Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Blog

  • To Be or Not to Be with the Brexit Turmoil

    “To guarantee peace, there is a remedy which would in a few years make all Europe free and happy. It is to re-create the European family, or as much of it as we can, and to provide it with a structure under which it can dwell in peace, in safety and in freedom. We must build a kind of United States of Europe.” — Winston Churchill, 1946

    Many questions have been brought to the forefront after witnessing the unprecedented event of the UK voting to separate from the EU. Why do humans destroy what strengthens us, to kill what we love and obliterate everything that we have built? Why would a country like the UK make a decision that could lead to their own destruction? Why is this xenophobic enthusiasm embraced by the masses instead of looking for solutions? Through culture we can solve the basic problems of coexistence, one of which is the individual’s relationship with the community, or in this case, a Nation with fellow Nations.

    We know that our identity depends on the sense of belonging to a people, to a religion, to a culture. But what if that culture becomes corrupt? What if that society becomes oblivious? How do you escape the social pressure without falling into ethical autism? Must we evaluate cultures, subject societies to a “test of intelligence”?

    We are a species that likes to create conflict because we let our decision-making be made by the least rational side of our brain. We like to live in a world of hopes and dreams. We believe that reality, when it doesn’t suit our wishes, should be dynamited, although that explosion could cost us the loss of limbs. And when reality does suit our wishes, it is also worthy of being dynamited, because we are bored, we want more, “something else”, always on the path of self-destruction. The engine is the thirst for power, vanity and selfishness of a few, and the need to take advantage of the rest of the people. Unfortunately, most of the time we end up taking collective decisions that are not rational. In the case of the UK vote, the withdrawal was set in motion even though we had built institutions and tools to protect us from our foolishness. Destruction is inevitable because we can not bear to be our own vigilantes, we are converted into oppressors, reaching the point where our instinct of “agents of change” overwhelm us. The most powerful motivation to lead societies to self-destruction is hate speech, and is always a hidden revenge.

    Today, millions of Britons – mostly young – are disappointed and regret the result of seeing that they were able to burn down their own house. They were unsuited to understand that significant changes are the product of reason, strategy, intelligence, planning and cooperation; not the cave man tendency to believe that everything works out with brutality, anger and the use of force. We must accept that we are not the most advanced or the most intelligent beings on Earth. What other species destroys everything in its path, including all the cultural heritage built through centuries and millennia? What other species periodically engage in terrible wars, destroying, rebuilding and destroying on a vicious cycle?

    Ruben. D Arvizu is Director for Latin America of NAPF, Director General for Latin America of Jean-Michel Cousteau’s Ocean Futures Society and Ambassador Global Cities Covenant on Climate.

  • Noam Chomsky to Receive the NAPF Distinguished Peace Leadership Award

    2016evite

    Noam Chomsky, one of the greatest minds of our time, will be our Distinguished Peace Leader at this year’s Evening For Peace on Sunday, October 23.

    We’re calling the evening NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH because that’s what Chomsky is about– truth. He believes humanity faces two major challenges: the continued threat of nuclear war and the crisis of ecological catastrophe. To hear him on these issues will be more than memorable. Importantly, he offers a way forward to a more hopeful and just world. We are very proud to honor him with our award.

    The annual Evening for Peace includes a festive reception, live entertainment, dinner and an awards ceremony. It is attended by many residents of Santa Barbara, peace activists, those interested in our work, local businesses and philanthropists.

    Register today

    WHEN
    Sunday, October 23, 2016 from 5:30 PM to 8:30 PM (PDT) Add to Calendar

    WHERE
    La Pacifica Ballroom and Terrace, Four Seasons Resort, the Biltmore – 1260 Channel Drive, Santa Barbara, California 93103

  • Ten Worst Acts of the Nuclear Age

    The ten worst acts of the Nuclear Age described below have set the tone for our time.  They have caused immense death and suffering; been tremendously expensive; have encouraged nuclear proliferation; have opened the door to nuclear terrorism, nuclear accidents and nuclear war; and are leading the world back into a second Cold War.  These “ten worst acts” are important information for anyone attempting to understand the time in which we live, and how the nuclear dangers that confront us have been intensified by the leadership and policy choices made by the United States and the other eight nuclear-armed countries.

    1. Bombing Hiroshima (August 6, 1945). The first atomic bomb was dropped by the United States on the largely civilian population of Hiroshima, killing some 70,000 people instantly and 140,000 people by the end of 1945.  The bombing demonstrated the willingness of the US to use its new weapon of mass destruction on cities.

    2. Bombing Nagasaki (August 9, 1945). The second atomic bomb was dropped on the largely civilian population of Nagasaki before Japanese leaders had time to assess the death and injury caused by the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima three days earlier.  The atomic bombing of Nagasaki took another 70,000 lives by the end of 1945.

    3. Pursuing a unilateral nuclear arms race (1945 – 1949). The first nuclear weapon test was conducted by the US on July 16, 1945, just three weeks before the first use of an atomic weapon on Hiroshima.  As the only nuclear-armed country in the world in the immediate aftermath of World War II, the US continued to expand its nuclear arsenal and began testing nuclear weapons in 1946 in the Marshall Islands, a trust territory the US was asked to administer on behalf of the United Nations.  Altogether the US tested 67 nuclear weapons in the Marshall Islands between 1946 and 1958, with the equivalent explosive power of 1.6 Hiroshima bombs daily for that 12 year period.

    4. Initiating Atoms for Peace (1953). President Dwight Eisenhower put forward an Atoms for Peace proposal in a speech delivered on December 8, 1953.  This proposal opened the door to the spread of nuclear reactors and nuclear materials for purposes of research and power generation.  This resulted in the later proliferation of nuclear weapons to additional countries, including Israel, South Africa, India, Pakistan and North Korea.

    5. Engaging in a Cold War bilateral nuclear arms race (1949 – 1991). The nuclear arms race became bilateral when the Soviet Union tested its first atomic weapon on August 29, 1949.  This bilateral nuclear arms race between the US and USSR reached its apogee in 1986 with some 70,000 nuclear weapons in the world, enough to destroy civilization many times over and possibly result in the extinction of the human species.

