by lawmakers for generations: that astronomical amounts of Pentagon
spending keep us safe.
The reality is that
the threats that are killing us — a poor public health system, white supremacy,
climate change — cannot be fixed with another multi-billion dollar fighter jet,
multi-million dollar missiles, or multi-trillion dollar nuclear weapon systems.
President Biden could rein
in Pentagon spending, but reports indicate he is set to recommend the SAME
level of Pentagon spending as last year — the same amounts as Trump’s last
budget request.
This is the polar opposite of where we need to be heading, so
we’re working with progressive Representatives like Barbara Lee, Mark Pocan,
and Jake Auchincloss for an all-out push to build support in Congress and
pressure Biden’s team to STOP overfilling the Pentagon’s coffers.
Did you know? We could
cut the Pentagon budget by more than ten percent and still spend more than the
next ten largest militaries — combined! Imagine the generational impact those hundreds of billions of
dollars in savings would have: if instead of weapons, arms dealers, and war, we
invested them in diplomacy, humanitarian aid, global public health,
sustainability initiatives, and basic research.
The pandemic surfaced
injustices that have long needed correcting, and the voters who elected President Biden and a Democratic
majority in Congress made clear that we want to see our priorities put
back in order and our communities put first.
One of the most
impactful ways President Biden and Congress can do that is by proposing a
budget that reflects our priorities — and that means a decrease to the Pentagon
budget topline.
We’re working with Rep. Barbara Lee and other allies to make sure Biden’s team
doesn’t fall short. They’re circulating a letter around the House now to build
the coalition necessary to make this urgent demand a reality. Dick —
can you help us create the huge pressure we need in order to stop constantly
plowing trillions of dollars into the Pentagon’s already stuffed coffers?
Add your name and tell your
Representatives: It is TIME to cut the Pentagon budget!
Thank you for working
for peace,
Erica, Amisha, Annika,
and the Win Without War team
1 Thomas Circle NW, Suite 700, Washington, DC 20005
(202) 656-4999 | info@winwithoutwar.org
TAKE
ACTION, turn talk into action
Join OMNI (http://omnicenter.org/donate/ ) and
other anti-war organizations.
Tell the President to start converting the Pentagon budget to human needs.
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