OMNI
HIROSHIMA-NAGASAKI REMEMBRANCE 2024
AUGUST 6 AND 9 (AUGUST 4 EVENT, Part III), 2024
Part I: https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2024/07/omni-war-watch-wednesdays-186-july-17.html
Part II: https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2024/08/omni-hiroshima-nagasaki-remembrance.html
OMNI HIROSHIMA/NAGASAKI PROGRAM 2024 PART
III
PROGRAM August 4, 2024
Theme: What did we learn?
The event occurred Sunday August 4, 2024, at
the Omni Center for Peace, Justice, and Ecology. Part III was published as soon as the
presentations could be assembled online.
CONTENTS
OF PART III
Program
Presentations at Program
Hiroshima-Nagasaki Anthology #3 2024
PROGRAM Speakers and
Topics
Theme: What did we learn?
Sunday August 4, 2024, Omni Center for Peace
6:00 p.m. meal prepared by Alex and MayDay Kitchen chefs.
6:30 – Program -- Kelly Mulhollan MC
Opening Song, Kelly and Donna Mulhollan. “Talkin Atomic Blues” or “Old Man Atom” by
Vern Partlow (1946).
Founder of OMNI Dick Bennett. The Consequences of Hiroshiima and
Nagasaki Bombings .
Art Hobson. Topic: Destructive Power of Nuclear Bombs, NATO, the UN
International Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (UNTPNW).
Ted Swedenburg.
Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Israel’s nuclear weapons, and the Gaza war.
Gerry Sloan: “Miyuki Bridge, Hiroshima.” “A New Kind of Anthem.”
Matthew: Reading
“Nuclear Frontline
Communities’ Statement on the Nuclear Legacy” by Benetick Kabua Maddison, Marshallese Education
Initiative.
Music. Kelly and Donna.
Names of Victims. Karen Takemoto.
Close with silence in
honor of the dead.
8:00 – Closing
gratitudes – Gladys Tiffany.
TALKS AND POEMS
This third version of OMNI’s H-N Remembrance program includes
the contents of the program. This year’s
Remembrance presentations trace the Bombs from their first use by the US to the
testing of more horrific H-Bombs in the Marshall Islands to today’s imminent
threat by wars involving nuclear nations (US/NATO/Ukraine v. Russia and Israel/US/NATO
v. Iran (and Pakistan v. India, and China v.US and allies, and more).
Opening Song. Kelly and Donna Mulhollan, “Talkin Atomic Blues”
Partlow was blacklisted in the communist witch
hunt. Pete Seeger picked up the song in 1948 and Sam Hinton recorded it
in 1950. The song is in the 'Talking Blues' tradition.
I'm gonna preach you-all a sermon 'bout Old Man
Atom, that's me
I don't mean the Adam in the Bible datum
I don't mean the Adam that Mother Eve elated
I mean that thing that science liberated
The thing that Einstein says he's scared of
And when Einstein's scared, brother, you'd better be scared
If you're scared of the atom here's what’s you gotta do
You gotta gather all the people in the world with you
‘Cause if you don't get together and do it
Well, first thing you know I'm gonna blow this world plum two
Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Alamogordo, Bikini
Now life used to be such a simple joy
My cyclotron was just a super toy
And folks got born, they'd work and marry
And "atom" was a word in the dictionary
And then it happened!
The science boys, from every clime
They all pitched in with overtime
And before they knew it, the thing was done
And they'd hitched up the power of the gol-dern sun
And put a harness on Old Sol
Splittin' atoms, while the diplomats was splittin' hairs
Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Alamogordo, Bikini...
But the atom's here, in spite of hysteria
Flourishes in Utah, as well as Siberia
And whether you're a black, white, red or brown
The question is this, when you boil it down:
To be or not to be! That's the question!
The answer to it all ain't military datum
Like who gets there firstest with the mostest atoms,"
No, the people of the world must decide their fate
They gotta get together or disintegrate
I hold this truth to be self-evident
That all men may be cremated equal!
Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Alamogordo, Bikini...
Yes, it's up to the people, ‘cause the atoms don't care
You can't fence me in, I'm just like air
I don't give a hoot about any politics
Or who got what into whichever fix
All I want to do is sit around and have my nucleus bombarded by neutrons
Now the moral is this, just as plain as day
That Old Man Atom is here to stay
I'm gonna stick around, and that's for true
But, ah, my dearly beloved, are you?
OMNI Founder Dick
Bennett. The Consequences of Nuclear
Bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 8-4-24
Our Remembrance of these bombings is
substantial. Before OMNI, there was the
Peace Organizing Committee active against the Vietnam War and remembering the
atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Though POC declined at the war’s end and Ronald Reagan’s presidency, this
Remembrance continued. Some of you have participated
at various times.
These sixty years have given you and me a deeper
understanding of the bombings and of air war in general than we had in
1945. Then, during desperate war, the
annihilation of civilian cities—from Hamburg and Dresden to Tokyo and Hiroshima
and Nagasaki --was considered inevitable, even patriotic. But as we learned more about the events, we
have perceived those decimations and air war in general as not so simple.
What have we learned?
