A few days ago the National Catholic Reporter published an interview with Sister Megan Rice,now 86, who is one of the three Anti-Nuclear Weapons Activists featured in Mr. Zak's book.
She is one of those rare individuals possessing both the moral and physical courage to stand on that lonely legal ledge between her passionate convictions and the laws of the State.
"I think it is important to wake people up. They've gone to sleep for 70 years. People weren't consulted in the building of these horrific weapons. It was all very secret and very contained."
She describes the Oak Ridge Uranium Enrichment Complex as "a crime scene" where our government is committing "crimes against humanity. Crimes against international laws and treaties."
"People in various religious faith traditions recognize that it is a crime to possess nuclear weapons."
Referring to the history and dire threat posed by the world's Nuclear Weapons Arsenals:
"People need to know. It needs to be taught as historical fact and let people make their own conclusions about it."
But due to lack of education on this issue, we "are unable to recognize the immorality or even the thought of a nuclear bomb."
As this Blog has warned repeatedly - "out of sight and out of mind" is a major obstacle to Nuclear Weapons Abolition. That has to change!
There is real hope here - as noted "NUKES ARE IN THE NEWS" and back on the front burner of American and World consciousness.
Nuclear Weapons are not just in the news but are themselves the news. Steadily and surely becoming a matter of Public Consciousness and Private Conscience.
Sister Rice continues that she was pleased with Mr. Zak addressing the problem of nuclear weapons. But she takes issue with the author's describing what they did at Oak Ridge as a "crime."
"He doesn't say that this is our shared responsibility whenever we know our government is involved in criminal activity to expose and oppose all that the government is doing against the common good."
Expose and Oppose. Agreed. Nothing illegal there.
This Blog has described what these three activists did there on site as "bending" the law - not breaking it.
A LEGAL DISTINCTION. But a MORAL DISTINCTION worth preserving.
We can admire and respect their convictions and actions and applaud their willingness to accept punishment under the laws of the State.
But the law has been and can be changed. Often, most effectively by grassroots activism.
Future Posts will describe and discuss the legal implications and parameters of the world-wide struggle to Abolish Nuclear Weapons:
The Marshall Islands' Lawsuits versus the current Nuclear Weapons Nations, the Global Movement to establish a legally binding international treaty to abandon and abolish Nuclear Weapons.
"Justice? - You get justice in the next world, in this world you have the law." -William Gaddis, first sentence of his novel A Frolic Of His Own
Yes, the Law is what we have in this world. What we must work with. What we must change.
LIKE NUCLEAR WEAPONS LAWS ARE MADE BY PEOPLE JUST LIKE US
ABOLITION IN OUR TIME
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