May 1st Nuclear Disarmament Actions and Mayors for Peace in New York City

author : Holly Gwinn Graham topic : may day | nuclear weapons

by Holly GG

One of the things I do that gets me out of town and into the middle of intelligent action is to sing for the GNAWNP. Don't try to say it. Just understand that it is a group working very hard internationally to keep the US from arming space in the interests of ruling the world.

Like me, you may applaud this, since the US is proving to be terribly bad at ruling its fledgling empire on the planet, let alone the one it wants to rule from space.

"Luke," breathes Darth Vader, "I'm your president." Join me in the sob of denial. Here's my report on what I've been doing while you were all sitting here. (Activist note: only kidding.)

The Global Network against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, established by Bruce Gagnon and others in Florida in 1998 to curtail NASA's plutonium-powered space launches like the Cassini probe to Saturn, met in NYC over the last two days of April. Bruce will be here on the opening night panel August 3rd for the Beyond Hiroshima week of activities planned for our community.

People from all over the world joined us in New York City to demand international nuclear disarmament to kick off international Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and Disarmament talks at the United Nations at the start of May.

More than 100 Mayors for Peace from across America and Japan joined the call for an end to the development and deployment of nuclear weapons. Olympia's own Mark Foutch is a mayor for peace. Because he could not get to NYC, he sent City Councilor TJ Johnson, who marched proudly at the head of the parade with the other mayors.

A serious obstacle to global disarmament is US determination to move the arms race into space. The US drive for "full spectrum dominance" is forcing other nations to believe they must maintain their existing nuclear forces or develop new nuclear arsenals as a deterrent. Bush has taken nuclear disarmament off the foreign policy agenda, yet he lectures the rest of the world about the evils of weapons of mass destruction.

Joining the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom and Abolition 2000, the Global Network affirms space as an environment of peace for all nations, and empowers activism in this vein. Space for Peace is a bumper sticker you may have noticed on the back of my antique and opinionated Subaru.

Our international conference featured a keynote address by GN co-founder Dr. Michio Kaku, string field theorist, physicist, CUNY professor, radio show host and anti-Star Wars activist. A protege of the late nuclear proponent Dr. Edward Teller, who influenced Ronald Reagan's conception of a blanket missile defense shield now called Star Wars, Kaku quit working for military nuclear space programs once he realized the threat to life on earth. Vowing never to work on Star Wars and TMD technology, his petition to this end has been signed by 10,000 of the world's other top scientists. He likes to joke that this proves third-rate scientists are developing Star Wars and TMD, since multiple-mode failures occur "all the time" according to Donald Rumsfeld. So, unfortunately, the joke is true.

Nevertheless, in present government hierarchy, bad science and crummy behavior often leads to promotion in administrative bureaucracy (much like the North Thurston School District), and Kaku predicts taxpayers will be fleeced for one trillion dollars before we stop the program, which we must.

TMD, a pork-barrel technology thinly masking the real ambition of the US to rule the earth from space, has legs in Alaska, Florida, Australia, Greenland, Germany, the UK and South America. New nuclear missile silos and spy bases are being installed quietly or exist already in all of these locations, often without the permission or knowledge of citizens. Despite the fact that TMD tests fail 50% of the time and test results are faked, billions of dollars are pouring into this attempt to weaponize the global commons of space. US invasions and military movements are currently coordinated using space-based technology.

Kaku says conservatives call the movement for US space domination "the New Rome". But he reminds us, Rome's failed empire, like others throughout history, had three stages:

(1)Young Rome -- a vibrant economy, excellent transportation routes, healthy trade.

(2)Imperial Rome - battles for dominance, power and spoils of conquest.

(3)Fallen Empire -- a military so big it deploys systems that don't work, that devour the economy and overreach any ability to effectively govern.

It would appear that the US is entering stage three. It couldn't happen to a nicer country, eh?

NASA, once a peaceful space exploration body, has joined forces with the military. Now, every NASA launch has a military component. Using plutonium to power these launches, the next one is called Project Prometheus. Aimed at exploring the one moon of Jupiter that could support life as we know it, it would, in its present stage, also poison and influence incipient life by landing its little plutonium probe in one of Europa's life-possible seas. Hmmm. Remember, Prometheus ended up chained to a rock having his liver eaten by a vulture over and over again. This is a cute analogy for the space debris that we could imprison ourselves with here on earth should all these nuclear satellites explode and become junk in orbit.

(Do you suppose something like that ever happened here when our earth was young and in the dating market? Could that be why we have specimens like Bush, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft and Kindasleezie Rice here along with the few Homo Sapiens remaining? As for me, I am searching for the Sapiens among the Homo Erectus! If you meet any, let me know.)

Dr. Kaku reminded us that Nixon's secret plan to use nuclear bombs in Vietnam in 1969 was foiled by two demonstrations in which a half-million people marched in opposition to the war. Seeing this, Nixon cancelled his insane plan. Kaku ended, "The will of the people will prevail today." I am hopeful, too, but often against my better judgement.

