OMNI HIROSHIMA NAGASAKI REMEMBRANCE AUGUST 6 & 9, 2023

OMNI

HIROSHIMA NAGASAKI REMEMBRANCE

AUGUST 6 & 9, 2023

Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and Ecology

https://omnicenter.org/donate/

Program for Hiroshima Nagasaki 2023

Theme:   What did we learn? 
Sunday August 6, 7:00 pm, Omni Center for Peace

 Program
7:00 – catered meal served
7:30 – Program
Opening song, Dale Carpenter
Welcome, Founder Dr. Dick Bennett
Announcement from Nuclear Campaign Coordinator, Abel Tomlinson
Gladys Tiffany moderator, introduce Benetick Maddison video on the Marshallese perspective.
Gladys, Introduce Art Hobson, What Did We Learn?  
Music – Dale Carpenter
Reading the names – Karen Takemoto
Close with silence in honor of the killed
8:35 – Closing gratitudes – Gladys

Contents:  Remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki Bombings August 6 & 9, 1945
Dick.  What’s at Stake.

Gonzalo Armúa.  “The splendor of a thousand suns: Hiroshima and imperial forgetfulness.”   
Seiji Yamada. “White Supremacy and the Bombing of Hiroshima.”
Scott Ritter.  ”Oppenheimer and the ABC’s of the Apocalypse.”
HOPE: Treaty to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons
Abel Tomlinson.  Stop Ukraine War & No Nuclear War, Protest #5
United for Peace and Justice: 18 Actions of Hope.
Robert C. Koehler.   “Oppenheimer’s Posthumous Exoneration.” 
Brett Wilkins.   “Nobel Peace Prize Winner Denounces G7 Failure….”
Fran Alexander. “The will to live.”
Ground Zero Marks the 77^th Anniversary.

UAF Japanese Student Association
John Steinbach.   “Remembering One of Humanity’s Worst  
      Catastrophe’s—Seventy Seven Years On.”

Venessa Hanson, ICAN .  Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

TEXTS: HIROSHIMA/NAGASAKI REMEMBRANCE 2023

What’s at stake:     If we do not respond massively and quickly, whether by the catastrophe of the rising temperature of climate or by the catastrophe of the global freezing by nuclear holocaust and winter, and by their convergence, our civilization and most species will be doomed.  This is the message conveyed to us with increasing urgency since the 1990s by the six assessments of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

     Eight decades ago the US inaugurated nuclear weapons and the threat of global nuclear holocaust.  Five decades ago OMNI inaugurated its annual Remembrance of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, calling upon the public to become informed and take action.  Because our leaders performed the awful slaughter, it became the task of subsequent generations of US citizens to finally ensure it would never happen again.   It is through this history that those generations can assess their efforts and themselves.

     We have long known what to do; the countless writings and films and songs against nuclear weapons attest to that.  And this year I return to two of the several recent lucid, thoroughly documented, impassioned books which guide us to effective action:  The Button: The New Nuclear Arms Race and Presidential Power from Truman to Trump by William J. Perry and Tom Collina, and The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner by Daniel Ellsberg.

     The Button
    “The key issue [is] the risk of stumbling into nuclear war.  We both realized. . .that the threat of Russia intentionally launching a nuclear attack against the United States was vanishingly small.  Smaller, indeed, than the risk that we might start a nuclear war by mistake.  And once you make that mental shift—that the real threat is blundering into war—you come to see existing nuclear policy as very, very dangerous.  The key facts [my numbering]—[1] that the president can order nuclear war on his own authority, [2] that US weapons can be used first, [3] that US weapons are on hair-trigger alert and ready for use, [4] that weapons are susceptible to cyberattack, and [5] that we have hundreds of vulnerable land-based missiles—all increase the danger of catastrophe by accident.

     Yet the military establishment does not see this danger.  It thinks we should keep our Cold War nuclear policies and double down on them by investing $2 trillion to rebuild the same system and policies that we had during the Cold War—even though that system increases the danger of the primary threat: stumbling into nuclear war” (xx-xxi).

     “…currently there is no way to prevent a determined president from starting a nuclear war.  We strongly believe that the risks of having nuclear weapons ready to launch within minutes, on the president’s sole authority, outweigh any perceived benefits.  This system is unconstitutional, dangerous, outdated, and unnecessary.” (9)

     The Doomsday Machine ( p. 20 from Daniel Ellsberg’s book by that title)
     “The hidden reality I aim to expose is that for over fifty years, all-out thermonuclear war—an irreversible, unprecedented, and almost unimaginable calamity for civilization and most life on earth—has been, like the disasters of Chernobyl…and World War I, a catastrophe waiting to happen, on a scale infinitely greater than any of these.  And that is still true today.

    No policies in human history have more deserved to be recognized as immoral.  Or insane.  The story of how this calamitous predicament came about and how and why it has persisted for over half a century is a chronicle of human madness.  Whether Americans, Russians, and other humans can rise to the challenge of reversing these policies and eliminating the danger of near- term extinction caused by their own inventions and proclivities remains to be seen.  I choose to join with others in acting as if that is still possible.”

