SC Prog Blog

Today you can sign the petition for a constitutional amendment to insert “high quality education” into our state constitution, replacing the current South Carolina standard of a “minimally adequate education.”

Go to www.GoodbyeMinimallyAdequate.com. Sign the petition and then forward it to your network of friends and supporters of South Carolina’s children. South Carolinians of school age and up are encouraged to sign. NO OUT OF STATE ADDRESSES, PLEASE !!!

We are shooting for 1,000,000 signatures of South Carolinians. Let’s make history. Sign and forward now!

Bud Ferillo

WYFF TV: JONESVILLE, S.C. — Following a day of national attention and public outcry over a sign in front of a small church in a small town, the message has been changed.

The sign in front of the Jonesville Church of God said, “Obama, Osama, hmm, are they brothers?”

On Tuesday, the Church Of God’s International Office issued a statement saying that the sign had been removed.

The message on the sign now reads: “How will you spend eternity, smoking or no smoking?”

Pastor Roger Byrd said that he had just wanted to get people thinking. He said that the message wasn’t meant to be racial or political.

“It’s simply to cause people to realize and to see what possibly could happen if we were to get someone in there that does not believe in Jesus Christ,” he said.

When asked if he believes that Barack Obama is Muslim, Byrd said, “I don’t know. See it asks a question: Are they brothers? In other words, is he Muslim? I don’t know. He says he’s not. I hope he’s not. But I don’t know. And it’s just something to try to stir people’s minds. It was never intended to hurt feelings or to offend anybody.”

Obama has said repeatedly during his campaign that he is a Christian and attends Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago.

The amount of attention the message received surprised Byrd.

“I’m very surprised,” he said, “It shocked me and startled me.”

Byrd had said that he and his congregation decided on Sunday night to leave the sign up, and that he didn’t want it to appear that controversy forced him to take the sign down.

The WYFF4.com story about the sign was viewed more than a quarter million times by users across the country. Hundreds of negative comments regarding the sign were posted online. On Tuesday, Byrd apparently decided the wording on the sign should be replaced.

He was not available for comment on Tuesday.

Geoff Miller sent this today.

A Pentecostal church in South Carolina has put up a sign asking if Obama and Osama are brothers. Religious nutters embarrass the Carolinas again. The real God must be furious!

Take action!

File a Complaint with the IRS: A referral of an exempt organization may be made by submitting Form 13909, Tax-Exempt Organization Complaint (Referral) Form.

Form 13909 and any supporting documentation may be submitted in a variety of ways.  They can be sent via:
* Mail to IRS EO Classification, Mail Code 4910DAL, 1100 Commerce St., Dallas, TX 75242-1198,
* Fax to 214-413-5415, or
* Email to eoclass@irs.gov.
Submission of Form 13909 is voluntary.

Church Number and Address
864-674-6843
621 Forest Street Jonesville, SC 29353

State office for denomination:
864-963-4751  (Extension 102 for the “State Overseer”, Thomas Propes)
adminbishop@sccog.com

National office:
kbell@churchofgod.org
423-472-3361

The SC Progressive Network is always proud of its members, but this week several of them got the media attention they so deserve. Read about what they’re up to, and be inspired by their dedication to work and community.

South Carolina Coalition for Healthy Families helped successfully defeat a bill that would have required women view an ultrasound before obtaining an abortion. A compromise was reached that changed the language to “allow” rather than “require” a woman view an ultrasound image. You can link to the bill here. Read more in The State, the Greenville News, and WIS News 10.

Conchita Cruz, an organizer for Coalition for New South Carolinians, was featured on the cover and lead story in Free Times.

Ed Madden, a longtime Network activist who has served on our executive committee and on the boards of SC GLPM and SC Equality Coalition, was featured in the arts section of Free Times for his debut poetry book, Signals. Join him for his launch party on April 20 at the Hunter Gatherer Pub, 900 Main St., in Columbia and on April 23, 7-9pm, at if Art Gallery, 1223 Lincoln St. Madden describes the book as “meditations on personal and cultural memory, race, and sexuality in the New South.” It includes several poems on the politics of race and sexuality in Southern culture, and at least two poems written at and about SC Progressive Network events.

And the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Columbia’s effort to “go green” was featured in The State.

Great work, comrades!

Elke Kennedy sent this piece around to friends today. After her son’s death, she founded Sean’s Last Wish (a Network member) to work for passage of hate crimes legislation in South Carolina. The editorial was published in Washington Blade.

