The Bomb: Understanding its History and the Hope for a Nuclear-Free Future

The Bomb: Understanding its History and the Hope for a Nuclear-Free Future

Hosts: City Lights in conjunction with San Francisco Bay Physicians for Social Responsibility

Date and Time: Sun, Aug 9, 2020 at 3:00 PM PT

RSVP: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-bomb-understanding-its-history-and-the-hope-for-a-nuclear-free-future-tickets-110908436118

Speakers:

James L Nolan Jr.
Professor of sociology & anthropology, Chair and Washington Gladden 1859 Professor of Sociology at Williams College; author, "Atomic Doctiors: Conscience and Complicity at the Dawn of the Nuclear Age" (Aug. 2020)

Fred Kaplan
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist; author, "The Bomb: Presidents, Generals, and the Secret History of Nuclear War" (Jan. 2020)

Dr. Robert Gould
President of S.F. Bay Physicians for Social Responsibility; Director of Health Professional Outreach and Education for the Program on Reproductive Health at UCSF School of Medicine

Dr. Tova Fuller
Vice President of the SF Bay Physicians for Social Responsibility Board, and Chair of the SF Bay PSR Nuclear Weapons Abolition Committee
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City Lights Booksellers join with the San Francisco Bay Physicians for Social Responsibility to present a commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the bombings that killed over 200,000 people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.

City Lights founder Lawrence Ferlinghetti has a special connection to these events. He was a naval commander serving during World War II, and one of few American soldiers to walk on Nagasaki shortly after the bombs were dropped. His experience changed his life and inspired him to start a bookstore with the motto, "Books Not Bombs."

During this afternoon of discussion, our panelists hope to assess the events of that time, their impact on the world, and where we stand now, facing the dawn of a new global nuclear arms race that compounds the climate and pandemic threats to human survival.

At a time when the Nuclear Weapons States possess more than 13,000 nuclear weapons, we will focus on the manifold threats posed by new global programs to expand and modernize nuclear weapons arsenals, the rejection of arms control treaties, as well as the heightened great-power confrontation now accelerating in the Pacific region.

While we face our unfolding planetary emergencies, the profound "opportunity costs" of our government planning to spend more than $4 million an hour over the next 30 years to potentially annihilate countless millions of people is unfathomable.

Our speakers will also present alternative visions offered by the global movement to abolish nuclear weapons epitomized by the 2017 United Nations' Treaty to Ban Nuclear Weapons, and the prospects for connecting this with wider popular movements seeking to transform our global priorities in the direction of climate, environmental, and social justice necessary for global survival.