As SF Gate reported: On August 9, 200 protesters gathered outside the gates of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to commemorate the 72nd anniversary of the bomb that decimated Nagasaki, just three days after another atomic blast did the same to Hiroshima. The gathering was heavy with emotion: indignation, outrage and fear over a potential nuclear build-up. The mood was set by verbal threats unleashed by President Trump a day earlier. Speakers included Hiroshima survivor Takashi Tanemori, and Daniel Ellsberg (pictured.)
On Tuesday, Trump said he would unleash “fire and fury” on North Korea, the likes of which “the world has never seen,” if Pyongyang continued to issue threats against the U.S. The president supplemented his public comments with tweets on Wednesday boasting that the U.S. nuclear arsenal “is now far stronger and more powerful than ever before” and that his first order as president was to “renovate and modernize” the weaponry.
It was the last thing the protesters — from elementary-school-age children carrying posters covered in glitter to the senior citizens in wheelchairs holding “raging granny” signs — wanted to hear.
“We are here to stand with the survivors of that nuclear attack, but we are also here to stop the next nuclear war before it starts,” said Marylia Kelley, executive director of Tri-Valley CAREs, a small advocacy organization formed in 1983 by neighbors living near the Livermore laboratory, one of the nation’s hubs for nuclear weapons research. Read the full article.