Gay man’s killer should be the last homophobe to get away with murder.

By Jeff Marootian

SEAN WILLIAM KENNEDY would have turned 21 on April 8, but his life was taken from him last May when he was beaten to death while walking home from a bar in Greenville, S.C.

After an evening of fun with friends, you’re happy as you walk toward the comforts of home. A car speeds up beside you. An unfamiliar man jumps out. He calls you a faggot and punches you in the face knocking you out. As you fall, unconscious, your head cracks on the curb.

Stephen Moller, who issued that blow to Sean’s head, later left this voicemail for a friend of Sean’s: “You tell your faggot friend that when he wakes up he owes me $500 for my broken hand.”

As punishment, Moller will likely serve less than a year in jail for an act of violence motivated by hate and fear. Less than a year for ending the promising life of a mother’s son, brother to loving siblings and a friend to many.

In Sean’s case, the prosecutors claim they cannot prove “malicious intent” — that Moller intended to kill Kennedy.

So, they have formally charged him with involuntary manslaughter. While this carries a maximum sentence of five years, Moller will likely be set free with little to no time actually served.

A JURY SHOULD have the option to decide if this is a hate crime and prosecutors should have the option to ask for such a verdict. Sadly, hate crimes laws do not exist in South Carolina and the federal statute for hate crimes does not include sexual orientation and gender identity. The major force of hate crimes laws lies in the generally included “penalty enhancement” clause that empowers the court to increase the penalty for someone convicted of such a crime. Sean’s killer should spend more than one year in jail.

Having spent five years working as a civilian in a law enforcement agency, I have heard most of the arguments from all sides of the hate crimes issue.

There has been a great deal of meaningful debate about their effectiveness and concern over their justification. Proving that hatred is a motivation can be both costly and untenable, but this cost pales in comparison to the cost of letting offenders slip through a faulty system.

SINCE SEAN KENNEDY’S death, there have been several other high profile incidents that involved killing motivated by hate and fear. No single law will end the cycle of ignorance that leads people to this type of violence.

Our energies must be focused on changing the root causes of this kind of violence, and the criminal justice system must be united and unwavering in handling these types of crimes. Sean is sadly not the last LGBT youth to be killed because of who he was, nor was he the first.

We should work to honor Sean’s last wish that his killer must be among the last to be prosecuted under a sieve-like system that lets Moller slip through.

For more information about the passage of hate crimes laws, visit www.seanslastwish.com.

UAW-CIO Fair Practices and Anti-discrimination Department poster c.1950

By Mary Beth Maxwell

Recent headlines reveal what many of us already know — Americans are witnessing the highest inflation rates seen in over 20 years. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, food prices climbed nearly five percent in 2007, and as housing and energy costs skyrocket out of control, working families are getting squeezed. In these difficult times, we should also be reminded that women face even greater financial struggles when weathering this economic storm.

With the observance of Equal Pay Day on April 24, we mark how far into each year a woman must work to earn as much as a man did in the previous year. Recent wage data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics does not give cause for celebration. In 2007, women earned only 80 cents for every dollar a man earned. This pay gap was substantially greater for minorities, with African-American women making only 70 cents and Hispanic women making only 62 cents for every dollar earned by their male counterparts. While women are more reluctant to negotiate salaries and are often employed in underpaid professions, one grim reality remains — gender-based discrimination still inherent in our society has largely caused the pay gap that persists today.

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Ted Christian has announced he is running against US Rep. Bob Inglis, the congressman who is so low-profile it’s easy to forget he’s even in DC. Christian is one of three candidates vying for the Democratic congressional nomination, along with Paul Corden, a former marketing executive and retired community college teacher from Spartanburg, and Bryan McCanless of Greenville. Inglis faces a primary challenge from Charles Jeter, an environmental engineer and Reagan administration official from Greer.

Here is a clip from Christian’s kick-off press conference on March 31.

Here is a bit about the candidate, taken from his Web site.

Bio:

I grew up in Florida, received a degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Florida in 1983, and then worked in Houston on the space shuttle and space station programs until basically retiring on stock market investments in 1991. I moved to Greenville in 1999, and bought a house off North Main.

Why am I running?

As much as anything, I’d like to raise the bar a bit.

