Seventy years ago, on March 1, 1954, the United States tested the first deliverable hydrogen bomb, code named “Bravo”, at Bikini Atoll, in the Marshall Islands, home to the Marshallese people. Bravo was the largest U.S. nuclear test ever exploded, with a yield of 15 megatons, 1000 times larger than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima (and way beyond the predicted yield of 6 megatons). It blasted a crater 1.2 miles in diameter into the atoll. The nearby islands’ inhabitants as well as U.S. military personnel stationed there for the test were exposed to the radioactive fallout, and subsequently evacuated. All […]
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Following The Golden Rule
By Leonard Eiger For most of humanity’s recorded time on Earth people have tried to follow the Golden Rule, which is essentially the principle of treating others as we would like to be treated. And yet today it seems that in far too many ways and situations this fundamental axiom has been turned on its head, especially when it comes to relations among nations. Racism, xenophobia, militarism, and their ultimate manifestation – nuclear weapons – rule the day as a symbol and tool of power in many nations. As for the United States, we have twisted the Golden Rule, expecting […]
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Welcoming the people of the Marshall Islands to Ground Zero Center
Welcoming the people of the Marshall Islands – Hiroshima-Nagasaki Day Weekend at Ground Zero Ctr. and the Pacific Northwest Peace Walk July 24- August 9, 2021 By Senji Kanaeda, Nipponzan Myohoji Na Mu Myo Ho Ren Ge Kyo On August 7, 2021, the day after the Hiroshima Day Lantern Ceremony in Seattle, special visitors were received at the Ground Zero Center for nonviolent action (founded in 1977). These special visitors were 25 people from the Marshall Islands. The United States military conducted 67 tests of nuclear and hydrogen bombs in the Marshall Islands in the South Pacific over a period of […]
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Making America Feared Again: The Trump Administration Considers Resuming Nuclear Weapons Testing
There is no military necessity for nuclear test resumption. by Lawrence Wittner Originally published by Common Dreams on Friday, July 17, 2020 Americans who grew up with nightmares of nuclear weapons explosions should get ready for some terrifying flashbacks, for the Trump administration appears to be preparing to resume U.S. nuclear weapons tests. The U.S. government stopped its atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons in 1962, shortly before signing the Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963. And it halted its underground nuclear tests in 1992, signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) in 1996. Overall, it conducted 1,030 nuclear weapons test […]
READ MOREAbolish Nuclear Weapons? Follow the Golden Rule
By Leonard Eiger On July 16, 1945 the United States government detonated the first atomic device in the test named Trinity. Less than one month after the Trinity test, the United States dropped two atomic bombs – on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – that killed over 100,000 people in less time than it took to type a few of these words. As many as 220,000 were dead from the effects of radiation by the end of 1945. Even today, 64 years later, survivors and subsequent generations suffer the effects of radiation. On August 24, 1949, the Soviet Union […]
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