[Marxism] Anti-Nuclear Renaissance Marks 62nd Anniversary of U.S. Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

[Sukla Sen]

www.unitedforpeace.org | 212-868-5545 | 
P.O. Box 607, Times Square Station; New York, NY 10108

For Immediate Release: Wednesday, August 3, 2007
Contact: Leslie Cagan, United for Peace and Justice,
New York, NY: (212) 868-5545; cell (347) 581-1782
Jackie Cabasso, Western States Legal Foundation,
Oakland, CA: (510) 839-5877; cell (510) 306-0119
David Meieran, Thomas Merton Center, Pittsburgh, PA:
(412) 421-7716


Anti-Nuclear Renaissance Marks 62nd Anniversary of
U.S. Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
No Nukes! No Wars! No Profiteers!

New York, NY -- Twenty-five years after a million
people gathered in New York City’s Central Park to
demand global nuclear disarmament, an anti-nuclear
renaissance is underway.  Peace, environmental,
faith-based and social justice groups will mark the
August 6th and 9th anniversaries of the U.S. atomic
bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with more than 80
commemorations, rallies, film screenings, and vigils
in 25 states, at nuclear weapons facilities and
corporate war profiteers, united under the umbrella,
“No Nukes! No Wars! No Profiteers!” 

Throughout August 2007, in commemoration of the 62nd
anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombings of Japan,
groups across the country are working to expose the
escalating threat to the world posed by U.S. nuclear
hypocrisy, and to confront the corporations that are
perpetuating and profiting from a worldwide nuclear
crisis and the wars in the Middle East. Highlights
include the Widening War Tour, featuring Hiroshima
survivor Yuko Nakamura, which stops in Philadelphia
and Pittsburgh, PA (Aug. 6 and 7) and Florence, MA
(Aug. 9); nonviolent direct actions at the national
nuclear weapons laboratories in Los Alamos, NM, and
Lawrence Livermore, CA, and at the Nevada Test Site;
and the Think Outside the Bomb youth conference in
Santa Barbara, CA (Aug. 16-19). For a detailed listing
of events see: www.august6.org.

According to Hiroshima A-bomb survivor, Yoku Nakamura:
“The atomic bomb brought 140,000 deaths in Hiroshima
and 70,000 deaths in Nagasaki 62 years ago. People
around the world need to know how a nuclear bomb can
brutally destroy a city and take so many lives away,
miserably, in a split second, and also should know
that nuclear bombs today can bring even more
horrifying destruction upon us.” She concluded:
“It has been more than half a century since the
Hibakusha (A-bomb sufferers) organized themselves and
joined forces to call for the abolition of nuclear
weapons so that there would be no more Hiroshimas or
Nagasakis. For all the rest of my life, I sincerely
wish, pray and fight for all the people on earth in
this 21st century to be able to live their lives fully
with dignity and peace.”

UFPJ is also promoting house parties and educational
events in connection with the August HBO premiere of
Academy Award-winner Steven Okazaki's powerful new
film, White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The critically acclaimed
documentary features 14 Hiroshima and Nagasaki
survivors and is a remarkable document of the only
times nuclear weapons have been used in war. UFPJ has
developed a Discussion Guide and Action Tool Kit to
help focus discussion on the current nuclear threat
and on what people can do. The film will have its
television premiere on HBO on August 6, 2007, at 7:30
pm EDT, with repeat showings throughout the month.

Leslie Cagan, National Coordinator for United for
Peace and Justice (UFPJ), explained: “The march from
the UN to Central Park in June 1982 was probably the
largest single protest in U.S. history. New York City
was shut down for the day. Today, 25 years later, the
world is no safer, no more free of dangers of a
nuclear catastrophe. The U.S. government’s nuclear
hypocrisy has not led to peace, but has fed perpetual
conflict. While Washington takes us to war claiming to
be searching for weapons of mass destruction, they are
now about to produce a new generation of nuclear
weapons.”

The anti-nuclear renaissance is developing in response
to increasing nuclear threats. Jackie Cabasso,
executive director of Western States Legal Foundation
in Oakland, and convener of UFPJ’s Nuclear
Disarmament Working Group explains: “As carried out
against Iraq and threatened against Iran, the specter
of nuclear weapons in the hands of ‘rogue’ states
has become the United States’ number-one excuse for
waging war. Yet the threatened first use of nuclear
weapons remains the ‘cornerstone’ of U.S. national
security policy. The U.S. is violating its NPT nuclear
disarmament obligation by retaining some 10,000
nuclear weapons, designing new ones, and pouring
billions of dollars into its nuclear weapons
manufacturing complex. Meanwhile, leading presidential
candidates from both parties are warning Iran that
‘all options are on the table.’ Who is threatening
whom?” Cabasso will be taking part in the “In the
Shadow of the Nuclear Bomb” August 5 action at the
Livermore Lab in California.

“As we commemorate the anniversaries of the U.S.
atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” said
David Meieran, of the Thomas Merton Center’s
Demilitarize Pittsburgh project, “we need to stand
up to the the corporations who profit from nuclear
weapons and who drive us to unnecessary wars.”
Meieran is helping to organize Pittsburgh’s events,
which include a demonstration, with Yoku Nakamura, at
a heavily DoD-funded facility at Carnegie Mellon.
Meieran also is helping to launch the national Bite
the Bullet: War Profiteering Education and Action
Network.

According to Bruce Gagnon, Coordinator of the Global
Network Against Nuclear Power & Weapons in Space:
“The Bush administration lectures the rest of the
world about the evils of weapons of mass destruction
while at the same time developing new generations of
our own. On top of that the Pentagon is now moving
toward deployment of offensive weapons in space that
will only make the world more unstable. We are the
leading arms dealer in the world and its biggest
hypocrite. The time has come to convert the military
industrial complex to peaceful and sustainable
production here at home.” Gagnon will be a featured
speaker at an August 5th event in New York City. 

Other notable speakers at actions around the country
include Ann Wright, career Foreign Service officer and
Army Reserves colonel who resigned from the State
Department in protest over the Iraq war, speaking at a
Fayetteville, AK, event on August 5, and human rights
leader Father Ray Bourgeois, founder of School of the
Americas Watch, who is speaking in Santa Fe, NM, on
August 3.

The Hiroshima-Nagasaki events are being coordinated by
United for Peace and Justice, which is the largest
antiwar coalition in the country, with more than 1,400
member groups. See www.august6.org for a growing list
of actions. These events kick off UFPJ’s fall
campaign to end the Iraq war that runs from early
August to the end of October.

# # #

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

UNITED FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE
www.unitedforpeace.org | 212-868-5545 
To subscribe, visit www.unitedforpeace.org/email

If you no longer wish to receive emails from us, visit
www.demaction.org/ufpj/unsubscribe.jsp
 
 




      ___________________________________________________________
Yahoo! Answers - Got a question? Someone out there knows the answer. Try it
now.
http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/