The LAST BOMB: World Opinion Forum - world service
overwhelmingly supports nuclear disarmament: see world polls.
Everthing you wanted to know and lots you didn't
"On its surface "Countdown to Zero" is about nuclear disarmament, but deeper down the film is making a very specific case that isn't about disarmament at all. Its political function will prove to be quite different. Countdown is joining a suite of political campaigns and other propagandistic efforts, the point of which is to build support for increased US spending on nuclear weapons, as well as a more belligerent foreign policy, based around Islamophobic depictions of "terrorists" and "rogue states." Countdown is likely to be used by hawks to drum up support for military action against Iran, North Korea, and other states that would dare to transgress the current near-monopoly that a handful of states have on the bomb."
"Countdown to Zero" deceptive and misleading - Darwin Bond-Graham -
"We reaffirm our commitment to continuing the development of a new strategic relationship based on mutual trust, openness, predictability, and cooperation by following up on the successful negotiation of the New START pact ....and plan to coordinate closely on our respective efforts to secure its prompt ratification and entry into force."
Obama and Medvedev - Joint Statement
"The NPT Review provided a bridge between the partial non-proliferation approach of the NPT and the comprehensive abolition objectives of a nuclear weapons convention. It will no longer be possible for governments to dismiss calls for a comprehensive nuclear abolition treaty.
NPT Review, Rebecca Johnson - ACRONYM
"A group of like-minded countries, in partnership with NGOs and international organizations, could begin a process that would begin the drive for global nuclear disarmament. The group would begin with developing the terms and elements of a convention to outlaw the possession and use of nuclear weapons.... It is time to place the burden of proof on those that would retain nuclear weapons. International security for many countries has been built around the concept of nuclear deterrence for over sixty years. The evidence for its reality is weak, whereas the risks are enormous....It is time to set about getting rid of nuclear weapons while we still have the opportunity."
DELEGITIMIZING NUCLEAR WEAPONS: Examining the Validity of Nuclear Deterrence
The James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies Monterey Institute of International Studies
Ken Berry, Patricia Lewis, Benoît Pélopidas, Nikolai Sokov and Ward Wilson
"We do not seek a vision of a nuclear-free world; we seek a nuclear free world."
Boniface Chidayausiku, UN Representative of Zimbabwe, and 2010 NPT Chair
"The policy of nuclear ambiguity, by which we fool only ourselves and nobody else, is not good for us any more. It was good, effective and successful for close to 40 years, but over 40 years many things changed and now I am telling you clearly, this policy is no longer in our interest."
Uzi Eilam, Israeli scientist, Former member of Israeli parliament, and head of Israel's Atomic Energy Commission. Blog: May 10, 2010
"We need a nuclear arsenal. But we certainly don’t need one that is as big, expensive and unnecessarily threatening to much of the world as the one we have now... We have calculated that the country could address its conceivable national defense and military concerns with only 311 strategic nuclear weapons."
Gary Schaub Jr, Air War College and James Forsyth Jr, School of Advanced Air and Space Studies in NY Times editorial
“It would be possible for the two major powers to dismantle their arsenals in the time it took to build them up – about ten years.”
Kennedy Graham, Green Party leader, New Zealand Parliamentary call to lead N-Disarmament
MORE RECENT QUOTES
You are able to read these words because 20 minutes ago neither Obama nor Medvedev decided to launch the thousands of nuclear bombs they still keep on hair-trigger alert - every one an accident waiting to happen.
THE LAST BOMB
Pathways to Nuclear Zero
You are drunk, and we are on the edge of the roof."
Rumi
Scientists, in the service of politicians, have booby-trapped the planet for destruction. This lunatic legacy from the Cold War remains the most imminent threat to life on earth. Human ingenuity that created the bombs is now summoned to get rid of them.
With the advent of the blogosphere's viral creativity, "we the people", now united as a self-selecting, leaderless elite of concerned citizens - "The Smart Mob" - may be smarter than our leaders and their advisers.
Empowered by the unique and ever-evolving social, political and intellectual outreach and networking of the blogosphere - the emerging central nervous system of all humankind - "THE LAST BOMB" - a new YouTube Channel - will encourage, invite, explore, monitor, report, question and develop original proposals to overcome and obviate institutional inertia, political resistance and obsolete thinking, to open new vistas of thought and action.and to help hasten the return - with all deliberate speed - to a world without nuclear weapons.
For example, see blogs on:
Ten reasons nuclear weapons can now be abolished.
