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WAWA/WeAreWideAwake is my Public Service to America as a muckracker who has journeyed seven times to Israel Palestine since June 2005.
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We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights; that, among these, are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; and, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it. -July 4, 1776. The Declaration of Independence |
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Home  Blog August 2010 August 6, 2010: The 65th Anniversary of USA Terrorism Enlightened by the Wisdom of Nonviolence
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August 6, 2010: The 65th Anniversary of USA Terrorism Enlightened by the Wisdom of Nonviolence |
August 6, 2010: The
65th Anniversary of USA Terrorism Enlightened by the Wisdom of
Nonviolence
This August 6th and 9th mark the 65th anniversary of the most brutal acts of
terrorism upon innocent people; America's atomic bombings of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki.
On Armistice Day, 1948 General Omar Nelson Bradley warned, "We live in a
world of nuclear giants and ethical infants, in a world that has achieved
brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. We have solved the mystery
of the atom and forgotten the lessons of the Sermon on The Mount. We know more
about war than we know about peace, more about dying than we know about
living."
In 1995, from Ashkelon Prison, Mordechai Vanunu noted: "A radioactive
cloud consumed rubbed out Hiroshima...A live nuclear test sentenced you. A
nuclear laboratory…children women trees animals in and under a nuclear
mushroom…burning… burned…flattened to ground radioactive
ash-Hiroshima...Nuclear weapons gamblers win against you…Hollywood doesn't know
you - you are not a Jewish Holocaust." [1]
A little history:
At 2:45 AM, on August 6, 1945, an American B-29 bomber flew north from Tinian
Island toward Japan. Three and a half hours later, the Enola Gay dropped
"Little Boy" an 8,900-pound atomic weapon upon civilians in Hiroshima
and leveled almost 90% of the city. On August 9, "Fat Man" was
dropped on Nagasaki, and one third of that city was destroyed.
"Little Boy" was fuelled by highly enriched uranium-235 and generated
a destructive force of about 15 kilotons—the equivalent of 15,000 tons of TNT.
"Fat Man" consisted of a plutonium core surrounded by high explosives
wired to explode simultaneously and yielded a 22 kiloton explosion.
As a child, I could not comprehend how my country could cold bloodedly target
and murder Japanese citizens in order to 'save' American lives, which was the
lame response I always received from every adult I questioned as to why after
what we did to Hiroshima did we do it again to Nagasaki?
If THAT DAY, we call 9/11 taught us anything, it should be that America's
nuclear arsenal cannot defeat 'terrorism' or provide security from the actions
of a few violent mad men who target and murder innocent ones.
American money is imprinted with "IN GOD WE TRUST" but reality is we
have become a nation of hypocrites, for by our foreign policy we expose that we
live by the sword.
America has a nuclear arsenal of over 10,000 weapons and nearly 2,000 remain on
hair-trigger alert ever since the end of the Cold War.
An estimated 150 – 240 tactical nuclear weapons remain based in 5 NATO
countries and the United States is the only country with nuclear weapons
deployed on foreign soil.
American taxpayers provide over $54 billion annually to maintain WMD's, which
is but a drop in the bucket of the overall U.S. military spending. The U.S. is
also a co-conspirator in international nuclear apartheid and major collaborator
in Israel's INEFFECTIVE policy of nuclear ambiguity.
In April 2004, and just three days after Vanunu was released from 18 years in
jail for providing the photographic proof and telling the truth about Israel's
clandestine seven story underground WMD Program in the Negev, Uri Avnery wrote:
"Everybody understands that he has no more secrets. What can a technician
know after 18 years in jail, during which technology has advanced with giant
steps?
"But gradually it becomes clear what the security establishment is really
afraid of. Vanunu is in a position to expose the close partnership with the
United States in the development of Israel's nuclear armaments.
"This worries Washington so much, that the man responsible in the State
Department for 'arms control', Under-Secretary John Bolton, has come to Israel
in person for the occasion. Vanunu, it appears, can cause severe damage to the
mighty super-power.
