Women Strike for Peace (WSP) was formed in 1961 to end the above ground testing of nuclear weapons.
Strontium 90 was found in milk from above ground testing of nuclear weapons and women were concerned about giving contaminated milk to their children.
Fifty thousand women in 60 cities marched for an end to the testing in November of 1961.
In 1963 The Test Ban Treaty was signed and ratified, prohibiting all test detonations of nuclear weapons (except underground) in no small part because of the public pressure that Women Strike for Peace was able to mobilize.
WSP was founded by Bella Abzug and Dagmar Wilson. Coretta Scott King was a delegate for WSP to a disarmament conference in Geneva in 1962.
Annals of Nuclear Resistance
 |
| Peace and Planet Mobilization April 26, 2015 Photo courtesy of Libero Della Piana - used by permission |
This blog is dedicated to stories of protest and resistance, calls for nuclear disarmament, remembering those who have made and do make significant contributions to peace.
These are extraordinary stories. It has been an honor and privilege to recruit the material for the blog as a United for Peace and Justice project for Nuclear-Free Future Month and Peace and Planet Summer.
Wednesday, August 5, 2015
Saturday, August 1, 2015
The 70th Anniversary of the Hiroshima & Nagasaki A-bombings: Contradictions, Dangers and Opportunities - Joseph Gerson, Ph.D.
Excerpted from Dr. Joseph Gerson's address at the World Conference against A and H Bombs in Hiroshima, Japan on August 2, 2015
See the full text: http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/07/31/our-70th-anniversary-homework-confronting-myths-and-learning-lessons-hiroshima-and
Friends, I am honored to return to the World Conference on this anniversary of the criminal and indiscriminate A-bombings.
With the development and use of nuclear weapons, humankind crossed the threshold in which all life is held hostage to those willing to inflict genocide, possibly omnicide, to protect their power and privilege. Since then, we’ve been more than lucky to survive nuclear blackmail, reckless dependence on deterrence, miscalculations and nuclear accidents.
Hibakusha, who have channeled their excruciating physical and emotional pain into the most powerful force for the abolition of these weapons of mass murder courageously warn us that human beings and nuclear weapons cannot coexist. And the Russell-Einstein Manifesto, like the poet Toge, instructs us to remember our humanity and forget the rest.
See the full text: http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/07/31/our-70th-anniversary-homework-confronting-myths-and-learning-lessons-hiroshima-and
Friends, I am honored to return to the World Conference on this anniversary of the criminal and indiscriminate A-bombings.
With the development and use of nuclear weapons, humankind crossed the threshold in which all life is held hostage to those willing to inflict genocide, possibly omnicide, to protect their power and privilege. Since then, we’ve been more than lucky to survive nuclear blackmail, reckless dependence on deterrence, miscalculations and nuclear accidents.
Hibakusha, who have channeled their excruciating physical and emotional pain into the most powerful force for the abolition of these weapons of mass murder courageously warn us that human beings and nuclear weapons cannot coexist. And the Russell-Einstein Manifesto, like the poet Toge, instructs us to remember our humanity and forget the rest.
Shadow and Ashes April 28 Action - Outcome - Ed Hedemann
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| Shadow and Ashes Action April 28, 2015 New York City Photo by Felton Davis |
All the arrestees got an ACD -- adjournment in contemplation of dismissal, which normally means all charges are dismissed after 6 months if individuals weren't re-arrested in NYC but in this unusual decision the time period was shortened to 30 days. Our lawyers said the judge was very sympathetic, thus the unusual time period.
Ed Hedemann, New York City
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| Shadow and Ashes Action April 28, 2015 New York City Photo by Ellen Davidson |
Arresting the Wrong Suspects (from Counterpunch) - John LaForge
From John LaForge of Nukewatch, originally posted at Counterpunch
APRIL 30, 2015
More of the Same, But With Handcuffs!
Arresting the Wrong Suspects
by JOHN LAFORGE
New York, New York
APRIL 30, 2015
More of the Same, But With Handcuffs!
Arresting the Wrong Suspects
by JOHN LAFORGE
New York, New York
Here at the United Nations, talk is focused on the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (N-P.T.). At about 11 a.m. Apr. 28, I was handcuffed with 21 other nuclear realists after blocking an entrance to the US Mission. I say “realists” because US media won’t pay much attention to US violations of nuclear weapons treaties unless somebody is taken off to jail.
Barrels of ink are used detailing Iran’s non-existent nuclear arsenal. The US has about 2,000 nuclear weapons ready to launch and used as ticking time bombs every day by presidents — the way gunslingers can get the dough without ever pulling the trigger. Deterrence it is not.
When we were ordered to leave or face arrest, we called ourselves crime-stoppers and asked the officers to arrest the real scofflaws. We were packed into vans and driven to the 17th Precinct. Our band of nuclear abolitionists concluded long ago that US nuclear banditry and pollutionism was worth dramatizing for a day, or a month, or a lifetime.
We talked while the cops worked through the booking routine. David McReynolds, 85, the long-time staff member of War Resisters League (Ret.), asked us all to watch when he exited the van to see that he didn’t lose his balance. I wondered if I’d have the guts to keep doing these actions if I get to the wobbly decades.
The day before, Sec. of State John Kerry double-spoke to the Gen. Assembly, promising both to continue with US nuclear posturing and to dream of a nuclear-free world. I skipped his puffery and went to hear Jay Coghlan of Nuclear Watch New Mexico explain the US government’s plans for three new H-bomb factories (one each in Tenn., Missouri and New Mexico), and plans for building 80 new plutonium warheads every year until 2027. In 1996, the World Court declared the N-P.T.’s pledge to eliminate nuclear weapons to be a binding, unequivocal and unambiguous legal obligation. Our arrest citation is ironic because it’s the US that has “refused a lawful order.”
Back in the police truck, time dragged. Somebody said we should share a few political jokes. Q: “Why are statistics just like prison inmates?” A: “If you torture them enough, they’ll tell you anything you want to hear.” Bad prison puns are easy to come by among political dissidents.
Finally inside the precinct, I sat in the holding cell next to Jerry Goralnick, a playwright with The Living Theatre, who is trying to get a script staged involving the jail-house relationship between Dorothy Day and a colleague who shared a cell for 90 days. Day, a founder of the Catholic Worker movement, and her friend were jailed in New York City for refusing to obey civil defense officers and go down into fallout shelters. It was during the delusional era of “winnable” nuclear war. Their defiance was a simple case of refusing to lie about nuclear weapons. They were realists who knew that the 10-square-mile firestorms ignited by H-bombs suck all the air out of fallout shelters where the huddled then suffocate. They knew there is no defense under such nuclear conflagration, that survivors would envy the dead.
These days, nuclear war planning goes on 6 stories below Strategic Command HQ at Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha. Deep in Strat-Com’s sub-basements, technicians with the Joint Strategic Target Planning Staff select people and places to be incinerated if need be. The targets are lands belonging to US trading partners, allies and friends that have the Bomb — China, Russia, India, Pakistan — and non-nuclear countries like Iran and North Korea (which may have 3 nukes but have no way to deliver them).
This target planning has been going on for decades. A few thousand hard-bitten, nuclear-obsessed optimists have been crying “foul” about it the whole while. I was in custody with 21 of them for a few hours. It was a relief to be there.
Our complaint, which should be on display at the June 24 court arraignment, is that nuclear weapons producers, deployers and trigger men in the US (the ones we’re responsible for), are criminal gangsters, dangerous sociopaths, members of a global terror cell making non-stop bomb threats that they disguise with a theatrical hoax called “deterrence.”
I’ve seen this legal argument succeed in court only twice, but those two not-guilty verdicts convince me that the law is on our side. Dum-dum bullets, nerve gas, landmines, cluster bombs, chemical agents, biological weapons and poison are all illegal — banned by Treaties. Nuclear warheads do all the harm of these outlawed weapons combined — plus mutagenic and teratogenic damage to multiple generations. Our State Department man says the Bomb is unfortunate and legal — but the Secretary Has No Clothes.
While UN member states argue over whether the possession of H-bombs violates the N.P.T., I’ll stay with the realists just out of handcuffs — at least until the Joint Strategic Target Planning Staff and Mr. Kerry are charged with disturbing the peace.
— John LaForge works for Nukewatch, a nuclear watchdog group in Wisconsin, edits its Quarterly newsletter, and is syndicated through PeaceVoice.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/04/30/arresting-the-wrong-suspects/
Barrels of ink are used detailing Iran’s non-existent nuclear arsenal. The US has about 2,000 nuclear weapons ready to launch and used as ticking time bombs every day by presidents — the way gunslingers can get the dough without ever pulling the trigger. Deterrence it is not.
When we were ordered to leave or face arrest, we called ourselves crime-stoppers and asked the officers to arrest the real scofflaws. We were packed into vans and driven to the 17th Precinct. Our band of nuclear abolitionists concluded long ago that US nuclear banditry and pollutionism was worth dramatizing for a day, or a month, or a lifetime.
We talked while the cops worked through the booking routine. David McReynolds, 85, the long-time staff member of War Resisters League (Ret.), asked us all to watch when he exited the van to see that he didn’t lose his balance. I wondered if I’d have the guts to keep doing these actions if I get to the wobbly decades.
The day before, Sec. of State John Kerry double-spoke to the Gen. Assembly, promising both to continue with US nuclear posturing and to dream of a nuclear-free world. I skipped his puffery and went to hear Jay Coghlan of Nuclear Watch New Mexico explain the US government’s plans for three new H-bomb factories (one each in Tenn., Missouri and New Mexico), and plans for building 80 new plutonium warheads every year until 2027. In 1996, the World Court declared the N-P.T.’s pledge to eliminate nuclear weapons to be a binding, unequivocal and unambiguous legal obligation. Our arrest citation is ironic because it’s the US that has “refused a lawful order.”
Back in the police truck, time dragged. Somebody said we should share a few political jokes. Q: “Why are statistics just like prison inmates?” A: “If you torture them enough, they’ll tell you anything you want to hear.” Bad prison puns are easy to come by among political dissidents.
Finally inside the precinct, I sat in the holding cell next to Jerry Goralnick, a playwright with The Living Theatre, who is trying to get a script staged involving the jail-house relationship between Dorothy Day and a colleague who shared a cell for 90 days. Day, a founder of the Catholic Worker movement, and her friend were jailed in New York City for refusing to obey civil defense officers and go down into fallout shelters. It was during the delusional era of “winnable” nuclear war. Their defiance was a simple case of refusing to lie about nuclear weapons. They were realists who knew that the 10-square-mile firestorms ignited by H-bombs suck all the air out of fallout shelters where the huddled then suffocate. They knew there is no defense under such nuclear conflagration, that survivors would envy the dead.
These days, nuclear war planning goes on 6 stories below Strategic Command HQ at Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha. Deep in Strat-Com’s sub-basements, technicians with the Joint Strategic Target Planning Staff select people and places to be incinerated if need be. The targets are lands belonging to US trading partners, allies and friends that have the Bomb — China, Russia, India, Pakistan — and non-nuclear countries like Iran and North Korea (which may have 3 nukes but have no way to deliver them).
This target planning has been going on for decades. A few thousand hard-bitten, nuclear-obsessed optimists have been crying “foul” about it the whole while. I was in custody with 21 of them for a few hours. It was a relief to be there.
Our complaint, which should be on display at the June 24 court arraignment, is that nuclear weapons producers, deployers and trigger men in the US (the ones we’re responsible for), are criminal gangsters, dangerous sociopaths, members of a global terror cell making non-stop bomb threats that they disguise with a theatrical hoax called “deterrence.”