The democratic process in our country has become a money driven circus, with politicians marketed substantially like cereal, in many cases qualified for office by not much more than money and packaging, while the principal fixed goal of either main party has become greater market share and the power it brings.

The consequences of this political retailing are increasingly dire. Our country now as a matter of stated policy wages aggressive war, the greatest of crimes, invading other nations without legitimate cause. The US is increasingly under what amounts to martial law, with American citizens subject to imprisonment without charge and search without warrant. The US now tortures people, sometimes to death, and laws against torture are brushed aside by a President who essentially proclaims himself above the law. A potentially ruinous public debt continues to mount, the current administration having amassed nearly as much debt as all the previous administrations combined. The US military budget is by any rational standard morbidly obese, greater than all the military budgets for the rest of the world combined, fueling a spiraling arms race which threatens to eventually destroy humanity. The US operates a de facto concentration camp in Cuba, to the detriment of our global standing. The US is effectively a client state of Israel, degrading the quality of American political leadership and compromising prospects for peace in the Middle East. Election turnouts are at historic lows, and with the increasing use of unverified computer voting many have lost confidence their votes are even counted. The Constitution has substantially in principle, and in no small measure in fact, passed into history.

These are grave matters, yet it is unlikely most will be discussed in any substantive fashion, if they are broached at all, by most politicians in the coming election. The American political process is plainly dysfunctional, and we need to talk about it.

By Martha Burk

Paid at the pump lately? Who hasn’t, and we’re paying more with each tank. Gas is up a quarter a gallon in the last two weeks alone, but don’t expect big oil to feel your pain. The moguls at ExxonMobil, the fattest of the petroleum cartel cats, will squander several millions of your fuel dollars sponsoring the Masters golf tournament and entertaining their buddies during the April 8 to 12 festivities.

The Augusta National Golf Club, home of the Masters, is famous for its top notch course, beautiful azaleas, members in green jackets — and sex discrimination. A female may be good enough to take the Oval Office, but no woman is good enough make it through the front gates of Augusta National as an equal. Even after a national argument five years ago that played out from network TV to kitchen tables, the boys in green refused to allow women members into their exclusive club. They’re still standing firm.

Augusta National lost its TV sponsors for two years over their refusal to admit women, but ExxonMobil came to the rescue, stepping up to the sex-segregation plate with a new multi-year contract to underwrite the Masters broadcast. Female shareowners are outraged, and have filed stockholder resolutions demanding that the company account for the number of dollars spent at Augusta and other venues that discriminate on the basis of gender. The resolutions state the obvious — the company wouldn’t do it if the subject was race. But apparently the boys in the boardroom (there are only two women out of 13) don’t think sex discrimination is such a big deal. Management sent out a letter last month urging stockholders to vote against this simple demand for disclosure.

But don’t think the company isn’t trying to woo women’s dollars while thumbing its nose at the principles of fairness and equality. In a breathtaking act of corporate hypocrisy, last month ExxonMobil also ran a nationwide full page color ad in the New York Times touting its celebration of International Women’s Day, and its support for women rising in the ranks of business — in Africa. The ad cost only a few hundred thousand — several million less than the Augusta sponsorship. Guess they think female newspaper readers are a cheap date.

Women at ExxonMobil are not buying the stonewalling by company management on the Augusta National issue, and women at other firms involved with the club continue to complain of sex discrimination to national women’s rights groups. Attitudes that begin on the golf course naturally spill over to the office, where women say they are passed over for promotion, paid less, and even sexually harassed at many of the companies these guys head. The National Council of Women’s Organizations has been making sure women at the green-jacketed CEO companies get a little payback. The group helped women employees at Morgan Stanley sue that company two years ago for discriminatory employment practices. They recently got a settlement for $46 million. And importantly, they got a change in company policy that expenses and entertainment at discriminatory clubs will no longer be underwritten with company dollars.

Exxon ought to listen to this canary in the coal mine. Women — no doubt including some of its own employees — are fed up. The company’s record-breaking bottom line has been fattened by their work. That bottom line has also been pumped up by female customers who must drive to get to work, school, church, and the grocery store. So whether you’re a woman behind the wheel or a man who cares about the women in your life, the next time you need a fill-up, consider what you’re really paying for when you choose one brand over another.

While ordinary people struggling to balance their checkbooks, the corporate guests of ExxonMobil are struggling to get another drink at the company-sponsored open bars in Augusta, Georgia. And oh yeah, the corporation gets to deduct every penny. Hold that thought. It just might cause you to drive to the next pump a little further down the block.