We were told that a million US soldiers might be
killed in a land invasion of Japan. After
the many horrific Pacific islands battles, especially the Battle of Okinawa,
that figure seemed plausible and persuasive.
But since 1945, additional motivations for and
consequences of the atomic bombings have been revealed.
The
Pacific War of WWII was an intensely racist war on both sides. In US propaganda, “Japs” were every variety
of vile vermin to be exterminated. So diabolical
were they, that, in the worst single violation of civil liberties in US
history, the West Coast US citizens with Japanese ancestry had their land
stolen and were transported to prisons for the duration of the war.
Our insisting
on our enemies’ unconditional surrender and end of the divine Emperor
stiffened resistance and lengthened the war.
Absolute surrender also led to the firebombing of German and Japanese
civilians. Once the slaughter of civilians became an
accepted practice of the US Strategic Air force—from Hamburg and Dresden to
Tokyo--, the atomic bomb eradication of the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was
a foregone conclusion.
A
third motive for the bombing reinforced the total bombing habituation: Fear and loathing of the Soviet Union. By
agreement with Roosevelt and Churchill, Stalin was scheduled to invade Japan as
soon as Hitler was defeated. But because the Western leaders did not want
the Soviets to share control of Japan, the new powerful bombs became warnings to
Stalin that the West would control the Western Pacific and global politics. The atomic bombs were the opening violence
of the Cold War and the cause of universal dread of existential nuclear war continuing
to this Ukrainian and Gazan moment.
But
the most profoundly harmful result of the US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki was its initiation of the nuclear arms race. Quickly the Soviet Union created their
bombs. Soon the US was testing 67 more
powerful bombs in the Marshall Islands.
Now nine nations have the bomb, and the US is spending a trillion
dollars to update its arsenal.
Our program is our
protest.
Art Hobson. The Bombs, the
Danger, the Treaty. Prof. Hobson described the horrific destructive
power of the Bombs, the nuclear weapons triad that consists of three
parts: land-based
intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic
missiles (SLBMs), and strategic bombers. Any one of these 3 weapons systems can
destroy our civilization. He connected
these facts with the threat of NATO, and the hopeful new UNTPNW United Nations Treaty
for the Prevention of Nuclear War (which the US has refused to sign). Prof. Hobson has more formally composed his
remarks into his forthcoming column for the Arkansas Democrat Gazette.
Ted Swedenburg. Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Israel’s nuclear weapons,
and the Gaza war.
When our group was asked to speak about Gaza and Hiroshima, the
first thing that came to mind were the comparisons that started to be made,
about three months into the assault on Gaza, between the amount of tons of TNT
dropped on Hiroshima vs. Gaza since October 7.
To date, this is the picture:
Hiroshima atom bomb: 15,000 tons of TNT.
Dropped on Gaza since October 7, as of late April, 70,000 tons
of TNT, and we could assume by now at least 75,000 tons so five times the
tonnage dropped on Hiroshima on August 6.
The total killed at Hiroshima: 129,000-226,000, while a recent
article in the medical journal Lancet states that the true death toll could be
186,000 in Gaza.
But this is all somewhat abstract. I recall, I think it was in
the 8th or 9th grade, reading John Hersey’s famous book Hiroshima —
recommended reading at my school and maybe it was recommended or required at
yours too. Like all readers I was horrified and shocked by Hersey’s
descriptions of the dead and wounded. To refresh my memory, a couple days ago I
had a look at the famous New Wave French film from 1959, Hiroshima Mon
Amour, which features in its opening minutes, shots of the wounded and dead
and the destruction.
If you too have memories, images in your mind, of how dreadfully
awful was the bombing of Hiroshima, then consider this: for the last 10 months,
the members of my group FOPNWA have been viewing images as awful of those at
Hiroshima, every single day. We watch al-Jazeera English, we follow
Palestinians based in Gaza and others on social media, some of us are in daily
contact with people in Gaza, we see reports which barely are registered in the
corporate media, and we are feeling just what you felt when you saw pictures of
the Hiroshima bomb, but we are dealing with those images in real time, daily,
day and night or as much of it as we can stand.
Nathan Robinson gives a vivid account of what we are seeing in a
recent issue of Current Affairs (26 July), and I quote: “Little
children’s bodies just turned into a pulpy mass. A
beheaded toddler. A father
holding pieces of his child
in a bag. People burned and squashed and pulverized. Even from thousands of miles away, I feel such sickness and
anger and pain.” He goes on to say that he can’t imagine what it is like for
people, on the ground, in Gaza, seeing and feeling and experiencing it all
first hand.
Perhaps the bombs dropped daily on Gaza are not as terrifying as
the atom bomb, but they do bring death and injury in truly awful ways. White
phosphorus, much of it manufactured at the Pine Bluff Arsenal in Arkansas, can
and does burn children’s flesh down to the bone. The MK-84 2,000-pound bomb
causes massive civilian casualties when used in dense urban areas like Gaza;
its explosion means "instant death" for people within 100 feet, and
its lethal fragments spread for up to 1,200 feet. US corporation General
Dynamic manufactures the MK-84; Boeing makes the kits used to convert the
unguided MK-84 bombs into guided munitions. Israeli-made weapons, in particular
the M329 shell manufactured by Elbit, are designed to spray high levels of
shrapnel. According to surgeons working in Gaza, these are causing horrific
injuries, particularly to children, resulting in what they say are an
astonishing number of amputations in the kids who manage to survive. I have no
idea why we call these things conventional weapons.
