Waltham Concerned Citizens Sponsors Hiroshima/Nagasaki Anniversary Vigil August 9
WALTHAM, MA–Waltham Concerned Citizens (WCC) will sponsor a vigil to commemorate the 72nd anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on Wednesday, August 9, from 7:45 to 8:30 a.m., at the corner of Main and Moody Streets on Waltham Common.
The first nuclear bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Three days later, another atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. The civilian death toll was 140,000 people in Hiroshima and 70,000 in Nagasaki.
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) took effect 47 years ago, yet the five NPT nuclear weapons states have not taken serious action on their treaty commitments to nuclear disarmament and the current U.S. plan to spend $1 trillion to “modernize” its nuclear arsenal raises the menacing specter of a new arms race with Russia and China. In the meantime, four more states have acquired nuclear weapons and the risks of their use have only increased over time.
To fill this legal and moral gap, the vast majority of non-nuclear states, under the auspices of the United Nations, adopted a new Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons on July 7. The nine nuclear-armed states and their close allies boycotted the talks; it’s now up to us to convince them to comply with the ban treaty and eliminate nuclear weapons once and for all.
Today, military spending accounts for more than half of the federal government’s entire discretionary budget. Nuclear weapons spending alone accounts for over $40 billion annually, and is scheduled to increase. There is an obvious connection between the bloated Pentagon budget and the critical budget shortfalls facing virtually every community in the country.
Waltham Concerned Citizens was founded in 1981 to work for peace and justice. Its initial focus was on a nuclear weapons freeze. WCC has also sponsored programs and activities that have addressed other issues, including U.S. intervention in Iraq, Central America, Afghanistan and the Middle East; affordable housing; civil liberties; and the environment.
For more information, call (781) 893-0361 or email info@walthamconcernedcitizens.org.