Contacts:
Marylia Kelley, Tri-Valley CAREs, Livermore; cell, 925.255.3589, [email protected]
Jackie Cabasso, Western States Legal Foundation; cell 510-306-0119, [email protected]
Grace Morizawa, [email protected]
WHAT: From Hiroshima to a Healthy Tomorrow: Embracing Our Common Humanity—Annual protest and rally held at the gates of Livermore Laboratory, this year broadcast virtually. There will be taped presentations, up-to-the-minute reports at the gates of the Livermore nuclear weapons lab, music, and more!
WHEN: Hiroshima Day, Thursday, August 6 from 8 am to 9:30 am Pacific Time.
WHERE: The Livermore rally program will kick off two days of nationally broadcast, virtual programming on this historic 75th anniversary of the atomic bombing. To view the Livermore rally on the national broadcast directly, media and the public alike can access it using this link on August 6: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_8qpE8RPJo
NOTE: The Livermore rally is part of an unprecedented national broadcast. Running on August 6 and 9, national coverage is organized by more than 160 organizations working together through the Hiroshima Nagasaki 75 collaboration. The organizers of the Livermore rally are part of this coalition. Find out more at: www.HiroshimaNagasaki75.org
WHO: Our Livermore rally speakers include noted historian and author Gar Alperovitz, Pentagon planner and whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, and Nagasaki A-bomb survivor Rev. Nobuaki Hanaoka and Marylia Kelley, Tri-Valley CAREs (Photos and short bios for all speakers and musicians follow the text of this release.)
WHY: On the Historic 75th Anniversary of the U.S. Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we are joining the survivors to abolish nuclear weapons.
We live in a time of growing nuclear peril. This year the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ iconic Doomsday Clock, designed in 1947 to show the risk of existential nuclear danger, was moved to 100 seconds to midnight. This is the closest to annihilation that it has ever been set.
Moreover, less than a month ago, on the anniversary of the Trinity Nuclear Test, President Trump declared, “In order to continue protecting America’s vital security interests, I have directed my Administration to revitalize and modernize America’s nuclear security complex… We are investing in the capability to produce plutonium pits to support our stockpile needs and to improve the infrastructure of the weapons ecosystem.”
This is the latest proclamation of Trump administration policies that are pouring gasoline on the flames of a new global arms race. Funding for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s weapons programs in the President’s fiscal 2021 budget is 20% higher than last year and more than 50% higher than the annual funding level when Trump took office. Other nuclear-armed states are following suit. Recently, too, major media outlets have reported that the White House is considering a return to nuclear testing, which ceased in 1992.
Livermore Lab is central to the escalating the nuclear dangers we face. Eighty-eight percent of the funds for Livermore Lab in the coming year are slated for nuclear weapons activities. Less than two percent of the budget is allocated for civilian science.
Rally speakers will illuminate these connections to help the public understand why action is needed now to change the course of national policy. Rally participants will pledge their actions on this historic anniversary to the Hibakusha (survivors) and say with them “never again.”
In the midst of the pandemic and the struggle for racial equity, we must not overlook this historic 75th anniversary. Our rally speakers will cut through the historical and current propaganda that surrounds the bomb, state its dangers, discuss the prospects for a more just and peaceful future, and make a stand for global nuclear disarmament.
The Berkeley City Council joins us. On July 28, 2020, the City Council unanimously adopted a resolution On the 75th Anniversary of the U.S. Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; A Call to Prevent Nuclear War. The resolution resolves that “the City of Berkeley calls on the President and Congress to step back from the brink and to lead a global effort to prevent nuclear war by renouncing the option of using nuclear weapons first; ending the sole, unchecked authority of any president to launch a nuclear attack; taking U.S. nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert; cancelling the plan to replace its entire arsenal with enhanced weapons; and actively pursuing a verifiable agreement among nuclear armed states to eliminate their nuclear arsenals.”
Bios and Photos for Livermore Rally speakers and music follow.
They are also available on the national website at https://www.hiroshimanagasaki75.org/aug-06
