Your doctors are worried about your health--in fact, about your very survival. No, they're not necessarily your own personal physicians, but, rather medical doctors around the world, represented by such groups as International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, and the World Health Organization. They are warning you about a looming nuclear catastrophe as nations, embroiled in war, continue to brandish over 17,000 nuclear weapons. Are you ready to change the destructive behavior of your national leaders?
Published Articles by Lawrence Wittner
There has been a substantial growth in the number of "peace ships" in the past century and, for the United States, the most important of them is the "Golden Rule." By boldly challenging nuclear weapons tests in 1958, the "Golden Rule" and its pacifist crew set the pattern for the daring voyages of Greenpeace and other activists who finally convinced officials of the great powers to negotiate a nuclear test ban treaty. Today, after being wrecked off the California coast, the "Golden Rule" is being lovingly restored by Veterans for Peace for a new mission designed to foster nuclear disarmament and world peace.
Some of America's poorest people work at higher educational institutions, and many of them are members of the faculty. Conversely, some of the nation's richest people are also employed at colleges and universities--and they are the administrators.
Although Iran is taking action to forgo development of nuclear weapons, nations already armed with these weapons are flouting their treaty and rhetorical commitments to nuclear disarmament. Instead of disarming, they are currently engaging in an immensely expensive modernization of their nuclear arsenals.
Many Americans have a pattern of turning against wars they once supported. There would be less disillusionment, as well as a great savings in lives and resources, if they recognized the terrible costs of war before they rushed to embrace it.
Recently, the State University of New York (SUNY) has undergone a dramatic change in its mission. Pressured by New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo and SUNY administrators, the nation's largest university system has been turning into a loyal servant of big business.
Unless there is a substantial increase in the U.S. minimum wage, millions of American workers will continue earning poverty-level wages while giant corporations and the wealthy amass trillions of dollars at these workers' expense.
Can the world's biggest corporations act with impunity? When it comes to General Electric, the answer appears to be "yes." Despite GE's outsourcing of its work force, dumping of 1.3 million pounds of cancer-causing PCBs into the Hudson River, designing of nuclear reactors that exploded at Fukushima, parking of $108 billion in profits overseas to evade U.S. taxes, and peddling of subprime mortgages, the giant corporation has been richly rewarded by the U.S. government with billions of dollars in taxpayer-funded handouts and a leading role in designing U.S. public policy.
What accounts for the fact that, since 1945, the world has avoided nuclear war? The conventional explanation is that the danger posed by nuclear weapons has "deterred" nations from waging it and, overall, has created a situation of nuclear safety. But the record shows that it has been popular protest that has blunted the nuclear ambitions of hawkish government officials and prevented the waging of nuclear war.
The apparent employment of chemical weapons in Syria should remind us that, while weapons of mass destruction exist, there is a serious danger that they will be used. This possibility is particularly alarming in the case of nuclear weapons, for there remain over 17,000 of them in existence, with thousands on high alert. Meanwhile all the nuclear powers are moving forward with plans to upgrade or modernize their nuclear arsenals.