Burk is author of “Your Money and Your Life: The High Stakes for Women Voters in ‘08 and Beyond”

Make plans now to attend the South Carolina Gay and Lesbian Business Guild 2008 Annual Awards Gala on Friday, May 16, at the Embassy Suites Hotel on Greystone Boulevard in Columbia. (SC GLBG is the SC Progressive Network’s newest member, and we welcome the group on board!)

* 6-7pm - A networking/reception hour will be held in the hotel atrium
* 7pm - The awards dinner with ANT as featured entertainer
* After Party - A DJ will help you dance the night away right after the program until midnight.

A cash bar will be provided throughout the evening’s festivities.

Awards include:
The Freddie Mullis Corporate Member of the Year - 2007 award recipient was Sheila Morris
The Dan Burch Volunteer of the Year - 2007 award recipient was Rebecca Majeski
The Community Partner of the Year - 2007 award recipient was Harriet Hancock

If you are interested in becoming a sponsor, you should immediately contact us at sclgbg1@aol.com or call (803) 771-0411 and someone will contact you. Sponsorships start at $250.

Our featured entertainer for this year’s event will be acclaimed comedian ANT. ANT first appeared on The Last Comic Standing and quickly made his name known with frequent appearances on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and The Tyra Banks Show. Recently The LOGO Channel’s “US of ANT” series and VH1’s “Celebrity Fit Club” helped propel ANT into a name that many recognize as a comedic sensation.

Gala Sponsors for this year’s event include:
American Airlines / American Eagle
Asset Realty, Inc.
Cap’n Al’s Hawaiian Sunglass Hut
Embassy Suites Hotel
FASTCO Threaded Products
QNotes
Robin Ridgell & Marla Wood

Tickets prices: $60 for members / $75 for non-members / Table of 8 for $500, includes a table tent with your personal or company name. Ticket order form and more information is available on the web site at www.scglbg.org.

Today’s The State ran a letter from Ken Riley, president of the International Longshoremen Association in Charleston (not vice-president; The State got it wrong) and longtime member of the SC Progressive Network. The letter is a response to the guest editorial the paper ran last month by Carroll Campbell III, in which he fans fear of unions.

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In his Feb. 29 column, Carroll Campbell III made it clear that he is dead-set against economic growth in South Carolina.

Some of the world’s most important maritime companies seek to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in our state to develop private shipping terminals. They believe that a huge investment of private capital (and not of taxpayers’ dollars) is needed to keep South Carolina competitive. And they want to employ more South Carolinians to man these ports. Private investment is indispensable, and without it, our state’s maritime industry will founder.

Mr. Campbell believes that private shipping terminals are dangerous to our state. Why is he against private enterprise, job creation, keeping pace with our neighboring states and loosening government restrictions on industry? His excuse: Private ports mean more union jobs.

Mr. Campbell’s counter-productive reasoning is based on “What if?” scenarios. But the businesses that operate in the port on a daily basis rely on “What is?” These businesses know our track record, and they see it projected on their profit statements, year after year.

The longshoremen have operated as a union in Charleston since 1869. Over these 139 years, the union has worked tirelessly to attract and keep business in South Carolina. The companies that actually employ union longshoremen want to employ more of us.

Whether one likes union labor or not, it is a fact of life in the global maritime industry. Virtually all major ports and virtually all major shipping companies and maritime employers rely on organized labor. The arrangement between labor and management is extremely efficient and cooperative, in large part because workers are hired on an as-needed basis.

It is Mr. Campbell’s hysteria that is the real danger to our economy. Hundreds of millions of dollars of private capital are being redirected to neighboring states (that use union workers). Workers want privatization, the businesses that employ them want privatization, the shippers want privatization, and only a few special-interest consultants such as Mr. Campbell want to hold our state back. While Mr. Campbell relies on his consulting fees for his income, longshoremen, shipping lines, stevedoring companies and so many other businesses rely on ships at the dock. No ships, no dollars. Who has a greater interest in keeping our ports busy?

The state should allow private companies to invest in and operate their own terminals, just like they do all over the country and all over the world. If they build them, the ships will come, in fleets.