How has our group responded to these ghastly atrocities. Since
January, we have demonstrated almost every week, for a ceasefire, for an end to
arms to Israel, for a free Palestine. We brought a ceasefire resolution before
Fayetteville City Council, unsuccessful but we plan to push for another. We’re
working with progressive Democrats to promote a ceasefire resolution by
Washington County Democrats. Members of our group organized a dinner that
raised over $40,000 for World Central Kitchen’s efforts in Gaza. We’ve
organized a poetry reading, the screening of documentaries about Palestine, a
bike ride, an Easter hike that ran the length of Gaza, mural painting, social
media campaigns, an art event for kids, and we make buttons and pins and
t-shirts and we table at as many events as we can, including Fayetteville
Farmers Market. (If you want to be informed about our events, see me after
we’re done here.)
Perhaps you’d like to know about an upcoming event, the 2024
Mid-America Aerospace + Defense Summit, held in Rogers on August 21st and 22nd.
A business-to-business networking and trade show, its sponsors include
Raytheon, General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin, which all have weapons
manufacturing operations in Camden
Arkansas. These merchants of death
manufacture an array of aircraft, weapons, bombs, and technologies that have
been and continue to be employed to lethal effect in the genocide in Gaza, as
documented by the American Friends Service Committee. The University of Arkansas
is also a sponsor, and Senator Boozeman, Governor Sanders, and Representative
Womack plan to be in attendance. Our group is doing further research and
planning an action — but perhaps y’all here could, at minimum, check out the
Mid-America Aerospace + Defense Summit website and AFSC’s webpage, Companies
Profiting from the Gaza Genocide, and then write to the
University of Arkansas administration to ask them why in bloody hell they are
participating in a summit sponsored by weapons manufacturers deeply involved in
massive killing.
Maybe, just maybe, if we push on this issue, we could help stop
yet another mushroom cloud’s worth of tons of TNT from falling on Gaza.
Poems. Gerry Sloan: “Miyuki Bridge, Hiroshima.” “A New Kind of Anthem.”
MIYUKI BRIDGE,
HIROSHIMA*
(August 6, 1945)
It's the
ekphrastic that never should have
happened,
survivors slumped over the bridge
on the blast
perimeter, hair singed, skin
suspended like
tattered rags, everyone silent
except for the
young mother wildly rocking
her charred baby,
entreating it to nurse again,
to cry as loudly
as it wanted; but the photo
is mercifully
silent. The girl in a school uniform
with her back to
the camera is Mitsuko Kouchi ,
who lived
miraculously into her eighties.
Most of the
others would last only a matter
of hours, staring
at the photographer
as if begging him
to tell their story,
as if forbidding
him to tell it their story.
*photo by Yoshito
MATSUSHIGE
(after Wilfred Owen’s
“Anthem for Doomed Youth”)
by Gerry Sloan
Not all anthems are equal.
Some are meant for the brain
while others take aim at the heart,
and some are too elusive
to be rendered into art.
Hovering above the threshold
of hearing, they leave only
questions we dare not ask,
plus the image of a hand at dusk
drawing shutters on the snuffed
torch of another sunset, someone
listening in vain for footsteps
that would never return.
No mother ever bore a son
to go missing for this reason;
no father ever born was meant
to ignore the 6th Commandment.
A century later we have different
doorways to doom, strange clouds
that bloom in the shape of mushrooms
at the push of a button, war whose victims
will wear no uniform now that generals
and gunpowder are rendered obsolete,
with climate change waiting in the offing.
We lift our voices today because we can,
because we live in a culture that still
permits it, not to deny our fearful potential
but rather to reaffirm our humanity
through the gifts of music and poetry,
lifting our spirits to a higher plane
so that hope can be reborn,
so that Wilfred Owen
will not have died in vain.
Matthew Reading “Nuclear
Frontline Communities’ Statement on the Nuclear Legacy” by Benetick Kabua Maddison, Marshallese Education Initiative.
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0?ui=2&ik=dd75a4efec&attid=0.1&permmsgid=msg-f:1807198386740650360&th=1914755b9855e178&view=att&disp=safe
“Nuclear Frontline Communities’ Statement on the Nuclear Legacy”
Delivered by
Benetick Kabua Maddison, Executive Director Marshallese Educational Initiative
NGO Statement for the 2nd Preparatory Meeting for the 2026 NPT Review
Conference 23 July 2024, Geneva
Honorable Chair
and Distinguished Delegates,
As a son of
Aelōñ Kein Ad, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, where the United States
tested 67 nuclear weapons from 1946 to 1958, I stand here today in solidarity
with nuclear frontline communities around the world, urging this body and
nations around the world to end all aspects of nuclear production. While our cultures and languages are
different, nuclear frontline communities’ experiences with various aspects of
the nuclear legacy–uranium mining, milling, the nuclear fuel chain, weapons
development, use, testing, and radioactive waste disposal–are similar. We
continue to be forced to endure their devastating and ongoing consequences to
our peoples’ health, environment, and culture.
