Something has gone very wrong

Participants at vigil, Sherborn, MA, August 6, 2019, commemorating Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and latest mass shootings in the USA. Photo courtesy of Lewis Randa, the Peace Abbey

by Dot Walsh

In the years from 1982 to the present, there have been 110 mass shootings in the United States;  according to statistics,  107 of these have been perpetrated by young to older men.

As I reflect on the carnage and suffering engulfing our country, I am bewildered and angered by how our Congress has resisted passing a simple law banning assault weapons and requiring a background check for all gun buyers, including those who buy guns online. Something has gone very wrong in this country when we cannot see clearly what is happening or gather the courage to stand up for the values that will promote peace and love.

Some men and women do show that courage. Among them are a group of people who have been standing up and speaking out, holding vigils, and praying for many years, remembering the people who bear the suffering that comes with the loss of their loved ones to violence.

The Life Experience School and friends gathered Tuesday, August 6, 2019, at the Peace Memorial in Sherborn, Massachusetts, to honor those who were killed in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio. The group gathered at the Stone that memorializes all victims of violence, both past and present.

To promote resistance to violence, I want to send a message to all the young men in our country who are being abused by corporate America and taught to hate. Social media, Hollywood, and others have gained power over you and led you down a path of ignorance and submission. But you have been gifted by a Higher Power with talents and energy as yet undiscovered. Stop for one minute and list in your mind two things you are grateful for. Then ask yourself how you can pay forward for the gifts you have received. We all have reasons to be thankful for living in this country. Maybe the problem facing the country today is not having enough positive role models and not absorbing enough LOVE in our hearts to take a stand to make things right. Can you become one of those role models? Can you find and share the love in your heart?

References: Washington Post Statista research department

Dot Walsh

Dot Walsh is a Peace Chaplain. Shi is also host of Oneness and Wellness, a cable TV show from Dedham, Mass.She is dedicated to changing the world with peace and love.

Note from Kathie MM: Pegean says, Now’s your chance to get it right. Be the candle, be the light. Be the beacon, be the dove. Be the voice of peace and love.

Stop the clock!

by Kathie MM

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has set the doomsday clock at two minutes to midnight—the hour of the death of life. (See more here ).

You, personally, have a number of options right now:1) Feel too terrified to do anything about the growing threat from nuclear arms development; 2) pretend the threat is not real and go about your business as if the threat of nuclear Armageddon is “fake news”; or 3) pay attention, assume responsibility for your own future and the future of life on the planet, and help stop the clock.

United for Peace and Justice tells us some really bad news: “As we approach the 74th anniversaries of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, our world is facing numerous nuclear flashpoints within global conflicts and crises that could catastrophically escalate at any moment.

“The formal U.S. withdrawal on August 2 from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty is another sign of deepening crisis among the nuclear-armed states. Following the 2002 U.S. withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, this latest move imperils the entire structure of arms control and disarmament, including prospects for extension of the New START Treaty that expires in 2021. The dangers of nuclear war are real and growing.

“From the Korean Peninsula, to the South China Sea, to the Middle East and South Asia, all the nuclear-armed states are engaged in unpredictable conflicts that could catastrophically escalate out of control. Tensions between the U.S. and Russia have risen to levels not seen since the Cold War, with the two nuclear giants confronting each other in Ukraine, Eastern Europe, and Syria and an accelerated tempo of military exercises and war games, both conventional and nuclear, on both sides. Risky close encounters between Russian and U.S./NATO forces have increased dramatically in the Baltic region and Syria.

“Under Trump, when inflation and the novel concepts in his Nuclear Posture Review are included, the U.S. is on a path to spend nearly $2,000,000,000,000 (trillion) over thirty years to upgrade its nuclear weapons complex, warheads and delivery systems. Russia, China, France, U.K., India, Israel and Pakistan have embarked on nuclear modernization programs of their own. While halting talks with North Korea have commenced, the Trump Administration scuttled the Iran nuclear deal and is escalating pressure on the Iranian regime.

“Today, nearly 14,000 nuclear weapons, most an order of magnitude more powerful than the U.S. atomic bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki— 92% held by the United States and Russia – continue to pose an intolerable threat to humanity.”

The good news is that meetings, and protests, and demonstrations are being organized all over the country (and internationally) this month.   

Here’s a link from Physicians for Social Responsibility listing many public events in August, Nuclear Free Month.

Pegean says, Please.

Join an event near you.

Help stop the clock.

