BALTIMORE HOLDS 34th ANNUAL HIROSHIMA & NAGASAKI COMMEMORATIONS.

HIROSHIMA-NAGASAKI COMMEMORATION COMMITTEE, 325 East 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218 Ph: 410-323-1607 Email: mobuszewski2001 [at] Comcast dot net

PRESS RELEASE-FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE August 3, 2018

CONTACT: Max Obuszewski 410-323-1607 or 727-256-5789 or mobuszewski2001 at comcast.net

                        Janice Sevre-Duszynska 859-684-4247

BALTIMORE HOLDS 34th ANNUAL HIROSHIMA & NAGASAKI COMMEMORATIONS.

IT IS THE 73rd ANNIVERSARY OF THE ATOMIC BOMBINGS OF JAPAN.

WHO:   For the 34th year, the Hiroshima-Nagasaki Commemoration Committee will remember the atomic bombings of Japan on August 6 & 9, 1945, which killed some 220,000 people.  Other organizations involved in the commemorations are the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, Chesapeake Physicians for Social Responsibility, Prevent Nuclear War Maryland and the Working Group for the Arts of Homewood Friends Meeting.

WHAT/WHEN/WHERE: On Monday, August 6 at 5 PM, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima will be commemorated with a demonstration at 33rd & N. Charles Streets against Johns Hopkins University’s weapons contracts, including research on killer drones. The Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center has a partnership with JHU’s Applied Physics Laboratory.

At 6 PM,  there will be a potluck dinner with members of the peace and justice community in the basement of Homewood Friends Meetinghouse, 3107 N. Charles Street.  The group will remember the work of Dr. Dick Humphrey, a founding member of the Commemoration Committee.  At 7 PM, Jay Levy will discuss how Takoma Park, Maryland became a Nuclear Free Zone, and why there is a need for a divestment campaign against corporations profiting from involvement in maintaining the nuclear weapons arsenal. Jay has been chair of the Nuclear Free Takoma Park Committee since 1993, worked for 17 years as the North American information officer for the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and has been a journalist for several media outlets.

On this day, the Baltimore City Council will pass a resolution endorsing the Back From the Brink Campaign.  This is a national grassroots campaign seeking to fundamentally change U.S. nuclear weapons policy by laying out five common-sense steps that the United States should take to reform its current policy. Members of Prevent Nuclear War Maryland will ask participants to endorse the campaign. 

WHAT/WHEN/WHERE:  On Thursday, August 9 at 6 PM, the bombing of Nagasaki will be commemorated outside Homewood Friends Meetinghouse, 3107 N. Charles Street.  Participants will demonstrate in favor of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) which was adopted by 122 countries at the United Nations in 2017. This Treaty makes it illegal under international law to develop, test, produce, manufacture, otherwise acquire, possess or stockpile nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices. 

At 7:15 PM, Paul Magno, a long-time activist who now lives at Baltimore’s Jonah House will provide insight into the legal situation facing the Kings Bay Plowshares, seven Catholic activists, including Elizabeth McAlister, who were arrested at the Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base in St. Mary’s, Georgia on April 4, 2018.  They enacted Isaiah’s command to “beat swords into plowshares.” In 1984, Paul was a member of the Pershing Plowshares which did a disarmament action at a Martin Marietta plant in Orlando, Florida. Also to be discussed will be the Back From the Brink Campaign. Finally, Dr. Dick Humphrey will be remembered.

WHY: According to an Agence France-Presse in Tokyo article which appeared in The Guardian on August 30, 2017, “the first atomic bomb” was responsible for “killing about 140,000 people. The toll includes those who survived the explosion itself but died soon after from severe radiation exposure. Three days later, the US dropped a plutonium bomb on the port city of Nagasaki, killing 74,000 people.”

Presently there are 15,000 nuclear weapons in arsenals around the world, most of them controlled by the U.S. and Russia. Over the next 30 years, the U.S. intends to spend $1.2 trillion to refurbish its nuclear arsenal and create lower-yield weapons which could increase the likelihood they may be used.   

 On August 6, Baltimore’s City Council will make positive life-sustaining history. Led by Bill Henry and Mary Pat Clarke, councilmembers will vote for Council Resolution Request for Federal Action – Move Back From the Brink and Toward Nuclear Disarmament. Baltimore will be the first major city in the United States to sign on to Back From the Brink, joining eleven small cities and towns in Massachusetts and Ojai, California.  This “Call to Prevent Nuclear War” is a grassroots campaign seeking to fundamentally change U.S. nuclear weapons policy and lead us away from the nuclear precipice.  

 The Council’s resolution breaks down the cost to taxpayers: “Whereas just in the past year, Baltimoreans averaged $175 per capita for a ‘nuclear weapons war tax’ paying a collective “$107.5 million in federal taxes toward the cost of producing, deploying and maintaining nuclear weapons. Marylanders as a whole averaged $244 per capita, with the state collectively paying an estimated $1.45 billion in 2017 federal taxes toward our country’s cost of nuclear weapons.”

 Let us show respect for Mother Earth by remembering what the Hibakusha, atomic bomb survivors, say -- Never Again.  As long as these awful and immoral weapons exist, they may be used.  This is a legacy that can’t be left to our children.  Now is the time to reduce the risk of nuclear war which will ultimately require the abolition of nuclear weapons. The Hiroshima-Nagasaki Commemoration Committee will continue its work to rid the planet of nuclear weapons.

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“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