At Hiroshima the President laments the "technology" that led to the atomic bombings and that has brought us to the Nuclear Precipice:
"The scientific revolution that led to the splitting of an atom requires moral revolution as well." He mentions a "future that we can choose" and "the start of our own moral awakening."
Sorry, Mr President that is NOT the solution to the problem.We cannot change who we are as human beings. We cannot change our nature nor do we have the time for such a "revolution". Nuclear Weapons Must Go and they must go NOW.
"The indefinite combination of human fallibility and Nuclear Weapons carries a high risk of potential catastrophe."-Robert McNamara, former Sec of Defense
We carry these catastrophic weapons with us like sidearms with unlocked triggers. Warheads on hair trigger alert. They are with us when we sleep, when we awake, when we head out for the day with the belief that our homes, our families and our world will be there when we return. On those two awful August days in 1945 the people of those cities did the same. We know what happened. It will happen again to all of us next time and to all of the unborn generations IF we continue in our cozy complacency.
"It's amazing that we're all still here."-Dr. Helen Caldicott, anti- nuclear weapons advocate
While we may agree with Martin Luther King that the "moral arc of the universe is long", we must realize that in this case it will not be long enough.We cannot keep kicking the Nuclear Weapons can down that dead end road. Everyday that we do so is a "hold your breath and hope for the best day."
President Obama's words are empty. Devoid as they are of any specific measures to end these holocaust creating Nuclear Weapons in our time. In fact, he is proposing just the opposite - an inane, insane "modernization" program for these killer weapons.
Winston Churchill once spoke of "the long lamentable catalog of human crime." Knowing our history of endless warfare, genocide and Holocaust who can honestly believe that these horrific weapons will never be used.
That a world leader somewhere, sometime, will not Click on the final DELETE button. Yes, that fast! Everything over and ended with a keyboard click. Whether by design or by accident or miscalculation - will not matter.
"The world was not meant to be a prison in which man awaits his execution." President John F. Kennedy
Nuclear weapons are sui generis. There has never been anything like them.
"Weapons like this have never existed before in history and they cannot be allowed to exist. If we do not get rid of them, sooner or later they will be used." Mikhail Gorbachev, former Premier of USSR and Nobel Peace Prize recipient, interview August 2015
From Pope Francis, speech at the United Nations, Sept 2015:
"The urgent need for a world free of Nuclear Weapons with the goal of a complete prohibition of these weapons."
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NUCLEAR WEAPONS ABOLITION IN OUR TIME