    6. Atmospheric Nuclear Testing (1945 – 1980). Altogether there have been 528 atmospheric nuclear tests.  The US, UK and USSR ceased atmospheric nuclear testing in 1963, when they signed the Partial Test Ban Treaty.  France continued atmospheric nuclear testing until 1974 and China continued until 1980.  Atmospheric nuclear testing has placed large amounts of radioactive material into the atmosphere, causing cancers and leukemia in human populations.

    7. Breaching the disarmament provisions of the NPT (1968 – present). Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) states, “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….”  The five nuclear weapons-states parties to the NPT (US, Russia, UK, France and China) remain in breach of these obligations.  The other four nuclear-armed states (Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea) are in breach of these same obligations under customary international law.

    8. Treating nuclear power as an “inalienable right” in the NPT (1968 – present). This language of “inalienable right” contained in Article IV of the NPT encourages the development and spread of nuclear power plants and thereby makes the proliferation of nuclear weapons more likely.  Nuclear power plants are also attractive targets for terrorists.  As yet, there are no good plans for long-term storage of radioactive wastes created by these plants.  Government subsidies for nuclear power plants also take needed funding away from the development of renewable energy sources.

    9. Failing to cut a deal with North Korea (1992 to present). During the Clinton administration, the US was close to a deal with North Korea to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons.  This deal was never fully implemented and negotiations for it were abandoned under the George W. Bush administration.  Consequently, North Korea withdrew from the NPT in 2003 and conducted its first nuclear weapon test in 2006.

    10. Abrogating the ABM Treaty (2002).  Under the George W. Bush administration, the US unilaterally abrogated the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty.  This allowed the US, in combination with expanding NATO to the east, to place missile defense installations near the Russian border.  It has also led to emplacement of US missile defenses in East Asia.  Missile defenses in Europe and East Asia have spurred new nuclear arms races in these regions.

    David Krieger is a founder and president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org).

  • Review: Nuclear Heartland, revised edition: A Guide to the 450 Land-Based Missiles of the United States

    nuclearheartlandBuried beneath the “Land of the Free” are 450 land-based nuclear missiles that hold American democracy and the future of humanity hostage. Hidden from the public eye, the dangers of the nuclear age are eclipsed by a perception of safety – ushered into the American consciousness by a small group of beneficiaries. Twenty-seven years after its initial release, Nukewatch’s Nuclear Heartland, revised edition serves as a chilling reminder that hundreds of indiscriminate weapons still lurk beneath the surface of American soil. These “metal gods” wait patiently out of sight for a signal that would plunge our world into a state of total destruction.

    Between the covers of Nuclear Heartland, the reader will encounter the untold stories of those sacrificed to the Nuclear Age. We’ve all heard of the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but most of us are unfamiliar with the people of America’s Great Plains, whose lands, lives, and safety have been hijacked by a Federal Government pledging “national security.” The military economy that has exploded in the American Heartland has rendered the lands of Midwestern farmers barren, agricultural policy combined with Air Force pesticides forcing two-thirds of North Dakota farmers to lose their livelihoods. The lives of the silo-county residents are also at stake. Nukewatch co-founder Samuel H. Day writes, “One of the realities that has yet to sink in on the residents of missile silo county [. . .] is that their part of the United States was chosen long ago by distant strategists to serve as a national sacrifice area.” He continues, “The theory is that the remote and wide open spaces of the Great Plains were to be sacrificed so that California, New York, Washington, DC, and other centers of more importance to the planners could fight on in a nuclear war.”

    Despite this, the people of the American Midwest are largely in support of the warheads that sleep in their backyards. Unaware of the dangers that sleep beneath their gardens, most silo-county residents believe that the local economy benefits from the existence of local Air Force bases. Nuclear Heartland warns us otherwise, revealing that the augmented job market in silo counties was only temporary. By the 1960s, only half a decade after the Atlas missile program began, the economic boom resulting from missile production was already beginning to lull. Today, there are no employment opportunities for locals looking to capitalize on the military missiles. Repair work has been outsourced to specialists thousands of miles away, leaving silo counties across the Midwest dry of economic fruit.

    The Native American tribes of the Great Plains have also been subjected to numerous abuses by the U.S. Federal Government. Their lands are replete with unwanted missile silos that threaten their lives, land, identity, and culture, all of which are inextricably intertwined. The nuclear weapons scattered across the ancient Cherry Creek Trail and Black Hills, areas sacred to the Lakota-Sioux Nation, demonstrate that Native American lives are disposable in the face of U.S. security. The deployment of nuclear missiles on sacred Native American lands denies the Native American people their sovereignty, in effect reproducing the “us” and “them” narrative required for the accepted deployment of these destructive machines.

    However, Nuclear Heartland not only uncovers the untold oppression of today’s nuclear missile regime. The book also operates as a manual for disarmament, detailing the accounts of civil disobedience and direct action that have challenged the missiles since 1958. In the current age, when nuclear outrage has slipped beneath the radar of the general public, Nuclear Heartland abolishes silence, returning with a voice and a name to those courageous enough to face the ICBMs head on. Documenting earlier protests, like the 1984 symbolic disarmament of the N-5 by the Silo Pruning Hooks, alongside more recent ones, such as the 2006 Ploughshares “Weapons of Mass Destruction Here!” Protest, in which activists hammered and poured blood on a nuclear silo, Nuclear Heartland shows readers that the crusade against nuclear missiles is not a lost cause, but rather an expedition that marches on.

    With its definitive guide to the 450 remaining land-based missiles, the 2015 re-release of Nuclear Heartland serves as a cutting-edge guidebook, leading us out of the current age of nuclear complacency. Through its publication of the Missile Mapping Project, Nukewatch virtually unearths the remaining land-based missiles, opening them out to public scrutiny. The project, undertaken by hundreds of Nukewatch volunteers, places a geographical fix on all remaining US missile fields. Listed within the pages of Nuclear Heartland, revised edition, are the discoveries of this project: updated maps, directions, and photos, all documenting the continued existence, location, and condition of these fields. Towards the end of the book, there are short journal entries written by Barb Katt and John LaForge, the two anti-nuclear activists recruited to travel 30,000 miles across the nuclear heartlands to verify the location of each land-based missile site. The entries cover LaForge and Katt’s encounters with Air Force personnel, silo-county residents, and the nuclear warheads themselves.

    The Missile Mapping project operates as a participatory tool. By sharing with the public the existence, location, and condition of all U.S. land-based missiles, Nukewatch encourages the public to turn away from passive acceptance, embracing instead democratic discovery. “Given the will, we can fashion instruments of peace from the deadly warheads in our soil,” Sam Day wrote. And that is exactly what the authors of Nuclear Heartland are asking us to do: utilize our democratic right to participate and our collective power to demand an end to the Nuclear Age that plagues our world with its threat of uncertainty.

    Nuclear Heartland is available for purchase from Nukewatch at www.nukewatchinfo.org and from Amazon.com. Each copy is priced at $25, with an additional $5 charge for shipping and handling. Payments are also accepted by Nukewatch via mail at 740A Round Lake Road, Luck, WI 54853.

  • Ten Myths About Nuclear Weapons

    Nuclear weapons were needed to defeat Japan in World War II.

    It is widely believed, particularly in the United States, that the use of nuclear weapons against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was necessary to defeat Japan in World War II.  This is not, however, the opinion of the leading US military figures in the war, including General Dwight Eisenhower, General Omar Bradley, General Hap Arnold and Admiral William Leahy.  General Eisenhower, for example, who was the Supreme Allied Commander Europe during World War II and later US president, wrote, “I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced [to Secretary of War Stimson] my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives.  It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of ‘face’….”  Not only was the use of nuclear force unnecessary, its destructive force was excessive, resulting in 220,000 deaths by the end of 1945.

    Nuclear weapons prevented a war between the United States and the Soviet Union.

    Many people believe that the nuclear standoff during the Cold War prevented the two superpowers from going to war with each other, for fear of mutually assured destruction.  While it is true that the superpowers did not engage in nuclear warfare during the Cold War, there were many confrontations between them that came uncomfortably close to nuclear war, the most prominent being the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.  There were also many deadly conflicts and “proxy” wars carried out by the superpowers in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The Vietnam War, which took several million Vietnamese lives and the lives of more than 58,000 Americans, is an egregious example.  These wars made the supposed nuclear peace very bloody and deadly.  Lurking in the background was the constant danger of a nuclear exchange. The Cold War was an exceedingly dangerous time with a massive nuclear arms race, and the human race was extremely fortunate to have survived it without suffering a nuclear war.

    Nuclear threats have gone away since the end of the Cold War.

    In light of the Cold War’s end, many people believed that nuclear threats had gone away.  While the nature of nuclear threats has changed since the end of the Cold War, these threats are far from having disappeared or even significantly diminished.  During the Cold War, the greatest threat was that of a massive nuclear exchange between the United States and Soviet Union.  In the aftermath of the Cold War, a variety of new nuclear threats have emerged.  Among these are the following dangers:

    • Increased possibilities of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists who would not hesitate to use them;
    • Nuclear war between India and Pakistan;
    • Policies of the US government to make nuclear weapons smaller and more usable;
    • Use of nuclear weapons by accident, particularly by Russia, which has a substantially weakened early warning system; and
    • Spread of nuclear weapons to other states, which may perceive them to be an “equalizer” against a more powerful state.

    The United States needs nuclear weapons for its national security.

    There is widespread belief in the United States that nuclear weapons are necessary for the US to defend against aggressor states.  US national security, however, would be far improved if the US took a leadership role in seeking to eliminate nuclear weapons throughout the world.  Nuclear weapons are the only weapons that could actually destroy the United States, and their existence and proliferation threaten US security.  Continued high-alert deployment of nuclear weapons and research on smaller and more usable nuclear weapons by the US, combined with a more aggressive foreign policy, makes many weaker nations feel threatened.  Weaker states may think of nuclear weapons as an equalizer, giving them the ability to effectively neutralize the forces of a threatening nuclear weapons state.  Thus, as in the case of North Korea, the US threat may be instigating nuclear weapons proliferation.  Continued reliance on nuclear weapons by the United States is setting the wrong example for the world, and is further endangering the country rather than protecting it.  The United States has strong conventional military forces and would be far more secure in a world in which no country had nuclear arms.

    Nuclear weapons make a country safer.

    It is a common belief that nuclear weapons protect a country by deterring potential aggressors from attacking.  By threatening massive nuclear retaliation, the argument goes, nuclear weapons prevent an attacker from starting a war.  To the contrary, nuclear weapons are actually undermining the safety of the countries that possess them by providing a false sense of security.  While nuclear deterrence can provide some psychological sense of security, there are no guarantees that the threat of retaliation will succeed in preventing an attack.  There are many ways in which deterrence could fail, including misunderstandings, faulty communications, irrational leaders, miscalculations and accidents. In addition, the possession of nuclear weapons enhances the risks of terrorism, proliferation and ultimately nuclear annihilation.

    No leader would be crazy enough to actually use nuclear weapons.

    Many people believe that the threat of using nuclear weapons can go on indefinitely as a means of deterring attacks because no leader would be crazy enough to actually use them.  Unfortunately, nuclear weapons have been used, and it is likely that most, if not all, leaders possessing these weapons would, in fact, use them.  US leaders, considered by many to be highly rational, are the only ones who have ever used nuclear weapons in war, against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  In addition to these two actual US bombings, leaders of other nuclear weapons states have repeatedly come close to using their nuclear arsenals.  Nuclear deterrence is based upon a believable threat of nuclear retaliation, and the threat of nuclear weapons use has been constant during the post World War II period.  US policy currently provides that the US will not threaten or use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states that are parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and in compliance with their non-proliferation obligations.  Importantly, this leaves out other nuclear weapons states, as well as states not parties to the NPT and states the US determines not to be in compliance with their non-proliferation obligations.  US leaders have regularly refused to take any option off the table in relation to potential conflicts.  Threats of nuclear attack by India and Pakistan provide another example of nuclear brinksmanship that could turn into a nuclear war.  Historically, leaders of nuclear-armed countries have done their best to prove that they would use nuclear weapons.  Assuming that they would not do so would be extremely foolhardy.

