Rev William Swing of the United Religions Initiative has published a strong warning that “The nuclear nations have decided to ‘modernize’ their weapons. With this almost fashionable announcement, the end of the world is all but guaranteed.”
Nuclear weapons development has entered a new and even more dangerous phase with the U.S. and Russia once again in cold war territory. The Doomsday Clock of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists is set at two minutes to midnight, as close to apocalypse as it has ever been. Here is a good article with details of recent shifts towards “modernizing” nukes: America’s nuclear-weapons policy isn’t what you think—it’s much worse.
Nuclear weapons build an atmosphere of distrust between nations. That distrust in turn makes international cooperation on global issues generally and on nuclear disarmament particularly nearly impossible.
We love our nations and religions, so to overcome the distrust we need a massive sense of human unity that also supports our national and religious identities. That’s where Voices of Humanity (VoH) comes in. VoH will inaugurate our “Together & Apart” feature with a collective conversation between the nuclear weapons states (NWS). It always takes longer than expected, so it will may be October rather than September before we can begin! Also in the works is a Smile/Scowl app where we use a VoH app to exchange light hearted pictures of ourselves either smiling for nuclear disarmament or scowling against nuclear weapons. Light-hearted is good because any approach to nuclear disarmament that stirs up feelings of horror, also stirs up the fight-or-flight reaction, which in turn creates feelings of support for nukes! It is a catch-22 that is built into the problem.
Previously the thinking was that we might begin Together & Apart with an Iran/USA conversation or with an India/Pakistan conversation, but in deliberation with a small support group it was decided that either of those approaches might go awry, so we will begin with the nuclear nations instead. Another email will go out via VoH and one by one when we begin. Also we will promote via our facebook page.
Thanks to all who are remaining interested. We do have a plan! (;-)
#nuclear_disarm #vohcc