It is essential
to acknowledge that Indigenous peoples around the world have been severely and
disproportionately affected by the nuclear legacy.
The uranium
used by the United States in the Manhattan Project to produce the first atomic
weapons that ultimately killed hundreds of thousands at Hiroshima and Nagasaki
was predominately mined and sorted by people in the Democratic Republic of the
Congo using their bare hands. Since
then, the nuclear legacy has affected millions of people worldwide.
Uranium mining
– the essential first step in every nuclear activity – has taken a terrible
toll on Indigenous communities in many parts of the world. Approximately 70
percent of the world’s uranium production occurs on lands inhabited by
Indigenous Peoples, where it has affected human health, lands, water, and air.
We must promote
self-determined development and respect Indigenous peoples' traditional
knowledge, cultures, and practices that contribute to sustainable and equitable
development. Free and informed consent must be respected.
As frontline
nuclear-affected community members, we also know that women and children are
often the first to feel the effects of radiation exposure. Women across the
world who suffered the consequences of nuclear weapons testing have been blamed
for miscarriages, stillbirths, and for bearing children with disabilities,
while the nuclear-armed states have denied responsibility or ignored these
realities. The nuclear arms race, as a product of patriarchy, militarism, and
colonialism, has significantly contributed to reproductive violence in
different corners of the world.
In the Marshall
Islands, where the first prolonged nuclear weapons testing occurred from 1946
to 1958, women gave birth to what they called jellyfish babies because they had
no words to describe newborns without bones or with translucent skin. It was
also Marshallese women and children who were first diagnosed with thyroid
tumors after exposure. In Kazakhstan, where more than 400 nuclear weapons were
tested from 1949 until 1989, cases of female breast cancer and childhood cancer
have been higher among groups exposed to ionizing radiation. In the
southwestern United States, a University of New Mexico birth cohort study in
2023 showed radioactive elements in pregnant women and their babies.
The visible
impact on frontline community members' physical health and well-being is also
compounded by the invisible. Our communities have borne the brunt of
psychological consequences, which are largely ignored or purposely normalized.
Additionally,
the cultures and environment of nuclear frontline communities have been altered
due to military occupation and the nuclear legacy. Nuclear frontline
communities are tied closely to our ancestral lands. It is where we acquire our
identity. The destruction and contamination of lands left behind by the nuclear
legacy mean that people cannot grow or depend on traditional foods. Many
communities have no alternative food options or water sources.
The impact of
nuclear weapons extends beyond the immediate devastation they cause. The
manufacturing process itself, including the handling and disposal of depleted
uranium and other radioactive waste, contributes to environmental degradation
and poses serious health risks to public health. Communities near production
and testing sites often face disproportionate exposure to these hazards,
exacerbating existing social and economic inequalities.
This is the
slow violence of the nuclear legacy. It must be recognized as such, and it must
end.
We are also
deeply concerned about the dumping of radioactive wastewater into the Pacific
Ocean, which we see as an act of transboundary environmental harm.
We cannot
eliminate nuclear weapons as long as we allow the commercial use of uranium and
plutonium and parade nuclear energy as a safe, clean climate solution.
Nuclear-armed
states and their allies must be transparent with the public about the true
impact of the nuclear legacy. More education on the immediate and ongoing
consequences of the nuclear legacy must be made available to the public.
Frontline community members and their organizations must lead in educating the
world about these threats.
Nuclear-armed
states and their allies must take significant steps towards the disarmament
pillar and obligations outlined in Article VI of the NPT and join the Treaty on
the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons to finally end the nuclear arms race.
Therefore, nuclear weapons states and their allies must stop their overreliance
on nuclear deterrence. For decades, nuclear frontline communities have been
reminding you every day that nuclear weapons do not make us safe, and they do
not keep the peace.
The United
Nations recognized Indigenous rights in the Declaration on the Rights of
Indigenous Peoples. Yet Indigenous lands continue to be poisoned, and
Indigenous peoples are still dying from cancer caused by radioactivity. We must
go beyond words and recognize this exploitation for what it is: a violation of
human rights.
Honorable Chair
and Distinguished Delegates, we know firsthand the cost of the nuclear legacy,
and it is one of enormous destruction of human and animal lives, ecosystems,
and our shared mother earth. The status quo is unacceptable. We must address
these issues with urgency and commitment.
Thank you.
Sincerely, Benetick Kabua Maddison, Executive Director, Marshallese Educational
Initiative
MORE https://reachingcriticalwill.org/images/documents/Disarmament-fora/npt/prepcom24/statements/23July_MEI.pdf
OMNI HIROSHIMA/NAGASAKI ANTHOLOGY
2024, PART III (16)
The following excellent articles arrived after
our August 4 program. Together
with the two preceding H-N 2024 Anthologies, OMNI offers a world-class anthology
of pro-peace, anti-nuclear weapons, nuclear abolition writings. GET THE LINKS
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“US Atomic Bombing Of Hiroshima And Nagasaki Remembered” By Abdul Rahman, People's Dispatch. Popular
Resistance.org (8-9-24). Over 50,000
people, including representatives from 109 countries, joined an event marking
the 79th anniversary of the US’s bombing of Hiroshima. The main ceremony was
held at Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park on Tuesday, August 6. A total of
344,306 people were killed during the bombing as well as in the aftermath.