    Nuclear weapons are a cost-effective method of national defense.

    Some have argued that nuclear weapons, with their high yield of explosive power, offer the benefit of an effective defense for minimum investment.  This is one reason behind ongoing research into lower-yield tactical nuclear weapons, which would be perceived as more usable.  The cost of research, development, testing, deployment and maintenance of nuclear weapons and their delivery systems, however, exceeds $7.5 trillion (in 2005 dollars) for the US alone.  The US is planning to spend another $1 trillion over the next three decades modernizing and upgrading every aspect of its nuclear arsenal.  The nine nuclear-armed countries are spending over $100 billion annually on their nuclear arsenals.  With advances in nuclear technology and power, the costs and consequences of a nuclear war would be immeasurable.

    Nuclear weapons are well protected and there is little chance that terrorists could get their hands on one. 

    Many people believe that nuclear weapons are well protected and that the likelihood of terrorists obtaining these weapons is low.  In the aftermath of the Cold War, however, the ability of the Russians to protect their nuclear forces has declined precipitously.  In addition, a coup in a country with nuclear weapons, such as Pakistan, could lead to a government coming to power that would be willing to provide nuclear weapons to terrorists.  In general, the more nuclear weapons there are in the world and the more nuclear weapons proliferate to additional countries, the greater the possibility that nuclear weapons will end up in the hands of terrorists.  The best remedy for keeping nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists is to drastically reduce their numbers and institute strict international inspections and controls on all nuclear weapons and weapons-grade nuclear materials in all countries, until these weapons and the materials for making them can be eliminated.  The 2016 Nuclear Security Summit had a narrow focus on protecting civilian stores of highly enriched uranium (HEU), which accounts for only a very small percentage of the world’s weapons-grade material.

    The United States is working to fulfill its nuclear disarmament obligations.

    Most US citizens believe that the United States is working to fulfill its nuclear disarmament obligations.  In fact, the United States has failed for nearly five decades to fulfill its obligations under Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to negotiate in good faith for an end to the nuclear arms race at an early date and for nuclear disarmament.  The US is currently being sued in US federal court by the Republic of the Marshall Islands for failing to fulfill its nuclear disarmament obligations under the NPT.  Rather than negotiating to end the nuclear arms race, the US is planning to upgrade and modernize all aspects of its nuclear arsenal, delivery vehicles and nuclear infrastructure.  The United States has also failed to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.  Further, it has unilaterally withdrawn from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, and thereby abrogated this important treaty.  The New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) between the US and Russia, which was signed in April 2010 and entered into force in February 2011, will reduce the number of deployed strategic warheads on each side to 1,550 by the year 2018.  This is not, however, a fulfillment of the US treaty obligations under the NPT.

    Nuclear weapons are needed to combat threats from terrorists and “rogue states.”

    It has been argued that nuclear weapons are needed to protect against terrorists and “rogue states.”  Yet nuclear weapons, whether used for deterrence or as offensive weaponry, are not effective for this purpose. The threat of nuclear force cannot act as a deterrent against terrorists because they do not have a territory to retaliate against. Thus, terrorists would not be prevented from attacking a country for fear of nuclear retaliation.  Nuclear weapons also cannot be relied on as a deterrent against “rogue states” because their responses to a nuclear threat may be irrational and deterrence relies on rationality.  If the leaders of a rogue state do not use the same calculus regarding their losses from retaliation, deterrence can fail.  As offensive weaponry, nuclear force only promises tremendous destruction to troops, civilians and the environment.  It might work to annihilate a rogue state, but the force entailed in using nuclear weaponry would be indiscriminate, cause unnecessary suffering, and be disproportionate to a prior attack, as well as highly immoral.  It would not be useful against terrorists because strategists could not be certain of locating an appropriate target for retaliation.

    David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). Angela McCracken, the 2003 Ruth Floyd intern in human rights and international law at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, was co-author of an earlier version of this article.

    6/08/16
    7/03/08
    7/07/03

  • NAPF Annual Report Now Online

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s 2015 Annual Report is now online and available for free download. Click here or on the image below to download the pdf.

    Nuclear Age Peace Foundation 2015 Annual Report

  • A Moral Revolution?

    A MORAL REVOLUTION?
    Reflections on President Obama’s Visit to Hiroshima

    richard_falkThere is no doubt that President Barack Obama’s visit to Hiroshima this May crossed some thresholds hitherto taboo. Above all the visit was properly heralded as the first time a sitting American president has dared such a pilgrimage, which has already been critically commented upon by patrioteers in America who still think that the Japanese deserved such a punishment for initiating the war or believed that only such “shock and awe” could induce the Japanese to surrender without a costly invasion of the mainland. As well many in Asia believe that Obama by the visit is unwittingly letting Japan off the accountability hook for its seemingly unrepentant record of atrocities throughout Asia, especially given the perception that the current Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, is doing his conservative best to reinvigorate Japanese nationalism, and even revive imperial ambitions.

    Obama is a gifted orator who excels in finding the right words for the occasion, and in Hiroshima his rhetoric soared once more. There he noted “[t]echnological progress without an equivalent progress in human institutions can doom us. The scientific revolution that led to the splitting of the atom requires a moral revolution as well.” Such stirring words would seem to be a call to action, especially when reinforced by a direct challenge: “..among nations like my own that hold nuclear stockpiles, we must have the courage to escape the logic of fear and pursue a world without them.” Obama at Prague in 2009, shortly after being sworn in as president, set forth an inspiring vision along the same lines, yet the small print there and now makes us wonder whether his heart and head are truly aligned. The words flow with grace and even passion, but where are the deeds?

    As in Prague, Obama expressed the cautionary sentiment in Hiroshima that “[w]e may not realize this goal in my lifetime.” At which point Obama associates himself with the stabilizing agenda of arms control, reducing the size of the stockpile, making the weapons less obtainable by “fanatics,” and implementing nonproliferation goals. Apparently, neither Obama nor the media take note of the tension between eliminating the weaponry and these proposals designed to stabilize the nuclear weapons environment by making it more reliably subject to prudent and rational policies of control. Yet at the same time making proposals to eliminate the weaponry seem less needed, and even at risk of threatening the stability so carefully constructed over the course of decades.

