We invite you to mark the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with Tri-Valley CAREs and other peace and justice groups that are part of the Livermore Conversion Project. We will provide updates on Livermore Lab and rededicate ourselves to the global abolition of nuclear weapons.
The link is https://enlightenedfilms.com/august-rally/
40 years ago the largest peace demonstration in U.S. history took place in New York City, where one million people rallied in Central Park to demand the elimination of nuclear weapons. That same year, thousands of people surrounded the Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab here in the Bay Area. More than 1,500 were arrested nonviolently blockading the roads and gates leading to the Lab, saying NO to nuclear weapons, at one of the two locations where every U.S. nuclear warhead has been designed. During the 1980s fear of nuclear war was on most everyone’s mind.
Then, when the Cold War appeared to end, many people breathed a sigh of relief, believing that the danger of nuclear war had vanished. But the U.S. nuclear weapons juggernaut rolled on, substantially unchanged, and the Livermore Lab continues to develop new and modified nuclear warheads to this day. We have continued the tradition of protest at the Lab, organizing rallies and nonviolent direct actions each year around the August 6 and 9 anniversaries of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
Now, with Russia’s illegal war of aggression on Ukraine, which could eventually draw the militaries of the U.S., its NATO allies and Russia into direct conflict, and Russia’s repeated threats to use nuclear weapons, the specter of nuclear war has risen to the highest level since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Nuclear weapons are back on the public radar. Let us, together, act in this historical moment to mobilize for the abolition of all such weapons.
Tri-Valley CAREs is a partner group in the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, or ICAN. And, while we celebrate with ICAN and peace advocates everywhere the growing momentum of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and the first meeting in Vienna last month of states parties to the treaty, we can’t be complacent. We know it will take continued action by all of us to make nuclear abolition a universal reality!
In this spirit, mark your calendar now to join our 2022 rally. Our theme this year is “Making the Unthinkable Impossible: Abolish Nuclear Weapons!” For the third time, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this year’s Livermore rally will be virtual. The rally will be broadcast Saturday, August 6, and Tuesday, August 9, from 9:00 am – 10:30 am pacific time. It will also be archived.
Again, the link is https://enlightenedfilms.com/august-rally/
The program will feature Pentagon planner and whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, Nagasaki A-bomb survivor Nobu Hanaoka, Russian peace and democracy activist Natalia Mironova, international anti-nuclear power activist, Marie Inoue, and our own Livermore Lab watchdog Marylia Kelley. Music will be provided by Emma’s Revolution and Benjamin Mertz.
