Annual Hiroshima & Nagasaki Vigil In Ashland

World Citizen, 04.08.2009 00:00

Annual Hiroshima & Nagasaki Vigil In Ashland To Feature “Nuclear Alley”

Thursday, August 6, 2009 8 am to 7 pm, Ashland Plaza

On the 64th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) invites the public to a ceremony commemorating the event. The ceremony will begin on Thursday, August 6 at 8 AM on the Plaza in downtown Ashland with the lighting of a memorial candle in remembrance of the victims of the bombings. There will be a moment of silence at 8:15 marking the exact time the bomb was detonated by the U.S. above the city of Hiroshima. A reading of the 1981 proclamation designating Ashland as a nuclear-free zone will follow.

After the ceremony, the public will be invited to wander the “Nuclear Alley” until 7 pm. Built by WILPF members, the alley is a large canvas and wood structure created to teach about the history of nuclear weapons and their impact on local and international communities. The walls will become teaching tools with photos and text addressing the issues of the nuclear era.

On Sunday, August 9, the date of the bombing of Nagasaki, the vigil will close with a ceremony at the Japanese Garden in Lithia Park at 3 pm. Local activists will float sunflowers, the symbol of the nuclear-free movement, down Lithia Creek.

Local WILPF member Nancy Spencer has a personal link to the vigil because her brother was a navigator on the aircraft that followed the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombers to photograph the devastation. Spencer says,” I think we need constant reminders like this vigil to remind ourselves of the horrors and inhumanity of war.”

Lead organizer is WILPF, founded in 1915, the oldest peace organization in the United States with branches in 37 countries. WILPF acts to promote peace, social justice, racial equality, and women’s rights. Previous members include Nobel Peace Prize Laureates Jane Addams, Dr. Linus Pauling, and Dr Martin Luther King, Jr.

Cosponsoring local organizations are Peace House, Rogue Valley Peace Choir, Citizens for Peace & Justice--Medford, Veterans for Peace--Rogue Valley, United Nations Assn--Southern Oregon, One Sunny Day Initiatives.

For more information contact: Keri  Seidel-keri.seidel@hotmail.com (541) 488-9148

Download this article in pdf format >>

Add this article to your pdf newsletter selection >>

Checkout and Download your PDF-newsletter selection >>

Email this article to someone >>

Make a quick comment on this article >>

Remember... 05.08.2009 - 16:03 Yes, remember Hiroshima and Nagasaki; but also remember Pearl Harbor, Bataan, the rape of Nanjing, the Korean comfort women, the atrocities of Imperial Japanese Army Unit 731, Manila, and all the other acts of barbarity committed by the Empire of Japan on the people of their "Greater Southeast Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere". Don't forget that Japan bears responsibility for their acts, too! They weren't just sitting around making paper cranes and then all of a sudden the big, bad americans attacked. The EMPIRE OF JAPAN was just that, an EMPIRE. And they were out to ENSLAVE all of Asia! Mike Holmes> Homepage:: http:// WW2 was ready to end soon! 08.08.2009 - 18:52 The problem with the arguement that defends the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japanese civilian populations is that the war was going to end soon anyway. Recent interviews on public television of an Air Force pilot nicknamed "Dutch" admits that maybe in a few weeks or so the war would have ended anyway, yet casually dismissed it with a "whatever" and wave of the hand. So many of his "whatevers" were actually innocent human beings, actual Japanese civilians who needlessly died in this atomic weapons holocaust, NOT the evil dictator of Japan nor the violent sociopathic military Japanese generals killing and raping people in China, Phillipines and elsewhere throughout Asia.. It is strangley interesting and even more depressing to watch the cold detachment of U.S. military bombers like "Dutch" who can speak about comparing a few weeks time and thousands of Japanese civilian lives lost by the atomic bomb blast as a collection of "whatevers.".. This same twisted logic is used today by those misguided individuals (corporate media's armchair generals) who choose to defend the illegal U.S. invasion and ongoing occupation of Iraq under GW Bush (& con't under Obamabush) and bombing of civilian populations in Baghdad, Fallujah and other cities with white phosphorous (burns people alive) and highly radioactive depleted uranium munitions among other standard weapons of warfare.. War crimes are almost always committed by governments on BOTH sides of the conflict against civilian populations, though only the losers of the conflict are ever put on trial for war crimes, while the winners get to retire to ranches in Texas where they are forgiven and forgotten about by the next commander in chief falling in line with the military establishment!! We're all still waiting for the international criminal courts to address the violations of the Geneva Conventions by members of the GW Bush admin. for authorizing use of torture, though Obamabush chooses to "forgive and forget" his predecessor's war crimes, effectively making him accomplice to GW's war crimes by aiding and abetting a fugutive from justice (Hey Obamabush, how about having another beer and a round of golf with your ol' pal GW Bush?). Likewise the bombing and murder of Japanese civilians by U.S. air force bombers is another war crime that should have been tried alongside the Nuremburg trials of Nazi war criminals.. Maybe only light skinned European Jews are considered by international criminal courts to be worthy enough of having international war crimes trial for, and maybe darker skinned Japanese Asians and Iraqi Arabs are only worthy as expenable animals who don't require offical war crime trials when they are slaughtered by military weapons? For "whatever" their actual reasons or excuses, if the international criminal courts cannot carry out war crime trials without obvious bias, then what good are they other than as a window dressing to pretend we are being fair to everyone?? Then some of us wonder why there are groups like Al Queda, Hezbollah, Hamas, etc... that can only respond to these inconsistencies and hypocrisy of international criminal courts by use of force in self defense.. Case in point; Now "Human Rights Watch" is pressing charges of war crimes against Hamas for recent rocket attacks against Israel, yet nothing other than silence about the violations of human rights by Israeli occupiers of Gaza?? Now that Japan is a U.S, ally, their government sees fit to "forgive and forget" the atomic holocaust of WW2's ending days committed by the U.S. military, their silence serves the goal to keep the wheels of thier economy nicely lubricated with the past blood of their own dead civilians.. Countless Japanese civilians slaughtered!> Homepage:: http://