This Current Moment: US Nuclear Weapon Policy & Back from the Brink

Please join NH Peace Action for a discussion about the danger this current moment presents with regard to nuclear weapons, and the ways in which Back from the Brink serves as a vehicle for effective grassroots organizing to eliminate the threat that they pose, with Michael Klare and Denise Duffield. This event is part of the Peace & Justice Conversation series.

Michael Klare, Five College professor emeritus of peace and world security studies, and director of the Five College Program in Peace and World Security Studies (PAWSS), holds a B.A. and M.A. from Columbia University and a Ph.D. from the Graduate School of the Union Institute. He has written widely on U.S. military policy, international peace and security affairs, the global arms trade, and global resource politics.

His books include American Arms Supermarket (1984), Low-Intensity Warfare (1988), Peace and World Security Studies: A Curriculum Guide (Fifth Edition, 1989; Sixth Edition, 1994), World Security: Challenges for a New Century (First Edition, 1991; Second Edition, 1994; Third Edition, 1998), Rogue States and Nuclear Outlaws (1995), Light Weapons and Civil Conflict (1999), Resource Wars (2001), Blood and Oil (2004), and The Race for What’s Left (2012). His articles have appeared in many journals, including Arms Control Today, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Current History, Foreign Affairs, Harper’s, The Nation, Scientific American, and Technology Review.

Klare serves on the board of the Arms Control Association and advises other organizations in the field.

Denise Duffield is Associate Director of Physicians for Social Responsibility-Los Angeles and directs its nuclear threats program, which advocates for health protective policies related to nuclear weapons and nuclear energy. She leads PSR-LA’s participation in the national Back from the Brink campaign, which brings local communities together to build the public support and political will needed to fundamentally change U.S. nuclear weapons policy. Denise also works on environmental health and justice issues, addressing the needs of local communities who are impacted by toxic contamination and the failure of regulatory agencies to protect them. She leads PSR-LA’s efforts to ensure a full cleanup of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL), a former nuclear and rocket testing facility near Los Angeles. Denise also serves on the board of the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA), a national network of organizations that works to address issues of nuclear weapons production and waste cleanup. She holds a BA in psychology from the University of Michigan and a master’s degree in theater arts from California State University Los Angeles.

About NHPA’s bi-weekly Zoom Peace & Justice Conversation Series: 2020’s upheavals brought us to a new moment of reckoning and possibility. How do we want to live in the world? What do we value? How can we make the changes we’ve been yearning for? NH Peace Action has been engaged in working for change for decades. We’d like to bring you into these conversations about issues and options for the future. Join us!

There is no charge to attend, but your contributions in any amount are greatly appreciated: https://nhpeaceaction.org/donate/

Resisting Attacks on Palestinian Human Rights Activists: A Capitol Calling Party

Join CODEPINK Congress & Massachusetts Peace Action for the seconed event in our SPECIAL SERIES ON FOREIGN POLICY!

Meet Palestinian human rights activists who refuse to be silenced, despite an intense crackdown on advocates for Palestinian human rights. In the U.S., the Israel lobby has vilified educators, targeting Palestinian human rights advocates with enemy lists and demanding they be fired. Abroad, Israel has outlawed six prominent NGOs for advocating for Palestinian rights, labeling them terrorist organizations. Learn about the work of Palestine Legal, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Against Canary Mission and the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel — and take action in solidarity with those resisting the crackdown.

Featured Guests:

• Diala Shamas is a Staff Attorney for the Center for Constitutional Rights. Born in East Jerusalem, Shamas challenges government abuses perpetrated under the guise of national security, both in the U.S. and abroad.
• Amal Thabateh is the Michael Ratner Justice Fellow at Palestine Legal, where she challenges the censorship and surveillance of advocates for Palestinian liberation.
• Brad Parker is a Senior Policy Advisor at Defense for Children International, where he advocates for Palestinian children’s rights and an end to Israel’s torture of child prisoners. Defense for Children International is one of six NGOs banned from Israel for its objections to child detentions in the occupied territories.
• Cynthia Franklin is a professor, author and Member of the Organizing Collective of the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel. She is also an activist with Against Canary Mission & Jewish Voice for Peace.

Registration will open soon.  *Note: RSVP’d emails will be provided to CODEPINK and either Massachusetts Peace Action or to your local  Peace Action affiliate

International Relations & Militarism Today

By any measure the pain and suffering caused by 21st century imperialism is staggering. Millions of  people, mostly in the Middle East and South Asia, have died or been displaced by the war on terrorism initiated in 2001. These figures include the untold thousands who have died directly from war and violence in Libya, Syria, Yemen, Bahrain, and elsewhere in the Middle East, South Asia, and North Africa and indirectly through “hybrid “wars against such countries as Iran, Venezuela, and Cuba.

Concomitant to war and violence, the 2022 US military budget endorsed by both political parties will exceed $778 billion.

What is the history of US militarism, what Andrew Bacevich calls “the permanent war economy”?

What are connections between the military/industrial complex and the global needs of capitalism?

What are the current sources of international tensions and possible war today?

What is behind US policy towards countries including China, Russia, Ukraine, Iran, Venezuela, and Cuba?

How should the peace movement respond to militarism and imperialism today?

Harry Targ, Purdue Professor of Political Science, Emeritus will initiate discussion of these critical and complicated issues. Targ, a long time activist, is current a Co-Chair of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism CCDS, a member of the Wisconsin Peace Action steering committee, and blogs at www.heartlandradical.blogspot.com