Help Vets for Peace get out the word to end nuclear weapon proliferation and use

[annm4peace]

Below is a message from Roger Hale, worth distributing widely.

Roger is a Veteran for Peace, but his main activity/activism is as National Chair for Ploughshares. He spoke last year at a joint meeting with Veterans for Peace and Every Church a Peace Church, and he's asking us to ask Sen. Franken and Klobuchar to support the
START agreement, very related to the 9938 signatures Steve McKeown gathered and sent to Pres Obama thru Sen Franken and Klobuchar to ask for global leadership on ending nuclear weapon proliferation and use.


START Agreement http://www.ploughshares.org/

As I am sure you’ve all seen in the media, Presidents Obama and Medvedev announced agreement on the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START, often referred to as the “Moscow Treaty”) a few days ago.

Linking to the Ploughshares website above, plus any number of others, can provide the general outline.

Suffice it to say that this is a major step forward in the goal of greatly reducing or even eventually eliminating nuclear weapons from the planet.

Most important, it is the first step in the ambitious program outlined in Obama’s historic and comprehensive speech before 100,000 people in Prague on 4/6/09 (the joint U.S.-Russian signing ceremony will probably take place in Prague on 4/8/10, just about one year to the day of the 2009 speech).

The Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) is being vetted by the Administration as we speak and hopefully will eliminate “first use” (a Bush doctrine) as part of U.S. policy; major work is going on in preparation for the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference at the U.N in early June, and intense behind the scenes work is aimed at eventual Senate ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT)…perhaps in 2010; remember that any treaty must get 2/3 of the U.S. Senate to ratify…which means 67 votes…extraordinarily difficult in these rancorous times Of course, this is all complex, arcane, alphabet soup, so my real message is as follows:


…Now is the time to write our senators, Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken, to state in your own words:

…..”Thrilled to hear of the Moscow (or START) agreement on nuclear weapons.

Can we count on your support for senate ratification?”



The fact is, I am not the least bit worried that either of them would not vote for ratification of START, but the more letters all senators get, the more buzz there will be in the capital and that might carry over to some of the potential swing votes.



…IF you have friends or relatives in Indiana (Sen. Lugar),
Arizona (McCain; an increasing problem as he is being challenged from the right by ultra-conservatives), or Maine ( Snowe and Collins), pass this message on to them.

We intend to do that in IN and ME.

What we have going against us is the current political mood; what we have going for us is the arcane nature of NWs issues.

The bad news is that they rarely get the general population’s interest.

The good news is that because of that, I think it is highly unlikely there will be outrage and protest on the issue the way there is re jobs, taxes, foreclosures and health care…which everyone can relate to on a personal level.



Now is a good time to take action with a simple letter or card. I guarantee you that a message from everyone on this list would have a major impact on our Senators. If you can pass this on to other friends, please do.