Colleagues working internationally to end Theatre Missile

Defense and Star Wars programs then reported on current situations where this activity by the US is creating a new arms race and destabilizing efforts for peace in the world. Everyone agreed that we could defeat this monster. Canada has said NO to supporting TMD, only after grassroots organizing that told the Prime Minister the will of the people. So hey, what are we waiting for?

Us! Get busy.

On May 1st, the GN crowd marched from the United Nations to Central Park, joining an estimated 25,000 activists and leaders from Japan, Germany, Sweden, Norway, China, Russia, South America, Africa, Australia, the UK, the US including Alaska, and more than 100 Mayors for Peace from across our country.

The message to world leaders was clear...end the nuclear nightmare, disarm the bombs, end the occupations of Iraq and Palestine, and say "never again" to the threat of nuclear annihilation.

Since my job for the GN is to sing and provide comic relief, I usually write something new for the occasion about the issues. This year, I was also included as a performer for the May 1st rally in Central Park which proclaimed "No Nukes! No Wars!" sponsored by Abolition 2000 and United for Peace and Justice.

For this event, I wrote a call-and-response song that was sung back to me in full voice by thousands gathered to hear the speakers and performers onstage. It was beautiful. I was proud to be included on the platform with the likes of the Mayors of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Hibakusha survivors of the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Dr. Helen Caldicott, Bruce Gagnon, the Mayors for Peace, and many others whose hearts and intellects are in the right place at the right time.

Speaking of time, folks, it's short. We need to step up the demand for nuclear disarmament, which starts at home, and we need to educate ourselves about the need to keep weapons out of space. Militarizing space has already happened. All our little sorties against countries that can't defend themselves are devised and run from satellites. But the ARMING of space has not yet occurred, and that's what we need to avoid. It's an idea being masked by the term Theatre Missile Defense (remember The Gipper?) and it's a bad idea. Raiding Social Security funds is only one way the present team of incredibly bad administrators has found to get its way.

The military has a cute little room at NASA Space Center in Huntsville, Alabama (home of the big buffets) that is guarded 24-7 by different dupes from the armed forces. What's in the room? A charming display of weapons to be deployed in space to keep us 'safe' from the "have-nots" of the globe, that's what! And what are these weapons?

They are armed surveillance satellites, nuclear-powered laser beams, nifty weapons aimed at the earth designed to curtail any resistance to our plans to run the earth, including any interference from friendly nations. Do you think Europe is exempt? Wrong! And Russia, North Korea, and the new up-and-coming-enemy China? Yep, they're worried too. In fact, this is becoming a new arms race, just what George Bush and the neo-cons want, to bring on Armageddon.

Yes, folks, it's us against the rest of the world. That's what this is about. We are the "haves" and they are the "have-nots" and shut up about it, God wants it this way according to our fearless but faithless leader and his cohort of right wing wrong-headed evangelists. Jesus wouldn't recognize these creeps, but Mohammed would not recognize the fundamentalist Taliban, either, so we're even.

But we have the most weapons of mass destruction! We have a huge fleet of Trident submarines with the capacity to take out hundreds of thousands of people targeted by nuclear missiles...and these subs are right next door in Bangor, WA. So if you're not familiar with Ground Zero Resist Trident, it's time to get acquainted, and if you think the cold war with Russia is over, it's not.

According to my friend and colleague Dr Helen Caldicott, Russia never removed target sites in the US when Communism failed. And we never removed our targets either...so both countries are on hair-trigger alert for nuclear annihilation any time, detante or no. Alarming? Yes. Hideously wrong? Of course! Time for nuclear disarmament and saying no to a president that can't pronounce nuclear as he decrees a buildup of our nuclear stockpile and the creation of smaller and "better' nukes like the bunker buster? Yes! Resoundingly yes!

Remember...no proliferation without pronunciation!

Yet there are loonies among us who want more...more nu-que-ler weapons, more nu-que-ler possibilities to bring on the end of the world and hasten The Rapture. Well, my motto for that is "In event of The Rapture, leave your car keys under the seat. Go! Don't write, don't phone, and please, don't come back! We have enough on our hands, dealing with the hell you fundamentalists left behind! Just GO!"

Please add to your calendar your very own call to action here in

Olympia...August 3rd thru the 9th for Beyond Hiroshima week. Kickoff is August 3rd, with a panel featuring Bruce Gagnon among others, followed by a wide variety of events including a poster exhibit about 60 years of the nuclear threat, a street concert, children's events, movies and more. See www.beyondhiroshima.org for details.

Friends, what we're saying here is enough is enough! Nuclear weapons are a crime against the earth, humanity, and life to come. This includes nuclear stockpiles, 'depleted' uranium-coated missiles, and artillery shells. There's no such thing as depleted uranium anyway...it has a half-life of 4.5 billion years! It's done its damage on the genepool to everyone unlucky enough to be in Iraq, Kosovo, and Afghanistan. Radiation poisoning from DU has irrevocably damaged every Gulf War vet, their families, and the hapless nations we've attacked with our tax dollars and 'limited' nuclear weapons.

It's time to add your voice to the millions of world citizens who are done with supporting this kind of insanity.

As thousands of us said in New York City on May 1st...Fulfill the dream! An end to war! It's not a hopeless dream. It's the only one left. It's the only way we can survive.

We are the ones we have been waiting for.