I’ve seen this legal argument succeed in court only twice, but those two not-guilty verdicts convince me that the law is on our side. Dum-dum bullets, nerve gas, landmines, cluster bombs, chemical agents, biological weapons and poison are all illegal — banned by Treaties. Nuclear warheads do all the harm of these outlawed weapons combined — plus mutagenic and teratogenic damage to multiple generations. Our State Department man says the Bomb is unfortunate and legal — but the Secretary Has No Clothes.
While UN member states argue over whether the possession of H-bombs violates the N.P.T., I’ll stay with the realists just out of handcuffs — at least until the Joint Strategic Target Planning Staff and Mr. Kerry are charged with disturbing the peace.
— John LaForge works for Nukewatch, a nuclear watchdog group in Wisconsin, edits its Quarterly newsletter, and is syndicated through PeaceVoice.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/04/30/arresting-the-wrong-suspects/
Noam Chomsky Statement
Seventy years ago, humanity entered a new era with the realization that civilization has advanced (or more accurately descended) to the stage where we have achieved the capacity to destroy ourselves, instantaneously. Since then, we have marched resolutely towards that goal in ways so shocking that it hard to find words to describe them. And from the first moments, when US policy makers literally did not even consider the possibility of an international agreement, which might have been feasible, to bar development of the one major threat to American security, ICBMs with nuclear warheads, a failure that provides startling insight into the thinking of those who hold the fate of the world in their hands.
A review of the history of reckless acts of political leaders and their callous disregard for horrendous consequences, accidents that came ominously close to terminal war, the understanding that a first strike would devastate the perpetrator and everyone else… all of this should leave a rational observer almost speechless. One can easily appreciate the retrospective judgment of the former head of the US Strategic Command, General Lee Butler, that we have so far survived the nuclear age “by some combination of skill, luck, and divine intervention, and I suspect the latter in greatest proportion.” And no less the haunting question he raises: “By what authority do succeeding generations of leaders in the nuclear-weapons states usurp the power to dictate the odds of continued life on our planet? Most urgently, why does such breathtaking audacity persist at a moment when we should stand trembling in the face of our folly and united in our commitment to abolish its most deadly manifestations?”
A review of the history of reckless acts of political leaders and their callous disregard for horrendous consequences, accidents that came ominously close to terminal war, the understanding that a first strike would devastate the perpetrator and everyone else… all of this should leave a rational observer almost speechless. One can easily appreciate the retrospective judgment of the former head of the US Strategic Command, General Lee Butler, that we have so far survived the nuclear age “by some combination of skill, luck, and divine intervention, and I suspect the latter in greatest proportion.” And no less the haunting question he raises: “By what authority do succeeding generations of leaders in the nuclear-weapons states usurp the power to dictate the odds of continued life on our planet? Most urgently, why does such breathtaking audacity persist at a moment when we should stand trembling in the face of our folly and united in our commitment to abolish its most deadly manifestations?”
Friday, July 31, 2015
Brad Lyttle: A Pioneer Anti-Nuclear Resister, Still Going Strong - Rosalie Riegle
Brad Lyttle is a professional peacemaker. He was 18 on August 6, 1945 when he heard that the US had bombed Hiroshima, and he said to himself, “The human race either has to end war or war is going to end the human race.”
Acting on that belief, he has worked his entire adult life as a professional anti-war organizer. Whether coordinating demonstrations against Polaris nuclear submarines in Groton, Connecticut, organizing the California to Moscow peace walk, or working against the Vietnam War in Chicago, Brad has been contributing planning and logistical skills to the peace movement since completing his first prison term in 1955—served for refusing alternative service during the Korean War.
Thursday, July 30, 2015
Annals of Nuclear Resistance
 |
Peace and Planet Mobilization April 26, 2015
Photo courtesy of Libero Della Piana - used by permission
|
This blog is dedicated to stories of protest and resistance, calls for nuclear disarmament, remembering those who have made and do make significant contributions to peace.
These are extraordinary stories. It has been an honor and privilege to recruit the material for the blog as a United for Peace and Justice project for Nuclear-Free Future Month and Peace and Planet Summer.
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