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 […]
READ MORETag Archives: Nuclear Weapons
We Keep Building Nukes For All the Wrong Reasons (by Bruce Blair)
Editor’s Note: The community of people working to abolish nuclear weapons and the associated risk of nuclear annihilation is relatively small, and each person brings a unique experience and important perspective. All are important when considering the magnitude of the task, and what is at stake. Our colleague, Dr. Bruce G. Blair, a former minuteman ICBM launch control officer and nuclear security expert, died yesterday, Sunday, July 19th. He brought much to the movement! We share the following article that Dr. Blair wrote in 2003. At a time when the US is ramping up nuclear weapons production and increasing the […]
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Reflections on Injustice, Racism, and the Bomb
By Vincent Intondi* The moment in August 2005 is seared into my memory. The train pulled up to the Hiroshima station from Kyoto. I stepped out with my mind full of images from 60 years ago, when the United States dropped the first atomic bomb on this pristine city of 340,000 people. (Hiroshima had been one of the few cities that escaped the fire-bombing campaign of Japan’s major cities led by U.S. Air Force General Curtis LeMay.) Initially, I was taken aback by what I saw: a modern city, filled with restaurants, hotels, shops, and lots of people, much like […]
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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 The nuclear priests continue to practice their alchemy, working from the same, outdated bible created by men during the prehistory of the nuclear age.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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From Trinity to Trident: A Long and Perilous Road
By Leonard Eiger Today marks the anniversary of the day in which the world entered the atomic age. 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 code-named Trinity, the experimental device known as the “Gadget” was detonated, 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 nuclear physicist Robert Oppenheimer, the beginning of […]
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