Quotable Quote
"I state clearly and with conviction
America's commitment to seek the peace and
security of a world without nuclear
weapons ... we must ignore the voices who tell
us that the world cannot change. We have to
insist, 'Yes, we can."
- Barack Hussein Obama
Prague, April 2009
A Good Movie
"Charlie Wilson's War," starring Tom Hanks.
This movie about our proxy war against the
Russians in Afghanistan brings home the truth
that if we take our eye off of the goal, if
our vision is shortsighted and focused only
on winning wars, we "blow the endgame."
A Future Without War
Believe in it.
Envision it.
Work for it.
And we will achieve it.
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A HEADS UP
Nuclear weapons and war
Do you lead or belong to a group that could
benefit by the elimination of war (well, yes,
that does
include just about everyone except the
munitions industry, doesn't it)?
If so, AFWW urges you to encourage your
group, and you personally, to find a way to
energetically support President Obama's
efforts to pursue nuclear disarmament.
Getting rid of nukes is a key way-station in
the campaign to abolish war itself, and
nuclear disarmament is the theme of this
newsletter.
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"Give me a lever long
enough and a fulcrum on which to place it,
and I shall move the world."
Archimedes of
Syracuse 287-212 BCE
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The lever to transform our cultures is
the united, focused action by
millions of
determined and enlightened men and women who
believe we humans can do better--who believe
that we can certainly create nonviolent, just
societies.
Our fulcrums are those well-chosen
causes upon which we focus our shared
determination to achieve change. Without
common focus, the governing world system will
benefit from the old principle of divide and
conquer. Divided and going in a thousand
different directions is, in fact, generally
the state, as of 2009, of the transformation
movement around the globe. To be maximally
effective, we need to be united behind
carefully chosen key causes. This is one of
them.
Landmines. Cluster munitions. Nuclear
weapons. These are three important fulcrums
in our campaign to ultimately bring and end
to war itself. They are battlegrounds.
They are war activities on which we focus our
efforts! And those who engage nonviolently in
direct struggles to eliminate the weapons of
war are peace warriors.
Now IS the time for us to apply
maximum force to support the Obama effort to
eliminate nuclear arsenals and nuclear
weapons development!
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Key Pathways
Two key pathways to the abolition of
war
AFWW argues that two main strategies offer
the potential to radically transform our
dominator cultures, including the building of
a future lacking the extraordinary insanity
of war: Global Parity Government and
Nonviolent Civil Disobedience.
Strategy 1: GLOBAL PARITY
GOVERNMENT.
By that is meant achieving genuine
partnership between women and men in
decision-making at all levels: in our homes,
our communities, and our secular and
religious organizations. Reaching roughly
50/50 male to female participation in
everything: e.g., in city government, the
U.S. Supreme Court, all state and federal
governments worldwide, the International
Criminal Court, the United Nations, the IMF
and World Bank.
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German
and Rwandan Parliamentarians and NGO
Leaders |
Women are the natural allies of peace: they
are biologically more inclined than are men
to negotiate and to seek compromise. Nature
has adapted women as a group in ways that men
as a group have not been adapted, endowing
women with built-in preferences to behave so
as to foster social stability and avoid
physical fighting (See Biological
Differences). When we achieve the global
empowerment women as full partners with men
in deciding how to run our lives, it is quite
possible, although not guaranteed, that war
will wither and die a well-deserved death.
Strategy 2: NONVIOLENT CIVIL
DISOBEDIENCE. This is most probably
essential, a necessary requirement to get the
attention of all current dominator systems
and apply sufficient "soul force/people
power" to effect deep transformation, as
opposed to superficial and transitory change.
To be sure, empowering women is the key
catalyst to speed up transformation and then
ensure its persistence. Based on the
historical record so far, however, AFWW takes
the view that dominator systems of all forms
(communist, socialist, capitalist,
dictatorship, kingdom, etc.) are so deeply
entrenched--that is, their use of violence to
dominate their subjects and expand their
influence, the money to be made by the
elites, and the jobs provided for the
subjects is such a long-practiced bad
habit--that most likely these systems can not
be transformed by good works alone ("Good
works are necessary, but not sufficient. See
the AFWW
cornerstones for examples). It's possible
that not even empowering women in parity
governing will guarantee success.
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Inside
the lobby of U.S. Bancorp Center (above), a
group of 17 linked arms and sat down in an
act of non-violent civil
disobedience. |
History demonstrates that every dominator
system we've lived under co-opted, destroyed,
perverted, or absorbed all manner of
well-intentioned efforts without making any
fundamental or lasting change from domination
and violence. The fate of the early
Christians is perhaps the best-known example.
More recently, the United Nations serves as
testament to how best intentions, in this
case to end war, are co-opted.
Ultimately, as difficult and unpleasant as it
may be, to achieve radical social
transformation to an unswerving embrace of
the rule of law and humanitarian values will
likely require us to confront war-fostering
"aspects" of our societies, and then
eliminate them, one-by-one. Each "aspect" is
a battleground.