       Whether by accident or by choice, these nuclear dangers threaten not only human civilization but human existence.  And they are converging with the equal or greater danger of climate’s rising temperature and increasing extreme weather.   These combined dangers--if we wish our drastically diminished civilization and species at least to survive-- demand a resistance of adequate intensity and scale.   We must abolish nuclear weapons and we must reverse the rise of temperature.    And we can do it, as past extraordinary human achievements prove.      

     Reading these two books provide clarity and therefore courage in the immediately necessary struggle.   –Dick

Gonzalo Armúa.  “The splendor of a thousand suns: Hiroshima and imperial forgetfulness.”   Internationalist 360° (May 18, 2023. 

Editor.  Mronline.org (5=21-23).   Joe Biden’s visit to Hiroshima in the framework of the G7 once again brings to the surface the cynical memory of an empire that 78 years ago unleashed the power of “a thousand suns” on a defenseless population.   (More by Internationalist 360°) (Posted May 20, 2023).

Empire, State Repression, StrategyAmericas, Asia, Japan, United StatesNewswireAtomic Bomb, Group of Seven largest rich countries (G7), President Joe Biden

“Vishnu is trying to convince the prince to do his duty and to impress him, he takes on his multi-armed form, and says, Now I have become death, the destroyer of worlds… I imagine we all think that, in one way or another.¹

With that famous quote from the Bhagavad Gita, Julius Robert Oppenheimer was referring to the moment he saw his atomic creature detonate in the desert of New Mexico. It was July 16, 1945 and the Trinity test was the ultimate expression of imperialist rationality. The atomic bomb added to the geopolitical scenario. “We knew the world would no longer be the same…some people laughed, some people cried…most people remained silent,” Oppenheimer recalled aloud as he looked at the ground, perhaps with self-conscious shame, as if asking for forgiveness from future generations. His legacy was instant and massive death. The U.S. thus became the first nuclear power in history.

A few weeks later, on August 9, that same plutonium prototype, the Fat Man, was dropped by the U.S. Bocks Car bomber on the city of Nagasaki in Japan. If the Hiroshima bomb, which had stunned humanity two days earlier, is the apotheosic expression of civilizational decadence, that of Nagasaki cannot find words to justify such a degree of atrocity, a horrifying horror.² None of the crimes of the Japanese imperial army in China and Indochina was executed with these bombings, which twice detonated the glow of “a thousand suns” on the civilian population. The historical barbarism of Western Europe was inconceivable, but it was surpassed-by far-by the barbarism of the United States, Aimé Césaire would say with just reason.³  MORE
https://mronline.org/2023/05/20/the-splendor-of-a-thousand-suns/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-splendor-of-a-thousand-suns&mc_cid=ec35a0fde7&mc_eid=ab2f7bf95e

SEIJI YAMADA.  “White Supremacy and the Bombing of Hiroshima: Justifications for Nuclear War.” COUNTERPUNCH

( JULY 23, 2023).

The conduct of the Pacific War is seen by many as reflect of the racism toward the Japanese prevalent in American society during World War II. Historian John Dower examines the documentary and propaganda record in War Without Mercy.5 Japanese and Japanese-Americans had been herded into internment camps in 1942. By mid-1945, most major Japanese cities were already rubble, making them poor targets to demonstrate the power of the new weapon. The fire-bombing of Tokyo on March 10 had killed some 80,000 to 100,000 civilians. U.S. propaganda portrayed the Japanese as monkeys or vermin that had to be exterminated. [The racism had to be specifically directed against Japanese, not all Asians, as the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression was ongoing in China. Therefore, helpful instructions on “How to spot a Jap” (among other Asians).]

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Seiji Yamada, a native of Hiroshima, is a family physician practicing and teaching in Hawaii.

SCOTT RITTER.  “Oppenheimer and the ABC’s of the Apocalypse in Alliterated Form.”  July 28, 2023,

The Trinity test of the Atomic Bomb, July 16, 1945

Assessing the birth of atomic America, put on display as only Hollywood can, I watched Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. I walked away from the theater acknowledging the success of the film in portraying the protagonist, J. Robert Oppenheimer, as a fellow human traveler in this adventure known as life. As portrayed by Irish actor Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer was approachable by all who have toiled with the challenges of life, and our imperfect efforts to manage them. That Oppenheimer’s challenges were of a scope and scale unimaginable by most is irrelevant—the audience felt for the man, not the myth, and for this reason the movie is a great success.

In its almost bored depiction of the banality of the bomb that serves as the centerpiece of Oppenheimer’s creativity, however, the movie fails. As much as I appreciate learning to like Oppenheimer the man, I very much wanted to leave the theater in mortal fear of the weapon he helped create. Here the movie struggles—the bomb was all flash and no substance. The opening scene of Saving Private Ryan still resonates with me to this day; nothing about Oppenheimer’s creation stayed with me once the credits rolled on the film. It was Edward Teller’s “Super”—the Hydrogen Bomb—that struck fear into the hearts of moviegoers, a bomb whose destructive power was symbolized on a map, using a drawing compass which placed circles around the major cities of the world showing the circumference of the “Super’s” lethal reach. I felt no such fear when contemplating Oppenheimer’s creation.

