Commentary: Town, county has long history of anti-nuke activism
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The Town Council of La Conner unanimously passed a nuclear disarmament resolution on April 22. A perfect way to honor Earth Day!
La Conner is the first municipality in Washington state to pass such a resolution as part of a national Back From the Brink (BftB) campaign. MaryLee Chamberlain, the council member who championed the resolution, said, “This is putting action to our values … It’s something we can do as a small town”.
La Conner has a unique history relating to peace, having hosted several Peace Fairs, as the base for Skagit Citizens for Nuclear Disarmament, (SCND) in the 1980s and ’90s, becoming a sister city to the Russian town Ol’ga, and dedicating a Peace Park.
Local citizens spoke in favor of the resolution. Tracy Powell, whose carved stone peace doves can be seen around town, is the founder No More Bombs, a Skagit group that backed the resolution. Tracy and Debbie Aldrich, who were active in SCND, expressed the case beautifully. Harry Katz, BftB Organizing Consultant, assisted the entire process. He and Sean Arent from the Northwest Against Nuclear Weapons Coalition spoke. No More Bombs is one of approximately 70 NANW Coalition members.
Back from the Brink is a nonpartisan grassroots coalition of individuals, organizations and elected officials working on a multiyear campaign to eventually eliminate nuclear weapons through commonsense policy solutions. It was founded by leaders from the Union of Concerned Scientists and Physicians for Social Responsibility. Five BftB Policy Solutions are:
- Pursuing global elimination through verification
- Renouncing first use
- Ending sole authority of the president to launch a nuclear attack
- Ending hair-trigger alert
- Canceling rebuilding the entire U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal.
Eighty-six cities, counties and state legislative bodies have passed Back from the Brink Resolutions, including the states of California and Oregon. 430 local and state elected officials and 44 members of Congress have endorsed the policy platform, including State Rep. Dave Paul, State Sen. Sharon Shewmake and Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal. Some 495 health, environmental, academic, peace, faith, justice and civic organizations have endorsed the campaign, including the U.S. Conference of Mayors.
Nearly forgotten is that Skagit County became a Nuclear Free Zone in 1985 during the Freeze movement as did Whatcom and San Juan Counties in 1984. Then, 62% of Skagit County citizens voted in favor. By the end of the Cold War 80% of the world’s nuclear arsenal was eliminated. We need a similar movement now. BftB Resolutions are a step in this direction.
To illustrate, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, founded by Albert Einstein, Robert Oppenheimer and other scientists, created the Doomsday Clock in 1947 signaling how close we are to a nuclear war. It has been reset 26 times. Originally the clock was set at seven minutes to midnight; today it is at 89 seconds.
“The United States is on track to spend the equivalent of more than two Manhattan projects per year in one of the most expensive nuclear arms races in history,” per “America’s Nuclear Weapons Quagmire” in The Stimson Center.
The La Conner Town Council also called on the United States to embrace the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. This international treaty came into effect in 2017. Currently 70% of the world’s countries support it but none of the nine nuclear armed states.
Washington state is deeply invested in the arms race and could be a primary target in a nuclear conflict. Our state is home to the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons at the Kitsap-Bangor Submarine Base and the largest nuclear waste dump in the Western Hemisphere at Hanford.
The KUOW article “The secret world of nukes in Washington state” reports: “Washington state has been home to nuclear weapons-related projects for decades … These projects have contributed to a robust nuclear presence in the military, a booming nuke industry — and death and injury to hundreds of thousands of people in Washington state and across the Pacific.”
We are grateful to the La Conner Mayor and Town Council for taking a lead with Resolution 661 “Urging the United States to Take Steps to Mitigate the Risk of Nuclear War.” We thank them for their commitment and understanding of this issue and doing something about it. There are other resolutions in Washington recognizing the danger of nuclear weapons, but they are generalizations without specific solutions.
As individuals we can play a part by encouraging Congressman Rick Larsen to co-sponsor HR 317 “Urging the United States to Lead the World Back From The Brink Of Nuclear War and Halt and Reverse The Nuclear Arms Race.” This resolution was introduced in the House on April 10. Jayapal signed on April 17. A similar resolution last Congressional session had 44 cosponsors. Take action here.
— By Julia Hurd
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