UNESCO's Power and Peace Network project
The Nuclear Abolitionist
NPT TV
NPT - Occasional Brief Comments Blog
CHEATER'S RISK - Videogame for a world without nukes
Your ideas, comments, suggestions invited
Watch here for launch of our new experimental blog now in development: "Problem Box/Solution Box - NUCLEAR ZERO" modeled on the emerging new activist social network services such as Avaaz and citizen think-tank groups like The Well
Most Russians oppose more nuclear cuts - Poll
What Next for the N Disarmament? - Lawrence Wittner
N-Disarmament Not as Promised - Alexander Cockburn
NPT Two Cheers for Multilateralism - Foreign Policy
NPT - Small steps on long journey
NPT- Good intentions; empty promises
How to overcome obstacles to N disarmament - Nuclear Abolition
NPT a flawed Treaty - Dissident Voice - MUST READ
What Governments are saying at NPT - Reaching Critical Will:
Obama N policies troubling - NSI
Ahmadinejad at UN: US real threat - US walkout - Video
Why Iran sees "US hypocrisy" - Christian Science Monitor
MORE NEWS
START Treaty Music Video: DISARM-TV
COMMENTARY: START: Changing Course without swerving
KEVIN SANDERS, War&Peace, NY & ALEXANDER PIKAYEV Carnegie Non-Proliferation. Moscow
CONFERENCES
VIDEO - NGO presentations to NPT at UN 7th May 2010 (3 hours)
VIDEO - UN Sec. Gen Ban opens NGO conference on NPT - Riverside Church N.Y. (90 mins)
VIDEO - A World Without Nuclear Weapons - NATION/Ethical Culture Center Conference (2 hours)
Phil Donahue, Jonathan Schell, Kennatte Benedict, Dan Ellsberg
VIDEO - A World Without Nuclear Weapons - Utopian?
Davos Conference - Gareth Evans et al. 90 mins
AUDIO: N Disarmament conference -- (with transcript) ABC Australia Radio 30 mins
Rebecca Johnson, Joseph Cirincione, Richard Broinowski
VIDEO: Restoring the NPT (86 mins) - Deepti Choubey, Carnegie conference
EVENTS
CUNY TV Hiroshima Day special on the 2010 NPT Prep-Com (7-min)
"The way to get rid of the bombs is to get rid of the bombs."
Admiral Noel Gayler - Former Commander US Pacific Fleet and Director of the National Security Agency
In the new era in which both US and Russian leaders call for a world without nuclear weapons, the time has come for these and other initiatives to be reviewed, revised and blogged into readiness for presentation to nuclear governments.
Take all weapons off hair trigger. (more below)
As a confidence-building gesture, children of government and military leaders in nations with nuclear weapons should live and study in the major cities of other nations with nuclear weapons.
An immediate initial cut to about 300 bombs by both America and Russia - now recommended by military leaders in both countries. Plutonium pits on all other bombs would be disabled and production halted. Molds broken in all nuclear weapons countries.
The tax forms of US (and other nuclear states) be adjusted to permit taxpayers to designate what percentage of the defense budget should go to the military and what should go to disarmament and conflict resolution.
A world boycott/divestiture of the N-bomb makers. BAE, Boeing, Northrop-Grumman, Honeywell, Finmeccanica, Safran and United Technologies are excluded from investment by government pension funds in Norway Other nations and local governments are considering similar action.
(These and other approaches were included in the 1982 CNN report, "Stopping the Unthinkable")
See also: Key to Defusing the Nuclear Threat - Martin Hellman
Take the finger off the trigger. Then take the trigger
DE-ALERT
The US and Russia still have thousands of nuclear bombs on hair trigger.
Obama has promised to work with Medvedev to move off Cold-War alert status. It can be done easily, quickly and simply. In 1999 by order of Prime Minister Blair the UK de-alerted launch of their nuclear bombs from a "time to fire" of "a few minutes" to "several days." No announcement was made. Such executive action could be taken jointly by Presidential decree in Russia and the US.
"The big five should recognize the paramount importance of standing down the world’s arsenals and extending the principle equally to all nuclear states – including themselves. Developing and putting into practice a new global consensus on de-alerting would go far to induce other nations to cooperate on the host of other vexing proliferation and safety hazards that still beset the nuclear universe."
“I really strongly believe in de-alerting. We still have land-based missiles on hair-trigger alert as do the Russians, and we each say we do it because of the other side. The truth is that neither side needs to be on hair-trigger alert anymore. We could create a delay of a week. Move the warheads somewhere else.
DE-ACTIVATE
"Pit stuffing" can quickly and easily deactivate nuclear bombs. Any nuclear bomb can be permanently de-activated in two minutes by a simple procedure called pit-stuffing. It is irreversible and easily verifiable.