NUCLEAR WAR AND ME: Annihilation Inscribed Across Time and Place, Part 3

by Anthony J. Marsella, Ph.D.

War Legacies

I have never forgotten the anniversary days for the dropping of atom bombs on Hiroshima (August 6, 1945) and Nagasaki (August 9, 1945). Years later, images remain in my mind. Rising, unfolding mushroom cloud.  As I a kid, and now as an adult, I try to grasp the bizarre meaning of events! A mushroom cloud.  

I became hyper-religious, reading the Father Peyton Catholic Bible sold to us by a door-to-door priest salesperson. He convinced my mother to “donate” $20.00.  The words and pictures were fascinating. I even read the Catholic Newspapers, with their list of forbidden movies. I would go to the darkened Church, sit in silence and awe at the statues of saints and Blessed Virgin Mary.  Clusters of candles were burning in red votive jars. There was mystery about it all, but I could not understand! Should I become a priest?  Annihilation!

Movies of Nuclear Catastrophes

In the 1950s there was an omnipresent fear of nuclear war. Scores of protests and anti-war organizations emerged. One of these organizations was Psychologists for Social Responsibility (PsySR), founded by Alex Red Mountain with the help of many others (e.g., Anne Anderson).  I later served as the President of PsySR, 2005-2007. Destiny!

In 1959, the movie, On the Beach, brought tears and sobs to me and others as a group of survivors from a deadly nuclear attack gathered on a beach in Melbourne, Australia, awaiting a nuclear dust cloud.  Couples and families took suicidal pills to escape the horrible consequences of surviving. The movie was a poignant reminder of horrors of a nuclear war.  I was 19 years old at the time, a college student, confused and still afraid. 

Another nuclear war left an impression on me: Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. This 1964 movie was supposed to be a dark satire of Soviet Union and USA nuclear threats.

How could anyone forget the last scene? A mis-communication resulting in the image of an rabid American soldier shouting as he rode a hydrogen bomb from orders for a first strike on the USSR. The President of the USA and his staff tried to recall the bombers to prevent a nuclear apocalypse. They failed!  (see Wikipedia, 2018, 11:00AM)

Like many others, I remember vividly where I was during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October, 1962.  The confrontation between President John F. Kennedy and USSR Premier Nikita Khrushchev! We watched and waited. No desks to hide under! We learned it was the closest we had come to nuclear war.  Both countries continued to build more powerful nuclear weapons. Annihilation!

Nuclear-War Risks Continue

I continue to have memories of total destruction and death of hundreds of thousands of human beings. I visited Nagasaki. I could not escape the guilt. I was alive, but death was inscribed in the name and place.

I still recall crouching beneath school desks as sirens blared. Classmates, giggles, and fear and trembling!  Victims in Japan below saw a circling plane; it was their last sight!  The legacy of horror of remains!

History is the story of survival!  We recall and remember! Until the time lessons are learned, we remain, as Bishop Tutu of South Africa poignantly stated, we remain, “Prisoners of hope.”

Whoa! Take notice! It’s back again!

by Kathie MM

It’s 9-11.

A day that changed everything. A day that changed nothing.

A day when a terrifying new threat thrust itself into the consciousness of millions of people who, perhaps, had not been paying enough attention.  Sort of like when the United States bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki with the first atomic bombs. Think about what that event triggered—the “Cold War,” bomb shelters, and lessons to school kids about hiding under desks if the United States was bombed by those dirty Commies.

Or consider the fallout from that ominous non-event, that unconscionable non-attack on the U.S. in the Gulf of Tonkin that led to the Vietnam war and the loss of thousands of American and millions of Indochinese lives–plus the gains of millions of dollars to the arms industry and other war profiteers.

The beat goes on.  New enemies, old enemies, new losses, new profits.

Remember the lyrics, “When will they ever learn, oh when will they ever learn”? Ask yourself, have you learned yet that violence only breeds violence (and profits for the rich and powerful)? Have you studied war no more, preferring to put your time and energy  into studying politicians’ records and promises kept and forgotten?  Have you educated yourself about the new threats–e.g., drones— to innocent lives being carried out on innocent men, women, and children elsewhere by the U.S. military and CIA ? Have you heard that those who live by the sword often die by the sword?  Have you enlightened yourself concerning the resurgent threat of nuclear arms that rest in the shaky hands of unscrupulous power-holders in the United States and other rogue states? Have you looked ways to resist war–e.g., here at engaging peace and other sites?  ?

Which side are you on, babe, which side are you on?  Life?

Or death?

Find a way to act now.