Obama to Hiroshima: Kevin Martin on Democracy Now! & Send a Message

This just in from our colleague Joseph Gerson, author of Empire of the Bomb, at Peace & Planet:

Friends,

As you have no doubt heard or read, it has been confirmed President Obama will visit Hiroshima later this month following the G-7 summit in Japan.

Kevin Martin, President of Peace Action and a Peace and Planet Co-Convener was interviewed yesterday on Democracy Now!.  It’s worth taking a few minutes to tune in to Kevin’s responses to the announcement, to the words of Nobel Laureate Oe Kenzaburo, and Hosokawa Koji, a Hiroshima Hibakusha.

It’s also not too late to send a message urging President Obama not to go to Hiroshima empty handed. We’re told that he wants to “send a forward looking signal.” That signal could be:

• Announcing the end of the $1 trillion triad

• Calling for commencement of the good faith negotiations for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons as required by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

• Ending the U.S. first-strike nuclear war-fighting strategy, or

• Announcing a significant unilateral reduction in the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

You can also express your solidarity with the Hibakusha (witness/survivors of the A-bombs) by signing their petition.

For Peace, Planet and a Nuclear-Free World,

Joseph Gerson