Many Actions for WILPFers in July to Advocate for Abolishing Nuclear Weapons
Published on June, 30 2023
WILPF member and Hibakusha Hideko Tamura will appear in a documentary about Oppenheimer on MSNBC on July 9th at 10 pm EDT. Image was screenshot from the trailer for this film which will also be streamed on Peacock from July 10th onwards.
by Cherrill Spencer and Ellen Thomas
Co-chairs, DISARM/End Wars Issue Committee
July 2023
The DISARM committee invites you to take part in several actions during July to help highlight the scourge of nuclear weapons and to advocate for their abolition. WILPF member Hideko Tamura is a Hibakusha of the Hiroshima bomb, and she will appear in the documentary film To End All War: Oppenheimer and the Atomic Bomb on MSNBC on Sunday, July 9, at 10 pm EDT (then it will be streamed for some weeks on NBC’s Peacock service). We encourage you and your friends to watch it and also to see the dramatic film Oppenheimer.
We are taking advantage of the Oppenheimer film premiering on July 21st in cinemas all over the United States to tell the public about the dire need to abolish nuclear weapons. We will provide you (via an eAlert) with a flyer to hand out to audience members as they leave your local theater after any showing of Oppenheimer, which is expected to run for several weeks.
One way to bring the existence of nuclear weapons to an end is through the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), which we are urging the President to sign, using hardcopy and online petitions.
CONGRATULATIONS to the Boston WILPF branch which has sent the Disarm Committee 285 signatures collected since the first of the year on the WILPF US petition to the President asking for his signature on the TPNW, and to the US Senate for ratification of the TPNW! Way to go, Massachusetts! Try to catch up, everybody!
There are more than 7,000 signatures collected on paper petitions by WILPF members all over the country since July 2017, when the TPNW was approved at the United Nations. There are also 3,204 signatures collected on the online petition so far. You can also access the online petition through this QR code.
The pandemic interrupted the signature campaign, so we were delighted to receive 20 paper petitions from Eileen Kurkoski in June, and we hope it's a sign of many more to come from all branches and members!
We hope everyone will begin gathering signatures again, both personally and via social media, which we will take to the next review of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in New York in 2025, to demand the nuclear powers live up to the pledge in Article VI of the NPT, which reads, “Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”
Related to the TPNW and the NPT is the so-called “Norton bill” which has been introduced in 16 sessions of Congress by Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, whose goal is for the US to get rid of all its nuclear weapons and to spend the money saved on converting our energy sources to renewable ones. The bill is HR-2775 this session. We are asking you to take part in lobbying your congressperson to co-sponsor HR-2775 on July 12th or 13th. If you are interested, fill out this Washington, DC Lobby Day Form and you will be contacted by Nuclear Ban US with the appropriate details.
Our DISARM/End Wars Issue committee welcomes new members; write to disarmchair@wilpfus.org to request to join.
