News
China’s Concern over National Missile Defence
Understanding Ballistic Missile Defence Ballistic missile defence has drawn heated debate in the international community in the recent years. On the one hand, the US has made it a national policy to develop a limited ballistic missile defence program, with a key decision to be made this year regarding whether to deploy the system. On the other hand, the US missile defence build-up has been much criticised by other countries. It is [...]
Nonviolence: Teacher Explores Finding Peaceful Paths In Life
Invoking the words of Gandhi and Thoreau, a young Ventura teacher is spreading the message of nonviolence to all who will listen. Wearing a pin proclaiming "Victory over Violence," 23-year-old Leah Wells leads a class in nonviolence at a downtown Ventura church. Her students are young, middle-aged and old, but they share a common goal: making peace. Dressed smartly in pearls and a black skirt and sweater, Wells teaches the course after [...]
Non Violent Curriculum for Kids
Orginally published in the Los Angeles Times Ventura County Edition The degree of violence in our world today, represented in our media via the television, newspapers, and internet, is deplorable. We are continuously handed pre-formulated thoughts that bombing, divorcing, and fighting are the only ways to solve disputes. With overflowing prison populations, guns in school, and escalating domestic abuse, it is no wonder that profound powerlessness and despair fester within our culture. What do [...]
It’s Time to End the Nuclear Weapons Threat
The US and Russia have made progress in reducing nuclear weapons from their Cold War highs, but we still have a long way to go. There remain some 35,000 weapons in the world, and 4,500 of these are on "hair-trigger" alert. If a single nuclear weapon were accidentally launched, it could destroy a city but that’s not all. With current launch-on-warning doctrines, an accidental launch could end up in a full-fledged nuclear [...]
Advice To Graduates
Always remember this: You are a miracle Made up of dancing atoms That can talk and sing, Listen and remember, and laugh, At times even at yourself. You are a miracle Whose atoms existed before time. Born of the Big Bang, you are connected To everything – to mountains and oceans, To the winds and wilderness, to the creatures Of the sea and air and land. You are a member of the [...]
Teacher Advocates Nonviolence
Published in the Los Angeles Times Leah Wells has spent two years learning about nonviolence at the Center for Teaching Peace in Washington, DC, and now is sharing that knowledge with her Ventura students. Wells, a teacher at St. Bonaventure High School, also will teach a nonviolence class for the wider community beginning next week at the Ventura County Church of Religious Science in Ventura. This interactive class will teach conflict management, and [...]
Bubbles – Not Bombs
This past month, I was in Washington D.C. at an international conference on human rights. Tired from a long morning of meetings and uninspiring speeches, I decided to slip away from the gathering early and play the role of tourist. Even though I have been to Washington on many occasions, I had never really had the opportunity to see some of the remarkable sights which the nation’s capital has to offer. My [...]
The Irrationality of Deterrence: A Modern Zen Koan
"The sound of one finger pressing the button is the sound of a deeper silence, brought about by unrelenting apathy" What is the sound of one hand clapping? What is the sound of one finger pressing the button? Surely the concept of deterrence is more enigmatic and perplexing than a Zen Koan! The concept of deterrence, which underlies the nuclear weapons policies of the United States and other nuclear weapons states, presupposes [...]
State of the Nuclear Age
Can you remember where you were when the Berlin Wall crumbled? Watching CNN in our global living room, we shared a hope that the end of the Cold War signaled an end to the madness of the nuclear arms race and we were on our way to a more peaceful world. I, like many here tonight, dreamed of building a nuclear weapons free world from the debris on the streets of Berlin. [...]
How Countries Can Work Together to Rid the World of Its Greatest Danger
The US and Russia each have about 2,000 powerful nuclear weapons set for hair-trigger release. The enormous nuclear overkills of these weapons present the greatest danger to all countries.1 While groups working to rid the world of nuclear weapons such as Abolition 2000 are growing in size and number of supporters, still, much more remains to be done to achieve a nuclear free world. Hopefully, as more nations whose leaders become aware of [...]
The Earth Charter
PREAMBLE We stand at a critical moment in Earth's history, a time when humanity must choose its future. As the world becomes increasingly interdependent and fragile, the future at once holds great peril and great promise. To move forward we must recognize that in the midst of a magnificent diversity of cultures and life forms we are one human family and one Earth community with a common destiny. We must join together [...]
A Nuclear Crisis
This article appeared in the Washington Post, Editorials and Opinions Section. Every five years, the nuclear nonproliferation treaty (NPT) comes up for reassessment by the countries that have signed it. This is the treaty that provides for international restraints (and inspections) on nuclear programs. It covers not only the nuclear nations but 180 other countries as well, including Iran, Iraq, North Korea and Libya. An end to the NPT could terminate many of [...]
Questions to Ask US Political Candidates — Presidential or Congressional — in this Election Year
Where do you stand on these issues? Do you favor or oppose reductions in spending for defense? Do you favor or oppose deployment of a ballistic missile defense for the US? Do you favor or oppose the sale of military weapons to countries that violate the human rights of their citizens? Do you favor or oppose US leadership to achieve a treaty for the worldwide elimination of nuclear weapons? Do you favor [...]