"The Americans, it seems, are very worried. The Israeli security services
have to dance to their tune. The world must be prevented by all available means
from hearing, from the lips of a credible witness, that the Americans are full
partners in Israel's nuclear arms program, while pretending to be the world's
sheriff for the prevention of nuclear proliferation."[2]
On July 29, 2009, Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien of Baltimore gave a keynote talk
at the first Deterrence Symposium, hosted by U.S. Strategic Command at Offutt
Air Force Base in Nebraska.
He said, "Our world and its leaders must stay focused on the destination
of a nuclear-weapons-free world and on the concrete steps that lead there…[and]
that deterrence, in the words of the U.S. bishops, is not 'a long-term basis
for peace' …the spread of nuclear weapons and technology to other nations, and
the threat of nuclear terrorism, which cannot be deterred with nuclear weapons,
point to the need to move beyond nuclear deterrence as rapidly as
possible…Religious leaders, prominent officials, and other people of goodwill
who support a nuclear-weapons-free world are not naïve about the task ahead.
They know the path will be difficult and will require determined political
leadership, strong public support, and the dedicated skills of many capable
leaders and technical experts. But difficult is not impossible.” [3]
The Archbishop outlined several concrete steps toward total nuclear disarmament
supported by the Catholic Church, including the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty,
negotiations on a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty, and the revision of military
doctrines of nuclear weapon states to “renounce the first use of nuclear
weapons” and “declare they will not be used against non-nuclear threats.”[Ibid]
In Hiroshima on May 2008, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Mairead Maguire said:
"We live in an insecure, uncertain world; it is also a time of
opportunity. It is a time to put aside many of the old ways and with creativity
and imagination, develop new thinking, ideas, institutions, etc. Young people
and women will help this process; they know that Nuclear weapons belong to the
cold war thinking, and can never be used. To do so, would be immoral, illogical
and destroy the Environment.
"They know our real problems, are: Poverty, Environment, unethical
globalization, abuse of Human Rights and International Laws, gender inequality,
ethnical/political conflict, State and paramilitary acts of terror…They know
that spending trillions on weapons that can never be used, while each day over
30,000 children die of preventable disease, is immoral and unacceptable.
"We are all aware that we are living in an increasing Culture of violence,
and if we are to survive we need to build a Culture of Non-violence. Choosing
not to kill another human being is the greatest contribution each of us can
make to peace. This is not a hard choice when through prayer, meditation,
morality, or logic, we come to realize that our lives are sacred as is the life
of all our brothers and sisters, and there are always alternatives to violence
which work. Human beings are evolving and there is a new consciousness that we
must choose non-violence and build strong relationships and community."
[4]
On May 17, 2009, Mairead prevailed on seventeen Nobel laureates to sign a
letter called the Hiroshima-Nagasaki Declaration. Her friend, author and Jesuit
priest John Dear wrote of that day:
"Released in Hiroshima, it calls upon world leaders, and all people, to
eliminate nuclear weapons. And it warns that unless humanity fails in that
endeavor, 'the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki' will be repeated. Such
weapons, [Mairead] says, belong to the tragic past. They belong to a time when
the world lacked the wisdom to realize that each culture needs the other to
survive.
"Governments which still hold such weapons violate the prohibition of war
in the UN charter. But more than that, she says, they’re operating
anachronistically. They’re out of touch with the insights of the times.
Nowadays our enemies aren’t across the border. The enemies of humanity today
are poverty, environmental destruction, militarism, and war.
"Our security nowadays lies in nonviolence and love. She insists that we
all need to heed the wisdom of nonviolence and apply it institutionally,
internationally, globally and concluded in The Vision of Peace, 'Everyone of us
has a role to play in the creation of a new culture of nonviolence.'"
[5]
2009 was the final year in the United Nations Decade of Creating a Culture of
Nonviolence for All the Children of the World. America is on the record in the
UN as abstaining from voting because to support such an initiative would make
it "too hard for us to go to war."
Many Americans live under the delusion that the USA is a Christian nation. If
that were true, we would lead the way in nuclear disarmament and abolish war.
John Dear also wrote:
"Contrary to what the Pentagon tells us, that our God is not a god of war,
but the God of peace; not a god of injustice, but the God of justice; not a god
of vengeance and retaliation, but the God of compassion and mercy; not a god of
violence, but the God of non-violence; not a god of death, but the living God
of life.