Despite knowing the widespread destruction and irreversible losses caused by
the attack, the US dropped another nuclear bomb on Nagasaki just three days
later on August 9, killing 40,000 people immediately. The number of people
killed in Nagasaki would double that figure... -more-
John Hersey: Hiroshima. American Committee for US-Russia Accord (Aug 06, 2024). Today marks 79 years since the dropping of the atomic bomb on
Hiroshima. To mark the occasion, we are providing a link to John Hersey’s
groundbreaking report from the scene, published August 23, 1946 in The New
Yorker.
VIDEO: How many people were killed by the
bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? American Committee for
US-Russia Accord (August 06, 2024). The aftermath of the bombings was the complete devastation of
both cities in which countless numbers of people lost their lives. Read in browser »
Brett Wilkins. August 06, 2024.
"The world needs to stop nuclear war from
ever happening again," said one hibakusha. "But when I turn on the
news, I see politicians talk about deploying more weapons, more tanks. How could
they?"
As the number of people who survived the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki rapidly dwindles 79 years after the attacks, hibakusha—the Japanese
word for the survivors—and others are imploring humanity to do everything
possible to avert another nuclear war.
"People still don't get it. The atomic bomb isn't a simple weapon. I speak
as someone who suffers until this day: The world needs to stop nuclear war from
ever happening again," Shigeaki Mori, who was an 8-year-old boy on his way
to school on the morning of August 6, 1945, told The
New York Times. "But when I turn on the news, I see politicians talk
about deploying more weapons, more tanks. How could they? I wish for the day
they stop that."
US And UK To Boycott Nagasaki Memorial After Israel Disinvited By Imran Mulla, Middle East Eye. Popular Resistance.org (8-9-24). The American and British ambassadors to Japan
have announced they will skip an upcoming ceremony commemorating the victims of
the US’s 1945 atomic bombing because the city’s mayor did not invite the
Israeli ambassador. The Russian and Belarusian ambassadors have also been
excluded from the event this Friday by Japanese authorities. The Nagasaki Peace
Memorial Ceremony is intended to mark the 79th anniversary of the US atomic
bomb attacks on Nagasaki and Hiroshima that killed tens of thousands of
Japanese civilians, with many more later dying from radiation
poisoning. -more-
BOOK FORUM: WORLD BEYOND WAR ON NUCLEAR FALLOUT
AND RADIATION
Many of the effects of nuclear
fallout and radiation have been intentionally hidden by governments around the
world. Public knowledge
has been driven by activists demanding recognition and justice. Many
Downwinders have fought for years, in the press and in the courts, to have
their health and environmental concerns taken seriously. Just as radiation is
invisible, many of these stories continue to be unseen.
Here's a book -- and an online book club with the editor and some of the authors-- that tells these stories.
From 2017 to 2020, Jacob Hamblin and Linda Richards facilitated the Oregon
State University Downwinders Project, sponsored by the National Science
Foundation, to support research and scholarship on the Downwinders cases near
the Hanford nuclear site in Washington. Additionally, each summer the project
team sponsored a workshop that brought a variety of stakeholders together to
explore the science, history, and lived history of radiation exposure. These
workshops took a broad view of nuclear contamination, beyond Hanford, beyond
the United States, and beyond academia. Community members and activists
presented their testimonies and creative work alongside scholars studying
exposure worldwide.
Making the Unseen Visible collects some of the best work arising
from the project and its workshops. Scholarly research chapters and reflective essays cover topics and
experiences ranging from colonial nuclear testing in North Africa to uranium
mining in the Navajo Nation and battles over public memory
around Hanford. Scholarship on nuclear topics has largely happened on a
case study basis, focusing on individual disasters or locations. Making
the Unseen Visible brings a variety of current community and scholarly
work together to create a clearer, larger web uniting nuclear humanities
research across time and geography.
LEARN MORE AND RESERVE YOUR SPOT HERE.
In September 2024, World BEYOND War will be
holding a weekly discussion each of four weeks of Making the Unseen
Visible: Science and the Contested Histories of Radiation Exposure, with
the co-editor Linda Marie Richards and various contributing authors. When you
register for the club, we'll send you a paperback edition of the book.
We'll let you know which parts of the book will
be discussed each week along with the Zoom details to access the discussions.
When: For one hour on four Sundays, September 1, 8, 15, 22, 2024 at
18:00 UTC. That's Sunday at 8 a.m. in Honolulu, 11 a.m. in Los Angeles, 12 noon
in Mexico City, 2 pm in New York, 7 pm in Yaoundé, 8 pm in Berlin, 9:30 pm in
Tehran.
SIGN UP NOW TO RECEIVE THE BOOK WITH TIME TO READ IT.
