A file photo shows an unarmed AGM-86B Air-Launched Cruise Missile released from a B-52H Stratofortress over the Utah Test and Training Range during a Nuclear Weapons System Evaluation Program sortie, near Salt Lake City. (OSV News/U.S. Air Force via Reuters/Staff Sgt. Roidan Carlson)
by John Dear
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This week marks the 81st anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. For my part, I plan to join the vigil for nuclear disarmament at the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, where the U.S. tests missiles by shooting them off across the Pacific Ocean to practice for nuclear warfare.
With the trillion dollars spent to "modernize" the nation's nuclear weapons, they are currently preparing to replace the Minuteman III ICBM fleet with the newly developed LGM-35A Sentinel. Like the Pentagon, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Pantex, and many other places, in light of the nonviolent Jesus, it should immediately close.
On this week's episode of "The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast," I'll speak with Jack Cohen-Joppa, who along with his wife, Felice, has published The Nuclear Resister newspaper since 1980. With over 200 issues, they have chronicled over 100,000 anti-nuclear and anti-war civil disobedience actions and related prosecutions covering thousands of activists, and encouraged support for the women and men jailed and imprisoned for such nonviolent actions.
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Their publication has tracked every public action that involved crossing a line against war and nuclear weapons, that is, every campaign, every local and regional grassroot effort, and the rise and fall of national movements. When you open its pages or study their website, you discover a whole world of peace activism that few know about, a lifetime of steadfast resistance in campaigns at the Pentagon, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Nevada National Security Site, the Trident submarine bases and the Plowshares movement.
"We face a nuclear threat now that is comparable with the threat we faced during the Cold War," Jack Cohen-Joppa said. "Our challenge is to continue to delegitimize and stigmatize the building of nuclear weapons. I am in touch with the people who believe that hope is a verb and take action. We believe that this is work worth doing."