Ken Riley,
Vice-president, [sic] International Longshoremen Association
Charleston

I’m so proud of my granddaugher Laura’s (age 15) writing that I had to pass this along. I think she has nailed what’s at issue in our time: hope vs. fear.
Peace,
Dwight Fee

(Dwight is the Progressive Network’s representative for the Low Country Peace Network.)

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Hillary Clinton’s switch from dialogue to diatribe
By Laura Schneck, NYC

According to the media, America’s fighter, Hillary Clinton, has made a comeback. The March 4th primaries awarded Senator Clinton only six more pledged delegates than Barack Obama, but proved that she could survive being “victimized” by a misogynistic media.

To me, though, Hillary’s comeback couldn’t have been more of a letdown. 

A year ago, I was just another high school freshman completely oblivious to anything political. And if you had asked me to describe my parents’ political tendencies I’d have to say that they were, at best, apathetic democrats. 

Last January, something changed. My mom would come over and sit with me as I waited to see the results of the night’s primaries. We’d play tag team, watching for when Obama would come out to make his speech. We’d listen together, and, yes, we began to hope together. Night after night, we talked politics at the dinner table with my dad and 10-year-old sister and then sat side-by-side, glued to CNN. I became a fan of top political analysts rather than pop-culture icons, ate lunch with page A18 instead of the “in” crowd, and stayed up to watch the democratic debates instead of the latest reality show. Our family was interested. We were inspired. We were almost ready to ask what we could do for our country.

Then Hillary decided to try a new tactic: making fun of us. She tried to make it sound like we were being duped by Obama, that we were somehow deluded in feeling passionate about a candidate who could bring integrity back to the White House. She poked fun not only at his optimism, but also at ours.  The Clinton people claimed that my family had fallen for a fairy tale, soundtrack courtesy of a celestial choir.

I think I speak for many Obama supporters when I say our enthusiasm is not based on imagination or illusions. I don’t support Obama because he’s “cool,” uses big words, or because I love the way he blows his nose. I support Obama because I agree with his policies on the issues-from healthcare to energy-that affect my family. I support him because he can make it to the White House with dignity. And once he’s in the White House, he will make sensible and substantial changes to improve relations between parties in this country and between countries in the world. Sorry, Hillary, but your patronizing attempt at a wake-up call only motivated me to donate to Obama’s campaign.

Some people wonder why I became so interested in politics, but mainly they ask why I am not supporting a woman for president. I tell them that, although I’ve always favored Obama, I can’t help but admire Hillary’s intelligence and tenacity. Until a few weeks ago, I might have even taken some pointers from her climb to power. 

But then she disappointed me; she began playing dirty. Ironically, her “fighter” mentality made me doubt her strength and my own. As a woman, can I only become successful by putting up a fight? Will people only listen to me if I shout? Will people only take notice of me if I scare them?

Senator Obama welcomed me into this race and Senator Clinton pushed me out. Until recently, the Democratic race convinced me that powerful people can be decent, and one doesn’t need to tear others down to come out on top. I even began to wonder what my apathetic parents had seen so wrong with politics. But the recent switch from dialogue to diatribe has turned my parents back into cynics and may convert me as well.

In the coming weeks, my optimism is on the line. I’ll be looking to see, as Bob Herbert put it, how Obama will confront the kitchen sink.

Council Passes Ordinances Prohibiting Discrimination in Housing and Public Accommodations

Today the Columbia City Council voted unanimously to pass ordinances prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity in housing and public accommodations. South Carolina Equality proposed these ordinances in January and the ordinances passed with little opposition.

C. Ray Drew, Executive Director of South Carolina Equality Coalition, said, “We have passed one of the most comprehensive bills in the country, in one of the most conservative states in the country. South Carolina, and states like ours, represents the front lines of our battle for LGBT civil rights in this country.”

Columbia is the first municipality in the state to pass comprehensive human rights ordinances in housing and public accommodations including sexual orientation and gender identity. Council Members Daniel Rickenmann and Tameika Isaac Devine introduced the legislation and urged the City Council to support the ordinances. Rickenmann and Isaac Devine stated, “When we work together and respect each other, we can make Columbia an even better place to live.”

Columbia joins two other cities in the “Deep South” that have passed comprehensive anti-discrimination ordinances - New Orleans and Atlanta. 

Harriet Hancock, longtime activist and Board member of the SC Gay and Lesbian Pride Movement, said, “These ordinances represent the single greatest advance in civil rights for the LGBT community in the history of our state.”  Hancock was the architect of the 1991 city ordinances prohibiting discrimination in city employment on the basis of sexual orientation.