We are forging ahead. For example, Nobel
Peace Prize Laureate Jodi Williams and
the organization she works with, the
International Campaign to Ban Land
Mines, staked out and are winning on one
battleground, viz. the manufacture and use of
land mines. Learn
more about Jody Williams.
Getting an international treaty banning
antipersonnel landmines is a giant step in
this ending-war campaign. It could be
considered battleground #1. President Obama
should see that the U.S. signs on.
A second battleground involves the
manufacture and use of cluster bombs, those
nasty little shiny things armies scatter over
battlefields or just across open land that
children later pick up, thinking they are
perhaps a toy or something new and
interesting ... and in the process have their
hands or arms blown off. The Cluster
Munitions Coalition is composed of
roughly 300 organizations globally that work
to promote the universal adherence to the
Convention on Cluster Munitions. For more
info visit StopClusterMunitions.com.
Again, the U.S. needs to get on board.
For AFWW, the THIRD BATTLEGROUND, and the
theme of this newsletter, is a campaign to
end the development, manufacture,
stockpiling, and God forbid, the deployment
of NUCLEAR WEAPONS.
With encouragement coming from the new Obama
administration, it looks like the time to
engage in this battle with all the force we
can muster has arrived.
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Examples of Peace Warriors
Movers and Shakers in the Anti-Nuclear
Weapons Battleground
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Obama on Nukes
 U.S. President Speaks About Nuclear
Arsenals
On 5 April, 2009, the isolated nation of North
Korea launched a "test rocket" that had the
world concerned that North Korea might
eventually sell nuclear weapons technology
or a delivery system to unstable, bellicose
parties or nations that might use them, or
threaten to use them as blackmail.
That same day in Prague, the US president
pledged to ratify the nuclear test ban
treaty, something the United States to date
has refused to do, and to convene a global
summit for eventual elimination of nuclear
stockpiles. Speaking to a crowd estimated to
be over 20 thousand, President Obama said
"the US will take concrete steps toward a
world without nuclear weapons."
Many people of good will have protested
these abominations from the day they were
first used. Now, 64 years after the bombing
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a powerful leader
on the global stage has risen who offers
profound hope.
The President conceded that this will be a
difficult process, and it will take much
time, but AFWW is persuaded that change could
come astonishingly swiftly if all people and
organizations with a vision for a better
future energetically support the US President
with all the means at their command:
financial, political, and finally if "the
system" refuses to cooperate and see reason,
by using nonviolent civil disobedience.
To further the goal of a nuclear-free
future, Ian Traynor of the UK Guardian
reports that the President laid out several
significant policy changes:
- The US will downgrade the role ascribed
to nuclear weapons in the US's national
security doctrines.
- He will press the US Senate
"immediately and aggressively" to ratify the
comprehensive test ban treaty. "It is time
for the testing of nuclear weapons to be
banned."
- The US will strengthen the 1968 nuclear
non-proliferation treaty, the bedrock of
global efforts to prevent the spread of
nuclear weapons.
- Washington will host a global summit on
nuclear security within a year.
- He called for a new global ban on the
production of weapons-grade fissile
materials.
- He called for the establishment of an
international "fuel bank" that would supply
and monitor enriched uranium for civil
nuclear power generation and seek to avoid
the risk of "rogue states" diverting material
from peaceful to weapons programmes.
- The US will launch a new arms control
process with Russia and will reach agreement
on a new strategic arms reduction treaty
(Start), cutting warheads by around one third
by the end of this year.
- He called for a new international
effort to secure "loose nukes" and
"vulnerable nuclear material" within four
years.
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Eliminating Nukes
Members of Global Zero--World Leaders from
the Right and Left--Take Up the Cause of
Eliminating Nukes
It's almost as though an alignment of the
stars is favoring this cause. Powerful and
knowledgeable leaders from all sides of the
political spectrum have recently arrived at
the conclusion that the existence of nuclear
weapons, and the technology to make and
deliver them, constitutes an extraordinary
danger to humanity, their use as an actual
weapon is insane and profoundly immoral, and
the expense of maintaining virtually useless
massive arsenals is no longer justified ... is in
fact an unacceptable hazard.
Global Zero signatories include
extraordinarily high profile leaders. A Short
list would include: Muhammad Yunus,
Anthony Zinni, Lawrence Bender, Sandy Berger,
Lakhdar Brahimi, Richard Branson, Gro Harlem
Brundtland, Chuck Hagel, Zbigniew Brzesinski,
Richard Butler, Frank Carlucci, Jimmy Carter,
Joseph Cirincione, Evgeny Velikhov, Lawrence
Eagleburger, Mikhail Gorbachev, Lee Hamilton,
Robert McFarlane, Queen Noor, Mary Robinson,
Toshiyuki Takano and Jeffrey
Skoll.
The names of other signatories and
information about Global Zero's goals can be
found on their website.
