UN No Nukes Day – Envisioning a Peaceful, Post-Nuclear Planet
International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons
26 September 2013
Sculpture depicting St. George slaying the dragon. The dragon is created from fragments of Soviet SS-20 and United States Pershing nuclear missiles. UN Photo/Milton Grant
“The total elimination of nuclear weapons remains the highest disarmament priority of the United Nations.”
Securing Our Common Future: An Agenda for Disarmament
What better way to honor this day of planetarian intentioneering than with the eloquent statements of participants in the recent Hiroshima Day Commemorationat the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in Livermore, California, a key hub in the U.S. nuclear weapons complex ‘Doomsday Machine.’
Here is EON’s coverage of this spirited yearly event, featuring Key Note Speaker, celebrated Pentagon defense analyst-cum-whistleblower, Daniel Ellsberg.
Fred Norman, who flew as an atomic bombardier for the U.S. Strategic Air Command (SAC) during WWII, looks back from his current awakened awareness at the monstrous project – America’s ‘Doomsday Machine’ – in which he was once a willing cog.
Livermore Lab, along with Los Alamos, is where all America’s nuclear weapons have been designed. Now it will be a key hub in the creation of a coming two trillion dollar push to design a new generation of ‘low yield’ – and therefore ‘usable’ -nuclear weapons. Marylia Kelley, Executive Director of Tri-Valley CAREs, reports that 88% of the budget of the Department of Energy (DoE) will now be devoted to ’nuclear weapons activity.’ She reveals that Livermore has announced plans to blow up 1000 pounds of hazardous radioactive materials per day – up to seven thousand, five hundred pounds a year – at an open-air dumpsite in the nearby countryside. Her organization is working hard to block those plans and needs support and participation. For more info: http://www.trivalleycares.org/
Atomic Bomb survivor Rev. Nobuaki Hanaoka points to the hypocrisy of the U.S. – the only country ever to have used nuclear weapons – demanding that other states denuclearize. Nuclear abolition means, he says, that all nuclear-armed states must disarm together. Denuclearization begins at home.
Dr. Robert Gould, former head of the Physicians for Social Responsibility, explains why spending our limited resources on new nuclear weapons instead of on responses to climate change is an ecocidal scenario. Denuclearization and Decarbonization must go together.
Pennie Opal Plant, spokesperson of RiseForClimate.org, explains why the de-nuclearization and de-carbonization movements must join in solidarty to achieve their overlapping goals, and work for the education and active engagement of youth, the Millennial generation that must manage these twin existential threats.
Prof. Christine Hong – Univ. of CA, Santa Cruz – tells how U.S. policies have kept Korean families – and the two Koreas – separated for over half a century.
Teacher, author and Buddhist scholar Joana Macy advocates for confronting the destructive force of nuclear weapons with the binding force of informed collective action.
Author, Pentagon defense analyst and celebrated whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg explains why we must act as if it is not to late to save civilization from nuclear war and climate change. Ellsberg was the Key Note speaker at the Aug. 6, 2018 rally, march and non-violent action commemorating the Atomic bombing of Japan at California’s Livermore Lab, “Remembering Hiroshima & Nagasaki where new nuclear weapons are being created today.” For more info: http://www.trivalleycares.org/
Tri-Valley CAREs attorney and father Scott Yundt introduces the Peace Camp Kids to speak the words and show the art that expresses their views on nuclear abolition.
Jackie Cabasso, life-long nuclear abolition organizer and Executive Director of the Western States Legal Foundation, shows how the hyper-efficient technocratic bureaucracy of the U.S. Manhattan Project resembled the Nazi system that created the WWII German death camps.