If “war made the state and the state made war,” then the state, as currently perceived, at least by those besotted with military power, is the problem. By Robert C. Koehler An enormous flash, a mushroom cloud, multi-thousands of human beings dead. We win! Nuclear weapons won’t go away, the cynics—the souls in despair—tell us. You can’t put the genie back in the bottle. You can’t, as Gen. James E. Cartwright, former head of U.S. Strategic Command, once put it, “un-invent nuclear weapons.” So apparently we’re stuck with them until the “big oops” happens and humanity becomes extinct. Until then: […]
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EINSTEIN’S POSTWAR CAMPAIGN TO SAVE THE WORLD FROM NUCLEAR DESTRUCTION
The scientist’s efforts helped create the movement for arms control and disarmament. By Lawrence S. Wittner Although the popular new Netflix film, Einstein and the Bomb, purports to tell the story of the great physicist’s relationship to nuclear weapons, it ignores his vital role in rallying the world against nuclear catastrophe. Aghast at the use of nuclear weapons in August 1945 to obliterate the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Einstein threw himself into efforts to prevent worldwide nuclear annihilation. In September, responding to a letter from Robert Hutchins, Chancellor of the University of Chicago, about nuclear weapons, Einstein contended that, […]
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Seattle Area Billboards Send Message From Pope Francis: Nuclear Weapons Immoral!
NEWS RELEASE: August 25, 2023 Contacts: Leonard Eiger (360) 375-3207; Rodney Brunelle (425) 485-7030; Glen Milner (206) 365-7865 On August 21, and continuing for four weeks, billboards in Seattle and Tacoma are displaying the following paid advertisement: THE USE… AND POSSESSION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS IS IMMORAL. – Pope Francis. Get them out of Puget Sound! The billboards serve as a public service announcement—informing the reader of the immorality of nuclear weapons and the grave threat they pose to humanity. Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action joined with Pax Christi USA to purchase the four billboards with a message from Pope Francis, declaring […]
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After 78 years can we put the nuclear genie back in the lamp?
By Leonard Eiger July 16th marks the day 78 years ago when the United States let the nuclear genie out of the lamp. On July 16, 1945, at 5:29:45 AM at the Alamogordo Test Range, on the Jornada del Muerto (Journey of Death) desert, in the test named Trinity, Manhattan Project scientists detonated the experimental device known as the “Gadget,” creating a light “brighter than a thousand suns.” A mere 6 kilogram (13.2 pound) sphere of plutonium, compressed to supercriticality by the surrounding high explosives, created an explosion equivalent to 20,000 tons of TNT (20 Kilotons). Was this, as thought […]
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Activists Blockade Trident Nuclear Submarine/Weapons Base for Mother’s Day
Activists blockaded the entrance to the US Navy’s west-coast nuclear submarine base, which is home to the largest operational concentration of deployed nuclear weapons, in a nonviolent direct action the day before Mother’s Day. Eight peace activists from the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action, holding banners reading “The Earth is Our Mother Treat Her With Respect” and “Nuclear Weapons are Immoral to Use, Immoral to Have, Immoral to Make,” briefly blocked all incoming traffic at the Main Gate at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor in Silverdale, Washington as part of a May 13th Mothers Day observance. Traffic was diverted as the 15 […]
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