“William Hartung and Hekmat Aboukhater,
Cashing in on Nukes.” August 7, 2024.
Be depressed,
very depressed.
When
you read today's piece by TomDispatch regular William Hartung and Hekmat Aboukhater,
you'll be reminded that, in the Biden years, the U.S. military has continued to
focus on what's all too strangely called the "modernization" of the
American nuclear arsenal. Mind you, that program -- in a world where the
present unmodernized arsenal could already end all life as we know it on this and undoubtedly several other
planets -- is now estimated to cost the American taxpayer a mere $2 trillion dollars or so in the coming decades.
And
that, by the way, is the good news. That's what's likely to happen if Donald
Trump doesn't win the 2024 election. Should he indeed
reenter the Oval Office, given what his backers at the Heritage Foundation and
elsewhere are already proposing, you ain't seen nuthin' yet. A wounded ear? No,
we're talking about the possibility of this whole planet going up in flames and
smoke. His backers have, for instance, already made it clear that a new Trump administration would restart underground
nuclear testing, ending a decades-old moratorium honored by the planet's major
nuclear powers. In addition, under an "America first" banner, it would undoubtedly relaunch a global nuclear
arms face-off that's long been in abeyance. And that's just to begin down a
potential list of horrors. As The Donald reportedly said in
2016 when he was president, "Let it be an arms race. We will outmatch them
at every pass.” Then, he asked "a foreign policy advisor three times why,
if the U.S. government possessed nuclear weapons, it should be reluctant to use
them." Why, indeed? He also assured the governor of Puerto Rico, “If nuclear war happens, we
won’t be second in line pressing the button.”
And
of course, it was his administration that pulled out of both the INF nuclear treaty and the Open Skies arms control agreement with Russia, as well as the Iran nuclear agreement, while launching the present staggering "modernization"
program. So, while you read today's striking piece by Hartung and Aboukhater
about part of the present nuclear build-up, just imagine for a moment that
Donald Trump does indeed make it back into the White House. One thing that's
already all too clear from the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 (put
together by a host of former Trump officials) is that the present version of
nuclear "modernization" will be dwarfed by the Trumpian one the next time around and the new Cold
War that could follow globally might prove all too horrifically hot. Tom
“
World-Ending Maneuvers? Inside the Nuclear-Weapons Lobby Today”
By William D. Hartung and Hekmat Aboukhater.
The
Pentagon is in the midst of a massive $2 trillion multiyear plan to build a new generation of nuclear-armed
missiles, bombers, and submarines. A large chunk of that funding will go
to major nuclear weapons contractors like Bechtel, General Dynamics, Honeywell,
Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman. And they will do everything in
their power to keep that money flowing.
This January, a review of the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile
(ICBM) program under the Nunn-McCurdy Act -- a congressional provision designed to rein in cost
overruns of Pentagon weapons programs -- found that the missile, the crown
jewel of the nuclear overhaul plan involving 450 missile-holding silos spread
across five states, is already 81% over
its original budget. It is now estimated that it will cost a total of nearly
$141 billion to develop and purchase, a figure only likely to rise in the
future.
Click here to read more of this dispatch.
World-Ending Maneuvers? 
By Hekmat Aboukhater and William D. Hartung,
Scheer Post. The
Pentagon is in the midst of a massive $2 trillion multiyear plan to build a new
generation of nuclear-armed missiles, bombers, and submarines. A large chunk of
that funding will go to major nuclear weapons contractors like Bechtel, General
Dynamics, Honeywell, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman. And they will do
everything in their power to keep that money flowing. This January, a review of
the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) program under the
Nunn-McCurdy Act — a congressional provision designed to rein in cost overruns
of Pentagon... -more-
“Remembering the Children of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki.”
from ICAN International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons 8-5-24 (Nobel Peace Prize, 2017).
Dear Dick,
This week marks 79 years since the devastating US nuclear attacks against Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which killed more than 210,000 people – including some 38,000 babies and children. In a major new report published by ICAN today, we describe in detail the catastrophic harm inflicted on children in the two Japanese cities, as well as on those living near nuclear test sites globally. The main conclusion of the report – which was reviewed by pediatricians – is that children are more likely than adults to die or suffer severe injuries in a nuclear attack, given their greater vulnerability to the effects of nuclear weapons: heat, blast and radiation. The fact that children depend on adults for their survival also places them at higher risk of death or hardship in the aftermath of a nuclear attack, with support systems destroyed.
These findings should
have profound implications for policy-making in countries that currently
possess nuclear weapons and those that support their retention as part of
military alliances. While children
played no part in developing these doomsday devices, it is children who would
suffer the most in the event of their future use – one of the myriad reasons
why such weapons must be urgently eliminated.
In the words of
the UN secretary-general, António Guterres: “Nuclear weapons are the most
destructive power ever created. They offer no security – just carnage and
chaos. Their elimination would be the greatest gift we could bestow on future
generations.”
Please read the report (or listen to an audio version of it) and share it widely.
Sincerely, Tim Wright, Author
of The Impact of Nuclear Weapons on Children
Treaty Coordinator, International Campaign to
Abolish Nuclear Weapons.