Scott Ritter will discuss this article and answer audience questions on Ep. 86 of Ask the Inspector.

That Oppenheimer’s “gadget” is the causation of calamitous chaos never resonates. Oppenheimer struggled, both in life and on screen, to compel those with whom the secret of nuclear death was shared to comprehend the absolute necessity of putting the atomic genie back in is bottle. Oppenheimer, having helped unleash this awful power, understood the mortal sin he and his fellow scientists had committed. Conceived to defeat the forces of Nazi Germany, Oppenheimer’s “gadget” was instead given birth to intimidate the Soviet Union—ostensibly our wartime ally—at the expense of the Japanese, who were ready to surrender but first had to be made an example of.

This dearth of destruction directly linked to Oppenheimer’s weapon diminishes the impact of his later remorse over having breathed life into it. Moreover, it makes it difficult to use Nolan’s film as the foundation upon which Oppenheimer’s dream of banishing the destructive power of nuclear fission and fusion from the arsenal of mankind, limiting its utility to the production of energy, simply that—a dream. There was a time when mankind feared the immediacy of its nuclear annihilation. Children grew up learning to “duck and cover,” while adults learned to promote détente over confrontation, abiding decades of Cold War because they feared the consequences of the nuclear fire that would transpire if the conflict between competing superpowers ever went hot.

Today’s generations have forgotten the evil echoes of everlasting doom that thundered across the Alamogordo desert on a July morning back in 1945; they did not steal furtive glances in the evening sky during the Cuban Missile Crisis, wondering if the setting sun might be the last they experienced, or if its dying light would be replaced by a bright light as if “hundreds of thousands of suns rose up at once into the sky,” like Krishna in the Baghava Gita. “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds,” Oppenheimer claims to have thought to himself at the moment his theoretical gadget turned into the reality of man’s collective demise.

Foregoing the finality of the fate they have inherited, humanity has become immune to mass death. People die every day, this much is true. But the world no longer fears the imminence of nuclear mass death—the termination of all life as we know it. Such a reality is beyond imagination, because we simply no longer imagine it, even though its cause resides amongst us, unseen because we opt to be blind. Oppenheimer could have been the movie that helped rip the blinders off the present occupants of planet earth, awakening them to the reality of the precipitous path we all are walking along, the edge of a nuclear abyss from which there can be no salvation.

God’s good graces cannot save those who refuse to save themselves. The hubris of men whose intellectual capacity was limited to finding out the flaws of men so that they might be destroyed is well-captured in Oppenheimer, the movie. The consequences of their actions are not. From their petty cataloging of human frailty came the growth of a nuclear weapons establishment the scope and scale of which is beyond the capacity of most Americans to comprehend, as is its purpose. The notion of facilitating the mechanism of our inevitable demise—because if the nuclear genie is not returned to its bottle, it will be unleashed again—in the name of our collective security is a cruel trick played by the American government on its citizens. We exist, it seems, to promulgate the very means of our destruction, perverting the purpose for which we were brought into this world, which was the perpetuation of the existence of our species.   MORE   White Supremacy and the Bombing of Hiroshima - CounterPunch.org

I therefore implore anyone reading this article to join me in New York City on August 6 in the joyful juxtaposition of knowledge over fear, or life over death—of self-determination over fatalism. Let us take charge of our future by demanding today what J. Robert Oppenheimer sought so many years ago—the return of the nuclear Genie into its bottle. August 6 marks the 78^th anniversary of the destruction of the Japanese city of Hiroshima at the hands of one of Oppenheimer’s “gadgets.” Help me and my fellow speakers and participants bring relevance to the moment, to awaken the fear that should exist in the bowels of everyone who has a brain about the dangers presented by nuclear weapons, and rekindle hope in the hearts of humanity about the absolute need to rid itself of these awful devices before it is too late.  

Oppenheimer and the ABC’s of the Apocalypse in Alliterated Form (scottritterextra.com)

Please support Waging Peace, our film and campaign for nuclear disarmament.Donate now

Make This August Nuclear-Free-Future Month
[UPJ activities v. the  twin existential threats of the climate emergency and nuclear weapons. Eighteen actions of HOPE. –Dick]
7-25-23  United for Peace & Justice      contact@unitedforpeace.org via email.actionnetwork.org 

I regard the employment of the atom bomb for the wholesale destruction of men, women and children as the most diabolical use of science…. nonviolence is the only thing that is now left in the field. It is the only thing that the atom bomb cannot destroy.
                                                                                  Mahatma Gandhi

GeorgeMartin ¡Presente!
Livelong activist and former UFPJ leader, George Martin, joined the ancestors on July 16, 2023. George was prominent nationally, and internationally as an anti-war, nonviolence, environmental, and social justice activist. He had a great impact on many people. From 2004 until 2008 George was a Co-Chair of UFPJ along with Judith LeBlanc and George Friday. He was honored while in Ghana to be designated a chief: Nii Adjetey. In Milwaukee, George was an active leader of Peace Action Wisconsin for many years. For over 20 years he co-led the Martin Luther King Justice Coalition organizing an MLK Day ceremony and march every year. Most recently George organized within the environmental justice movement. He served on the Boards of Pace e Bene’s Campaign Nonviolence and Peace Action Wisconsin. His death is a severe blow to many of us. George Martin’s legacy of love endures!!