    The real reason for skepticism about Obama’s approach is his unexplained reasons to defer the abolition of nuclear weaponry to the distant future. When Obama declares that a world without nuclear weapons is not likely to happen in his lifetime without telling us why he is changing his role from an advocate of the needed ‘moral revolution’ so as to achieve the desired political transformation to that of being a subtle endorser of the nuclear status quo. Of course, Obama may be right that negotiating nuclear disarmament will not be easy or quick, but what is the argument against trying, why defer indefinitely?

    The global setting seems as favorable as it is likely to get. We live at a time when there are no fundamental cleavages among leading sovereign states, all of whom seek to benefit from a robust world economy and to live together without international wars. It would seem to be an overall situation in which dramatic innovations of benefit to the entire world would seem politically attractive. In such an atmosphere why could not Obama have said at Hiroshima, or seven years earlier at Prague, “that during the Cold War people dreamed of a world without nuclear weapons, but the tensions, distrust, and rivalry precluded a reliable disarming process, but now conditions are different. There are no good reasons not to convert dreams of a world without nuclear weapons into a carefully monitored and verified disarmament process, and there are many important reasons to try to do so.” What holds Obama back? Why does he not table a proposal or work with other nuclear governments to produce a realistic timetable to reach nuclear zero?

    Worse than the seeming absence of what the great theologian, Paul Tillich, called “the courage to be” is the worrisome evidence of double dealing—eloquent words spoken to warn us of the menace of nuclearism coupled with deeds that actually strengthen the hold of nuclearism on the human future. How else should we interpret by plans of the U.S. Government to spend $1 trillion over the next 30 years for the modernization and further development of the existing nuclear weapons arsenal, including provocative plans to develop nuclear weapons with potential battlefield, as opposed to deterrent, missions? Such plans are provocative because they weaken inhibitions on use and tempt other governments to emulate the United States so as offset feared new vulnerabilities to threat and attack. What stands out is the concreteness of the deeds reinforcing the nuclear established order and the abstractness of the words challenging that same order.

    Beyond this, while calling for a moral revolution, Obama seems at the same time to give his blessings to nuclear energy despite its profound moral shortcomings. Obama views nuclear energy as a contribution to reducing carbon emissions in relation to global warming concerns and as a way to sell nuclear technology abroad and at the same time satisfy the energy goals of countries, such as India, in the global South. What is not acknowledged by Obama is that this nuclear energy technology is extremely dangerous and on balance detrimental in many of the same ways as nuclear weapons, prone to accidents of the sort associated with the incidents at Chernobyl and Fukushima, subject to the hazards of accumulating and disposing of nuclear wastes, vulnerable to nuclear terrorism, and creating the technological capacity for the development of the weapons in a series of additional states.

    Obama made a point of announcing before visiting Hiroshima that there would be no apology for the attacks by the United States. Clearly, Obama was unwilling to enter a domain that in America remains inflamed by antagonistic beliefs, interpretations, and priorities. There is a scholarly consensus that the war would have soon ended without an invasion or the atomic bomb, but this thesis continues to be challenged by veterans and others who think that the bomb saved American lives, or at minimum, ended the captivity of captured soldiers far sooner than would have been the case without the attacks.

    In fairness, Obama did acknowledge the unspeakable tragedy for Japanese civilians that experienced the Hiroshima bomb, and he showed real empathy for survivors (hibakusha) who were there in the front rows when he spoke in Hiroshima Memorial Peace Park, but he held back from saying the use of the bomb was wrong, even the second bomb dropped on Nagasaki. Obama’s emphasis, instead, was on working together to make sure that it doesn’t happen again. In this sense, Obama was indirectly legitimating the impunity that was accorded to the victors after World War II, which contrasted with the punitive measures of accountability used to deal with the crimes committed by the surviving leaders of defeated Japan and Germany. The main value of an apology is to bring a degree of closure to those directly and indirectly victimized by those terrible, events that took place more than 70 years ago. By so doing the United States would have moved a bit closer to suspending its self-serving insistence on impunity and this would have withdrawn geopolitical legitimacy from the weaponry.

    There is something disturbing about America’s unwillingness to live up to the full horror of its past actions even while making a never again pledge. In another recent development that is freighted with similar moral ambiguities, former Senator Bob Kerrey was named the first Chair of the Board of the new Fulbright Vietnam University, a laudable joint educational project of the two countries partly funded by the U.S. Congress, despite his apparent involvement in a shameful atrocity committed during the war. The incident occurred on February 25, 1969 in the village of Thang Phong where a unit of Navy SEALS was assigned the task of assassinating a Viet Cong leader believed to be in the vicinity. Instead of a military encounter, 20 civilians were killed, some brutally. 13 were children and one a pregnant woman.

    Kerrey contends that the carnage was a result of mistakes, while both a fellow member of the SEALS squad and village residents say that the killing of the civilians was a result of deliberate actions, and not an accident in the darkness. Kerrey received a Bronze Star for the mission, which was reported falsely to his military superiors as resulted in killing 21 Viet Cong militants. What is almost worse, Kerrey kept silent about the incident for more than 30 years, and only spoke about it in public after learning there was about to be a published piece highly critical of his role. Kerrey now says “I have been haunted for 32 years” and explains, “It was not a military victory, it was a tragedy, and I had ordered it.” The weight of the evidence suggests that Kerrey participated as well as ordered the killings, and that although certainly a tragedy it is more properly acknowledged as a severe war crime amounting to an atrocity.

    We can only imagine what would be the American or Chinese reaction if Japan sent to the United States or China a comparable person to provide an honorific link between the two countries. For instance, sending a Japanese officer to the U.S. who had cruelly administered a POW camp where Americans were held captive and tortured or sending to China a Japanese commander who had participated in some of the grisly happenings associated with “the rape of Nanking.” It is good that Kerrey is finally contrite about his past role and appears to have been genuinely involved in promoting this goodwill encouragement of quality education in Vietnam, yet it seems unacceptably insensitive that he would be chosen to occupy such a position in an educational institution in Vietnam that is named after a prominent American senator who is particularly remembered for his efforts to bringing the Vietnam War to an end.