Drew added, “Working collaboratively with the SC Gay and Lesbian Pride Movement in passing these historic city ordinances is a perfect example of what our community can accomplish when we work together.”

Ryan Wilson, President of SC Gay and Lesbian Pride Movement, said, “There’s a whole new energy in our state. We’re focused and working together. There’s no end to what we can accomplish.”

By Stephen Laurence
Greenville

Some five years ago, in the days leading up to our invasion of Iraq, a local peace advocate carried a sign outside Greenville’s federal building asking “Are we what we say we are?” as a nation. More recently — about a week ago, in fact — a former U.S. House Speaker implored public radio listeners to carefully consider the relationship between our rhetoric and our actions.

An ongoing debate about the acceptability of torture as an interrogation technique has led to passage of the Intelligence Authorization Act, with a provision that bans torture through its reference to the U.S. Army Field Manual. Regrettably, Sen. Lindsey Graham opposed use of this standard for civilian intelligence gathering; Sen. Jim DeMint voted against the final legislation; and President George Bush threatens to veto it.

While we often boast of being the most democratic and most pious of nations, the rest of the world watches our actions and recognizes the frequent hypocrisy between what we say and what we do. Abu Ghraib is one example. The high civilian casualty count in Iraq is another. Guantanamo is yet another. And now we have representatives of the United States, including the “leader of the free world,” condoning torture — albeit couched in more acceptable language — with the ultimate outcome of the issue being uncertain.

Torture is completely indefensible on moral and ethical grounds. Most faith communities specifically condemn inhumane acts toward others. The New Testament of the Christian Bible quotes Jesus calling on us to love our enemies and to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. The United States has been party to the Geneva Conventions since their inception in 1864. And our “greatest generation” punished enemy soldiers and officers found guilty of torture during World War II.

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Let’s do the numbers

Total number of adults incarcerated in America: 2.3 million

Total number of adults incarcerated in China: 1.5 million

Rank of U.S. incarceration rate among all nations: 1

Rank of South’s incarceration rate among all U.S. regions: 1

Percent increase in South’s incarceration rate in 2007 alone: 2.8

Rank of Texas’ incarceration rate among all U.S. states.: 1

Year in which Florida is expected to run out of prison space: 2009

Percent of American adults in prison or jail: 1

Percent of all men age 18 or older: 2

Percent of white men age 18 or older: 0.9

Percent of Hispanic men age 18 or older: 3

Percent of black men age 18 or older: 7

Percent of black men age 20 to 34: 11

Percent of white women age 35 to 39: 0.3

Percent of Hispanic women age 35 to 39: 0.4

Percent of black women age 35 to 39: 1

Amount states spent on corrections in 2007 alone: $49 billion

Percent which that amount has increased over the past 20 years, adjusted to 2007 dollars: 127

Percent increase in adjusted spending on higher education over that same period: 21

Minimum amount Texas is expected to save over the next two years from prison reforms that expand drug treatment and change parole practices: $210 million

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Statistics taken from “One in 100: Behind Bars in America 2008″ by The Pew Center on the States, available online here.

By Glenn Carroll
Coordinator, Nuclear Watch South

Without a word of public debate, nuclear weapons became a seemingly inevitable fact of life and death on our planet. After World War II ended with two single bombs destroying the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, The Bomb became big business with vast factory complexes on government reservations in several states across the country.

A government agency, now called U.S. Department of Energy, was formed to oversee private contractors who churned out no less than 30,000 nuclear warheads over the next four decades and established the nuclear industry as an economic force in human affairs.

A people’s movement to “Ban the Bomb” formed instantly in response to the wartime bombing of Japan, and to the “test bombings” on the lands of the Western Shoshone Nation in Nevada and Utah and the Pacific islanders of the Moruroa Atoll.

From protests on the street to civil disobedience at weapons sites, the public has been vocal and insistent that our only reasonable option is to abolish nuclear weapons. Indeed, in 1996 the World Court issued a landmark decision defending this basic ethic when it declared the manufacture, possession or use of nuclear weapons to be illegal.

The Cold War bomb factories were built in secret in the 1940s and 1950s. They operated without public oversight until the Cold War ended in 1991, when crumbling Russian and U.S. nuclear bomb factories and reactors were forced to shut down.

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