Nuclear

NWTRCC’s Adventures in DC with Code Pink and John Bolton’s War Making

When NWTRCC originally reached out to members of Code Pink to share a report back from their recent delegation for our May meeting in Washington DC, we could not have been fully aware of the timeliness of the situation in Iran and the rapidly changing US policy. Code Pink, co- founder Medea Benjamin shared her reflections of the 28 member delegation in March. She shared stories of some of the 80 million Iranian people who have been suffering under increasingly crippling sanctions as well as an increasing threat of war. As NWTRCC members were wrapping up our gathering in Washington DC and joining in support of some members of Code Pink at the Venezuelan embassy, the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier […]

King’s Bay Plowshares/ MLK Anniversary

7 activists hold a sign that reads "The ultimate logic of racism is genocide"

TODAY is April 4th, the 51st anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.      It is also the first anniversary of the action of 7 Catholic peace activists to symbolically disarm nuclear weapons at the Trident Submarine Base at Kings Bay, Georgia.  Most, if not all, of the Kings Bay Plowshares 7, as Catholic Workers, are also by default war tax resisters, since they live below a taxable income.  Not paying taxes for war is a baseline value for the movement founded by Dorothy Day.  One of the KBP7, Martha Hennessy, is Dorothy Day’s granddaughter.      The seven activists chose April 4th, 2018, as the day for their action at Kings Bay precisely because it […]

The Continual Crossroads of Nuclear Weapons

People of Bikini Atoll carry their possessions to ships as part of forced relocation

History of the Nuclear Testing in the Marshall Islands After World War II the United States seized the Marshall Islands, a 1,800 mile chain of islands in the Pacific Ocean. Prior to that the Japanese had occupied the territory as an outpost for their military interventions. One Sunday in February 1946, the island’s US military governor asked the locals if they would be willing to temporarily relocate for “the good of mankind and to end all world wars.”  Operation Crossroads began on July 1, 1946 to determine how nuclear detonations would impact warships. The operation was terminated after many ships were destroyed and a 94 foot tsunami coated everything with radioactive water.  Many of the veterans who were ordered into […]

Gambling with our Future

Image of nuclear weapons explosion on horizon with orange glow

A recent headline, Cost to taxpayers to clean up nuke waste jumps $100 billion in a year brought home the tragedy of the nuclear weapons legacy. NBC reported that 80% of the increase was related to the Hanford site in Washington state where the plutonium was processed for nuclear weapons during the Cold War. David Trimble, director of the Government Accountability Office’s Natural Resources and Environmental team stated “We believe the number is growing and is understated.”  The projected timeline for clean up at this site is at least 50 years. Hanford is one of 75 sites in 35 states contaminated with nuclear weapons waste throughout the country. It was just a few days before that the Bulletin of Atomic […]

Resisting Nukes: Then, Now and How Much Longer?

I am among the many war tax resisters who got into this form of resistance after becoming aware of the horror of nuclear weapons, the damage done by every step of the process to build them, and the incredible waste of trillions of dollars over seven decades. Surely the world would look very different if there was such a dedication to feed the hungry, house the homeless, and develop alternative energies (the non-nuclear ones). Thus with August 6-9 — Hiroshima and Nagasaki days — approaching I wanted to post a reminder to get out to a vigil or action during that time. Humans created weapons of mass destruction and we are responsible for getting rid of them. NWTRCC  has a […]

Resisting Nukes – Then and Now

August 6 and 9, 2017, mark the 72nd anniversaries of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. War tax resistance spans the nuclear age, and many war tax resisters have been motivated by the horror of those bombings, by the frightening possibility that nuclear weapons will be used again, and by the human and financial costs of the whole process of producing those weapons. In the dangerous moment that we find ourselves today, one of the bravest pioneers of the modern war tax resistance movement, James Otsuka (1921-1984), comes to mind. As with other war tax resisters from the 1940s, he was a conscientious objector during World War II and refused to serve the military in any capacity. For that […]

Opposing nuclear weapons at Lawrence Livermore Lab

by Cathy Deppe Last August was the 70th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombings of Japan.  As members of the international peace group Global Network,  Alex and I were fortunate to participate in commemoration services in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  A year later we traveled a shorter distance to California’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, to stand again with victims of nuclear war.    We were there to float another lantern downstream to honor the dead.   We wanted to hear direct testimony from those who survived the hibakusha.  Rev. Hanaoka, now a retired Bay Area Methodist minister, was just a baby when the bomb exploded above his town, a child when he lost his mother and sister to radiation exposure, and a […]

Expanding war and nuclear programs

Foreign Policy just released another episode of its Editor’s Roundtable podcast, called “What does the expanding definition of war mean for the US military?” The panelists discuss Rosa Brooks’ new book, How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything, as well as the general idea of the expansion of war into economic intervention and other arenas. The podcast’s a little dry, but has many interesting moments! FP CEO and editor David Rothkopf says, But the military has a privileged position in the public policy debate. And one of the consequences of the privileged position that the military has, and really has had since the Reagan era, is that the military is about the only part of the government that […]

Honoring S. Brian Willson and remembering Daniel Berrigan

Just a few quick notes before our conference this weekend in Lansdowne/Philadelphia, PA! The documentary about anti-war activist, veteran, and war tax resister S. Brian Willson, Paying the Price for Peace, is now available! The website says, “Vietnam Veteran S. Brian Willson paid the price for peace by nearly being killed by a military train during a non-violent protest. Since then, he has not stopped calling attention to the US government’s defiance of international law through waging endless illegal wars.Paying the Price for Peace exposes the truth about the United States’ addiction to war, and the lies it perpetuates in order to wage ongoing violence, through the life and times of Air Force veteran S. Brian Willson and other veterans.” […]

Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Fukushima, and war taxes

Today marks the 70th anniversary of the US military’s nuclear bombing of Hiroshima, which killed as many as 150,000 people. On August 9, we recognize the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki, which killed as many as 70,000 people. Nuclear bombs were funded by US war taxes, coming from US taxpayers, and dropped by US military forces. Nuclear weapons are made to be more destructive than any other weapon, even though they are rarely used. (Depleted uranium being a notable exception.) Nuclear weapons really keep the war economy going since their very presence requires a constant readiness for war, not to mention maintenance and supervision. Over the next ten years, the US is estimated to spend about $348 billion […]

Not Paying for Nukes

Thousands marched to and rallied at the United Nations Sunday, April 26, to protest nuclear weapons. Two days later 22 were arrested blockading the U.S. Mission to the UN demanding disarmament not more talk. The United Nations holds a review of the Nuclear Weapons Non-Proliferation Treaty every five years. Hundreds of Japanese — including still some Hibakusha (survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings) — come to the U.N. to participate with nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in meetings at the UN to demand “no nuclear weapons and no nuclear power.” They also participated in and spoke at the April 24-26 conference, rally, and march called by a coalition of groups under the Peace and Planet banner. Many also watched the “Shadows […]

A Good Reason to Refuse to Pay War Taxes

Many of us got involved in war tax resistance because of nuclear weapons. For myself, I heard Dr. Helen Caldicott speak sometime back around 1980. She was passionate — and scary — about the dangers of nukes. The disaster at Three Mile Island led her to leave her medical career, become president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, and a leader in the peace movement. I appreciated that she spoke out about the connections between nuclear power and nuclear weapons, and now she has the example of Fukushima to continue her loud call for “no nukes.” When I got active in the peace movement, nuclear weapons and fear of nuclear war were pressing issues of the day. The arms race between […]