“The greatest danger to human civilization and the planet is the inability to believe that tomorrow can be different . . .”

So writes Derek Johnson of the Global Zero movement, an organization committed to a world free of nuclear weapons. Let’s put it this way: If we can cooperate in our own collective suicide — a.k.a., nuclear war — surely, surely we can cooperate in creating a world that transcends such a possibility. Or are cynicism, war and profit so thoroughly worked into the human social structure that I’m kidding myself? You can’t put the genie back in the bottle, people say, superstitiously (it seems) condemning themselves, or at least their children, to inevitable self-annihilation.

Democracy in Ohio ain’t dead yet -- voters ensured that yesterday by overwhelmingly rejecting Issue 1. The people’s right to democratically amend the Ohio Constitution prevailed despite relentless attacks from far-right schemers and big business owners.

As of the morning after the election (August 9), the unofficial results from the Secretary of State (who, it should be noted, campaigned hard for Issue 1 to pass) show 1,315,346 votes in favor of Issue 1 and 1,744,094 against – showing that overwhelming 57 percent of voters said “hell no” to the Statehouse power grab.

These results are quite a debacle for Ohio Republicans. In January, they made August Special Elections illegal. They argued that, especially due to low turnout, elections in August were a “waste of money.”

Part Two

(Anti-)Zoning (Anti-)Enforcement, under the auspices of City Attorney and City Council, forms one leg of the evil, broken triangle, the misnamed Division of Public (aka Private) Service is the second.

Host of “Flashpoints” at KPFA-Pacifica/Berkeley, Dennis’s brilliant reporting led him to witness some of the real horrors at the devastated Hanford Reservation in Washington state.  

The fallout from the development there of the plutonium bomb that destroyed Nagasaki ruined the lives of thousands of innocent Americans, as Dennis powerfully explains.  

LINDAY SEELEY of the San Luis Obispo Mothers For Peace then updates us on the latest developments in the grassroots campaign to permanently close Diablo Canyon.

The two reactors on the central California coast 9 miles west of San Luis Obispo pose a profound, mega-lethal death threat to tens of millions throughout California and across the United States.

Seeley and many many others have long been working to finally get those reactor closed.  A critical chance will arise this fall, when Unit One may close for refueling.