Religiously-inspired witness against nuclear weapons — 2013

(4/29/2013 article in Washington Post  – please forgive intrusive ads)

October 20, 2012:  Backcountry resisters opposed to nuclear weapons infiltrate Vandenberg Air Force Base on 50th anniversary of Cuban Missle Crisis

Their statement:  Exactly 50 years ago, this planet was brought to the brink of complete destruction during what is referred to as the Cuban Missile Crisis. We believe that all missiles are a crisis (whether located in Cuba or elsewhere) as they are contrary to the laws of the Creator whose names are many, but whom we call (as did the evangelist John) LOVE.

Vandenberg AFB has continued since the near catastrophe of October 1962 with its preparations for both nuclear and “conventional” war through continued missile tests, launches of military satellites and other preparations for killing in violation of the commandment, “love one another.” Acknowledging that love is an active rather than passive state of being, we cannot sit by while the evils of Vandenberg AFB are allowed to continue unchecked.

read more…

October 17, 2012: Court may drop charges against “Vandenberg 15″ anti-nuclear protesters.

As David Krieger, one of the Vandenberg 15, has stated, “Current US nuclear weapons policy is illegal, immoral and runs a high risk of resulting in nuclear catastrophe. We cannot wait until there is a nuclear war before we act to rid the world of these weapons of mass annihilation. The US should be the leader in this effort, rather than an obstacle to its realization. It is up to the court of public opinion to assure that the US asserts this leadership. The time to act is now.” (Read  Putting U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policies on Trial in the Court of Public Opinion ) 

“We were protesting a rehearsal of a holocaust,” said defendant Daniel Ellsberg. “Every minuteman missile is a portable Auschwitz.” Video of Ellsberg:  http://youtu.be/E-s0_JI8Dp4

Read more: http://nuclearabolitionist.blogspot.com/2012/10/court-may-drop-charges-against.html

A History of Weapons Too Dangerous to Own — February 23, 2012

Daniel Ellsberg discusses decades of hair-raising miscalculations and near-misses as the United States, the Soviet Union and uncounted local military commanders  wobbled blindly at the edge of accidental nuclear war and global suicide, a process that continues today.  A talk sponsored by the  Nuclear Age Peace Foundation .
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The Painful Truth of the Present Moment… —  March 31, 2012

Dr. Helen Caldicott speaks on “The Medical Implications of Fukushima,
Nuclear Power and Nuclear Proliferation.” 
A talk sponsored by the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation .
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Current News on Nuclear Weapons — October 2011:
No Nukes: Bringing The Right And Left Together 

NUCLEAR WEAPONS UPDATE/Editor’s Comment: The leading strategists of both the  Republican and Democratic parties have reached the  recent conclusion that the United States does not  actually need nuclear weapons any more. The scales of  military strategy have tipped against nuclear weapons. The continuing manufacture and deployment of nuclear  weapons endangers the USA much more through  proliferation risks than the actual nuclear weapons  could protect the USA through military use.

The only people who want nuclear weapons now are the  wealthy corporations that manufacture them, and the  politicians they have bankrolled. This is exactly the  influence of the “military-industrial complex” that  Pres. Eisenhower, a Republican president, warned us  against in his farewell address. And it is a perfect  example of an out-of-control government program that the  country no longer needs, but that bureaucrats and  contractors keep going for their own interests.

Meanwhile the United States has fought two wars in the past 10 years, and in each of those wars American  soldiers died for lack of proper equipment. We have sent  our young soldiers into battle wearing outdated flak jackets and driving Humvees with no armor, while  spending billions on nuclear weapons that we don’t need.  Please explain to me the patriotism or the military  logic of this. We in the United States are also laying  off schoolteachers, firefighters and police officers. We  are cutting out the things we really need, in order to  buy something, nuclear weapons, that we don’t need.  Excuse me?!!!

See: http://www.npr.org/2011/10/10/141213509/no-nukes-bringing-the-right-and-left-together

Giant, new, (and completely unnecessary) nuclear weapons plant proposed for northern New Mexico. (2011)  Get the facts from the Los Alamos Study Group .

Nuclear Weapons and the University of California 
by David Krieger, President, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Union of Concerned Scientists — Resource page on nuclear weapons
position paper and excellent library of technical articles  

click image above to view audio slideshow

Government Losing Track of Nuclear Bomb Parts at Kentucky Plant

President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s farewell address   
in which he warns about the growing “military-industrial complex.”

The Nuclear Guardianship Library   –  An archive of articles from many perspectives on the long-term, responsible care of nuclear materials.

The Growing Nuclear Danger  by Steven Weinberg, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics.  A careful evaluation of current nuclear dangers from a July, 2002, issue of The New York Review of Books.

A Renunciation of Nuclear Weapons One Citizen at a Time   Documents in support of United States citizens’ renunciation of nuclear weapons use on their behalf.

May, 2003, editorial from the Los Angeles Times against nuclear weapons

A Background Briefing on Radioactive Pollution   –  A 26-page review of problems associated with radioactive pollution from nuclear power, weapons and waste — by Wendy Oser and Molly Young Brown, M.Div.

Citizen Action Guide USA for the Abolition 2000 campaign to outlaw nuclear weapons   –  A resource kit for people in the United States who want to campaign against nuclear weapons.  Contains statements, petitions, resolutions for schools, cities and counties, and informative articles and declarations concerning the dangers of nuclear weapons and the pressing need to build a world-wide agreement to outlaw them.

Hope From Ashes: Why Remember Hiroshima and Nagasaki?   by Dennis Rivers, 2006.   “Every August 6th people around the world gather to mark the deaths and injuries of the inhabitants of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  And once again we join them, gathering in this memorial garden, surrounded by folded paper cranes, and struggling to find an appropriate response to one of the world’s great catastrophes.”

Dangerous development:  The U.S. Senate is moving toward authorizing the development of new nuclear weapons…
July 14, 2000: We Are Taking a Detour From Deterrence , an article in the L.A. Times by retired  Rear Admiral Eugene J. Carroll Jr., Vice President of the Center for Defense Information in Washington. 

Nuclear Weapons vs. Nuclear Power: For many years, advocates of nuclear energy have argued that nuclear energy and nuclear weapons are two separate issues. In fact, the two have always been intertwined behind the scenes. The story below documents the explicit linking of  U.S. nuclear power plant to the production of tritium for nuclear weapons.  The big question is: how many other countries will convert their nuclear power plants to atom bomb factories?…
Dec. 12, 1999: U.S. Civilian Reactors to Produce Nuclear Weapons Material 
(from the Environment News Service)
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Links to major sources of anti-nuclear-weapons information:

Global Zero — A world without nuclear weapons.  Global Zero is the international movement for the elimination of all nuclear weapons. Since its launch in Paris in December 2008, Global Zero has grown to include 300 eminent world leaders and more than 400,000 citizens worldwide; developed a step-by-step plan to eliminate nuclear weapons, built an international student movement with more than 100 campus chapters in ten countries, and produced the acclaimed documentary film, Countdown to Zero.

Los Alamos Study Group  advocates — Nuclear Disarmament — Environmental Protection — Social Justice — Economic Sustainability.  Opposes the emerging new arms race that is being cloaked in the language of  ”stockpile maintenance.”

Tri-Valley CAREs — Communities Against a Radioactive Environment is located near the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which has been designing nuclear warheads, and leaking radioactive material into the neighborhood, for many decades.

Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (Santa Barbara, Calif.) features articles and position papers on nuclear weapons control and nuclear waste disposal.