The United States and other nuclear powers are now moving closer to resuming nuclear weapons tests, decades after testing ended. This highly disturbing trend must be halted.

Since the atomic age, 2,056 nuclear weapons have been detonated, 528 of them above the ground. The United States and Soviet Union accounted for about 85% of these tests. The explosive power of atmospheric tests equaled 29,000 Hiroshima bombs. Airborne radioactive fallout circled the globe, re-entered the environment through precipitation, and entered human bodies through food and water.

Cold War bomb testing was part of a massive increase in the number of nuclear weapons, which peaked at more than 60,000. Kansas City plays a major part in their production, with the Kansas City National Security Campus manufacturing more than 80% of the non-nuclear components that go into our country’s stockpile.

After nuclear war as barely avoided during the Cuban missile crisis, public pressure convinced leaders to ban all above-ground tests in 1963 — a treaty that has never been violated.

Dr. Bob Fitrakis and Dan-o Dougan talk about women-led and all-women music groups from the rock era and some other genres including Heart, the Runaways, Sweet Honey and the Rock, TLC and more!

Listen live at 11pm Friday, March 7 and 14 streaming at wgrn.org or on the radio at 91.9FM
and
Monday at 2pm streaming March 10 and 17 at wcrsfm.org or on the radio at 92.7 or 98.3FM

Archived on Mixcloud here

It’s with a very heavy heart that I watch Europe imitate the militarism of the United States, moving massive resources from human and environmental needs to weapons, celebrating proposals from good liberal civic groups to steal money from Russia and dump it into more weapons, cutting deals to have the ingredients for more weapons dug out of your soil by a distant empire that routinely spits on your head, moving nuclear weapons around and across borders like toys, discarding the rule of law and a vision of a survivable future.

International law is fighting for relevance. The outcome of this fight is likely to change the entire global political dynamics, which were shaped by World War II and sustained through the selective interpretation of the law by dominant countries.

 In principle, international law should have always been relevant, if not paramount, in governing the relationships between all countries, large and small, to resolve conflicts before they turn into outright wars. It should also have worked to prevent a return to an era of exploitation that allowed Western colonialism to practically enslave the global south for hundreds of years.

See video here
Tuesday, March 4, 3pm Ohio Statehouse rally with speakers including local farmer and council member Christopher Gibbs, fired federal worker Wesley Stanovsek, as well as Ohio House representative Michele Grim. Making our voices heard and refusing the anti-democrati, and illegal actions of the Trump administration and those who follow. Trump is systematically purging everyone from the federal government that is not loyal to him above anyone else, including the American people and the constitution that he swore to uphold. The lives of every minority in this country are being threatened. We call for the legislators, and leaders of our nation to stand with us in these dire times.