The website "Crooks
and Liars" has a helpful review of the
organization, its goals and its members.
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Calls For a Nuclear-Free World
Schultz, Perry, Kissinger and Nunn call
for a Nuclear-Free World
An article by George P. Shultz, William J.
Perry, Henry A. Kissinger, and Sam Nunn, all
world-savvy leaders, was, entitled "Toward a
Nuclear-free World." Published in the Wall
Street Journal (Jan 15 2008), it has set the
tone for the need to rid ourselves of this
danger. Read the article online to see the
reasons these men give for why the time has
come to de-nuke the global community.
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Pressure through Ploughshares
Joseph Cirincione, the President of
Ploughshears Fund, is a Signatory with Global
Zero - Founded in 1981, the Time for
Ploughshears Fund to Exert Maximum Pressure
Has Arrived
Ploughshares Fund is the largest
grantmaking foundation in the U.S. dedicated
exclusively to security and peace funding.
They have worked to identify and support the
smartest people with the best ideas for
preventing the spread and use of nuclear
weapons and building stability in regions
where nuclear weapons may be factors.
Sally Lilienthal, an artist and a
lifelong activist for human and civil rights,
founded Ploughshares in her San Francisco
living room in 1981, in the belief that the
threat of nuclear war overshadowed everything
else. She told an interviewer in 1996, "I
thought that if a lot of people felt the same
way I did but didn't know what to do about
it, we might get together and search for new
ways to get rid of the nuclear weapons that
were threatening us all." She worked actively
as Ploughshares Fund's president until her
death in 2006 at the age of 87.
The Fund was structured to respond and
adapt to emerging threats to global security,
and indeed, has been at the forefront of
supporting innovative responses to unforeseen
challenges.
You or your group might want to infuse the
fund with fresh money, the life-blood of any
grant-making agency-a tithe of sorts. AFWW
does not solicit funds for any organization,
but you might want to check out the 5 reasons
they list for why supporting the fund at this
time can help accelerate anti-nuclear
projects
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WAND
WAND Changed Their Name, but They are
Still Anti-Nuke
Another organization founded in the early
1980's was WAND: Women's Action for Nuclear
Disarmament. With the end of the cold war,
the group became Women's Action for New
Directions. They now dedicate their energies
to redirect US federal budget priorities away
from the military and toward human needs.
They put a heavy emphasis in getting women
into government as a means to influence
budget priorities toward more projects that
ensure human security rather than simply
provide jobs.
A search at their website will find
articles, books and references on the costs
of producing and maintaining nuclear
stockpiles and other weapons of mass
destruction and suggestions for how US
military budgeting priorities can be shifted
from reliance for our security on them.
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Win $10,000!
Wanted: Your Ideas on
Nonproliferation
The James Martin Center for
Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) at the
Monterey Institute of International Studies
strives to combat the spread of nuclear,
chemical, and biological weapons to state and
non-state actors by training the next
generation of nonproliferation specialists
and disseminating timely information based on
cutting-edge research and analysis.
To spur new thinking, CNS and its journal,
the Nonproliferation Review, sponsors an
essay contest to identify and publish
outstanding new scholarly papers and reports
in the nonproliferation field. The deadline
for submission in 2009 is on or before 15
May. The grand prize for a 10,000 word or
less essay is $10,000.00 A thousand
dollars/word!
This contest is open to persons
worldwide, except for current faculty, staff,
interns, and students of the Monterey
Institute of International Studies, past
winners of this contest, and anyone involved
in reviewing or judging submissions. There is
also a $1,000 prize for the best student
essay. To be eligible for the student prize,
an entrant must be enrolled at a college or
university at the time of submission. A team
of authors comprising one or more students
and non-students is not eligible for the
student prize.
* Students are eligible for the grand
prize.
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A Thousand Points of Light
... And You are One of Them
We're not starting from ground zero! We've
been preparing for this push for many years.
There are many anti-nuclear organizations.
You can find links to some of them on
Wikipedia.
Or do your own web search. But
find a way to be a part of winning this struggle.
At the very minimum, call your political
representatives and tell them you want them
to support this moral, humane, and smart
movement until the goal is achieved-call them
and register your views even if you know that
at this moment they would disagree. They
absolutely pay attention and keep a record of
how many of their constituents feel strongly
about what issues.
US
Senators
US
Congressmembers
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Yes We Can
"I state clearly and with conviction
America's commitment to seek the peace and
security of a world without nuclear weapons.
I'm not naive. This goal will not be reached
quickly -- perhaps not in my lifetime. It
will take patience and persistence. But now
we, too, must ignore the voices who tell us
that the world cannot change. We have to
insist, 'Yes, we can.'"
Barack Hussein Obama
Prague, April 2009
NOW IS THE TIME!
IF WE UNITE, WE CAN PROVE PRESIDENT OBAMA
UNDUELY PESSIMISTIC WHEN HE SAID THAT WE
COULD NOT RID OF THE WORLD OF NUKES IN HIS
LIFETIME
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