Saturday, September 1, 2007

First Steps At Home

Reentering Olympia after nearly five months, I find it is taking time to reconnect, bodily and psychologically. Wonderful to see my three adult children and my now six month old grandson. Some activist friends are eager to hear about the Walk, others noticed I have been gone but were unaware of my trip. I had a nice gathering the other evening with some to share the events, who said it was enjoyable. I met with Bix, who was arrested with us at Faslane, in Tacoma. We are brainstorming what's next. A walk will occur on September 11th, a Jesuit/Buddhist will share 30 years of peace activity in Cambodia next week. Last night, a friend set up a Gandhi birthday celebration on October 2nd at Traditions Fair Trade to share the Walk experience. I will also make it a celebration of my 70th birthday (October 11th). In between all this I do domestic things, weeding and harvesting, reading many insightful and troubling things, flailing about.



For those who want to acquire an up to date understanding about nuclear abolition, I want to recommend the just published NUCLEAR DISORDER OF COOPERATIVE SECURITY, U.S. Weapons of Terror, the Global Proliferation Crisis, and Paths to Peace, by Lawyers' Committee on Nuclear Policy, Western States Legal Foundation, Reaching Critical Will of the Women's International League of Peace and Freedom. For those who find it to cerebral and dry, I suggest they follow our foot steps in Foot Prints For Peace walk "Toward Nuclear Free World." I guarantee it will not be cerebral nor dry. The message will be the same.



Zia Mian highlights our context in the Forward: "Polls have also found that almost 60% of Americans did not know that a commitment to disarmament was part of the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. This is despite the fact that the United States was one of the two original sponsors and the NPT has been a central element of U.S. policy since then, especially in its dealing with third-world states with nuclear ambitions. As surprising is the finding of the scale of ignorance about which other states have nuclear weapons. Large majorities of the U.S. public know Russia and China have nuclear weapons, but more of them (55%) mistakenly think Iran has nuclear weapons than know that Britian (52%), India (51%), Israel (48%) and France (38%) actually have these weapons. The poll shows over 40% of Americans mistakenly believe Japan and Germany have nuclear weapons."



To make the lethal nature of nuclear testing more graphic, my son, Todd, emailed a CNN post, http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/08/30/btsc.chance.nukes/index.html, about the effects of USSR tests beginning in the 1950's. Besides the physical effects, the shaming and numbing of the population are traumatic. We cannot let ourselves assume the blame and silence.

No comments: