Remember your Humanity

Sustainability Requires Resistance

September 27, 2016

By Greg Mello For the Solar Times, Fall 2016 The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled… Read More »Sustainability Requires Resistance

Journal from an Encampment – Guest Post by Joanne Forman, 3 August 1985

September 9, 2016September 27, 2016

(Joanne Forman graciously allowed us to share her journal from her encampment outside the Pantex Nuclear Weapons Plant from August 1985. It’s very interesting. Thank… Read More »Journal from an Encampment – Guest Post by Joanne Forman, 3 August 1985

Two recent articles regarding a possible Obama “no first use” policy: comments

August 16, 2016September 27, 2016

See update at bottom! U.S. allies unite to block Obama’s nuclear ‘legacy’ [i.e. against no first use] Aug. 14, 2016 (Rogin, WaPo) The president wants… Read More »Two recent articles regarding a possible Obama “no first use” policy: comments

Selected news & analysis re present and future great power wars, Aug. 1-13

August 13, 2016August 13, 2016

This is a first attempt at pulling together recent articles of interest to our members. This format is experimental and will no doubt change. I… Read More »Selected news & analysis re present and future great power wars, Aug. 1-13

The Crisis at Hand, the Emergency Mode, and the Need for Full-Scale Mobilization

July 31, 2016August 2, 2016

The Crisis at Hand, the Emergency Mode, and the Need for Full-Scale Mobilization [Republished here with this fine graphic, and with a few further edits,… Read More »The Crisis at Hand, the Emergency Mode, and the Need for Full-Scale Mobilization

On the eve of the August meeting of the 2016 Open-Ended Working Group (OEWG) in Geneva

July 28, 2016July 31, 2016

We very much hope the siren songs advocating “alternatives” to banning nuclear weapons — all of which alternatives are meaningless or fantasies — are not… Read More »On the eve of the August meeting of the 2016 Open-Ended Working Group (OEWG) in Geneva

Doomsday Forum – 2016, A story of deterrence, arrogance and extreme militarism

July 18, 2016July 18, 2016

Guest post by Valentina Bellafante, Los Alamos Study Group Disarmament Fellow On June 21, Albuquerque hosted the second annual symposium of the Strategic Deterrent Coalition,… Read More »Doomsday Forum – 2016, A story of deterrence, arrogance and extreme militarism

For diplomats and international disarmament campaigners: “framework” approaches to nuclear disarmament are pernicious

May 20, 2016May 20, 2016

Yesterday I sent the following message to a large number of international disarmament campaigners and a few others. I am posting it here for the… Read More »For diplomats and international disarmament campaigners: “framework” approaches to nuclear disarmament are pernicious

Stewards of the Apocalypse: an abridged history of U.S. nuclear weapons labs since 1989

May 18, 2016May 19, 2016

What follows is a short and very abridged history of these labs since the Cold War, which will help us understand the political dynamics these… Read More »Stewards of the Apocalypse: an abridged history of U.S. nuclear weapons labs since 1989

Abandon fantasies about multilateral nuclear disarmament, embrace what is possible and powerful

April 12, 2016May 19, 2016

Last week we submitted a possible working paper (“Progress in multilateral nuclear disarmament requires a treaty prohibiting the possession, threat, or use of nuclear weapons“)… Read More »Abandon fantasies about multilateral nuclear disarmament, embrace what is possible and powerful

About this blog

Trish and I began this blog as a kind of experiment, to see if we could efficiently share information and commentary with a wider group of people. We do so with trepidation because sharing information and opinions is hardly important unless it draws us closer to you and inspires you to take actions and find words you could not, or did not, take or find before. We hope you in turn will inspire and amaze us. Our electronic media separate as well as connect us. We can hardly communicate without them, but they also seductively draw people away from the world we must build and the person-to-person interactions we most need to do that. We prefer the first and second grammatical persons to the third. There's always a tension between quantity, promptness, and quality, and it is difficult to know how to strike the right balance or if that is possible. So we will make all sorts of mistakes. We want to be as clear as possible, which at times will mean being firm, but we hope not to lose our humility thereby. For a time this blog was called "Enraging Desert," not so much for the fine image of the lion roaring at the enraging desert in Wallace Stevens' poem but for the political and psychological use which James Hillman made of it. (http://lasg.org/wordpress/2013/03/20/re-enraging-desert/) "Forget the rest" refers of course to the Einstein-Russell Manifesto of 1955 (http://www.pugwash.org/about/manifesto.htm) against nuclear armaments and war. The admonition to "[r]emember your humanity" is more commonly recalled, but too many people who promote weapons of mass destruction think they are doing that already. "Forget the rest" points to a much larger cultural challenge, one that is inescapable at this historical moment when two centuries of economic growth are ending. It is also a challenge each of us faces in the course of our lives when we are forced to choose, as we must. "All that's inane / Be swept away as vain." (Goethe, Faust)

We Call for Sanity, Not Nuclear Production

This call is not a petition. It is a visible and public league of solidarity. After endorsing this Call, we encourage businesses and organizations to make their voices heard by calling or writing your elected officials and in other ways. Write letters to editors and guest editorials. Recruit other businesses and organizations to join and do the same.

For individuals, we encourage you to endorse the Call as well, then recruit businesses and organizations to join you in endorsing this Call.

Nearly all our elected officials either support expanded nuclear weapons or are passive. They won’t change until politically forced to do so.