Every year Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action honors the memory of Martin Luther King, Jr. around the anniversary of his birthday. Just what does an organization working to abolish nuclear weapons have in common with Dr. King? Perhaps this quote from Dr. King sums it up best: “When scientific power outruns moral power, we end up with guided missiles and misguided men”. Dr. King speaks to the root – or what could be called the taproot – of violence in the hearts of human beings that spurs “scientific power” to “outrun moral power,” thereby holding all humanity under the […]
READ MORETag Archives: Nuclear War
Remembering the Atomic Bomb Victims of Nagasaki, Japan
August 9, 2020 On this day 75 years ago, the second nuclear weapon used in warfare was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan. At 11:02 am, the bomb detonated at a height of 1,640 feet above the city with an explosive yield equal to 20,000 tons of TNT. The radius of total destruction was about one mile, with fires across the northern part of Nagasaki and two miles to the south. Nearly every structure in Nagasaki was leveled in the blast radius. About 90 percent of all medical staff were either killed or disabled and remaining medical supplies quickly ran out. Most […]
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I Will Write Peace on Your Wings
by Leonard Eiger “I will write peace on your wings and you will fly all over the world.” These are the words of Sadako Sasaki, who was only 2 years old when the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. She survived the bombing and led an outwardly healthy life; she was said to be an energetic child who never missed one day of elementary school. She was also a fast runner. Things changed dramatically for Sadako in 1955 when she was diagnosed with Leukemia (a radiation-induced disease) and was admitted to the hospital. After 1000 paper cranes folded by high school […]
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“Remember your humanity, and forget the rest.”
Sixty-five years ago, on July 9, 1955, early in the nuclear age, Albert Einstein, Bertrand Russell and nine other distinguished Nobel Laureates introduced a resolution known as the Russell-Einstein Manifesto. The Manifesto is as relevant now as then. Today we stand at an even deeper precipice; nuclear weapons still threaten all of humanity, and we ignore that reality at humanity’s peril. And yet, nuclear weapons do not stand alone. We also face other existential threats – global pandemics and the effects of global warming. Other factors threaten to destabilize nations and international relations even further. Racism, greed and colonialism have […]
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Remembering the Voices of the Hibakusha
Humanity stands at a crossroads. Nearly 75 years since the United States dropped two nuclear weapons on the people of Japan, we continue to worship the false idols of the nuclear age. We do so at all of humanity’s peril. The nuclear priests continue to practice their alchemy, working from the same, outdated bible created by men during the prehistory of the nuclear age. The mythos created out of this espouses the doctrine of deterrence, and is unable (or unwilling) to hear the voices of suffering they have brought on countless human beings. Furthermore, as a result of their separation, […]
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