"Pit-stuffing has the potential to be a remarkable new tool in the arms control toolbox, enabling fast dramatic reductions in nuclear arms -- and verification that those arms have really been dismantled. This approach could make a huge contribution to the goal of ensuring the "transparency" and "irreversibility" of nuclear arms reductions, repeatedly agreed to by Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin. This technology can offer policy-makers new options -- and deprive them of excuses for not pursuing deep, transparent, and irreversible reductions in nuclear arms."
At the United Nations in 1968 Khrushchev called for nuclear abolition in 4 years. In 1984 Gorbachev said the US and Russia could get rid of their bombs in 15 years. Reagan suggested 10 years. Mayors for Peace, the European Parliament, World Parliamentarians and the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation call for abolition by 2020. Global Zero now proposes sometime after 2045.
This lacks urgency.
In order to sharpen awareness of strategies to hasten the removal of the nuclear threat, “The Last Bomb: Pathways to Nuclear Zero” will present audio and video reports throughout the coming month-long May, 2010 NPT Review at the UN. See schedules, issues and background at
Reaching Critical Will
An expanded version of our most recent CUNY TV program, "The Bomb in the Age of Obama," will soon be available on Netflix.
We have also arranged to launch a new Russian-language version of the forthcoming program online at Google Video. Links to both versions will be posted on the NPT entry in Wikipedia.
The Last Bomb includes links and information on:
Bruce Blair - Center for Defense Information
David E. Hoffman (author of
The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy,"
"UPDATE: "Dead Hand" wins 2010 Pulizer!
See also:
Hair-Trigger: The Forgotten Danger
Lowering N Alert – Walter Pincus, Washington Post
De-alerting: The First Step - Arjun Makhijani
UN endorses re-framing de-alerting proposal
Clarifying de-alerting: Stephen Starr
Matthew Bunn - Federation American Scientists Report
THE CONTINUING DILEMMA
To help hasten the process we offer encouragement, unsolicited advice, criticism and the sometimes antagonistic assistance of an impatient world.
And in our daily
NEWS SERVICE we will follow, monitor and watchdog progress toward the long-promised and already long-overdue end to the global nuclear threat.
Using the rapidly-expanding global social networks of the web "The Last Bomb" will invite, explore, develop and present to government leaders and advisers disarmament proposals and timetables emerging from the blended wisdom of the
world;s concerned citizens.
PROJECTS
As part of their series of annual
Hiroshima Day TV Specials, CUNY TV
in New York we will present a new program now in preparation on the NPT Review at the UN in May and its implications for reaching zero. The program will play on Fri, August sixth and through the weekend. The program will be available globally through the “The Last Bomb” YouTube Channel and Netflix.
The earlier People v The Bomb series – launched with support from the War & Peace Foundation and the World Federalists – can be seen on Google
here.
FILMS, VIDEOS, DOCUMENTARIES,
Samples:
FAIL SAFE - Closing seven wrenching minutes
Lisa Putkey explains everything in 3 minutes. MUST SEE!
NUCLEAR TIPPING POINT - Trailer (2min 50secs)
DOCUMENTS & TREATIES
BOOKS
G.S.I list
Rethinking Nuclear list
BOOKS JUST OUT:
SECURITY WITHOUT NUCLEAR DETERRENCE - Commander Robert Green
APOCALYPSE NEVER: Forging the Path to a Nuclear Weapon-Free World by Tad Daly (Rutgers University Press)
Review: "Read This or Die" - (American Chronicle)
CONFRONTING NUCLEAR WARFARE - Bill Wikersham and Jared Gasson
BEYOND ARMS CONTROL: Challenges and Choices (Reaching Critical Will)
Contact:
worldopinionforum@gmail.com
The Last Bomb is a world service of
WORLD OPINION FORUM
- a continuing long term project
initiated by NGOs including World Federalists, War&Peace Foundation and the UN Earth Day Peace Bell event.
THE LAST BOMB editor is KEVIN SANDERS, journalist and UN NGO representative for the War&Peace Foundation and the World Federalists
covering nuclear disarmament affairs. At the UN he writes and produces People v The Bomb (supported by
Selma Brackman
of War&Peace) in conjunction with World Opinion Forum (a project proposed by
Morton Gladstone of World Federalists) a continuing TV and online series of events, reports and videos.
He was ABC cultural affairs commentator, CNN science editor
and Chairman of the UN Earth-Day Spring-Equinox Peace-Bell ceremony founded by Margaret Mead - an event he now hosts each year.
Longer bio
Last Updated Sunday, July 25 2010 @ 11:15 AM EDT
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