Information on Plowshares
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Reuben Hamora, M.D.
For forty-seven years, the Plowshares have organized protests against nuclear proliferation. Despite treaties, test bans, studies, and violence, the United States continues to manufacture and refurbish thousands of weapons yearly. These weapons serve no purpose since their use would precipitate extinction-level-events. The Plowshares mean to tackle this problem with good old-fashioned resolve: will the government imprison elderly white clerics for defacing these weapons with blood? Even the court and enforcement agencies resist levying jail sentences, but the elders won’t be dissuaded.
Perhaps most disturbing is that election cycles don’t feature much copy on the nuclear disarmament movement. Catastrophic climate change, yes, but nothing on nuclear weapons. One would think doomsday prognostications would sell subscriptions and papers, but alas. But the fallout from doing nothing can no more be ignored than the chunks of radioactive waste from Pacific tests could be buried on Runit Island. It’s important that people know these issues.
My wife introduced me to her fellow Plowshares early in our life together. They are an amazing dynamic group dedicated to solving one of the more serious problems in our world. They are courageous, raising awareness for an issue the consequences of which they might not live to see. They contribute their very blood to overcome the collective amnesia suffocating our species. My son Jamal would have asked me to fight harder and earlier, but he died after police choked him for sauntering in a tunnel. He was stifled, and I have struggled to move on. But without his death, I wouldn’t have discovered my Connie. I suppose all that remains is that we hold fast to each other. I’m grateful I’m 74 and not 24. Nuclear war would leave us with neither heroes nor villains—just silent, cruel death. If you’re interested, look us up on the world wide web. During recent elections, middle aged hoodlums vandalize and steal political signs. That persuade themselves that the existential threat to them justifies breaking the law—they’re ignorant and wretched.
Defacing nuclear weapons rises to the level of civil disobedience, based on the overwhelming rejection of the technology by enlightened folks. The bomb and all its ugliness must end.