Join us on March 26 at 3pm, for a webinar on “Nuclear Weapons and Massachusetts: Why MA Needs a Nuclear Weapons Commission and How You Can Help That Happen”

H.3688/S.1555 is a bill in the MA State House that would establish a Citizens’ Commission to research and recommend to the state legislature ways to better protect the citizens of Massachusetts from the existential threat of nuclear weapons.

Nuclear weapons are designed to destroy entire cities. If they are ever used, there would be a humanitarian catastrophe of unparalleled proportions. Even if they are never used, they are consuming enormous resources that would be so much better spent on the real needs of people in this Commonwealth.

Massachusetts itself is deeply embedded in the nuclear weapons business. Draper Labs in Cambridge is one of the main centers for nuclear weapons research in the country. Major nuclear weapons contractors like General Dynamics, Raytheon and Textron all have large facilities based in Massachusetts. Hanscom Air Force Base in Bedford, MA, is a major command and control center for US nuclear weapons.

These nuclear weapons facilities make Massachusetts a major target in the event of nuclear war. They also provide jobs and income to the state. How can Massachusetts remove itself from the nuclear weapons business while protecting livelihoods and the local economy?

That is the work of this Commission. It would do research and hold hearings with experts and local residents across the state. It would report back to the state government with recommendations for future legislation.

The Commission would cost Massachusetts taxpayers nothing. It would commit the state to nothing. But by passing this bill, Massachusetts would be sending out a powerful message to the rest of the country: We in Massachusetts want to see the elimination of nuclear weapons, and we are seriously looking into what that would look like and how it can be done.

Speakers:

Dr. Helfand was educated at Harvard College and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He is a former chairman of the Department of Emergency Medicine and President of the Medical Staff at Cooley Dickinson Hospital, and is a retired internist and urgent care physician at Family Care Medical Center in Western Massachusetts.

Lindsay Sabadosa is the first woman to ever hold the 1st Hampshire District seat. Lindsay is a founding board member of DARLA, the Doula Association for Reproductive Loss and Abortion, which brought abortion and reproductive loss doula training to the Pioneer Valley for the first time. In 2016, she joined the Massachusetts Chapter of the Women’s March on Washington, organizing contingents travelling to Washington DC and Boston as well as a local march in Northampton. In February 2017, she created the Pioneer Valley Women’s March (PVWM), which has gone on to organize dozens of community events on a variety of social justice issues with particular focus on involving the community in state-level advocacy. PVWM is now part of the Pioneer Valley Resist Coalition, a group of over 30 grassroots activist and advocacy organizations that focus on social and environmental justice.

Jonathan King is a professor of Molecular Biology at MIT, where he has long taught biochemistry and directed a biomedical research team on protein folding and human disease. Prof. King is a past President of the Biophysical Society and serves on national committees addressing the federal R& D Budget. Long engaged with issues of science education, Prof. King currently serves on the Board of Citizens for Public Schools of Massachusetts. Prof. King was a co-author of the Science for Peace Resolution of the World Council of Churches, calling for continuing nuclear disarmament. Subsequently he was a leader of the national campaign of biomedical scientists to press the Senate to ratify the Biological Weapons Convention. Prof. King currently serves as co-chair of the Board of Massachusetts Peace Action and chairs its Nuclear Disarmament Working Group. He also works with the national People’s Budget Coalition that supports the Congressional Progressive Caucus on federal budget priorities, and this work connects with the Poor People’s Campaign.

Joseph Gerson is the Director of the American Friends Service Committee’s Peace and Economic Security Program, Executive Director of the Campaign for Peace, Disarmament and Common Security, and Co-Convener of the Peace & Planet international network. He works closely with Asian and European peace and nuclear disarmament movements and a frequent keynote speaker at the World Conference against A- & H- Bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and other international and U.S. forums. He has a PhD in Politics and International Security Studies and is the author of three books and many articles about U.S. nuclear weapons policies and the history their use. He helped to launch the nuclear weapons freeze movement of the 1980s, led the successful opposition to construction of naval nuclear weapons bases in Boston, Rhode Island and New York, and was the lead organizer of international conferences and mass mobilizations on the eves of the 2010 and 2015 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference.

Emma Pike is a peace educator, a specialist in global citizenship education, and a determined advocate for a world free of nuclear weapons. She is a firm believer in education as an essential means to building a more peaceful and equitable world for all. Her approach to nuclear disarmament activism is rooted in her conviction in the power of the individual to effect positive change. As a student, Emma wrote two masters’ theses on nuclear disarmament, one at the University of St Andrews titled Transforming the Human Spirit: Daisaku Ikeda’s Philosophy as a Dynamic Model for Peace in the Nuclear Age, and one at Teachers College Columbia University titled Nuclear Disarmament Education Then and Now – A Competition between Resignation and Hope. Her years in research and academia are supplemented by more recent experience as an elementary classroom teacher in Cambridge, MA. Emma has facilitated courses on nuclear disarmament, spoken at disarmament rallies, and currently supports youth activists around the globe fighting for nuclear disarmament and climate justice. She was raised in Tokyo and Boston, considers herself a proud Massachusetts native, and currently splits her time between Boston and Basel, Switzerland.

Elaine Scarry teaches at Harvard University where she is the Cabot Professor of Aesthetics and the General Theory of Value. Her books include The Body in Pain, On Beauty and Being Just, and most recently, Thermonuclear Monarchy: Choosing Between Democracy and Doom. Her essays appear in Boston Review, New York Review of Books, and Best American Essays of 2007, 2005, and 1995. In 2005, Prospect Magazine and Foreign Policy listed her in “Top 100 Leading Public Intellectuals. Dr. Scarry has lectured widely to programs in literature, medicine, and law. Her focus is the problem of citizenship in the face of intentionally inflicted injury: torture, war, and the monarchic structures in place since the invention of nuclear weapons.

Sponsored by Massachusetts Peace Action and Nuclear Ban US. Co-sponsored by Nuclear-Free Future Coalition (Western Mass), Greater Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility, Demilitarize WMass, Traprock Center for Peace and Justice, Center for Nonviolent Solutions (Worcester), Franklin County Continuing the Political Revolution, Climate Action Now, New England Peace Pagoda, Back from the Brink Western MA, PSR/Pioneer Valley, Campaign for Peace, Disarmament and Common Security, Lawrence Monthly Meeting of Friends (Quakers), Friends Meeting at Cambridge, Walpole Peace and Justice, Green Century Capital Management and Progressive Democrats of America, Northampton branch, Northampton Friends Meeting, and The House of Peace