No More Hiroshimas! No More Nagasakis!
the 78^th anniversaries of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima (Aug. 6) and Nagasaki (Aug. 9) approach, all of the nuclear-armed states are doubling down on the centrality of nuclear weapons in their national security policies and modernizing their nuclear arsenals. With Russia’s illegal war of aggression in Ukraine, its repeated overt threats to use nuclear weapons, and other potential nuclear flashpoints including Taiwan, the Korean Peninsula, South Asia, and the Middle East, the specter of nuclear war has risen to its highest level since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. This August 6 - 9, groups across the country and around the world will be taking action to raise awareness and demand the elimination of nuclear weapons – before they eliminate us. Find an event near you (courtesy of Physicians for Social Responsibility.)

Remembering Dan Ellsberg, Nonviolent Activist: Zoom event Wed. Aug. 9, 7 pm ET
Since Dan Ellsberg’s passing, dozens of news stories and commentaries have focused primarily on his role as whistleblower and the impact of his courageous release of the Pentagon Papers. Missing from these accounts has been an appreciation of the decades of Dan's active engagement in antiwar and antinuclear campaigns, in which he was arrested more than 80 times. On Wed. Aug. 9, the 78^th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Nagasaki, fellow activists will share anecdotes about Dan's participation in a wide variety of anti-nuclear and antiwar campaigns. The objective is both to document this part of Dan's life and to inspire others with his example. Speakers will include Patricia Ellsberg, Dan's wife, and Bob Eaton, a draft resister who inspired Dan’s decision to release the Pentagon Papers. Additional information is available here. Register here.

Abolition 2000 at the NPT PrepCom
he first Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) meeting for the 2026 Review Conference of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) takes place from July 31 – August 11 in Vienna, Austria. The NPT includes the only binding commitment in a multilateral treaty to the goal of disarmament by the five original nuclear-armed States - the U.S., UK, USSR/Russia, France, and China, who pledged “to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament.” The NPT became law in 1970. States parties meet every five years at a Review Conference (RevCon). The Abolition 2000 Global Network to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons, founded at the 1995 NPT RevCon, has a program of activities at the upcoming Vienna PrepCom to demand full implementation of the disarmament obligation.

“Oppenheimer” - the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
The much-hyped Hollywood blockbuster film, “Oppenheimer,” a biographical drama about the “father” of the atomic bomb, directed by Christopher Nolan, opened July 21. A number of anti-nuclear groups saw the release as an opportunity to educate the public about current nuclear dangers and the ongoing health impacts of uranium mining and nuclear testing, especially for Indigenous people. Neither of these issues is covered, and though there were a few references to the fact that Japan was already defeated, the (untrue) claim that the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were necessary to end World War II and save American lives got a lot of play. Reviews (by activists) have been mixed. Will the film advance the cause of nuclear disarmament and environmental justice? Click here for more information, including educational and advocacy materials.

A Moral Declaration for America: On Our Shared Task of Building the Nation That’s Never Yet Been
On July 4, Bishop William Barber, Co-Chair of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, issued “A Moral Declaration for America: On Our Shared Task of Building the Nation That’s Never Yet Been,” directed to the U.S. President and Congress, and “to all the people of this Republic who claim to be on the side of love, truth, and justice”. Citing recent regressive Supreme Court decisions, the declaration addresses the attacks on civil and human rights that are tearing apart our democracy and calls for a moral fusion response. “Racism, poverty, ecological devastation, the continued oppression of Indigenous people, the denial of health care, the lack of living wages, the war economy, regressive immigration policies, mass incarceration, LGBTQ+ discrimination, and all other forms of oppression - we must tackle them together.”

Ukraine Resources: The Wagner Rebellion and More Nuclear Threats
The Ukraine now has gone on for over 500 days. Recent additions to UFPJ’s Ukraine resources page include perspectives from Russian analysts on the Wagner revolt, Wagnerization: How Putin Degraded the Russian State and “If the authorities had rallied around Putin, Prigozhin wouldn’t have even reached Rostov.” A prominent Russian foreign policy analyst has ignited further nuclear fears by arguing that to end support of Ukraine by Western governments, the Russian Federation must “make nuclear deterrence a convincing argument again by lowering the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons,” standing ready to “hit a bunch of targets in a number of countries in order to bring those who have lost their mind to reason.” For more on the debate this sparked both inside and outside Russia, go to the Ukraine crisis and nuclear weapons and scroll down to find many articles on this topic.

