. .DISARMAMENT & SECURITY. .

A press advisory from Common Dreams (abridged)

. . . As the American presidential election enters its final stretch, Campaign Nonviolence seeks to forge a culture of peace and nonviolence during a year of mounting violence in America and abroad through a multitude of grassroots activism during the week of Sept. 18-26, marking International Peace Day on Sept. 21. More than 600 actions, events, marches and demonstrations in a diverse array of cities and towns are planned in each of the 50 states as well as more than a dozen foreign countries. Campaign Nonviolence began in 2014 with 230 events; 371 were staged last year. . .

For a current listing of what now number 583 actions—including states and cities, descriptions, organizations and contact information—visit:
http://www.paceebene.org/programs/campaign-nonviolence/campaign-nonviolence-week-of-actions/ (scroll to bottom of page)

Here are highlights from a sampling of events:

—Catholic priest Father Mike Pfleger will lead thousands on a Friday night march targeting the carnage from firearms in the Southside of Chicago, starting at the famous Saint Sabina Church. Many relatives of those shot dead in recent months will join the march. (3000 people have been shot in Chicago since January 1st of this year.)

—June Eisley, a retired person in Wilmington, Delaware, organized a Campaign Nonviolence march two years ago, which unexpectedly drew 1000 people and addressed all the issues of violence. Now she and her friends have organized 37 events in five Delaware cities—from art exhibits, marches and walkabouts to meditation sessions, health screenings and film presentations. (see: www.peaceweekdelaware.org). “We started as a march for a culture of peace and nonviolence,” she said, “and became a state-wide movement for a culture of peace and nonviolence.”

—Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill, North Carolina have declared a “week of nonviolence”—16 events thus far—to combat gun violence, racism, Islamophobia, poverty, environmental destruction and support for war. On Sept. 21, people of faith and conscience will come together for a 12-noon vigil in downtown Raleigh followed by a news conference to detail their week of events, including regional nonviolence trainings. They will put on a “Campaign Nonviolence Triangle Area Peace Festival” on Sept. 24 featuring an interfaith Walk for Peace to raise awareness about love, truth, peace and nonviolence for everyone in the Triangle area. Each of the cities has declared Sept. 18-24 “Campaign Nonviolence North Carolina Week.”

—Hundreds will gather on Sept. 23-25 at American University in Washington, D.C. for a sold out national conference entitled “World Beyond War” and featuring former U.S. Reps. Dennis Kucinich and Cynthia McKinney, film director Oliver Stone and Campaign Nonviolence organizer and co-founder Rev. John Dear. Participants will gather outside the Pentagon at 9 a.m. on Sept. 26 for a national anti-war protest, demanding that billions of dollars in military spending go instead to healthcare, jobs, education and food of the poor—not for more bombs and wars. (See: www.worldbeyondwar.org)

—The Utah Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons will host its third annual “Beat the Bomb!” picnic and rally on Sept. 23 in Salt Lake City’s Liberty Park, bringing together people from all parts of the community

(Article continued in right column)

The peace movement in the United States, What are its strengths and weaknesses?

(Article continued from left column)

—Residents will assemble in Boise, Idaho for a walk through town calling for an end to the death penalty in that state.

—In Coral Springs, Florida, young people will plant trees for peace and stage a silent peace walk calling for an end to war.

—Eureka, California will feature a candlelight vigil for peace and an end to racism, poverty and environmental degradation outside the Humboldt County Court House.

—Honolulu, Hawaii will hold an interfaith peace service featuring traditional Hawaiian music and prayers.

—Activists will walk through Los Angeles neighborhoods to campaign for the upcoming statewide vote on whether to abolish the death penalty.

—In Fremont, Michigan, people will march during a community harvest parade against war, poverty, racism, environmental destruction and all forms of violence, demanding a new culture and state of nonviolence.

—A weeklong effort in Wyckoff, New Jersey is being organized to welcome immigrants into the homes of neighbors for food and hospitality as a way to break down barriers and build a new inclusive culture of nonviolence.

—Taos, New Mexico will hold a daylong workshop and march for young people against climate change.

—People from Las Vegas, Nevada will gather in the desert at Creech Air Force Base, center for all U.S. drone warfare, to call for an end to drone bombings in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Syria, and to demand nonviolent methods for conflict resolution.

—San Antonio, Texas will host a lecture and discussion on gun violence by a leading authority.

—Fond du Lac, Wisconsin will hold a daylong workshop on racism, how to confront it and creating a more welcoming, just and equal society.

—Memphis, Tennessee will host an evening in conjunction with the Black Lives Matter movement featuring Rev. William Barber, head of the NAACP of North Carolina and a national voice for racial justice.