The Most Important Moral Issue of our Time
There are many reasons to oppose nuclear weapons. They are illegal, undemocratic, hugely expensive, and they undermine rather than increase security. But by far the most important reason to oppose these weapons is that they are profoundly immoral. Above all, the issue of nuclear weapons in our world is a deeply moral issue, and for the religious community to engage this issue is essential; for the religious community to ignore this issue [...]
Open Letter to the Leaders of all Non-Nuclear Weapons States
Your Excellencies: The outcome of the 2000 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference, which begins April 24, 2000 at the United Nations in New York, will play a significant role in determining the security of humanity in the 21st century. Your personal commitment to a successful outcome of this Review Conference is essential to strengthening nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament efforts, and thus to humanity’s future. The nuclear perils to humanity are not sufficiently widely [...]
The Non-Proliferation Treaty Crisis
The global nuclear weapons Non-Proliferation Treaty is in jeopardy due to the continued failure of the nuclear weapons states to fulfill their obligations under the Treaty. Background The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) was signed on July 1, 1968 and remains the foundation of the post-World War II global nuclear nonproliferation. 187 nations signed the treaty; four did not -- Cuba, Israel, India and Pakistan. The signers agreed to [...]
Errors Found In Hanford Thyroid Disease Study
Hanford Study Sees No Harm proclaimed the New York Times headline of January 28, 1999. The headlines in USA TODAY, December 15, 1999 read, Errors Are Found In Radiation Review at Hanford Nuclear Site. I started my day on the January 28, 1999 with the phone ringing off the hook with calls from national, Pacific Northwest, and local media asking me what I thought about this purported "No Harm" finding of the Hanford Thyroid [...]
A Twelve Step Program to End Nuclear Weapons Addiction
The following steps should be taken by the nuclear weapons states to assure a full commitment to ending the nuclear weapons threat that now hangs over the heads of all humanity and clouds our future: 1. Commence good faith negotiations to achieve a Nuclear Weapons Convention requiring the phased elimination of all nuclear weapons, with provisions for effective verification and enforcement. 2. Publicly acknowledge the weaknesses and fallibilities of deterrence: that deterrence [...]
The New Millennium: The Past As Prologue
It is perhaps a peculiar quality of human beings that we like to count things, and we seem to become particularly excited when our numbers end up with several zeros at the end. Such is the case with the year 2000, even though it is not exactly the turning of the millennium, which will take place as the year turns from 2000 to 2001. It is close enough, however, and it has [...]
Stop Using Child Soldiers
"I would like to say to other child soldiers...please do not lose your childhood as well as your future." -Abdi, former child soldier from Somalia. There are an estimated three hundred thousand child soldiers around the world. Thousands of children 15 years of age and much younger are recruited every year in countries where contemporary conflicts are uprooting them from their childhood. The considerable numbers of child soldiers make one pause to [...]
Hope For Humanity’s Future
George Santayana, said "Progress, far from consisting of change, depends on retentiveness. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." These are wise words which would well enter our minds as we reflect on the coming dawn of the 21st century. What is the greatest lesson of the 20th century? It is not man's inhumanity to man. This has been a characteristic of human nature since time began. Man [...]
Failure of the US Senate to Ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
In voting down the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), the U.S. Senate acted with irresponsible disregard for the security of the American people and the people of the world. It is an act unbecoming of a great nation. The Senate sent a message to the more than 185 countries that have signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that the United States is not prepared to lead the global effort for non-proliferation nor to [...]
Senate Vote Leaves the World a More Dangerous Place
In failing to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the US Senate played partisan politics with an issue of utmost importance to the security of the US and the world. In observing the debates in the Senate on this issue, I was once again left with the impression that our Senators do not fully understand and do not particularly care that the rest of the world pays attention to what they say [...]
Statement by Senator Douglas Roche on the New Agenda Coalition Vote Taken Nov. 9, 1999 in the United Nations First Committee on Disarmament and International Security
1. On November 9th, the U.N. First Committee adopted the New Agenda Coalition resolution with 90 yes votes, 13 no's and 37 abstentions. Last year's First Committee vote was 97-19-32. The heart of the resolution is contained in Operative Paragraph 1: "Calls upon the Nuclear Weapon States to make an unequivocal undertaking to accomplish the speedy and total elimination of their nuclear arsenals and to engage without delay in an accelerated process [...]
Creating a Center for Humanity’s Future: Celebrating Creativity in the Coming Age
The idea of a great circle around the world, with people of all ages speaking and listening to one another ... presenting an Annual Report on the State of Humanity ... a fountain of joy and inspiration, confidence, strength and limitless creativity People all over the Earth are gradually awakening to the most astounding aspects of human beings — that we are not only parts of the mysterious universe, we are embodiments [...]