674 - Peace & Life: Atom Bomb Anniversaries - August 4, 2023
Coming up: The Anniversaries of the Use of the Atom Bombs
August 6, 1945: the first deliberate use of the atom bomb against human beings, Hiroshima, Japan.
August 9, 1945: so far, the last deliberate use, Nagasaki, Japan. May it forever remain the last.
There will be commemorations all over. There’s likely to be one in your vicinity. We encourage you to participate.
Peace Vigil
August 12, 2023, 10AM to 12 PM local time
on the roadway in front of the White House
This is our quarterly protest of nuclear weapons outside the White House by the Consistent Life Network, the local Pax Christi and the local American Solidarity Party, and Rehumanize International. This one will also mark the anniversaries of the atomic bombings. If you’re in the vicinity, please come!
For more information, contact John Whitehead at jwwhiteh@yahoo.com.
Our Blog Posts on Nuclear Weapons
Basics
The Persisting Threat of Nuclear Weapons: A Brief Primer
Nuclear Disarmament as a Social Justice Issue
A Global Effort to Protect Life: The UN Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapons
Nukes and the Pro-Life Christian: A Conservative Takes a Second Look at the Morality of Nuclear Weapons
Hiroshima and Nagasaki
“Everybody Else in the World Was Dead”: Hiroshima’s Legacy
The Danger That Faces Us All: Hiroshima and Nagasaki after 75 Years
Rejecting Mass Murder: Looking Back on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Nuclear Testing and Production
Unholy Trinity: The Terrible Consequences of the First Nuclear Test
Fallout at Home Base: Nuclear Testing within the United States
Lethal from the Start: Uranium Mining’s Danger to the Most Vulnerable
“The Affairs of a Handful of Natives”: Nuclear Testing and Racism
History
Stepping Back from the Brink: The Cuban Missile Crisis and Lessons for Today
The Reynolds Family, the Nuclear Age and a Brave Wooden Boat
“An Inferno That Even the Mind of Dante Could Not Envision”: Martin Luther King on Nuclear Weapons
Quotation of the Week
Repeating a classic, the second quotation comments on the first one:
Herman Kahn
On thermonuclear war, Princeton University Press, 1960, p. 50
“Probably of limited significance to us are the so-called embryonic deaths. These are conceptions which would have been successful if it had not been for radiation that damaged the germ cell and thus made the potential conception result in a failure. There will probably be five million of these in the first generation, and one hundred million in future generations . . . On the whole, the human race is so fecund that a small reduction in fecundity should not be a serious matter even to individuals. It is almost completely misleading to include the ‘early deaths’ or embryonic deaths in the same total with the major and minor defects, but this is sometimes done by scientists who have overemphasized the abstraction ‘genetic death’ and thus lost sight of the difference in terms of human tragedy of a serious defect or an embryonic death.”
Juli Loesch (aka Julianne Wiley)
“Shake Hands with a Prolife Peacemaker,” U.S. Catholic, May 1984
“I always lay a Herman Kahn quote on them about how 100 million embryonic deaths would result from limited nuclear war. One hundred million embryonic deaths is of limited significance, he says, because human fecundity being what it is . . . the slight reduction in fecundity should not be a matter of serious concern even to individuals.
Tell that to a prolife group, and their response will be, ‘That guy’s an abortionist.’ Well, what he was was a nuclear strategist. But you can make that connection because you’ve got that common ground.”