Former U.S. Ambassadors to Laos and Cambodia Ask President Biden to Reconsider Sending Cluster Munitions to Ukraine
Nine former ambassadors to Laos and Cambodia who witnessed the human toll of U.S. cluster munitions dropped on those countries during the Vietnam War have written to President Biden, urging him to reconsider his decision and to “seek to support Ukraine's legitimate efforts to defend itself through other means than using cluster munitions.” The former ambassadors to Laos noted that “over the past decades until today, thousands of civilian Laotian lives — men, women and children — have been lost or severely damaged by these pernicious weapons.” Transfer of these weapons to Ukraine, “is completely inconsistent with commendable U.S. and NATO condemnation of Russia's own use of cluster munitions in its war of aggression against Ukraine.” Read the letters from former ambassadors to Cambodia here and from former ambassadors to Laos  here.

The Golden Rule Anti-Nuclear Sailboat: On to the Great Lakes!
The Golden Rule anti-nuclear sailboat continued her epic voyage throughout the U.S., as it sailed up the New England coast to Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine. The historic wooden ketch then sailed back down to New York and up the Hudson River, where she visited with Pete Seeger’s boats, the Clearwater and the Woody Guthrie. Her masts were removed so she could pass under the low bridges and many locks on the Erie Canal. The “peace boat” is currently in Rochester, New York, and will be sailing to Toronto and throughout the Great Lakes for the rest of the summer. The reception has been terrific, with great events and excellent media. “People are hungry for hope and inspiration,” said Gerry Condon of Veterans For Peace. “The Golden Rule brings plenty of both.” Find more information here.

Veterans for Peace National Convention – August 25-27
The Veterans For Peace National Convention will be held August 25-27. For the third year in a row, it will be held online due to continuing concerns about Covid-19. VFP’s online conventions have been terrific, and accessible to even more VFP members, friends, and allies. This convention promises to be particularly  outstanding and will include keynote addresses from Irish Member of the European Parliament, Clare Daly, international economist Jeffrey Sachs, and nonviolence activist Kathy Kelly. There will also be excellent panel presentations on a variety of urgent situations facing the world today. Find more information on the Convention schedule and how you can participate here.

Summer of Peace with CODEPINK!
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. told us that “Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.” This summer, join CODEPINK and partners to educate, activate, and inspire peace in your community and around the world. Sign our Pledge to do one action and engage 5 friends in the Summer of Peace. You can start by putting a peace flag in your window, wheat paste peace messages in your area, put up CODEPINK stickers, hand out flyers supporting peace through diplomacy in Ukraine, and organize a peace walk at your local farmers market. You can upload your summer of peace actions and creativity here. Check out our current summer of peace creations here!

Tell your Senator: Oppose the Elliott Abrams Nomination
This month the White House shockingly announced the nomination of Elliott Abrams to serve on the State Department’s Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy. A neoconservative leader for decades, Abrams’ reactionary policies have undermined human rights and strengthened right-wing dictatorships across Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa. The litany of his abuses includes covering up Archbishop Oscar Romero’s assassination, being convicted of lying to Congress about the U.S. support of the Contras in Nicaragua, and cheerleading the Iraq war. Contact your U.S. Senators to oppose this immoral nomination, and urge your groups to endorse an organizational sign-on letter that will be delivered to Congress. [Abrams, center, in photo by Gage Skidmore/CC]   M         m

Webinar Recording – NWC Reset: Frameworks for a Nuclear-Weapon-Free World
On July 12, the Abolition 2000 Working Group on the UN Disarmament Agenda and a Nuclear Weapons Convention (NWC) hosted a webinar to explore the legal, technical, and institutional measures and frameworks to facilitate the global elimination of nuclear weapons. The webinar included discussion of NWC Reset: Frameworks for a Nuclear-Weapon-Free World, a working paper to be distributed at the August 2023 Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) meeting for the 2026 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference. The working paper includes reflections on the political environment for comprehensive nuclear disarmament, an outline of possible approaches for establishing the framework for a nuclear-weapon-free world, and recommendations to the 2023 NPT PrepCom. Watch Session 1. (Session 1 presenters.) Watch Session 2. (Session 2 presenters.)

Webinar Recording – Global NATO: History, Doctrines, Expansion, Wars & Future
At its July summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, the NATO alliance made plans for its continued support of Ukraine and its further global expansion. In this webinar Joseph Gerson, president of the Campaign for Peace, Disarmament, and Common Security (CPDCS) provides a crash course on NATO and an evaluation of the results of the Vilnius summit. Joseph is a founding member of the No to War No to NATO Network, and has participated in numerous NATO counter-summit conferences and protests. He recently returned from the International Summit for Peace in Ukraine, held in Vienna on June 10-11. Watch the webinar, sponsored by CPDCS and Massachusetts Peace Action, here. A recent article by Joseph is “Ukraine: The Deepening Euro-Atlantic Crisis and Common Security Possibilities.”

