Carol Urner, my mother, had the floor again this morning. She was presenting on "reasons for hope" within the nuke weapons abolition movement, a campaign variously named, sometimes called "Countdown to Zero" in this blog.
Her reasons for hope centered around:
(a) a meeting on September 26, 2013
(b) actions by the non-aligned nations
(c) the World and US Council of Mayors
(d) the lawsuit by the Marshall Islands
Some of her statements were quite pro-Iran as she's in the camp thinking Iran is muscling around the edges of the nuclear weapons club in order to push for a no nuke weapons future, or call it leverage.
The same theory was floated about the USSR before its dissolution i.e. that an uber-goal of the Russian leadership was likewise a nuclear weapons free world.
Such hypotheses do not usually sit well with Americans, as the primary justification for the USA's continuing to stockpile is "crazy rogue nations" such as the USSR, Iran and North Korea. Imputing motives such as "attaining a nuclear weapons free world" to crazies makes them sound sane and US foreign policy is premised on the craziness of its enemies. The idea of any "hope" gets cold water in the US press, for the most part. Encouraging fear over longing seems more like DC's strong suit and leadership style.
Carol is giving a similar talk tomorrow at Thirsters.
During the middle of the Carol's talk, Lindsey and Melody dropped by and I made the brief announcement that this was Lindsey's last day in the US for some months, given her imminent departure from PDX this evening.
Lindsey has occasionally joined us at Wanderers over the years and is friends with many of us. Her official goodbye party was this passed Saturday.
Good seeing Elizabeth Furse again, former US Congresswoman, and David Tver at the table, along with other august attenders, like Dick Pugh.
Dick corrected Carol on a couple of points: the rocket used to launch the plutonium-carrying satellite was not itself a "nuclear rocket" (as in nuke-powered) and the nuclear devices exploded in the Pacific were not technically "bombs" i.e. were not "dropped", even if the tests were indeed atmospheric.
Carol spoke quite a bit about native / indigenous concerns regarding the nuclear industry, which has impacted North American tribes a lot, not just Pacific Islanders who've seen their homelands and way of life destroyed by Pentagon bozos. We talked about how men, more than women, tend to be bozos and how future world summits will need at least 50% women if they want any legitimacy.
September 26 is a new UN official day.
