Tag: nuclear disarmament

Resolution 77: End the Madness of New Arms Race

by Ann Froines, CT Back from the Brink

As a representative of Back from the Brink (BftB), I spoke at the Hiroshima/Nagasaki Remembrance events this August 6 and 9 in New Haven, asking the attendees to join the campaign to get House Resolution 77 passed in the U.S. Congress. Experts are sounding the alarm that the risks of nuclear war are greater than ever since the beginning of the Atomic Age. (Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has an excellent, free, online newsletter to keep up to date on the risks of nuclear war.)

The events were organized by the Greater New Haven Peace Council, the New Haven Peace Commission, and Veterans for Peace. Each organization had representatives who spoke movingly about the human suffering after the Hiroshima/Nagasaki bombings and the existential threats from a future nuclear exchange, whether intended or accidental.

House Resolution 77 calls for our government to actively pursue negotiations for arms control with other nuclear powers, to end the madness of a new arms race, and to take nuclear weapons in the U.S. off hair-trigger alert. Forty-four Congresspeople have signed on to the Resolution, and BftB groups are working nationwide to get support from a majority in the House.

None of the five CT members of the House of Representatives has yet endorsed the resolution, and BftB and other groups will pursue this goal into 2025, when there will be a new House of Representatives and a new administration.

We ask you to write your Congressperson and urge him or her to cosponsor House Resolution 77. You can reach Congressional offices through their switchboard at 202-224-3121. For further information on getting involved in CT, please contact Joe Wasserman at [email protected].

Visit the website of Back from the Brink at www.preventnuclearwar.org to learn more about the urgency of communities working together to stop the arms race and reduce the threat of nuclear war before a catastrophe happens that could threaten human existence on the planet.

Oppenheimer Offers Opportunity

by Henry Lowendorf, GNH Peace Council

Oppenheimer, the film, is a biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the leader of the scientific team researching, developing, and producing the first atomic bombs, with U.S. B29s dropping two on Japanese cities 78 years ago. The movie reveals two time bombs that started ticking in 1945. One scores 90 seconds to midnight on the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists’ Doomsday Clock. The second exploded as the Cold War, right after the U.S. and its Soviet ally victoriously ended World War II, and, like cluster bombs, repeatedly bursts forth to maim its victims.

The film explores the morality of waging war not just on civilians but on civilization itself. But Oppenheimer, the physicist, realized that he had no moral authority over, or physical control of, his nuclear offspring once they were turned over to the generals and the commander in chief.

Expressing his anguish was not politic. Second thoughts about creating the existential monster of monsters that incinerated noncombatant men, women, and children in 1945, and possibly billions more, landed him in the clutches of Congressional thought-minders. The McCarthy era tore Oppenheimer’s life apart, ruining his reputation and removing his security clearance and his ability to conduct research.
McCarthyism, a product of the 1950s, continues now. The U.S. administration censors dissenting voices by members of Congress who call for diplomacy to end the war in Ukraine. The corporate media, led by the New York Times, slander activists in the peace movement who demand the same.

Beyond watching the riveting drama, what actions can viewers of Oppenheimer take? The Greater New Haven Peace Council has been handing audience members entering and leaving the theater a flier with a QR code on side one to sign a petition offered by CodePink calling for the U.S. to sign on to the UN Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and lead the other eight nuclear-weapons states to follow suit. The petition is here: https://www.codepink.org/nonukes. Side two spells out the ongoing manmade disaster called the military budget.

To download your own file of the flyer to use: https://nhpeacecouncil.org/oppenheimer-flier-handout