“People are sick and tired of poverty, racism, police brutality, mass incarceration, hand gun violence, drone warfare, perpetual war, corporate greed, nuclear weapons, executions and environmental destruction,” said Catholic priest Rev. John Dear, a key organizer of the Sept. 18-26 movement for nonviolence and a nationally known peace activist, author of 35 books and Nobel Peace Prize nominee. “People everywhere want new leadership in the tradition of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Cesar Chavez, with a new vision for a culture of nonviolence, where we can all live in peace with justice, and be a force of good in the world—not a force of greed, war and environmental destruction. Dr. King and Cesar Chavez upheld a national and global vision of nonviolence. This month, people are taking to the streets by the thousands to demand that vision comes true. They are telling us that they are going to keep marching until this country shifts beyond its current state as presented by the media and the political candidates, and toward something new—a true nonviolent democracy where everyone lives in justice and peace” . . .

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

An article by Leah Bolger, WILPF (Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom)

World Beyond War is planning a big event in Washington, D.C., to be held at American University, September 23-25, just after the International Day of Peace. The conference, “No War 2016: Real Security, Without Terrorism,” is being co-sponsored by WILPF US and will be addressed by International WILPF President Kozue Akibayashi.

The event will feature sessions on many topics, a few of which are:

Strategies to End War
Ending War and Patriarchy
Remaking the Mass Media for Peace
Capitalism and Transition to Peace Economy
The Racism of War
Abolishing Nuclear Weapons
Changing War Culture to Peace Culture

The peace movement in the United States, What are its strengths and weaknesses?

(continued from left column)

In addition to Dr. Akibayashi, some of the featured speakers include:

Odile Hugonot Haber
Dennis Kucinich
Kathy Kelly
Alice Slater
David Swanson
David Hartsough
Medea Benjamin
Bill Fletcher Jr.
Peter Kuznick

Please watch the video of 1976 Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire encouraging people to join World Beyond War and to attend the conference. . .

The price for registration is on a sliding scale, starting at $25 (for students and those on low income). Registration includes meals and a copy of the second edition of the World Beyond War publication, “A Global Security System: An Alternative to War.” To register and for more information about the conference, including the agenda, a complete list of the sessions, speakers, and more, please go to the World Beyond War website and/or contact Leah Bolger, at leahbolger@comcast.net or 541-207-7761.

.DISARMAMENT & SECURITY.
 
from Joseph Gerson, American Friends Service Committee
 
     I am writing to urge you to see and to promote the new film, “Command and Control” which will be released across the country in the coming weeks. The 90-minute documentary thriller focuses on the 1980 nuclear armed Titan II missile accident in Damascus, Arkansas, which threatened death and destruction across much of the Midwest.  With references to other nuclear weapons accidents, the film provides a wakeup call to the little discussed mortal dangers that U.S. nuclear accidents pose to the U.S. (and other) people.

film trailer

 The film was co-produced and co-written by Eric Schlosser, author of the book Command and Control and Robert Kenner, who has two Academy Award nominations and two Emmys under his belt. 

     Watching the film, I was reminded of Schlosser’s testimonies at the Nayarit and Vienna International Conferences on the Humanitarian Consequences of Nuclear Weapons, which left me and others profoundly shaken.  I also found myself thinking that one of the best things a number of us may have done, lo these many years ago, may have been our roles in preventing Boston, New York and San Francisco harbors from being transformed into nuclear weapons bases.

       While the promotional material that follows here has been developed for a mass audience, I found the interviews with those responsible for the 1980 accident  and those who sacrificed their lives in the futile effort to prevent it uterrly compelling. And, if nothing else in the film sobers you, the Pauline conversions of former Sandia Lab officials, and former Secretary of Defense Brown’s testimony that “accidents were not unusual in the defense department…there must have been several every day” certainly will. Not that Brown was terribly concerned!

   A schedule of the film showings and the press kit material with url links follows below, and the film is slated to be shown on PBS, though we don’t have those dates yet.

(continued in right column)

Can we abolish all nuclear weapons?

(continued from left column)

     In addition to encouraging people to see the film, ticket lines will be great places for leafletting. And, when the film is shown on PBS, we can organize house parties to views and discuss the film and to launch activities, from pressing to end spending for the new generation of nuclear weapons and their delivery systems, to getting signatures on the Hibakusha petition, and planning steps to win Don’t Bank on the Bomb resolutions.

   One final note:  The film does not explicitly advocate nuclear weapons abolition. That said, given Schlosser’s closing remarks that every machine that has ever been made breaks down, working for abolition is the logical conclusion that almost everyone should take from the film.

     See the film, and remember Joe Hill’s final words: “Don’t mourn. Organize!”
 
Press Kit:

Photos, synopsis and trailer are available for download here. 

