from the Brandywine Peace CommunityOn August 6, Hiroshima Day, nuclear disarmament activists in Pennsylvania remembered the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, which obliterated the city and consumed more than 145,00 human beings in the unimaginable fire and radioactive fallout that was new in the brutal history of warfare. Radioactive fallout would kill thousands in the days following the first atomic bombing, invading generation after generation from 1945 till the present.
The Brandywine Peace Community held its annual remembrance of the bombing of Hiroshima, a remembrance that began in 1977 – 42 years ago – and has always included resistance to nuclear weapons and the threat of nuclear war that began in Hiroshima.
We gathered in King of Prussia, behind the largest shopping mall on the East Coast, and in front of the world’s largest war profiteer and the U.S.’s #1 nuclear weapons contractor. We gathered there in the wake of the mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton (not Toledo, Donald). We gathered there quietly with banners hung and posters held to the sound of our decades-old peace bell.
We gathered there in sadness. All our actions, though we believe doing them because they are right, have in them a glimmer of hope that there may be a change. But today there is an overwhelming sense among people that doesn’t ask when, but will the violence, the re-emergence of avowed and denied racism, and ongoing acts of mass killing end. This is every bit as real, as the nearly forgotten existence of thousands of nuclear bombs that hold us in a threatening grip, as well as the nuclear weapons contractors we ride by everyday.
Trump is the voice of lies, racism, anxiety, fear, and terror. And who really stands with and against him?
On August 6, a few people clearly stood out – in King of Prussia, and elsewhere – in the sadness of these frightful times, trying to pull some hope from the sadness. In King of Prussia, we started with a song from Tom Mullian, and then some words about the U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
On July 17, 2017, 122 countries voted in favor of this historic treaty to legally prohibit nuclear weapons. To date 23 countries have ratified it. None of the nuclear-armed powers – the U.S. and Russia have approximately 93 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons – ratified the treaty or were even part of its drafting. We have a long way to go for the abolition of nuclear weapons, but the treaty is a first, and the world is on its side.
Words in front of Lockheed Martin passed and were followed immediately by six elder peace activists walking up the Lockheed Martin driveway entrance, intending to deliver a NOTICE OF U.N. TREATY PROHIBITION.
The Notice reads:
This Lockheed Martin Corp. complex and Lockheed Martin facilities across the world does nuclear weapons contracting
PROHIBITED
by the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
PROHIBITED
by the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
Our delivery intention was thwarted by Lockheed Martin security and the arrest by Upper Merion police of the six delivery people – Theresa Camerota and Tom Mullian, Wyncote, PA; Paul Sheldon, Media, PA; and Sylvia Metzler, Fr. Patrick Sieber, and Robert M. Smith, of Philadelphia, PA.
All were cited and released on the charge of HARASSMENT. That charge is a first. In more than three decades of nonviolent protests and hundreds of arrests in King of Prussia, it is the very first time people were charged with HARASSMENT. Disorderly Conduct, Trespass, yes, but, never till now, Harassment.
Was this the result of a Trump tweet? Or maybe the police had in mind charging Lockheed Martin with HARASSMENT when writing up the summons.
Did you know of the “special relationship” between Donald Trump and Lockheed Martin CEO, Marillyn Hewson? On July 15, the official White House Twitter account tweeted a video of Marillyn Hewson extolling the virtues of the company’s THAAD missile defense [sic] system, claiming it “supports 25,000 American workers.” Not only was Hewson promoting her company’s product, but she was making her pitch — with the weapon in the background — on the White House lawn. Twitter retorts immediately burst with outrage about the White House posting an ad for a private company, with some calling it “unethical” and “likely unlawful.”