Webinar Recording – Ending Climate and Nuclear Crises for the Next Generations
This webinar addressed the twin existential threats of the climate emergency and nuclear weapons. It provided an overview of the increasing threats of the climate emergency, a critique of international climate conferences, an encouraging overview of constructive climate sustainability initiatives, and common security approaches to reducing the increasing risk of nuclear war. Keynote speakers were Dr. Timmon Milne Wallis, Executive Director of NuclearBan.US and author of Warheads to Windmills and Joseph Gerson, President of the Campaign for Peace, Disarmament, and Common Security. The program also featured an interview by Coalition for Peace Action’s summer intern, Sofia DaCruz, with youth peace activist Okezue Bell, who discussed his experience at last November's Global Climate Conference in Egypt as Youth Climate Ambassador. Watch the webinar here.

Americans Calling for Peace in Ukraine
As of July 13, CODEPINK's dynamic phonebanking team had made over 600 calls to important members of Congress calling for Peace in Ukraine. In response to the Biden Administration’s announcement that the U.S. would be sending cluster munitions, an indiscriminate weapon banned by over 111 countries, to Ukraine, the phonebanking team kicked into action and called every member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, once, twice, sometimes three times. Anyone in the U.S. can join the team and commit to making 5-10 calls a week, adding to the daily pressure to end the war and to stop sending funding and arms for warfare. Sign up to phonebank with CODEPINK here, and read testimonials from current phonebank team members here.

Remembering Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz; A Reading of Her Work – Video Recording
During an online event held on July 11, Leslie Cagan, Barbara Smith, Esther Kaplan, Aurora Levins Morales, Jenny Romaine, Kathy Engel, Roni Natov, Alisa Solomon, Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Helena Lipstadt and Megan Madison read from the work of Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz. Melanie was UFPJ co-founder and former National Organizer Leslie Cagan’s long-time life partner. A prolific writer, over the course of a lifetime of activism, artistic work and teaching, Melanie wrote poetry, fiction, and analytical material. Her fervent, anti-racist activism grounded all of her work, and her articulation of Diasporism as a conscious alternative to Zionism has had a deep impact within the Jewish left. Melanie's work on gender and sexuality has touched the lives of women since the early 1970s. Here’s the link to the video recording.

A Month of Anti-imperialism Struggles Across the Americas
July is a month marked by historical events for anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggles across Latin America and the Caribbean. Independence anniversaries, the births of important revolutionaries, and the anniversaries of pivotal anti-imperialist actions fill the month of July and serve as occasions to remember and honor the achievements of the movement against imperialism. CODEPINK celebrates past and present leaders who dared to resist imperialism and fight for a more just and freer world for all. Check out this piece by CODEPINK staffer Samantha Wherry.

UFPJ is a diverse network of peace and justice organizations. READ ABOUT THE BENEFITS OF MEMBERSHIP. If your organization is interested in joining UFPJ, please read our UNITY STATEMENT, and if it is consistent with your organization's principles CLICK HERE TO JOIN.

PLEASE DONATE to help us continue sending out "UFPJ Currents" to our members and supporters. And THANK YOU for all your work for peace and justice!

Stop Ukraine War & No Nuclear War, Protest #5

Dear Friends,

Please join us this Saturday for our 5th monthly protest calling for a Stop to the Ukraine War & a Stop the Threats of Nuclear War. We need Peace in Ukraine, and Peace with Russia and China, and peace with every nation. We will also have a special message this month to oppose the U.S. shipment of internationally-condemned cluster bombs to Ukraine, which will harm Ukrainian civilians for decades to come, as they did in Vietnam, Laos, etc. These arms shipments further demonstrate that the U.S. government doesn't really care about Ukrainians, and is just using them to bleed & "weaken Russia."

As usual, the protest is on the last Saturday of the month, July 29th this month, at 11 A.M. at Washington County Courthouse in Fayetteville. Please share our Facebook event page if you can.

As far too many have forgotten, war with Russia and China could quickly become a nuclear war that could cause extinction of our species, according to the science of nuclear winter. To avoid this, we must call for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine and peace negotiations with Russia, and an end to all forms of warfare with Russia and China.

As you may know, our politicians and mainstream media are not telling us the truth about the causes of the Ukraine war, which makes it harder to understand that peace negotiations are the logical answer. Here are some powerful, credible references by experts like Professor Sachs, Professor Mearsheimer, peace seeking military officials, award-winning journalist Robert Parry, and award-winning filmmaker Oliver Stone's documentary Ukraine on Fire.Here, here, and here are some good books on the subject as well. These sources help tell the story of how the war really started, not just with the 2014 U.S.-sponsored coup, which was well recorded in this leaked phone call, but also how the coup started a 9 year old civil war between ultranationalist Ukrainians in West Ukraine and ethnic Russian Ukrainians in East Ukraine. It was this 9 year old civil war that became the bigger proxy war between the USA and Russia.

