 Delegates, Muslim and Delegates. Yes, okay. Onward, tonight we have a great program, a say no to nukes with guest William Hartung and Yasmin Silva. We'll introduce them in a minute. First, some updates. Donica, you're here. Donica is gonna update us on Palestine. Oh, that's what I'm thinking, it's on. Or Yemen. So, Ariel asked me of the arm sale. So I can update on the arm sale. So, a couple of weeks ago we got news that Boeing was selling $735 million in weapons to Israel. According to the legislation that is the cornerstone for arm sales in the United States, Congress has 15 days to introduce a resolution of joint disapproval towards the end of two weeks ago. That was when the 15 days was up. Senator Sanders introduced a resolution of disapproval. Didn't really get introduced in time. So on two Fridays ago, the State Department approved the export license for that deal, which means the joint resolution of disapproval is kind of not useful anymore. But that doesn't mean that our advocacy has to stop. There are still multiple routes for blocking this arm sale. Granted, it would be difficult and historic, still worth trying. There's a few routes we can take. We can ask Congress to introduce regular legislation to block the arm sale, because Congress can stop an arm sale up until delivery. So that's still an option. We can get the State Department to revoke the license. Code Pink has an action on that right now. If you go to codepink.org slash Palestine, there is a petition to Anthony Blinken to revoke the licensing for the export. We can also petition President Biden to stop the delivery of the sale. So there's still a few routes we can take. And according to the Foreign Assistant Act, which is kind of a kind of legislative, says how arm sales are supposed to work in the United States. In section 502B, it says that our weapons sold to countries cannot be used for humanitarian violations. And according to, we've all seen the videos coming out of Gaza and Yemen, according to Human Rights Watch, Betzalem, et cetera, we know what US weapons are used for in Palestine and in Yemen, and technically the law is on our side here to block weapon sales. So that is all I have, but there are still multiple routes, stay optimistic, keep calling Congress, keep demanding the State Department revoke the license. Thank you, Danica. And if you have a link that you wanna post in the chat to the petition, that would be terrific. Awesome, I'll drop it. There's another update to that, which is that Lindsey Graham today announced that Israel is going to be seeking another billion dollars from the US taxpayers to replenish its stockpile of interceptors for their iron dome. And also we think that it is going to include more bombs that they have depleted or used a lot of them up in killing over 200 people in Gaza, including 66 children. So now in addition to the 3.8 billion that we give them every year, they want another billion for a bonus for having killed all these people. And the Defense Minister, Benny Gantz is coming to DC on Thursday to meet with US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and they're also going to be pushing the US not to rejoin the Iran nuclear deal. So there is a lot for us to do to try to stop this new billion dollars in addition to what Danica talked about, which is weapons sales. This one seems like it's going to be another US taxpayer funded billion dollars. It is quite remarkable. Well, we are out on the streets protesting the massacre of people in Palestine. The Israeli Defense Minister gone his way here to ask for even more money. Thank you, Medea. Yes, we have to push back hard on that. And on a more positive note, we are, the Biden administration has decided to reopen the consulate in Jerusalem, which in the past has an open serve the Palestinians. So, so. There's a caveat to that one too much. Oh no, oh no. Which is that it's very hard for people in the West Bank and impossible for people in Gaza to even get to that consulate. So even if you have an appointment, we have friends who have had to scale walls and do all kinds of things just to try to get to the consulate. And Medea, the latest I hear is that Tony Blinken has promised about a 75 million dollar aid to Palestine to rebuild back after the Gaza massacre. And so there we are. What do we say about that? I mean, we give so much more money to give the weapons to Israel to keep doing the massacres. And then some crumbs go to the people of Palestine. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, $4 billion a year for Israel. All right, let's move over to Hania back to Hania for an update on Afghanistan. Thank you. Well, the American troops are set to be out of Afghanistan by early mid-July, well ahead of President Biden's September 11 deadline and the withdrawal of the US troops is nearly at the halfway point. For the first time in two decades, the US says it will have no troops, annual contractors in Afghanistan and the CIA and the special forces teams will no longer work from bases in the Eastern part of the country. Representatives of warring parties in Afghanistan are set to return to the negotiating table of Qatar this week to discuss, among other pressing issues, a de-escalation of Afghan violence as international forces continue to withdraw from Afghanistan. So that's all I have for you, Marcy. Thank you. Thank you, Hania. Well, tonight we have a very important program, say no to nukes. Please take a look at the chat. We've listed our speakers, William Hartan and Yasmin Silva, as well as a link to articles of interest, one of them a link to the breakdown of Biden's military budget. You may wanna take a look at that, save that, save the chat. Our guests will also be breaking that down tonight. And now I'm gonna turn to our first guest. Welcome William Hartan. He is the director of arms and security program at the Center for International Policy. He's also a noted author who wrote prophets of war, Lockheed Martin and the making of the military industrial complex. He also co-authored with Miriam Pemberton, lessons from Iraq avoiding the next war. Welcome, William. Oh, and he's a comedian and a magician. You're kidding. I don't know about magician. That's- I could throw the missiles. Oh, yes, yes, exactly. Well, you know, things aren't as funny as they should be, but I'll do my best. So, yeah, I'm gonna talk a little bit about the profiteers of Armageddon, as I call them, companies that make money by putting the future of humanity at risk. And as you probably know or have seen, the Pentagon wants to spend $1.7 trillion over the next three decades building a whole new generation of nuclear weapons. And a good chunk of that money is gonna go to just four companies, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, and Raytheon. And if you work for one of those companies, you got good news on Friday afternoon because the Biden administration announced it wants to spend $750 billion next year on the Pentagon and on work on nuclear warheads at the Department of Energy. So, three quarters of a trillion dollars are going for those purposes. And that's a huge sum. It's far more than was spent at the peak of the Koreans or Vietnam War or the Reagan buildup of the 1980s. It's three times what China spends, even though we're supposed to be, you know, shaking on our boots about the Chinese, quote, unquote, threat, 10 times what Russia spends. And as I said, one of the highest levels since World War II. So, within that, about half of that goes to contractors. The top five alone got $150 billion last year, about 20% of the Pentagon budget. So basically, one out of every $5 that goes to the Pentagon goes right back out the door to Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, Raytheon, General Dynamics, the big five weapons contractors. So all the talk about this being needed for the troops is kind of neglecting the fact that a lot of it goes to enriched corporations, many of whom pay their CEOs 20 million and more per year, 500 times what the average private coming into the services would make. And if you hear sirens, it's because I'm in New York City. But in terms of the nuclear weapon spending itself, by a conservative estimate, there's about $43 billion in the current budget proposal, both for nuclear delivery vehicles and for nuclear warheads. So that's comparable to the budget for the State Department, which is just a underscoring how skewed our priorities are at the moment. And they're gonna double spending on the new intercontinental ballistic missile, which is being built by Northrop Grumman. They're gonna spend $5 billion on a ballistic missile submarine built by General Dynamics, $3 billion on a bomber built by Northrop Grumman, $2.6 billion on the ICBM I mentioned, also built by Northrop Grumman, $1.6 billion for new submarine launch ballistic missiles built by Lockheed Martin. And then there's an air launch cruise missile built by Raytheon for the bargain price of about $600 million next year. And so those are just kind of the down payments on what's gonna be this huge surge of spending until we stop it, that is. And there's a new Congressional Budget Office report that said just in this decade, $634 billion will be spent on nuclear weapons, which is a 28% increase from last time they looked at this. So there's more weapons in the pipeline, there's more cost overruns, there's more nuclear weapons activity, all of which is resulting in this surge in spending. So basically we've got this exorbitant nuclear weapons buildup, which is starving many other priorities that we have, be it the pandemic, be it dealing with climate change, deal it with economic inequality, racial economic injustice. We're spending half of our discretion or budget on the Pentagon and a good portion of that on nuclear weapons. So why is this happening? Of course, part of it is Cold War thinking, the kind of urge to dominate the globe militarily, all the kind of machinations of the nuclear elite that come up with these strategies, but a lot of it has to do with money. And in particular, I was gonna look at the ICBM Lobby as one example. William Perry has called the ICBMs one of the most dangerous weapons in the world because in a morning of an attack, the president would have minutes to decide whether to launch these things, which would greatly increase the risk of an accidental nuclear war. So all nuclear