ICAN
· Place de Cornavin 2, Geneve 1201, Switzerland
Editor. mronline.org
(8-6-24).
Originally published: Defend Democracy Press on August 3, 2024 by
sputnikglobe.com (more by Defend
Democracy Press) | (Posted Aug
05, 2024)
Friday is the fifth
anniversary of the Trump administration’s 2019 decision to quit the
Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. Sputnik asked veteran US military and
international affairs commentators Scott Ritter and Michael Maloof what was so
significant about the INF, and why its absence has made the world a more
dangerous place.
On August 2, 2019,
Washington formally announced its withdrawal from the INF Treaty, untying the
Pentagon’s hands to resume development, production and fielding of ground-based
nuclear-capable ballistic and cruise missiles in the 500-5,500 km range.
The US justified the
decision to scrap the pact on the basis of claims that Russia had an
INF-violating missile (a claim Russia went to great lengths to refute). Behind the scenes, the Trump administration
hoped to strong arm Russia and China into a new agreement by subjecting
Beijing’s growing arsenal of intermediate-range missiles to INF-style
restrictions.
Signed in December
1987 and entering into force in June 1988, the INF Treaty facilitated the
liquidation of an entire class of US and Soviet nuclear missile systems,
allowing Europe to breathe a sigh of relief after a decades-long Cold War.
“Things got so heated
that in Germany in October of 1982, the German government collapsed because of
opposition to the deployment of these American INF systems. But the systems
were deployed, and the world nearly went to war,” former US Marine Corps intelligence
officer and UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter told Sputnik, recalling the tense
atmosphere from the early 1980s when the US deployed Pershing II and cruise
missiles in West Germany.
“In 1983, in the fall,
there was a NATO exercise, Able Archer, that tested the nuclear command and
control, basically how NATO would launch nuclear weapons at time of war. The
Soviets caught wind of this and were concerned that what was happening was NATO
was getting ready for a preemptive strike, and so they put their own nuclear
forces on alert. Fortunately, there was no miscalculation, mistake,
misjudgment, and we dodged a bullet,” Ritter recalled.
Unfortunately, the
world didn’t get a chance to ‘live happily ever after’ for long after the INF
Treaty’s signature and implementation, the observer, who played a
major, personal rolein verifying compliance with the INF in the late 1980s and early
1990s, lamented.
Along with withdrawing
from the treaty in 2019, the US added insult to injury recently by announcing
the deployment of new offensive missile capabilities in Germany beginning in
2026. . . . MORE click on title
JEFFREY SACHS INTERVIEW
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGFJt8Ho6O4 Aug 3, 2024 UNITED STATES
Jeffrey Sachs Interview: “A Stark Reality.” #jeffsachs Website: jeffsachs.org
More than ever, U.S. needs vote for peace
As we witness Gaza genocide and escalation toward nuclear
war with Russia, the "lesser evil" argument has become utter
nonsense. Near unanimously, both parties support genocide and war crimes!
According to Reuters, the "good guys" Biden-Harris administration
sent over 14,000 bombs weighing 2,000 pounds each to flatten Gaza, to be
dropped on thousands of defenseless women, children and men. The Lancet Medical
Journal reported over 186,000 have been killed so far, from all causes. Genocide
scholars, like Israeli historian Raz Segel, have called it a "textbook
case of genocide." If genocide is not a red line for opposition, what is?
What more would "Democrats" have to do? Would they have to start
genocide in Mexico or Canada? Or is that not enough?
Most catastrophically, imperialist Democrats and
Republicans are death marching us toward omnicidal thermonuclear extinction in
hegemonic war with Russia and/or China. Have we forgotten what mutually assured
destruction means? Is the looming risk of extinction by nuclear war not enough
to oppose the war parties? There is nothing worse than threatening human
extinction, and this is what today's Democrats and Republicans terroristically
do, daily. We are also on the brink of catastrophic war with Iran, as desired
by Israel, and neither party shows serious interest in de-escalating any of
this.
We have been misled about the origins of the Ukraine war,
which really started with broken U.S. promises against nuclear-armed NATO
expansion and the well-recorded US-backed coup in 2014. Similarly, we have been
misled about the origins of the Israeli-Palestine conflict, which started with
the 1917 Balfour Declaration. We are also misled about Democrats or Republicans
being any source of hope for peace.
Thankfully, a few truthful voices for sanity and peace
exist. One is Professor Jeffrey Sachs, a rare breed of professor that fully
understands the Ukraine war, Gaza genocide, and opposes the bipartisan
imperialist consensus.
Please search Professor Sachs' endorsement letter for
Jill Stein of the Green Party, titled "War Parties, the Peace Candidate,
and the November Election." Sachs writes, "The Democrats and
Republicans are outdoing each other to prove who can get us to World War III
fastest. ... America's two main parties offer Americans no real say on the
life-and-death issues of war and peace. Both are war parties (that) serve the
same paymasters: Wall Street, the military-industrial complex, and the mega-rich,
who fund the two parties to deliver tax cuts and subsidies for the wealthy, and
NATO enlargement and arms contracts for the military industries. Peace and
economic justice therefore go hand in hand. The true hope for foreign policy
sanity and a fair economy is the lead peace candidate, Jill Stein."