Additionally, these sources tell the hidden story of how USA promised not to expand NATO military forces eastward to Russian borders, but has broken that promise repeatedly, despite numerous warnings not to from Western experts and the Russian government. At issue is not just NATO military bases and war games on Russian borders, but the movement of NATO's nuclear weapons closer and closer to Moscow. The situation is very similar to the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the Soviets put missiles near our borders; Americans were not having it and we nearly entered nuclear war over it. Peace negotiations solved that crisis and peace negotiations are the only way to solve the Ukraine crisis.

Thank You & Hope to See You Saturday!

Abel Tomlinson

Arkansas Antiwar Alliance, Founder

AbelTomlinson.com

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(479)283-5762

Robert C. Koehler.   “Oppenheimer’s Posthumous Exoneration.”  Consortium News (7-18-23).
When AEC hearings that ended the physicist’s security clearance were declassified, historians were amazed they contained virtually no damning evidence against him, writes. Read here...

Brett Wilkins.   “Nobel Peace Prize Winner Denounces G7 Failure to Deliver on Nuclear Disarmament in Hiroshima.”  Common Dreams (May 19, 2023).

"The G7 are trying to sell decades-old and insufficient initiatives as a new 'vision' when at the same time they themselves are complicit in the rising nuclear risks," said the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons  (ICAN).  BRETT WILKINS.  Co

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons—which won the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize for its work on a landmark treaty banning nukes—and others including survivors of the U.S. atomic bombings of Japan-- on Friday criticized a Group of Seven joint statement on disarmament as "missing the moment to make the world safer" from the threat of thermonuclear annihilation.

As the G7 summit got underway in Hiroshima, leaders of Japan, Germany, Italy, Canada, France, the United Kingdom, United States—the latter three of which have nuclear arsenals—reiterated their belief that "a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought."

While the statement acknowledges "the unprecedented devastation and immense human suffering the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki experienced as a result of the atomic bombings" and reaffirms G7 members'"commitment to achieving a world without nuclear weapons," the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) lamented that "it fails to commit to concrete measures towards that goal and even emphasizes the importance of reserving the right to use nuclear weapons."

"The G7 are trying to sell decades-old and insufficient initiatives as a new 'vision' when at the same time they themselves are complicit in the rising nuclear risks and promoting mass murder of civilians as a legitimate form of national security policy," ICAN added.

ICAN said that "the G7's inaction is an insult to the hibakusha, and the memory of those who died in Hiroshima," referring to the Japanese word for survivors of the atomic bombings, which killed between 110,000 and 210,000 people.  MORE

BRETT WILKINS

Brett Wilkins is a staff writer for Common Dreams.

Full Bio >

Daniel HogstraG7HibakushaHiroshimaIcanJapanJoe BidenNuclear WarNuclear WeaponsTreaty On The Prohibition Of Nuclear WeaponsNuclear Disarmament

Opinion.   The Trees That Survived Hiroshima’

May 5, 2023

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/05/opinion/hiroshima-japan-trees.html

 hibakujumoku

Opinion

Photographs and Text by Will Matsuda

Mr. Matsuda is a photographer and writer based in Portland, Ore.

My grandmother doesn’t talk about the bomb. Whenever I ask, she claims she doesn’t know what happened to her family, though I suspect she simply doesn’t want to think about it.

She was 20 years old and living in Honolulu on the morning of Aug. 6, 1945, when the United States dropped a nuclear weapon on Hiroshima. It detonated directly over the neighborhood where her family — including her grandmother, aunts, uncles and cousins — lived. The bomb destroyed the city and killed over 100,000 people. She was told that only one uncle survived.

Scientists estimate that during the explosion the ground temperature ranged from 3,000 to 4,000 degrees Celsius — hot enough to transform a human body into a fine black dust. When I think of that day, I imagine our family gathering around a table for breakfast and ending up in the wind.

I have never been to Hiroshima, but for a long time I have felt a strong desire to connect physically with this part of my family’s history. I have been searching for things that survived — an heirloom, a letter, a bracelet.

Unexpectedly, the objects that have offered me the most meaningful connection to Hiroshima are not objects at all but living, breathing things: trees.

Ginkgo trees, to be precise.

The ginkgo — a species native to China with fan-shaped leaves that turn a vibrant gold in the fall — is one of the oldest and most resilient trees on earth. These trees survived the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs and were some of the only living things to survive the bomb, which they managed to do because their roots grow deep enough in the soil that they were protected from the incinerating heat.

In Japanese, human survivors of the atom bomb are called hibakusha. These surviving trees have a name as well: hibakujumoku.

Some of the original trees are still alive today, and — like many human survivors — they and their descendants are scattered across the globe.

Hideko Tamura Snider, a hibakusha from Hiroshima, was 10 years old when the bomb killed her mother, her best friend and many of her relatives. In 2003 she moved to Oregon, and in 2017 she partnered with Green Legacy Hiroshima — an organization that cares for the hibakujumoku — to bring seeds of the surviving ginkgo trees to the United States. Ms. Snider planted the seeds, 51 in total, and called them “Hiroshima peace trees.”