"[And then] we discover a new image of God. As we begin to imagine the
peace and non-violence of God; we learn to worship the God of peace and
non-violence; and in the process, become people of peace and non-violence.
"The one thing we can say for sure about Jesus is that he practiced
active, public, creative non-violence. He called us to love our neighbors; to
show compassion toward everyone; to seek justice for the poor; to forgive
everyone; to put down the sword; to take up the cross in the struggle for
justice and peace; to lay down our lives, to risk our lives if necessary, in
love for all humanity, and most of all, to love our enemies. His last words to
the community, to the church, to us, as the soldiers dragged him away, could
not be clearer or more to the point: "Put down the sword."
"That's it. We are not allowed to kill. That's why they run away; they
realize he is serious about non-violence…Jesus dies on the cross saying,
"The violence stops here in my body, which is given for you. You are
forgiven, but from now on, you are not allowed to kill:
"Violence doesn't work. War doesn't work. Violence in response to violence
always leads to further violence. Those who live by the sword will die by the
sword. Those who live by the bomb, the gun, the nuclear weapon, will die by
bombs, guns and nuclear weapons. You reap what you sow. The means are the ends.
What goes around comes around. War can not stop terrorism because war is
terrorism. War only sows the seeds for future wars.
"Underneath this culture of war and injustice is a sophisticated
spirituality of violence, a spirituality of war, a spirituality of empire, a
spirituality of injustice that has nothing to do with the living God or the
Gospel of Jesus. [Ibid]
Jesus is best known as The Prince of Peace and when he told Nicodemus, that you
must be born again to enter the kingdom of heaven, he was not talking about an
emotional high, but a TRANSFORMATION of heart and mind to wake up and see The
Divine in ALL people and all of creation.
Every August 6th in the Eastern Orthodox, Catholic, and Anglican churches,
there is a celebration of the Feast of the Transfiguration of Jesus, an event
reported in the synoptic gospels in which Jesus became radiant having undergone
a metamorphosis; a transformation.
In 2008, at the National Press Club, Rev. Dr. John Chryssavgis, Theological Advisor
to the Ecumenical Patriarch on Environmental Issues, Greek Orthodox Archdiocese
of America addressed President Bush's agenda known as COMPLEX
TRANSFORMATION:
"The question is not how much more sophisticated our plants and weapons
can become, but how serious we are as a nation to lead the world with an
alternative vision which interprets power differently and promotes peaceful
coexistence globally.
"Complex Transformation is the Bush administration proposed plan to
restructure the nation's nuclear weapons infrastructure. The administration's
goal is to consolidate existing nuclear facilities while increasing the
capacity to produce material for new nuclear weapons.
"According to a report jointly released by the Energy Department (DOE) on
January 10, 2008, the administration seeks an annual production capacity of 80
plutonium pits (read: triggers for new nuclear bombs) as a result of the
transformation.
"The main justification for the program is the perceived need for a more
adaptable and responsive nuclear infrastructure to react to unnamed future
threats."[6]
The Wisdom of Nonviolence
"The God of peace is never glorified by human violence… The radical truth
of reality is that we are all one." –Thomas Merton
Gandhi's non-violence was a political tactic that evolved from the inner
realization of spiritual unity within himself. Gandhi studied all the world's
religions and after attending many churches, he remarked that Christianity was
a great religion and all Christians should "TRY IT!"
The problem is not with Christianity, but that too few who claim to be have
taken The Sermon on The Mount as their manifesto and live lives that express
that God is Love and God Loves All.
"Love is not the starving of whole populations. Love is not the bombardment
of open cities. Love is not killing......Our manifesto is the Sermon on the
Mount, which means that we will try to be peacemakers." -Dorothy Day
"The wisdom of non-violence teaches that war is not the way to follow
Jesus. War is not the will of God. War is never justified. War is never blessed
by God. War is not endorsed by any religion. War is the very definition of
mortal sin. War is demonic, evil, anti-human, anti-life, anti-God, and
anti-Christ." [7]
"In all of earth’s sixty-five-million-year history, we are living in the
most dangerous of times. The fact that a bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and two
hundred thousand lives were vaporized within twenty minutes has not prevented
man from dreaming up more ways to fill space with weapons of mass destruction.
