Hiroshima + 78 years: how to abolish nuclear weapons?
Debra Sweet | July 31, 2023
Thanks to so many of you for responding to my query about the film
Make plans to mark the anniversaries of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on Sunday August 6 and Wednesday August 9 with public protest and outreach.
We invite you to join us in a Zoom event on Tuesday August 8:
The film "Oppenheimer" & Lessons for Now
Tuesday August 8 8:00 pm EST | 7 pm CST | 6 pm MST | 5 pm PST
Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied Guantanamo Prisoners
Curt Wechsler | Thursday July 27, 2023
Illegal detention is torture for its victims; compounded by delayed judgment, it can be deadly. The history of neglect and passivity ascribed to treatment of prisoners in the US Naval Base in Cuba is insidious; the facility Amnesty International called the "Gulag of our times” was designed to circumvent protections of Geneva Convention treaties established to define legal standards for humanitarian treatment of prisoners of war. Abandoning cohering norms of international law, the George W. Bush administration advanced a discriminatory regime based on nationality, ethnicity and religion, believing an off-shore holding could deprive federal courts of jurisdiction over the rights of detainees.
What happens when you don't deal with the crime of what became indefinite detention (President Obama signed indefinite detention without charge or trial into law at the end of 2011)? 800 years of the writ of Habeas Corpus, the right to know why you are being held captive by the State, comes undone. 779 men and boys have had their lives upended; 30 people remain incarcerated, some never charged with a crime.
Have you seen the film Oppenheimer?
Debra Sweet | Friday, July 21 2023
"Oppenheimer," the film about the pivotal physicist in the Manhattan Project which developed the atom bomb, opens nationally today. I'm going to see it this evening. If you see it, are you interested in commenting on it? Please send me your thoughts. Or, would you want to have a group discussion about what you and others take from it? If so, let's do it. Get back to me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .
The trailer and then some initial reactions follow below:
Monthly global actions to Close Guantanamo
Debra Sweet | Firday, July 21 2023
REMINDER: Monthly global actions to Close Guantanamo take place Wednesday August 2. This is spreading, and you can start one where you are even with just one person. Let us know if you need help in getting started.
Scranton Ukraine Peace Rally
Saturday July 22 @ 11:00 am - 12:00 pm EDT
Army Ammunition Plant (SCAAP), 156 Cedar Avenue, Scranton PA
From the organizers: Scranton is the hometown of President Joe Biden. And, SCAAP is reportedly the largest maker of 155 mm Howitzer artillery shells in the U.S., producing 11,000 death-dealing rounds a month for the Ukraine War and mightily enriching General Dynamics Corporation, the operator of the plant and the fourth largest military contractor in the U.S.
The rally calls for an immediate end to the war in Ukraine and an end to U.S. shipments of weapons to Ukraine. I'll be speaking along with others from sponsoring organizations such as Veterans for Peace, Code Pink, WorldBeyondWar and BanKillerDrones.
U.S. leads small club of cluster bombers
Search the term "cluster bombs" and you'll find condemnation of their use from many directions, which resulted in over 100 countries signing on to a righteous international ban of their use.
But the U.S., Russia and Ukraine never signed on to the ban. Russia has used cluster bombs in Ukraine and Biden is now sending them to Ukraine. Even The New York Times which has backed every weapon the U.S. has sent to Ukraine, thinks this could be a problem in that most U.S. allies ban cluster bombs. Not to mention that thousands of mostly civilians are at risk of death and dismemberment from the clusters lying about.
10 generations of U.S. impact on the globe
My close friend and World Can't Wait colleague Stephanie Rugoff hates it when people speak of the United States as "America," her point being that there are two other sovereign states in North America, and a whole continent in the global south whose states are part of South America. So I try to be careful on that and use the term "U.S."
All of you, I'm sure, are repelled by the ugly recent history of MAGAs and their antecedents, the America Firsters. It goes back centuries to the founding of American settler societies which conquered these continents via genocide and enslaving people all up and down.
More on "Courage is Contagious" Dan Ellsberg
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Demonstrating outside the White House in 2010: Tarak Kauff, Ray McGovern, Daniel Ellsberg, Debra Sweet and unidentified CodePink participant.
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On June 16, the courageous whistleblower, antiwar activist, and author Daniel Ellsberg died at the age of 92. In sharp contrast to what passes as “courage” in this society, Daniel Ellsberg recognized and acted on the understanding that the people of the world, and the future of humanity, matter more than one's own comfort. Read the following pieces which delve into that aspect.
Daniel Ellsberg, Courageous Whistleblower, Antiwar Activist, and Writer, Dies at 92
Just in on Jenin
In recent days a pogrom has been carried out by right-wing Zionist settlers in Palestinian villages. Today these on-going attacks took on another form. In the early hours this morning, over 1,000 Israeli troops descended on Jenin, including the crowded Jenin refugee camp, in a brutal and wide-ranging military invasion.
Daniel Ellsberg RIP
Dan's life and contributions to the fight against U.S. wars and the imminent danger of nukes, were momentous once he released the Pentagon Papers in 1971 and risked spending life in prison. He often said "courage is contagious." We say – this is the kind of virus that should spread.
Dan wrote about joining the call "Bush Step Down" in 2006, when World Can't Wait brought thousands to DC after Bush's second selection.
The World Can’t Wait
by Daniel Ellsberg This piece was first published by CounterPunch in February 2006. RIP, Daniel Ellsberg.I would not have thought of copying the Pentagon Papers, risking a possible lifetime in prison, without the example of thousands of young Americans who were doing everything they could–including non-violent disobedience to the draft regulations–to oppose a wrongful, hopeless war. They showed civic courage, and I can attest to its effectiveness; as a government consultant and former official, I felt its power on my own life.
To the people of Okinawa
Debra Sweet | June 21, 2023
On Memorial Day in Okinawa, June 23, I've been asked to speak in NYC at an event marking the terrible 1945 battle between the U.S. military and Japan at the end of WW II (in front of NY Public Library, 42nd St. & 5th Ave., 1:30-2:30 pm). There were hundreds of thousands of casualties and, of course, the U.S. tells the story as its heroic victory over Japan, which had occupied the island for centuries. The people of Okinawa were victimized multiple times by imperialism, through occupation, and losing an estimated – because who counts during wartime? – 25% of their population in the 1940's, all of whom were non-combatants.
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