In a 2019 interview with NBC’s Klamath Falls station, Ms. Snider reflected: “I can’t grow my mother. I can’t grow my cousin. But the tree, I could.”

Over the past few months, I have been visiting the peace trees around Oregon. I give them water. I take photos. I feel their notched leaves. I thank them for being here and let them know I am here, too.

The bomb’s explosion was so bright it turned concrete surfaces in Hiroshima into photographic negatives. In one instance, a human-shaped shadow is fixed onto the steps in front of a bank. Everything but the outline of the person is bleached milky white from the blast.

I thought about the bomb’s relationship to light, shadow and photography as a whole as I photographed these trees, often including my own shadow in the frames.

Every shadow tells the story of a body: a body resting, a body dancing, a body watering houseplants, a nervous body, an aching body, a body hugging another body, a classroom of bodies, a market of bodies buying vegetables and oil and toilet paper and shoes, a street crowded with bodies on their way home, a neighborhood of bodies living so closely that they all know one another too well — who is always frying something, who doesn’t come home, who stays up with a light on all night.

A city full of bodies.

My grandmother, who is 97, was planning to return to Hiroshima this fall, but now it looks like she may not be able to. I would have loved to go there with her, but if she can’t make the trip I will go alone.

I will visit the place where our family once lived, and I’ll visit the hibakujumoku, the mothers and grandmothers of the saplings I have come to know so well. I will feel their leaves and tell them that we made it, that we survived.

 Will Matsuda is a photographer and writer based in Portland, Oregon.

Ground Zero Marks the 77^th Anniversary.

https://www.gzcenter.org/newsletters/

Japanese Student Association Invites Students to Its Kickoff, Nyugakushiki.   Aug. 26, 2022

Japanese Student Association

The Japanese Student Association invites all students to our kick off, "JSA入学式," from 6-8 p.m., Wednesday, Aug. 31, at the Multicultural Center in the Student Union.

入学式, or "Nyugakushiki," is an entrance ceremony for new freshmen in Japan. Generally, in the ceremony, students of all grades gather at one place to celebrate the beginning of freshmen's journey. The Japanese Student Association named this event because it is going to be their first event of the school year of 2022-23, and they are hoping many students gather, get to know each other and have fun.

One thing which this event is different from the original Nyugakushiki is that this event is more casual. While Nyugakushiki in Japan is very formal and traditional, the JSA event will have some fun games and food instead. This time, people can play Japanese games and enjoy FREE Japanese food. The game is related to sumo wrestling, which is one of Japan's traditional sports. The food is curry rice, a very common household food in Japan. Attendees will meet new people, including new freshmen, as well as catch a glimpse of our JSA activity and hopefully, to find something interesting in Japanese culture.

Also, this year, JSA is creating JSA Committees. Students can learn about these new positions from our JSA Instagram, then attend this event and show us your interest. We will present what we are expecting from these positions.

This event is supported by the Student Activities Fee as a funded event by the Associated Student Government and is free to all currently enrolled University of Arkansas students. For more information, please join JSA GroupMe or follow JSA Instagram. For questions about the event or for accommodations due to disability, you can directly contact Kenshi Kawade, kkawade@uark.edu.

CONTACTS Kenshi Kawade,
Japanese Student Association
479-575-5255, kkawa

John Steinbach.   “Remembering One of Humanity’s Worst Catastrophe’s—Seventy Seven Years On.”

CovertAction Magazine.  Aug 09, 2022.
President Harry S. Truman’s decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki set the groundwork for an era of U.S. global hegemony and enriched corporations like General Electric, DuPont, Union Carbide, Bechtel and Westinghouse which made hundreds of billions of dollars developing generation after generation of "first-strike" nuclear weapons.

U.S. leaders, intent on provoking wars with China and/or Russia, appear willing to use these weapons again—if we don’t stop them.

The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 77 years ago, marked the crucial turning point in the history of the 20^thcentury. By the end of World War II, Europe, the Soviet Union and the Japanese Empire lay in ruins, and the United States was in a position of unprecedented power with sole possession of the Bomb.

Unfortunately, the U.S. used this power to launch the Cold War against the Soviet Union, and initiated a nuclear build-up that has impoverished the entire world and brought us to the brink of nuclear oblivion. The question remains: Why did the U.S. government decide to initiate the Cold War with the atomic bombings instead of pursuing a course of diplomacy and negotiated settlement?

There is broad consensus among serious historians that the atomic bombings were not necessary to end the war with Japan. By 1945 Japan was a destroyed and starving nation desperately seeking a negotiated surrender and the Soviet Union was preparing to enter the war in early August, eliminating the need for an invasion of the Japanese mainland. For the Truman administration, the use of the Bomb served two purposes: a demonstration of the terrible power of the split atom to be held against the entire world, and a means to deny the Soviet Union a major role in the post-war settlement. […]

The post Remembering One of Humanity’s Worst Catastrophe’s—Seventy Seven Years On appeared first on CovertAction Magazine.

Quick update from the NPT in New York