Mayors for Peace
Bringing in the local Mayors for Peace would be a good next step. They have their well thought out 2020 Vision Campaign calling for adoption and implementation of a protocol to the Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT). This protocol lays out a roadmap for the adoption of a Nuclear Weapons Convention by 2015 and complete nuclear disarmament by 2020.
The Hiroshima/Nagasaki Protocol, as it is called, is targeted for adoption at the 2010 NPT Review Conference. Towards this end, Mayors for Peace are looking to have 1000 mayors signed up for their Cities Appeal by this May, 2009 - so far they have 550 signatures, including zero signatures from Southern California. We don't want them to come up short, and this is not a good showing for our area.
I urge our Activist Group to go out there and persuade local mayors who are already part of Mayors for Peace to sign the Cities Appeal. At the same time we can ask that each city appoint a representative to our Coalition and to let people in the mayor's office know about the dialog.
Here is the list of cities that are members of Mayors for Peace from our area:
Compton
Irvine
Long Beach
Los Angeles
Lynwood
Santa Barbara
South Pasadena
Not the long list I would have expected, and none of these has signed up for the Cities Appeal. Am I wrong, or isn't this a piece of cake to form up pairs of activists to visit the Mayor's Office in each of these cities, and expect good results?
Finally, MfP has an Overall Action Plan, which is aimed not just at nuclear disarmament, but at the establishment of world peace in general. One of the lines in this fascinating document reads down from the top this way:
Achieve World Peace --> Reinforce executive system to strengthen all activities --> Form networks using the internet --> Introduce instances of cities carrying out advanced or exemplary programs
We are Los Angeles, after all, and that gives us some leverage. I think we could take our system -- of a three part organization by metropolitan area, with conference calls, activists meeting and online dialog -- we could take this system global via Mayors for Peace. The idea of the whole world electing a message for nuclear disarmament looks very doable, and in the process of making it happen, we can energize Mayors for Peace.
-- Roger Eaton
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