    What connects these two seemingly distinct concerns is the steadfast refusal of the United States Government to take responsibility for its past crimes, which ensures that when future political pressures push toward immoral and unlawful behavior a similar disregard for minimal decency will be papered over. Obama’s refusal to consider accountability for the unabashed reliance on torture during the presidency of George W. Bush similarly whitewashes the past while unconvincingly promising to do better in the future. Such a pattern makes a mockery of claims made by Obama on behalf of the United States that unlike its adversaries this is a country that reveres the rule of law whenever it acts at home or abroad. From the pragmatic standpoint of governing America, in fairness, Obama never really had a choice. The political culture would have rebelled against holding the Bush administration accountable for its crime, which brings us closer to the truth of a double standard of suspending the applicability of international criminal law with respect to the policies and practices of the United States while championing individual legal responsibility for its adversaries as an expression of the evolution of moral standards in international life.

    I believe that double standards has led Obama to put himself forward both as a visionary who seeks a transformed peaceful and just world and also as a geopolitical manager that accepts the job description of the presidency as upholding American global dominance by force as necessary. Now that Obama’s time in the White House is nearing its end we are better able to grasp the incompatibility of his embrace of these two roles, which sadly, and likely tragically, leads to the conclusion that the vision of a world without nuclear weapons was never meant to be more than empty words. What the peoples of the world need to discover over and over again is that the promising words flow easily from the lips of leaders have little significance unless supplemented by a robust movement from below that challenges those who are governing from above. As activists in the 1960s began to understand is that only when the body pushes against the machine will policies incline toward peace and justice, and we in the 21st century will have to rediscover this bit of political wisdom if hope for a nuclear free world is to become a genuine political project.

    If more than rhetoric is attached to the call for a “moral revolution,” then the place to start would be to question, prior to abandoning, the mentality that is comfortable with double standards when it come to war making and criminal accountability. The whole idea of impunity for the victors and capital punishment for the losers is morally regressive. Both the Obama visit to Hiroshima, as significant as it was, and the Kerrey relationship to the Fulbright Vietnam University, show that American society, even at its best, is far from prepared to take part in the necessary moral revolution.

  • Fiel a si mismo

    Traducción y adaptación de Rubén D. Arvizu. Click here for the English version.

    Muhammad Ali era fuerte y saltarín
    y con el Vietcong no quería ser un malandrín.

    Siempre tenía poemas o chistes ocurrentes
    sobre dónde iban a aterrizar sus oponentes.

    Le decían el “bocón de Louisville”
    Y fue campeón del mundo sin ser servil.

    Que tenía valor, eso nadie lo dudó
    y a gigantes del ring bien que los sacudió.

    A las filas del ejército fue convocado
    “No, gracias.”, contestó al llamado.

    Con los vietnamitas no tenía problema
    “no iré a esa guerra”, fue su lema.

    El matar le impedía su religión
    y el gobierno ordenaba aniquilar al vietcong.

    Su bien ganada corona se la quitaron de un plumazo,
    lo amenazaron con cárcel y lo llamaron payaso.

    A pesar de todo, a sí mismo fue siempre fiel,
    sus creencias más profundas eran dogma para él.

    Al final, mi héroe que estaba lleno de lodo
    la Suprema Corte lo exculpó de todo

    Muhammad Ali era fuerte y saltarín
    y con el Vietcong no quería ser un malandrín.

    David Krieger es Presidente de la Nuclear Age Peace Foundation
    Ruben D. Arvizu es Director para América Latina de la Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

  • True to Himself

    Muhammad Ali was graceful and strong
    and he had no quarrel with the Vietcong.

    He always had a poem or a quip at hand,
    particularly about where his opponents might land.

    They called him the “Louisville Lip,”
    as he danced his way to the world championship.

    That he had courage, there was no doubt,
    facing giants in the ring and taking them out.

    When called upon to fight in the Army’s ranks,
    he said in so many words, “No thanks.”

    He had nothing against the Vietnamese foe,
    so he dug in his heels and refused to go.

    He said his religion barred him from killing,
    while the government said he should be willing.

    They took away his well-earned crown,
    threatened him with jail and called him a clown.

    Through it all, he stayed true to himself,
    not allowing his deepest beliefs to be put on a shelf.

    Finally the man who I call a hero
    won at the Supreme Court eight to zero.

    Muhammad Ali was graceful and strong
    and he had no quarrel with the Vietcong.

  • Report to the UN Secretary-General on NAPF Disarmament Education Activities

    Report to UN Secretary-General on NAPF
    Disarmament Education Activities: July 2014 – June 2016

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (NAPF) has been educating people in the United States and around the world about the urgent need for the abolition of nuclear weapons since 1982. Based in Santa Barbara, California, the Foundation’s mission is to educate and advocate for peace and a world free of nuclear weapons, and to empower peace leaders.

    The following document was submitted to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. It will make up a portion of the “Report of the Secretary-General to the 71st Session of the General Assembly on the Implementation of the Recommendations of the 2002 UN Study on Disarmament and Non-Proliferation Education.”

    Websites

    www.wagingpeace.org

    NAPF’s primary website, www.wagingpeace.org, serves as an educational and advocacy tool for the general public concerned about nuclear weapons issues. Between July 2014-June 2016, there were over 750,000 unique visitors to the site. The Waging Peace site covers current nuclear weapons policy and other relevant issues of global security. It includes information about the Foundation’s activities and offers visitors the opportunity to participate in online advocacy and activism. The site additionally offers a unique archive section containing thousands of articles and essays on issues ranging from nuclear weapons policy to international law and youth activism.

    www.nuclearfiles.org

    The Foundation’s educational website, www.nuclearfiles.org, details a comprehensive history of the Nuclear Age. It is regularly updated and expanded. By providing background information, an extensive timeline, access to primary documents and analysis, this site is one of the preeminent online educational resources in the field. During this reporting period, there were 550,000 unique visitors to the Nuclear Files site.

    www.nuclearzero.org

    The Nuclear Zero website, www.nuclearzero.org, keeps the public up to date with hot off-the-press news developments surrounding the nuclear disarmament lawsuits filed in April 2014 by the Republic of the Marshall Islands against all nine nuclear-armed nations at the International Court of Justice and against the United States in U.S. Federal Court. By providing consistent access to information regarding the lawsuits, the site supports the Marshall Islands in holding nuclear weapons states accountable by keeping the public informed. A petition on the site in support of the RMI lawsuits has gathered over five million signatures.

    Social Networking

    The Foundation actively engages with members of the public through the online social networking sites Facebook (www.facebook.com/wagingpeace), YouTube (www.youtube.com/nuclearagepeace), and Twitter (www.twitter.com/napf). Through targeted use of these tools, the Foundation has been able to reach new audiences with its educational and inspirational material.

    Publications

    Why Our World Needs Peace Literacy
    Informational Booklet

    NAPF Peace Leadership Director Paul K. Chappell wrote this informational booklet about the seven forms of peace literacy. Peace literacy is the next step in the development of our global civilization because of its necessity in an interconnected world where the fate of every nation is tied to the fate of our planet.

    Available online at: https://wagingpeace.davidmolinaojeda.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/peace_literacy.pdf

    Humanize Not Modernize
    Informational Booklet

    Humanize Not Modernize discusses the five reasons why the United States should not waste $1 trillion modernizing its nuclear arsenal and the 10 worthy ways to reallocate those funds. This informational booklet aims to make the shift from modernizing the U.S. nuclear arsenal to humanizing our planet.

    Available online at: https://wagingpeace.davidmolinaojeda.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/humanize_not_modernize.pdf

    15 Moral Reasons to Abolish Nuclear Weapons
    Informational Booklet

    NAPF President David Krieger wrote these 15 moral reasons to abolish nuclear weapons. Ending the nuclear weapons threat is up to us all. There is no room for complacency.

    Available online at: https://wagingpeace.davidmolinaojeda.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/15_moral_reasons.pdf

    Nuclear Zero: Spiritual Leaders Speak Out
    Informational Booklet

    This short booklet contains quotes from nine spiritual leaders from around the world in favor of the abolition of nuclear weapons. Spiritual leaders around the world agree: we share a common responsibility to protect creation.

    Available online at: https://wagingpeace.davidmolinaojeda.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/nuclearzero_believe.pdf

    Sunflower E-Newsletter

    The Sunflower is the Foundation’s free monthly electronic newsletter provided to over 75,000 online members. It provides summaries of current issues of global security, nuclear policy, disarmament, proliferation, energy, waste, missile defense, resources and action items, as well as current and upcoming Foundation activities. NAPF publishes 12 issues annually at the beginning of each month.

    Current and back issues can be found on the Foundation’s website at https://wagingpeace.davidmolinaojeda.com/resources/sunflower/.

    Books

    NAPF Peace Leadership Director Paul K. Chappell authored two books during the reporting period. The Art of Waging Peace (2015) offers new and practical solutions in today’s struggle to stop war, terrorism and other global problems. By sharing his own personal struggles with childhood trauma, racism, and berserker rage, Chappell explores the anatomy of war and peace, giving strategies, tactics, and leadership principles to resolve inner and outer conflict. The Cosmic Ocean (2015) is Mr. Chappell’s most recent book. To survive and progress as a global human family, Chappell explains that we need a paradigm shift that can transform our understanding of peace, justice, love, happiness, and what it means to be human. To help create this paradigm shift, The Cosmic Ocean explores diverse subjects such as empathy, rage, nonviolent struggle, war, beauty, religion, philosophy, science, Gandhi, the Iliad, slavery, human sacrifice, video games, sports, and our shared humanity.

    NAPF President David Krieger published four books during this reporting period. WAKE UP! (2015) is a compilation of Dr. Krieger’s piercing and thought-provoking peace poetry. ZERO: The Case for Nuclear Weapons Abolition (2nd edition, 2015) is a collection of Dr. Krieger’s short essays that together make a strong case for the urgent abolition of nuclear weapons. Summer Grasses (2014) is an anthology of war poetry collected over the years by Dr. Krieger. Speaking of Peace: Quotations to Inspire Action (3rd edition, 2014) is a collection of quotations on peace, war and the human spirit. These quotations were selected by David Krieger to encourage thought and inspire action toward a more peaceful and nuclear weapon-free world.

    Articles and Op-Eds

    NAPF President David Krieger and Director of Programs Rick Wayman have had numerous letters to the editor and op-eds published during the reporting period. Media outlets publishing content from Dr. Krieger and Mr. Wayman include The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Santa Barbara News-Press, Truthout, Counterpunch, Hiroshima Peace Media Center and Pressenza.

    Public Lectures

    Frank K. Kelly Lecture on Humanity’s Future

    This endowed lecture is named for Frank K. Kelly, a co-founder and Senior Vice President of the Foundation.  The lecture focuses on hope and inspiration for a positive future for humanity, and is presented annually by a distinguished individual and subsequently published and distributed by the Foundation.  The 2015 Kelly Lecture was delivered by Helen Caldicott who was named by the Smithsonian as one of the most influential women of the 20th century and is renowned as a prominent and influential speaker on nuclear weapons and the fate of the Earth. Her lecture was entitled “Preserving the Future.” The 2016 Kelly Lecture was delivered by Robert Scheer, one of the nation’s most outspoken and progressive journalists, professor of Communications at the University of Southern California, and Editor-in-Chief of Truthdig.com. The title of his lecture was “War, Peace, Truth and the Media.” Transcripts and videos of all of the Kelly Lectures are available on the Foundation’s website at https://wagingpeace.davidmolinaojeda.com/programs/public-events/kelly-lecture/.

    Lectures at Universities and Other Public Venues

    In the past two years, NAPF staff members have given over 100 public lectures in many US states as well as in Uganda, Germany, Austria, Canada, Mexico and Japan. Audiences are specifically challenged to think critically about nuclear weapons and join NAPF in taking action for a nuclear weapon-free world.

    NAPF has also worked with over 50 universities around the United States to arrange screenings of the film Nuclear Savage: The Islands of Secret Project 4.1, which details the effects of U.S. nuclear weapons testing on the people of the Marshall Islands. Rick Wayman, NAPF’s Director of Programs, spoke to many of these university groups about the film and about the Marshall Islands’ nuclear disarmament lawsuits either in person or via skype video chat.

    Speakers Bureau

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation maintains a Speakers Bureau featuring numerous Foundation representatives available to speak on many different aspects of peace and nuclear disarmament. More information is available online at https://wagingpeace.davidmolinaojeda.com/about/speakers-bureau/.

    Empowering the Public

    Internship Program

    The Foundation provides internship opportunities to select college student during the academic year to work with staff on current peace and security issues. Interns conduct research, write analysis of issues, work on the websites and gain valuable insight into the workings of an NGO.

    During the Summer, the Foundation offers three full-time paid internships through a competitive application process. Students come from all around the United States and abroad to work at the Foundation’s Santa Barbara office. During this reporting period, NAPF hosted 23 interns.

    Peace Leadership Program

    The NAPF Peace Leadership Program is led by Paul K. Chappell, a West Point graduate and Iraq War veteran. The program is designed to provide educators, students and activists with the skills they need to effectively wage peace every day. The program seeks to develop peace leadership that will achieve a world free of nuclear weapons through innovative training in leadership, interpersonal communication and conflict resolution.

    The program has a comprehensive and targeted approach, providing lectures to high school students, colleges, veteran groups, churches and activist organizations throughout the United States and other countries and two-, three-, and five-day courses to foster leadership that promotes peace in our communities.

    Awards and Contests

    Swackhamer Disarmament Video Contest

    The Foundation has held a video contest annually since 2008 seeking videos of three minutes or less on specific topics related to nuclear disarmament. The 2015 contest received 60 entries on the topic “The Imperative of Reaching Nuclear Zero: The Marshall Islands Stands Up for All Humanity,” in which contestants discussed reasons for supporting the Marshall Islands’ nuclear disarmament cases at the International Court of Justice and U.S. Federal Court. The 2016 contest received 52 entries on the topic “Humanize, Not Modernize,” in which contestants outlined reasons why nuclear-armed nations should not “modernize” their nuclear arsenals.

    Barbara Mandigo Kelly Peace Poetry Awards

    This annual series of awards encourages poets to explore and illuminate positive visions of peace and the human spirit.  The Poetry Awards include three age categories:  Adult, Youth 13-18, and Youth 12 & Under.  The Foundation has published a book of the winning poems for the first seven years of the Awards, The Poetry of Peace (2003), and a sequel containing the winning poems for the years 2003-10 entitled Never Enough Flowers: The Poetry of Peace II (2012). In 2014, the contest received 140 entries. In 2015, the contest received 408 entries. In 2016, the contest received over 1,600 entries, the majority of which came from the Youth 13-18 category.

    Distinguished Peace Leadership Award

    The Distinguished Peace Leadership Award is presented annually to individuals who have demonstrated courageous leadership in the cause of peace. The Foundation has, on occasion, also presented a Lifetime Achievement Award for peace leadership. The award is presented at the Foundation’s Annual Evening for Peace in Santa Barbara, California. Instituted in 1984, past recipients of the award include His Holiness the XIVth Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Captain Jacques Cousteau, Dr. Helen Caldicott, Jody Williams, King Hussein of Jordan, Walter Cronkite and Daniel Ellsberg. In 2014, NAPF honored Medea Benjamin, the co-founder of the social justice organization CODEPINK and the international human rights organization Global Exchange. In 2015, NAPF honored Setsuko Thurlow, a survivor of the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima and an outspoken advocate for the abolition of nuclear weapons.

    Memberships

    Abolition 2000

    Abolition 2000 is a network of over 2000 organizations in more than 90 countries working for a global treaty to eliminate nuclear weapons. NAPF was a founding organization in 1995. For more information, visit www.abolition2000.org.

    Alliance for Nuclear Accountability

    The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA) supports over 30 member organizations and groups who are working throughout the country to empower citizens to take action and to protest an opaque and mismanaged nuclear complex. ANA works to find solutions that can achieve a vision of a modern society that runs off renewable energy sources, has verifiably dismantled the world’s nuclear arsenal, and has responsibly disposed of our nuclear waste. For more information, visit www.ananuclear.org.

    Amplify: Generation of Change

    NAPF Director of Programs Rick Wayman is Co-Chair of Amplify, a growing international network of the younger generation of leaders in the field of nuclear abolition. The Amplify network is uniting youth from all over the world to create opportunities for future collaborations transcending strategic differences. The network’s goal is to amplify and strengthen the call for complete nuclear abolition by taking action, raising our voices and pursuing nuclear abolition in our communities and countries. For more information, visit www.amplifyyouth.org.

    International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN)

    ICAN is a global campaign coalition working to mobilize people in all countries to inspire, persuade and pressure their governments to initiate and support negotiations for a treaty banning nuclear weapons. The campaign was launched in 2007, and now has more than 400 partner organizations in 95 countries. For more information, visit www.icanw.org.

    International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility (INES)

    INES is a network of some 80 organizations in 34 countries concerned about the impact of science and technology on society.  The Foundation provides support and leadership for the Network and regularly participates in its conferences and workshops. For more information, visit www.inesglobal.com.

    International Peace Bureau (IPB)

    IPB is comprised of 300 member organizations in 70 countries, together with individual members, to form a global network, bringing together knowledge and campaigning experience in a common cause. IPB links experts and advocates working on similar issues in order to build strong civil society movements. For more information, visit www.ipb.org.

    Middle Powers Initiative

    The Foundation is a founding member of the Middle Powers Initiative (MPI), a coalition of eight international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) seeking the cooperation of middle power governments and civil society in pursuit of a treaty to eliminate nuclear weapons worldwide. For more information, visit www.middlepowers.org.

    World Future Council

    NAPF President David Krieger is Co-Chair of the Peace and Disarmament working group of the World Future Council. For more information on the World Future Council, visit www.worldfuturecouncil.org.