We were not created for militarism, but to turn our swords into plowshares. We
have arrived here today by no accident. We have been summoned by the universe
to claim the highest common ground. As the Dali Lama said, the radicalism of
our age is to be compassionate human beings. We have been called to bring love
and compassion back into the equation and assist others to connect with the
deepest parts of themselves. Now is the time to realize, as never before, that
when any of us suffer, we all suffer. All life is interconnected,
interdependent, and greatly loved by the creator, the sustainer of the
universe. We are called by love, for love, and to love.”- Franciscan Fr. Louis
Vitale, July 20, 2005, Berkeley, California at TIKKUN’s first annual conference
for spiritual progressives. [8]
From Ashkelon prison in 1987, Mordechai Vanunu asked:
"Any country, which manufactures and stocks nuclear weapons, is first of
all endangering its own citizens. This is why the citizens must confront their
government and warn it that it has no right to expose them to this danger.
Because, in effect, the citizens are being held hostage by their own
government, just as if they have been hijacked and deprived of their freedom
and threatened…when governments develop nuclear weapons without the consent of
their citizens - and this is true in most cases - they are violating the basic
rights of their citizens, the basic right not to live under constant threat of
annihilation…Is any government qualified and authorized to produce such
weapons?"
On April 5, 2009, President Obama stood on the world stage amongst thousands of
flag-waving Czechs and spoke of good humor, home town Chicago, the will of the
people over tanks and guns, old conflicts, revolution, moral leadership as the most
powerful weapon, iron curtains that fell and the state of 21st century nuclear
weapons:
"We are here today because enough people ignored the voices who told them
that the world could not change. We're here today because of the courage of
those who stood up and took risks to say that freedom is a right for all
people, no matter what side of a wall they live on, and no matter what they
look like. We are here today because the simple and principled pursuit of
liberty and opportunity shamed those who relied on the power of tanks and arms
to put down the will of a people.
"Some argue that the spread of these weapons cannot be stopped, cannot be
checked -– that we are destined to live in a world where more nations and more
people possess the ultimate tools of destruction. Such fatalism is a deadly
adversary, for if we believe that the spread of nuclear weapons is inevitable,
then in some way we are admitting to ourselves that the use of nuclear weapons
is inevitable.
"As the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon, the United
States has a moral responsibility to act…It will take patience and persistence.
But now we, too, must ignore the voices who tell us that the world cannot
change. We have to insist, "Yes, we can."
"There is violence and injustice in our world that must be confronted. We
must confront it by standing together as free nations, as free people. I know
that a call to arms can stir the souls of men and women more than a call to lay
them down. But that is why the voices for peace and progress must be raised
together.
"Let us honor our past by reaching for a better future. Let us bridge our
divisions, build upon our hopes, and accept our responsibility to leave this
world more prosperous and more peaceful than we found it. Together we can do
it.
"Words must mean something [and] violence and injustice must be confronted
by standing together as free nations, as free people…[and] Human destiny will
be what we make of it."[9]
To this day, the USA and Israel claim to be peace seekers and democracies.
"Israel is a not a democracy but is an Ethnocracy, meaning a country run
and controlled by a national group with some democratic elements but set up
with Jews in control and structured to keep them in control.”-Jeff Halper,
American Israeli, Founder and Coordinator of ICAHD/Israeli Committee Against
House Demolitions and a Noble Peace Prize Nominee for 2006.
To this day Vanunu remains an open air prisoner captive in occupied east
Jerusalem denied the right to leave the Jewish State. What Vanunu's Freedom of
Speech trial exposed since it began on January 25, 2006 is that the Israeli
SECURITY System controls the Israeli Ministry of Justice.
[Learn more@ The Vanunu Saga 2005-2010! through right side of banner.]
To this day, Tel Aviv persists to attempt to deflect its egregious
transgressions of international law and human rights abuses aided and abetted
by well funded publicity campaigns, an AIPAC beholden Congress and an American
media that has failed at its commission to seek and report all sides of a story
when it comes to the now 42 years of military occupation of Palestine.
In April 1999, thirty-six members of the House of Representatives signed a
letter calling for Vanunu's release from prison because they believed "we
have a duty to stand up for men and women like Mordechai Vanunu who dare to
articulate a brighter vision for humanity."
President Clinton responded with a public statement expressing concern for
Vanunu and the need for Israel and other non-parties to the Non-Proliferation
Treaty to adhere to it and accept IAEA safeguards.
However, ever since the silence had been deafening, until hope resurrected in
Prague:
"Words must mean something [and] violence and injustice must be confronted
by standing together as free nations, as free people…Human destiny will be what
we make of it."-President Obama
"You cannot talk like sane men around a peace table while the atomic bomb
itself is ticking beneath it. Do not treat the atomic bomb as a weapon of
offense; do not treat it as an instrument of the police. Treat the bomb for
what it is: the visible insanity of a civilization that has ceased...to obey
the laws of life."- Lewis Mumford, 1946
"Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we're
being run by maniacs for maniacal ends...I believe that as soon as people want
peace in the world they can have it. The only trouble is they are not aware
they can get it…You're just left with yourself all the time, whatever you do
anyway. You've got to get down to your own God in your own temple. It's all
down to you, mate...All we are saying is give peace a chance...All you need is
love...Imagine all the people living life in peace. You may say I'm a dreamer,
but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us, and the world will be
as one...Reality leaves a lot to the imagination."-John Lennon
"If you are not apart of the solution; you are apart of the
problem."-Eldridge Cleaver
1. http://vanunu.com/poems/mvpoemhiroshima.html
2. http://www.fromoccupiedpalestine.org/taxonomy/term/226
3. www.usccb.org/sdwp/international/n. The full text of Archbishop O’Brien’s talk,
“Nuclear Weapons and Moral Questions: The Path to Zero,” uclearzero.shtml.
4. http://peacepeople.com
5. http://www.fatherjohndear.org/articles/Nobel_Laureates.html
6. http://www.faithfulsecurity.org/html/complex_transformation.html
7. http://www.fatherjohndear.org/speeches/thomas_merton_wisdom.htm
8. eileen fleming, KEEP HOPE ALIVE, page 156
9. http://wearewideawake.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1247&Itemid=219
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"HOPE has two children.The first is ANGER at the way things are. The second is COURAGE to DO SOMETHING about it."-St. Augustine
"He who is not angry when there is just cause for anger is immoral. Why? Because anger looks to the good of justice. And if you can live amid injustice without anger, you are immoral as well as unjust." - Aquinas |
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UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS
Everyone has the right to freedom of
opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions
without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and
ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
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The Paradoxical Commandments
by Dr. Kent M. Keith People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
Love them anyway. If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway. If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway. The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway. Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway. The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway. People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for a few underdogs anyway. What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway. People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
Help people anyway. Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway. © 1968, 2001 Kent M. Keith " In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway."-Mother Teresa
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“You cannot talk like sane men around a peace table while the atomic bomb itself is ticking beneath it. Do not treat the atomic bomb as a weapon of offense; do not treat it as an instrument of the police. Treat the bomb for what it is: the visible insanity of a civilization that has ceased...to obey the laws of life.”- Lewis Mumford, 1946 |
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The age of warrior kings and of warrior presidents has passed. The nuclear age calls for a different kind of leadership....a leadership of intellect, judgment, tolerance and rationality, a leadership committed to human values, to world peace, and to the improvement of the human condition. The attributes upon which we must draw are the human attributes of compassion and common sense, of intellect and creative imagination, and of empathy and understanding between cultures." - William Fulbright |
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“Any nation that year after year continues to raise the Defense budget while cutting social programs to the neediest is a nation approaching spiritual death.” - Rev. MLK |
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Establishment of Israel |
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"On the day of the termination of the British mandate and on the strength of the United Nations General Assembly declare The State of Israel will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel: it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion it will guarantee freedom of religion [and] conscience and will be faithful to the Charter of the United Nations." - May 14, 1948. The Declaration of the Establishment of Israel
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