BALTIMORE HOLDS 28th ANNUAL HIROSHIMA-NAGASAKI COMMEMORATIONS

Hiroshima-Nagasaki Commemoration Committee, 325 East 25th Street, Baltimore, MD 21218 PHONE: 410-366-1637


PRESS RELEASE-FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE August 5, 2012

CONTACT: Max Obuszewski 410-366-1637 or mobuszewski at verizon.net

BALTIMORE HOLDS 28th ANNUAL HIROSHIMA-NAGASAKI COMMEMORATIONS

WHO: For the 28th year, the Hiroshima-Nagasaki Commemoration Committee will remember the atomic bombings of Japan on August 6 & 9, 1945, which killed more than 200,000 people. Other organizations involved in the commemorations are Baltimore Quaker Peace and Justice Committee of Homewood and Stony Run Meetings, Chesapeake Physicians for Social Responsibility, Crabshell Alliance and Pledge of Resistance-Baltimore.

WHAT/WHEN/WHERE: The HIROSHIMA COMMEMORATION will begin at 5 PM on Monday, August 6, 2012 at 34th & N. Charles Streets. There will be a demonstration against Johns Hopkins University’s weapons contracts, including research on killer drones, to commemorate the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, and remember the nuclear energy disaster at Fukushima, Japan.

WHAT/WHEN/WHERE: The NAGASAKI COMMEMORATION takes place on Friday, August 10, 2012 at Homewood Friends Meeting, 3107 N. Charles Street. It begins at 5 PM with a silent vigil. The Homewood meeting has been hosting a Friday peace vigil since September 19, 2001.

Participants will share a potluck dinner at 6 PM. Then at 7 PM, there will be a remembrance of the bombing of Nagasaki through music and poetry. All are welcome to perform the spoken word, sing and/or perform music.



WHY: On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped the first atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima, Japan, killing an estimated 150,000 people in the immediate blast and fire. Three days later, on August 9, 1945, more than 75,000 people died in the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan. More than 100,000 people died in the days and years ahead, and continue to die, from the radiation poisoning of the first atomic bombings.



The atomic bombing of Nagasaki may have been the most destructive test ever performed by the U.S. government. The bomb dropped on Hiroshima was a plutonium-based bomb. The atomic monstrosity dropped on Nagasaki had a uranium core. There was no need to drop either bomb, as Japan was defeated. The bombs were the first salvos in the Cold War. The atomic weapons were actually used to show the Soviet Union that the United States added new and powerful weapons to its arsenal. The civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki suffered the consequences.



The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster was a series of equipment failures, nuclear meltdowns and releases of radioactive materials at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant, following the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011. It is the greatest nuclear disaster since the Chernobyl accident of 1986. The Hiroshima-Nagasaki Commemoration Committee will continue its work to rid the planet of nuclear weapons and nuclear power.



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Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218. Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/



"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs