Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: peace

  • Veterans Day Again

    David Krieger“The one thing I never want to see again
    is a military parade.”  — Ulysses S. Grant

    We’ve seen far too many military parades
    with their missiles, marching bands
    and mechanized young men.

    We’ve witnessed enough high-stepping
    soldiers in their polished black boots
    marching to the sounds of brass.

    Spare us the old men dressed in uniforms
    with their sorrowful hats and sewn-on patches.
    Spare us the slippery words of politicians.

    Let’s return to basics: On Armistice Day
    the soldiers laid down their arms on the 11th hour
    of the 11th day of the 11th month.

    The survivors had had enough of war.
    The 11th hour is here again, the sky clear blue.

  • You Are Not One But Many

    Remembering Martin Luther King, Jr.

    Your deep voice still hangs in the air,
    Melting the cowardly silence.
    You are the one standing solidly there
    Looking straight in the face of violence.

    You are the one who dreams
    That this nation will honor its creed.
    You are the one who steps forward.
    You are the one to bleed.

    You are not one but many
    Unwilling to cower or crawl.
    You are the one who will take no less
    Than a world that is just for all.

    David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). He is a councilor of the World Future Council.

  • Sunflowers: The Symbol of a World Free of Nuclear Weapons

    Sunflowers are a simple miracle. They grow from a seed. They rise from the earth. They are natural. They are bright and beautiful. They bring a smile to one’s face. They produce seeds that are nutritious, and from these seeds oil is produced. Native Americans once used parts of the sunflower plant to treat rattlesnake bites, and sunflower meal to make bread. Sunflowers were even used near Chernobyl to extract radionuclides cesium 137 and strontium 90 from contaminated ponds following the catastrophic nuclear reactor accident there.

    Now sunflowers carry new meaning. They have become the symbol of a world free of nuclear weapons. This came about after an extraordinary celebration of Ukraine achieving the status of a nuclear free state. On June 1, 1996, Ukraine transferred to Russia for dismantlement the last of the 1,900 nuclear warheads it had inherited from the former Soviet Union. Celebrating the occasion a few days later, the Defense Ministers of Ukraine, Russia, and the United States met at a former nuclear missile base in the Ukraine that once housed 80 SS-19 missiles aimed at the United States.

    The three Defense Ministers planted sunflowers and scattered sunflower seeds. Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma said, “With the completion of our task, Ukraine has demonstrated its support of a nuclear weapons free world.” He called on other nations to follow in Ukraine’s path and “to do everything to wipe nuclear weapons from the face of the Earth as soon as possible.” U.S. Secretary of Defense William Perry said, “Sunflowers instead of missiles in the soil would ensure peace for future generations.”

    This dramatic sunflower ceremony at Pervomaisk military base showed the world the possibility of a nation giving up nuclear weapons as a means of achieving security. It is an important example, featuring the sunflower as a symbol of hope. The comparison between sunflowers and nuclear missiles is stark—sunflowers representing life, growth, beauty and nature, and nuclear armed missiles representing death and destruction on a massive, unspeakable scale. Sunflowers represent light instead of darkness, transparency instead of secrecy, security instead of threat, and joy instead of fear.

    The Defense Ministers were not the first to use sunflowers. In the 1980s a group of brave and committed resisters known as “The Missouri Peace Planters” entered onto nuclear silos in Missouri and planted sunflowers as a symbol of nuclear disarmament. On August 15, 1988, fourteen peace activists simultaneously entered ten of Missouri’s 150 nuclear missile silos, and planted sunflowers. They issued a statement that said, “We reclaim this land for ourselves, the beasts of the land upon which we depend, and our children. We interpose our bodies, if just for a moment, between these weapons and their intended victims.”

    Which shall we choose for our Earth? Shall we choose life or shall we choose death? Shall we choose sunflowers, or shall we choose nuclear armed missiles? All but a small number of nations would choose life. But the handful of nations that choose to base their security on these weapons of omnicide threaten us all with massive uncontrollable slaughter.

    In the aftermath of the Cold War, many people believe that the nuclear threat has ended, but this is not the case. In fact, there are still more than 15,000 nuclear weapons in the arsenals of the nine nuclear-armed countries. These countries have given their solemn promise in the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which entered into force in 1970, to negotiate in good faith to achieve nuclear disarmament, but they have not acted in good faith. It is likely that until the people of the world demand the total elimination of nuclear weapons, the nuclear weapons states will find ways to retain their special status as nuclear “haves.” Only one power on Earth is greater than the power of nuclear weapons, and that is the power of the People once engaged.

    This article was originally published on March 12, 1998. This version was revised on August 21, 2015.

  • Mother’s Day Proclamation

    Julia Ward Howe issued this proclamation in the year 1870.

    Julia Ward HoweArise, then, women of this day! Arise, all women who have hearts, whether your baptism be that of water or tears!

    Say firmly: “We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies. Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have taught them of charity, mercy and patience. We women of one country will be too tender of those of another to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”

    From the bosom of the devastated earth, a voice goes up with our own. It says, “Disarm, Disarm!”

    The sword of murder is not the balance of justice. Blood not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first, as women, to bewail & commemorate the dead. Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesars but of God.

    In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of women without limit of nationality may be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient and at the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace.

    Biography of Julia Ward Howe

    US feminist, reformer, and writer Julia Ward Howe was born May 27, 1819 in New York City. She married Samuel Gridley Howe of Boston, a physician and social reformer. After the Civil War, she campaigned for women rights, anti-slavery, equality, and for world peace. She published several volumes of poetry, travel books, and a play. She became the first woman to be elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1908. She was an ardent antislavery activist who wrote the Battle Hymn of the Republic in 1862, sung to the tune of John Brown’s Body. She wrote a biography in 1883 of Margaret Fuller, who was a prominent literary figure and a member of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Transcendentalists. She died in 1910.

  • More on the Ukraine

    martin_hellman1This article, along with Hellman’s full series on the Ukraine crisis, can be found at his blog Defusing the Nuclear Threat.

    With the Crimea voting today on whether to secede from the Ukraine, and early returns indicating strong support for secession, the following perspectives on the crisis are particularly relevant. As before, I am emphasizing unusual perspectives not because the mainstream view (“It’s  Russia’s fault!”) doesn’t have some validity, but because it over-simplifies a complex issue. And, when dealing with a nation capable of destroying us in under an hour, it would be criminally negligent not to look at all the evidence before imposing sanctions or taking other dangerous steps.

    In his blog, Russia: Other Points of View, Patrick Armstrong asks, “If, as seems to be generally expected, tomorrow’s [now today’s] referendum in Crimea produces a substantial majority in favour of union with the Russian Federation, what will Moscow’s reaction be?” It will be interesting to assess his answer a week from now, when time will tell if he was right:

    I strongly expect that it will be……

    Nothing.

    There are several reasons why I think this. One is that Moscow is reluctant to break up states. I know that that assertion will bring howls of laughter from the Russophobes who imagine that Putin has geography dreams every night but reflect that Russia only recognised the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia after Georgia had actually attacked South Ossetia. The reason for recognition was to prevent other Georgian attacks. Behind that was the memory of the chaos caused in the Russian North Caucasus as an aftermath of Tbilisi’s attacks on South Ossetia and Abkhazia in the 1990s. Russia is a profoundly status quo country – largely because it fears change would lead to something worse – and will not move on such matters until it feels it has no other choice. We are not, I believe, quite at that point yet on Crimea let alone eastern Ukraine.

    Moscow can afford to do nothing now because time is on its side. The more time passes, the more people in the West will learn who the new rulers of Kiev are.

    To show “who the new rulers of Kiev are,” Armstrong then quotes from a Los Angeles Times article, which starts off:

    It’s become popular to dismiss Russian President Vladimir Putin as paranoid and out of touch with reality. But his denunciation of “neofascist extremists” within the movement that toppled the old Ukrainian government, and in the ranks of the new one, is worth heeding. The empowerment of extreme Ukrainian nationalists is no less a menace to the country’s future than Putin’s maneuvers in Crimea. These are odious people with a repugnant ideology.

    Read the rest of the article to learn more.

    And a Reuters dispatch shows how the interim Ukrainian government is making it more likely that Crimea’s desire to secede and re-join Russia will be honored by Russia:

    Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk vowed on Sunday to track down and bring to justice all those promoting separatism in its Russian-controlled region of Crimea “under the cover of Russian troops”.

    “I want to say above all … to the Ukrainian people: Let there be no doubt, the Ukrainian state will find all those ringleaders of separatism and division who now, under the cover of Russian troops, are trying to destroy Ukrainian independence,” he told a cabinet meeting as the region voted in a referendum on becoming a part of Russia.

    We will find all of them – if it takes one year, two years – and bring them to justice and try them in Ukrainian and international courts. The ground will burn beneath their feet.”

    Given that the Ukrainian opposition demanded amnesty for even the violent protesters in Kiev, how can the new government possibly expect the more peaceful Crimean opposition not to secede under such threats? It is also worth noting that this new government was installed by force in violation of an agreement worked out between Yanukovych and the political leaders of the Ukrainian opposition.

  • Similarities: 1914 and 2014

    David KriegerThe countries of Europe, it is said,
    stumbled into World War I, a war
    no one wanted and yet, and yet…it happened.
    After Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s assassination,
    it became the Great War, taking the lives
    of a generation of young men too eager to fight
    in the battlefield trenches.

    What can we say about the confrontation
    of great powers, going on at this very moment,
    in Ukraine? Could the leaders of these countries
    be stumbling again, this time on a powder
    keg of nuclear alliance, misunderstandings,
    irrationality, false promises, political realities
    and unrealities, indignation and, above all,
    bravado, as always, bravado for God and country?

    David Krieger
    March 2014

    This poem was originally published by Truthout.

  • Ukraine and the Danger of Nuclear War

    The need for restraint and balance

    john_averyThe current situation in Ukraine and the Crimean Peninsula is an extremely dangerous one. Unless restraint and a willingness to compromise are shown by all of the the parties involved, the crisis might escalate uncontrollably into a full-scale war, perhaps involving nuclear weapons. What is urgently required is for all the stakeholders to understand each other’s positions and feelings. Public understanding of the points of view of all sides is also very much needed.

    We in the West already know the point of view of our own governments from the mainstream media, because they tell us of nothing else. For the sake of balance, it would be good for us to look closely at the way in which the citizens of Russia and the Crimean Peninsula view recent events. To them the overthrow of the government of Viktor Yanukovitch appears to be another in a long series of coups engineered by the US and its allies. The list of such coups is very long indeed. One can think, for example of the the overthrow Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh, or the coup that overthrew Chile’s democratically elected President, Salvador Allende, and replaced him with General Pinochet. There are very many other examples:

    During the period from 1945 to the present, the US interfered, militarily or covertly, in the internal affairs of a large number of nations: China, 1945-49; Italy, 1947-48; Greece, 1947-49; Philippines, 1946-53; South Korea, 1945-53; Albania, 1949-53; Germany, 1950s; Iran, 1953; Guatemala, 1953-1990s; Middle East, 1956-58; Indonesia, 1957-58; British Guiana/Guyana, 1953-64; Vietnam, 1950-73; Cambodia, 1955-73; The Congo/Zaire, 1960-65; Brazil, 1961-64; Dominican Republic, 1963-66; Cuba, 1959-present; Indonesia, 1965; Chile, 1964-73; Greece, 1964-74; East Timor, 1975-present; Nicaragua, 1978-89; Grenada, 1979-84; Libya, 1981-89; Panama, 1989; Iraq, 1990-present; Afghanistan 1979-92; El Salvador, 1980-92; Haiti, 1987-94; Yugoslavia, 1999; and Afghanistan, 2001-present, Syria, 2013-present. Egypt, 2013-present. Most of these interventions were explained to the American people as being necessary to combat communism (or more recently, terrorism), but an underlying motive was undoubtedly the desire to put in place governments and laws that would be favorable to the economic interests of the US and its allies.

    For the sake of balance, we should remember that during the Cold War period, the Soviet Union and China also intervened in the internal affairs of many countries, for example in Korea in 1950-53, Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968, and so on; another very long list. These Cold War interventions were also unjustifiable, like those mentioned above. Nothing can justify military or covert interference by superpowers in the internal affairs of smaller countries, since people have a
    right to live under governments of their own choosing even if those governments are not optimal.

    In the case of Ukraine, there is much evidence that the Western coup was planned long in advance. On December 13, 2013, US Assistant Secretary of State for Europe, Victoria Nuland said: “Since the declaration of Ukrainian independence in 1991, the United States has supported the Ukrainians in the development of democratic institutions and skills in promoting civil society and a good form of government… We have invested more than 5 billion dollars to help Ukraine to achieve these and other goals.” Furthermore, Nuland’s famous “Fuck the EU” telephone call, made well in advance of the coup, gives further evidence that the coup was planned long in advance, and engineered in detail.

    Although Victoria Nuland’s December 13 2013 speech talks much about democracy, the people who carried out the coup in Kiev can hardly be said to be democracy’s best representatives. Many belong to the Svoboda Party, which had its roots in the Social-National Party of Ukraine (SNPU). The name  was an intentional reference to the Nazi Party in Germany. According to Der Spiegal’s article about SNPU, “anti-Semitism is part of the extremist party’s platform”, which rejects certain minority and human rights. The article states that in 2013, a Svoboda youth leader distributed Nazi propaganda written by Joseph Goebels. According to the journalist Michael Goldfarb, Svoboda’s platform calls for a Ukraine that is “one race, one nation, one Fatherland”.

    The referendum regarding self-determination, which will soon take place in Crimea is perfectly legal according to international law. A completely analogous referendum will take place in Scotland, to determine whether Scotland will continue to be a part of the United Kingdom, or whether the majority of Scots would like their country to be independent. If Scotland decides to become independent, it is certain to maintain very close ties with the UK. Analogously, if Crimea chooses independence, all parties would benefit by an arrangement under which close economic and political ties with Ukraine would be maintained.

    We should remember that for almost all the time since the reign of Catherine the Great, who established a naval base at Sevastopol, the Autonomous Republic Republic of Crimea has been a part of Russia. But in 1954 the Soviet government under Nikita Krushchev passed a law transferring Crimea from the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia still maintained its naval base at Sevastopol under an agreement which also allowed it to base a military force in Crimea.

    It seems to be the intention of the US to establish NATO bases in Ukraine, no doubt armed with nuclear weapons. In trying to imagine how the Russians feel about this, we might think of the US reaction when a fleet of ships sailed to Cuba in 1962, bringing Soviet nuclear weapons. In the confrontation that followed, the world was bought very close indeed to an all-destroying nuclear war. Does not Russia feel similarly threatened by the thought of hostile nuclear weapons on its very doorstep? Can we not learn from the past, and avoid the extremely high risks associated with the similar confrontation in Ukraine today?

    Lessons from the First World War

    Since we are now approaching the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War, it is appropriate to view the crisis in Ukraine against the background of that catastrophic event, which still casts a dark shadow over the future of human civilization. We must learn the bitter lessons which World War I has to teach us, in order to avoid a repetition of the disaster.

    We can remember that the First World War started as a small operation by the Austrian government to punish the Serbian nationalists; but it escalated uncontrollably into a global disaster. Today, there are many parallel situations, where uncontrollable escalation might produce a world-destroying conflagration.

    In general, aggressive interventions, in Iran, Syria, Ukraine, the Korean Peninsula and elsewhere, all present dangers for uncontrollable escalation into large and disastrous conflicts, which might potentially threaten the survival of human civilization.

    Another lesson from the history of World War I comes from the fact that none of the people who started it had the slightest idea of what it would be like. Science and technology had changed the character of war. The politicians and military figures of the time ought to have known this, but they didn’t. They ought to have known it from the million casualties produced by the use of the breach-loading rifle in the American Civil War. They ought to have known it from the deadly effectiveness of the Maxim machine gun against the native populations of Africa, but the effects of the machine gun in a European war caught them by surprise.

    Today, science and technology have again changed the character of war beyond all recognition. In the words of the Nobel Laureate biochemist, Albert Szent Györgyi, “ The story of man consists of two parts, divided by the appearance of modern science…. In the first  period, man lived in the world in which his species was born and to which his senses were adapted. In the second, man stepped into a new, cosmic world to which he was a complete stranger….The forces at man’s disposal were no longer terrestrial forces, of human dimension, but were cosmic forces, the forces which shaped the universe. The few hundred Fahrenheit degrees of our flimsy terrestrial fires were exchanged for the ten million degrees of the atomic reactions which heat the sun….Man lives in a new cosmic world for which he was not made. His survival depends on how well and how fast he can adapt himself to it, rebuilding all his ideas, all his social and political institutions.”

    Few politicians or military figures today have any imaginative understanding of what a war with thermonuclear weapons would be like. Recent studies have shown that in a nuclear war, the smoke from firestorms in burning cities would rise to the stratosphere where it would remain for
    a decade, spreading throughout the world, blocking sunlight, blocking the hydrological cycle and destroying the ozone layer. The effect on global agriculture would be devastating, and the billion people who are chronically undernourished today would be at risk. Furthermore, the tragedies of Chernobyl and Fukushima remind us that a nuclear war would make large areas of the world permanently uninhabitable because of radioactive contamination. A full-scale thermonuclear war would be the ultimate ecological catastrophe. It would destroy human civilization and much of the biosphere.

    Finally, we must remember the role of the arms race in the origin of World War I, and ask what parallels we can find in today’s world. England was the first nation to complete the first stages of the Industrial Revolution. Industrialism and colonialism are linked, and consequently England obtained an extensive colonial empire. In Germany, the Industrial Revolution occurred somewhat later. However, by the late 19th century, Germany had surpassed England in steel production, and, particularly at the huge Krupp plants in Essen, Germany was turning to weapons production. The Germans felt frustrated because by that time there were fewer opportunities for the acquisition of colonies.

    According to the historian David Stevensen (1954 – ), writing on the causes of World War I, “A self-reinforcing cycle of heightened military preparedness… was an essential element in the conjuncture that led to disaster… The armaments race… was a necessary precondition for the outbreak of hostilities.”

    Today, the seemingly endless conflicts that threaten to destroy our beautiful world are driven by what has been called “The Devil’s Dynamo”. In many of the larger nations of the world a military-industrial complex seems to have enormous power. Each year the world spends roughly 1,700,000,000.000 US dollars on armaments, almost 2 trillion. This vast river of money, almost too large to be imagined, pours into the pockets of weapons manufacturers, and is used by them to control governments. This is the reason for the seemingly endless cycle of threats to peace with which the ordinary people of the world are confronted. Constant threats are needed to justify the diversion of such enormous quantities of money from urgently needed social projects into the bottomless pit of war.

    World War I had its roots in the fanatical and quasi-religious nationalist movements that developed in Europe during the 19th century. Nationalism is still a potent force in todays world, but in an era of all-destroying weapons, instantaneous worldwide communication, and global economic interdependence, fanatical nationalism has become a dangerous anachronism. Of course, we should continue to be loyal to our families, our local groups and our nations. But this must be supplemented by a wider loyalty to the human race as a whole. Human unity has become more and more essential, because of the serious problems that we are facing, for example climate change, vanishing resources, and threats to food security. The problems are soluble, but only within a framework of peace and cooperation.

    We must not allow the military-industrial complex to continually bring us to the brink of a catastrophic nuclear war, from which our civilization would never recover. The peoples of the earth must instead realize that it is in their common interest to join hands and cooperate for the preservation and improvement of our beautiful world.

  • Noam Chomsky Joins NAPF Advisory Council

    Santa Barbara, CA – The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is pleased to announce that Professor Noam Chomsky, arguably the single most influential living scholar in the world today, has joined the Foundation’s Advisory Council.

    Professor Chomsky is a world-renowned political theorist and professor emeritus of linguistics at MIT. He was an early and outspoken critic of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War and has written extensively on many political issues from a progressive perspective. A philosopher, cognitive scientist, logician, political commentator and activist, he is considered an international voice for equality, human rights, abolishing nuclear weapons and peace.

    David Krieger, President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, said, “We are excited to have Professor Chomsky as a member of the Foundation’s Advisory Council. He is one of the world’s wise men. The depth of his knowledge about the complex and varied crises that confront humanity is more than impressive. He is a truth teller to those in power, to other intellectuals and to the people of the world.”

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation was founded in 1982. Its mission is to educate and advocate for peace and a world free of nuclear weapons and to empower peace leaders.

    Other members of the Foundation’s Advisory Council include such luminaries as Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Jane Goodall, Queen Noor of Jordan, Daniel Ellsberg, Bianca Jagger and
    The Dalai Lama.