Screenings:

Find an updates list of theatrical, festival and impact screenings here. 
Cities include: New York, D.C., Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Boston, San Francisco, Philadelphia, San Diego

 
Synopsis:

A chilling nightmare plays out at a Titan II missile complex in Arkansas in September, 1980. A worker accidentally drops a socket, puncturing the fuel tank of an intercontinental ballistic missile carrying the most powerful nuclear warhead in our arsenal, an incident which ignites a series of feverish efforts to avoid a deadly disaster. Directed by Robert Kenner (FOOD, INC.) and based on the critically acclaimed book by Eric Schlosser (FAST FOOD NATION), COMMAND AND CONTROL is a minute-by-minute account of this long-hidden story. Putting a camera where there was no camera that night, Kenner brings this nonfiction thriller to life with stunning original footage shot in a decommissioned Titan II missile silo. Eyewitness accounts — from the man who dropped the socket, to the man who designed the warhead, to the Secretary of Defense— chronicle nine hours of terror that prevented an explosion 600 times more powerful than Hiroshima.
 

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

An article and video from Democracy Now

Peace activist Kathy Kelly is about to begin a three-month prison sentence for protesting the U.S. drone war at a military base in Missouri earlier this year. Kelly, along with another activist, was arrested after offering bread and an indictment against drone warfare. Kelly is the co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence, a campaign to end U.S. military and economic warfare.

Video of interview with Kathy Kelly

TRANSCRIPT – This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: Kathy Kelly, in addition to U.S. troops staying, 11,000 troops staying, and participating not only in Operation Resolute Support, but fighting themselves directly, they’ll be supported by bombers, drones. You participated in a drone strike, and you’re headed home to Chicago, then to prison. Talk about this drone strike and why you chose to get arrested.

KATHY KELLY: Well, I think it’s a good time to be very uncompromising with regard to the United States’ wars. These wars are murderous. The wars are killing civilians, as has been happening in the United States’ wars since World War II. Now 90 percent of the people killed in wars are civilians. And this is true certainly with the drone strikes. The Reprieve organization has said that for every one person who is selected as a target for assassination, 28 civilians are killed. And even just three nights ago, there was another targeted assassination in which they hit two homes in the Logar province, and six people were wounded, four people were killed, all of them civilians.

And so, I crossed a line at Whiteman Air Force Base. A squadron operates weaponized drones over Afghanistan. Afghanistan has been an epicenter of drone warfare. And a good symbol for people in Afghanistan is breaking bread. I carried a loaf of bread and a letter, wanting to talk to the commandant. We thought it was important to know how many people were killed by Whiteman Air Force Base on that day.

AMY GOODMAN: Where is Whiteman?

KATHY KELLY: That’s in Knob Noster, Missouri.

AMY GOODMAN: And what’s its relationship with Afghanistan?

(Article continued in right column)

Drones (unmanned bombers), Should they be outlawed?

(Article continued from left column)

KATHY KELLY: Well, the weaponized drones are flown—once they’re airborne, they’re operated entirely by people in United States Air National Guard bases and air bases. And so, Whiteman Air Force Base won’t disclose, neither will the CIA disclose, information about the results of these killings, but this is what people in the United States need to know. We have a First Amendment right to seek redress of grievance. And having been in Afghanistan, living with young people who are too frightened to go back to visit their own relatives, who see for themselves a future that could be a prolonged, exacerbated warfare, there is a grievance, and we wanted to bring that to the commandant at that particular base.

AMY GOODMAN: I said you participated in a strike; I meant to say in a drone protest. So, exactly what was the action you engaged in?

KATHY KELLY: Well, I think I stepped one or two steps over a line. And—

AMY GOODMAN: Holding a loaf of bread and an indictment?

KATHY KELLY: And so the military prosecutor said, “Your Honor, Ms. Kelly is in grave need, great need, of rehabilitation.” But I think it’s a—this is an important time to connect these oppressive issues. You know, while we’re spending $1 trillion on warfare in Afghanistan and looking at another $120 billion that will be spent—the Pentagon wants $57 billion for this year alone—we’re squandering needed resources. We’re undermining the possibility of solving extremely serious problems that we’re moving into.

AMY GOODMAN: How long will you be going to prison for?

KATHY KELLY: Three months.

AMY GOODMAN: Where?

KATHY KELLY: Well, I don’t know yet. The Bureau of Prisons will tell me where I’m to be put, probably at the end of January.

AMY GOODMAN: How many times have you gone to prison for protesting war?

KATHY KELLY: Well, this will be my third time in a federal—well, no, fourth time in a federal prison. And I’ve been jailed in various county jails and other kinds of lockups more times than I can count.

AMY GOODMAN: Kathy Kelly, I want to thank you very much for being with us—

KATHY KELLY: Thank you, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: —co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence, a campaign to end U.S. military and economic warfare, just returned from Kabul, Afghanistan. We’ll link your recent piece, “Obama Extends War in Afghanistan: The implications for U.S. democracy aren’t reassuring.” And, Matt Aikins, please stay with us. I want to talk about your latest piece looking at Afghanistan; the piece is “Afghanistan: The Making of a Narco State.” Stay with us.