Hiroshima-Nagasaki Days and Nuclear Free Future Month

Hiroshima and Nagasaki Days -- August 6 to 9 -- are now behind us and even August, as Nuclear Free Future Month, is drawing to a close. However our work  on abolishing nuclear weapons  continues. We need to raise the issue of nuclear weapons abolition high during this campaign season and  we suggest you keep the URL for this page (http://disarm.wilpf.org/node/25)  for resources, reference and use.

And until September 5 it is not too late to circulate the WILPF PETITION calling on Congress to declare August 6 National Nuclear Disarmament Day. You can also sign it online and send it to your friends at http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/nucleardisarmamentday 

Continue sending your Hiroshima-Nagasaki days reports to DISARM UPDATE for posting nationally and for sharing with other Branches.Wonderful reports have already come in from Branches in Anchorage Alaska, Ashland Oregon, Berkeley California, Bloomington Indiana, Boston Massachusetts, Brunswick Maine, Burlington Vermont, Cleveland Ohio, DesMoines Iowa,   Monterey California, Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, Portland Oregon, Sacramento California, San Jose California, Tucson Arizona, Twin Cities, Minnesota and Washington D.C. In New York City WILPF member Mary Beth Sullivan (also Outreach Coordinator for Global Network) will be speaking at several events on Weapons or Windmills. (Read her great speech at All Souls Church in NYC.)

Also see the Burlington Mayor's proclamation declaring August 6 Nuclear Disarmament Day. Let's have more proclamations like this from our Mayors for Peace next year.WILPF Disarm! Dismantle the War Economy  also co-sponsored a vigil at Vandenberg Air Force Base on August 13. MacGregor Eddy was one of thee women who witnessed the launch of a nuclear missile with dummy warheads just after 1 am.   Preparations for Armageddon continue! Read about MacGregor's arrest as she participated in a peaceful demonstration at the Vandenberg gate later that morning.

You can still send to your local Congressional offices the powerful statement from international WILPF for Hiroshima-Nagasaki Days. You can access a formatted version  at WILPF Hiroshima statement 08.doc . The statement can also be accessed from the top of the right hand column on the WILPF Geneva website. We strongly recommend that all WILPF members visit the Geneva website frequently. This is our mother web site and is always full of important information and program links.

Burlington Vermont Branch has given us a PETITION calling on Congress to declare August 6 National Nuclear Disarmament Day. You can start using it now in your own Branch, with your neighbors, within your coalitions, for tabling. and for circulation at Hiroshima-Nagasaki events. You can also use it during the remainder of August, which WILPF is joining UFPJ in designating it as Nuclear Free Future Month. Completed petitions should be returned to the WILPF national office by September 5 for hand delivery to Congress during the week of September 15.

The United For Peace and Justice (UFPJ) Nuclear Free Future month web site is now up and it is possible to register events. Resources should be up soon. You can download a double sided backgrounder on Nuclear Free Future month with information and resources. This flier can be used as a hand out at your events on Hiroshima-Nagasaki Days or during the month of August.

You can also use the WILPF generated postcard on H Res 68 at H Res 68 post card.doc. This can be downloaded and photo-copied for use at Hiroshima-Nagasaki events, throughout Nuclear Free Future month and beyond. Those who sign the post card should put their return addresses (or at least state and zip!) on the opposite side of the card. Note there is a portion to be cut off and handed to the signer as a reminder to call in to Congressional delegation and with web sites for further information. You may let signers mail the cards themselves or alternatively sell postage stamps for mailing at your table. Congress is in recess until end of August but staff will be in the offices. Still another possibility is to collect signed post cards and mail them to the Phildaelphia office before September 5. They can then be hand delivered to Congress by DISARM! committee members starting on September 15.

For an overall fact sheet calling for a new nuclear weapons policy go to Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA). It features Woolsey's H.Res 68 . (See previous paragraph to download the post card). You could use the ANA sheet as a hand out or adapt it for your own flier. WILPF is now a member of ANA which gives us many more resources on abolishing nuclear weapons, on preventing the building of new nuclear power plants (or relicensing old ones) and on cleaning up nuclear waste.

For those who have not yet planned events we suggest the free DVD on Nuclear Weapons and the Human Future from another ANA member, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. Watch it with your Branch or friends and determine what you can do this month to help end the current nuclear danger. This is the time!

We hope you told the good news at your Hiroshima-Nagasaki Day events! There is hope forstopping the current nuclear madness.Thanks to you and the over 130,000 comments submitted to the Department of Energy opposing plans to rebuild the nuclear weapons complex for new production, Complex Transformation isn't going much of anywhere this year. Twenty experts are still preparing answers to those comments for the Environmental Protection Agency. And the Reliable Replacement Warhead is dead as of July 10, when the Senate joined the House in refusing to vote more funds for that dangerous and destabilizing program. The UN already has a model nuclear weapons abolition treaty to serve as basis for negotiation. (WILPF contributed to its creation!) The USA remains the major road block and we must change that in November this year! The U.S. is the only party to the NPT with a nuclear arsenal to vote against ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Even former cold war hawks like Kissinger, Schultz, Perry and Nunn are now calling for abolition of nuclear weapons with ratification of the CTBT a first step.The Democratic Presidential candidate promises to work for ratification of that Treaty. The Republican candidate now says he will "consider it" -- real progress for the hawkish Senator from Arizona who voted against ratification in 1999!

Help us frame questions for ALL of the candidates on nuclear weapons abolition, waste clean up and rejection of nuclear power. All three links in the nuclear chain should be major issues for discussion in this critical election. The Peace Economy Project (based in St. Louis) with which WILPF DISARM is associated has an excellent flier with 11 questions for candidates. Number 3 is on nuclear weapons. This is one you can use and distribute widely between now and November. The FCNL also has a downloadable flier. The question on nuclear weapons can be asked of all national candidates -- and local ones, too! By-the-way, the FCNL newsletter for July-August features ways in which we must change nuclear weapons policy during the next Adminsitration, and it is excellent and consistent with our WILPF vision.

A powerful international program is Mayors for Peace. Jackie Cabasso is now U.S. coordinator. The Mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are now joined by 2,226 member cities in 129 countries & regions. Explore their website.

Is your city already a member? Check the US list on Mayors for Peace. Once a Mayor joins the city remains a member even after he is no longer in office. If your city is a member you can approach your Mayor early for a proclamation. Ask him/her to take part in the program. Interest him/her in the Mayor’s 2020 Vision Campaign.

If your city is not yet a member you will find the information and materials you need to ask your Mayor to join on the Mayors for Peace website.

And continue in August and in the months that follow to educate yourself, your Branch and your community on obtaining a nuclear weapons free world. Use the Nuclear Education kit and other tools provided by WILPF Reaching Critical Will. Check out the educational materials of the United Nations accessible from there, including the UN cyber school bus for use with students

From the young among us (under thirty-five) we await reports on the four day Think Outside the Bomb Conference in Boston, MA from August 14 to 17. We need to connect with this vital network of students and young professionals from all over the United States! Lst year our own Ray Acheson from Reaching Critical Will joinedin this conference.