More than ever we need to vote for peace, and Stein is
the only credible choice. She is on the ballot in nearly all the nation where
the anti-Democratic Party has not successfully sued to kick peace off the
ballot. Also, Arkansas is not a swing state and "Democrats" always
lose here, so there is no excuse not to vote for peace.
Abel Tomlinson, Fayetteville
The Shalom Center 8-7-24
Between the Fires
“LEARNING FROM THE
BURNING: THE FATE OF THE EARTH.”
“It
is our task to make from fire not an all-consuming blaze
But a light in which we see each other fully”
The
above lines from a prayer by Rabbi Arthur Waskow… encapsulate the major
learning imperative we peace educators must, at last fully confront.
Poignantly called to our attention on these days of reflection on the 75th anniversary
of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, yet it is always at the very
center of our on-going daily work. As we educate for what we refer to as
“transformation,” how will we enable ourselves and our students, “to make from
fire… a light in which to see each other fully?”
To
“see each other fully” is to begin to see in all people the universal humanity
that Einstein and Russel called upon us to put above all else, in the “Manifesto” that charged us to abolish nuclear weapons; to accord to each
other and to Earth the breath that gives and maintains life, an image and
message often invoked by Rabbi Waskow in reflections that have relevance to all
of us, of all religious faiths or no religious faith. In so doing he encourages
us to do the work of educating to overcome violence and advance justice in this
larger frame of the living Earth, the life and spiritual meaning we draw from
it.
The
prayer-poem invokes the images of the great modern crimes against humanity and
Earth as manifest in flames; images which call up world-wide lethal temperature
rise, brush fires, floods, and indeed, diseases linked to climate change, one
now experienced as the COViD-19 pandemic. These are all images of conditions
that inflict human suffering as the consequence of lack of care of and for each
other. It is not likely that until we have learned to “see each other fully,”
and to see the integral political and ethical relationships that inextricably
link war and weaponry to the fate of “The Earth and all who live as part of
it,” will we realize the humanity in which Russell and Einstein, and most of us
peace educators put our hope and our faith.
Though these views are not necessarily those
of The Shalom Center, it is The Shalom Center that brings them to you for your
thought. So — If you are joyful to see The Shalom Center’s providing ideas and
resources to create a more just and loving Earth and Humanity, or saddened but
had your determination to act for change strengthened by a Shalom Center report
of danger, please help us keep doing this work by contributing. We are 40 years
old and we are working to transform ourselves for the next 40; if you can
quadruple your last gift, please do! Click here: theshalomcenter.org/donate
The Shalom Center 6711
Lincoln Dr Philadelphia, PA 19119-3119
SIGN THE PEACE PLEDGE FROM WORLD BEYOND WAR
“I understand that wars and militarism make us
less safe rather than protect us, that they kill, injure and traumatize adults,
children and infants, severely damage the natural environment, erode civil
liberties, and drain our economies, siphoning resources from life-affirming
activities. I commit to engage in and support nonviolent efforts to end all war
and preparations for war and to create a sustainable and just peace.”
NEVER AGAIN
uspeacememorial.org/Donors.htm
Dear Dick,
On August 9, 1945, the U.S. bombed Nagasaki. I have
tried to imagine how my parents, stationed at an Army Air Force base in Texas,
must have felt that day. Did they expect peace? That now they could get on with
their lives and start a family? I was born precisely nine months later.
Tragically, the U.S. chose a path of unprecedented aggression. Since the end of
World War II, our military has bombed residential areas in at least
thirty countries, resulting in the deaths of millions and the maiming of tens
of millions more. No other country can match this evil.
It's not too late for a reset—a fresh start. Join the US
Peace Memorial Foundation to help us honor Americans who work to end U.S. war
and militarism. Please donate at www.USPeaceMemorial.org/Donors.htm. CLICK HERE TO DONATE.
The Foundation honors Americans who stand for peace by publishing the US Peace Registry, awarding the US Peace Prize, and working to promote and raise funds to build the US Peace Memorial in Washington, DC. CLICK HERE TO SEE WHO OUR FOUNDING MEMBERS ARE.
Peace,
Michael
Michael D. Knox, Chair
US Peace Memorial Foundation
The US Peace
Memorial Foundation is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3), EIN: 20-3915218.
Donations are
tax-deductible to the extent provided by U.S. law.
DANIEL
ELLSBERG
Roots Action: “Organizing Against ICBMs.” American Committee for
US-Russia Accord. Aug 19, 2024.
Dear friends: This year, we learned that the U.S. effort to replace its
intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) program was an astonishing 81%
over budget and years behind schedule. In an April 2023 interview, Daniel
Ellsberg described the profound danger of keeping the ICBM force:
“For over half a century, the existence on both sides of vulnerable land-based
ICBMs […]
Read in browser »
Our mailing address is:
The American Committee for US-Russia Accord
PO Box 2134, New York, NY 10025
END H-N ANTHOLOGY 2024 PART III
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