    Professor Chomsky was recently in Santa Barbara to deliver the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s 13th Annual Frank K. Kelly Lecture on Humanity’s Future. His lecture, entitled “Security and State Policy” was delivered to a capacity audience at the Lobero Theatre and also live audio streamed courtesy of KCSB. On that occasion, Professor Chomsky was presented with the Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation was founded in 1982. Its mission is to educate and advocate for peace and a world free of nuclear weapons and to empower peace leaders. The Foundation is a non-partisan, non-profit organization with consultative status to the United Nations and is comprised of individuals and groups worldwide who realize the imperative for peace in the Nuclear Age.

  • Native Ideals to Spark a New Peaceful Revolution

    Native Ideals to Spark a New Peaceful Revolution

    NAPF Peace Leadership Director Paul Chappell spoke on the principles of nonviolence at the second workshop on Building Nonviolent Indigenous Rights Movements on February 15, 2014 in Nova Scotia, Canada. Held at the Tatamagouche Retreat Center outside Halifax, and sponsored by the Wabanaki Confederacy and the Land Peace Foundation, this workshop also included special interactions from the Native community.

    nova_scotia“The inclusion of more traditional and ceremonial elements into the Nova Scotia workshop, such as talking circles that were facilitated by prayer and ceremony, enabled us to deepen our dialogue with participants. By including more traditional elements, we were able to connect with each other in a more meaningful way,” said co-trainer Sherri Mitchell, Indigenous lawyer and Executive Director of the Land Peace Foundation.

    Discussing the nonviolent tactics and strategies of Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., Paul Chappell expressed the importance of all people learning the truth of our shared humanity. He reminded the group how all of humanity has indigenous roots.

    Indigenous peoples offer a unique contribution. Native activist Gkisedtanamoogk said,  “Native Americans are a success story because we have faced the longest ongoing genocide in history yet we are still here, and our ideals are still here. We are survivors, and we are not going anywhere. We will continue to protect our mother the earth, just as our ancestors did. Indigenous people used to be the only ones talking about our responsibility to protect the environment, and now I see that attitude spreading. I have witnessed this happening.”

    His wife, Miigamaghan added, “People used to say that we were primitive, but now they are realizing that our highest ideals were simply ahead of their time.”

    Chappell encouraged the participants. “By building on your powerful ideals and uniting wisdom from around the world, you have the potential to create a new peaceful revolution.”

    Jo Ann Deck is the NAPF Peace Leadership Program Coordinator.

  • Noam Chomsky to Deliver 13th Annual Frank K. Kelly Lecture on Humanity’s Future

    Santa Barbara, CA – Noam Chomsky, arguably the single most influential living scholar in the world today, will deliver the 13th Annual Frank K. Kelly Lecture on Humanity’s Future on Friday, February 28, at 7:30 p.m. at the Lobero Theatre in downtown Santa Barbara.

    Professor Chomsky’s lecture is entitled “Security and State Policy.”

    A philosopher, cognitive scientist, logician, political commentator and activist, Professor Chomsky was an early and outspoken critic of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War and has written extensively on many political issues from a progressive perspective. He contends that our world faces two potentially existential threats: the continued threat of nuclear war and the crisis of ecological, environmental catastrophe.

    Before Chomsky’s lecture, David Krieger, President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, will present Professor Chomsky with the Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award for Distinguished Peace Leadership. Said Krieger, “We’re proud to present this award to Noam Chomsky. He is a truth-teller in the tradition of Socrates, being a gadfly to those who would threaten our common future with their greed and arrogance. We couldn’t have a more deserving recipient who epitomizes the essential spirit of both this award and of the Kelly Lecture series.”

    The Annual Frank K. Kelly Lecture on Humanity’s Future was established by the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation in 2001. Frank K. Kelly was a founder and senior vice president of the Foundation. His career included being a journalist, a soldier, a Neiman Fellow, a speechwriter for President Truman, assistant to the U.S. Senate Majority Leader, and vice president of the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions.

    The event is sold out. However, the lecture will be live audio streamed courtesy of KCSB. In Santa Barbara, tune in to 91.9 FM, or listen online from anywhere in the world at kcsb.org.
    For more information visit www.wagingpeace.org or call (805) 965-3443.