weapons are dangerous, all of them need to be eliminated. But within that, the ICBM is even more dangerous in some respects than the others. So you've got a powerful lobby in Congress and industry to keep the money flowing for this. And in the Senate, you've got the ICBM coalition, which is senators from states that house ICBM bases or major development activity for ICBM. So the senators from Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota and Utah, relatively small states, seven of eight of them are now Republicans. The Democrat is John Tester, who runs the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. So a very powerful player in all this. So those senators have gotten $1.2 million over the last decade from the major ICBM contractors, Northrop Grumman and its subcontractors. And that investment has paid off for the companies because this coalition has blocked what would have been deeper cuts in ICBMs under new start. They've refused to let the Pentagon destroy the unused silos and what's called warm status. In case there's a buildup, they could put more missiles there. They've blocked studies of alternatives to the ICBM or any efforts to reduce the budget. So they've been sort of on the front lines keeping any changes from happening and spending on these dangerous weapons. And then of course there's Northrop Grumman itself which spent $15 million on members of the Strategic Forces Subcommittees and the Defense Appropriations Committees in this House and Senate. So they focus on the ICBM coalition and they focus on the members who control the money, who can decide how much we're gonna spend on nuclear weapons. The same company spent $120 million on lobbying just in the last two years and they have 380 lobbyists amongst them. So not quite one for every member of Congress but they're getting there. Most of them come through the revolving door. They worked in Congress, they worked in the Pentagon, they worked in the National Security Council so they can turn around and lobby their former colleagues on behalf of these companies and they do so quite effectively. And just one example which you may be familiar with even if you look at the Secretary of Defense, James Mattis was on the Board of General Dynamics which builds the new ballistic missile submarine. Mark Esper was at Raytheon, the chief lobbyist which makes the air launched nuclear cruise missile. Patrick Shanahan was at Boeing which does missile defense components for nuclear weapons. And now we've got Lloyd Austin who came straight from the Board of Raytheon. So it starts at the top, the revolving door of people going into government from the corporations and then coming to the corporations from government. They've got this little bubble of lobbying that goes on. So the last thing I'll say is, whenever we question these things they use the J word jobs. It's all about jobs and even if it's a bad idea how could you possibly put somebody out of work just to save humanity? So that's the first thing. It's an obscene trade off to save a few thousand jobs. We should build these weapons that could end life as we know it. But in Washington, this argument still has some clout. And so it's true, there's some jobs involved. There's a few thousand jobs at each of the ICBM bases. Northrop Grumman says there's 10,000 jobs developing this thing. But those 10,000 jobs, first of all it's likely an exaggeration. They haven't proven where these jobs are. But even if all of them were there there's a workforce in the United States of 160 million people. So that's less than 1,101% of the labor force. Certainly we can find other places to employ these folks, other ways to do it. Especially since any other kind of spending creates more jobs than Pentagon spending. You get 40% more jobs from green energy or infrastructure, twice as many jobs from education or healthcare. So a relatively small investment in terms of the vast resources of the federal government would create many more jobs than are created by this new ICBM program. And then in terms of the bases there've been many success stories where military bases have closed and they've created more jobs afterwards in civilian pursuits. So the Pentagon has a report that they I got a hold of that they've yet to publish that shows that three dozen bases they created a net increase of 157,000 jobs spread across those three dozen bases after they got out of military and into civilian activities. So even in the small states where these bases are there would be alternatives if the government put its mind to it. So the bottom line on jobs is the more we spend on nuclear weapons the more jobs we're destroying that could exist in other parts of the economy. So I'm gonna leave it at that except to say that it's good that we're here because there's a lot of work to do but citizen action has made a difference in the past. The nuclear freeze campaign pushed Reagan off the brink of nuclear war initiated major nuclear weapons reductions abandoned bomb movements stopped roughground testing of nuclear weapons they've been victories along the way stopping some very egregious new nuclear projects from getting off the ground. And so I think we're at a time now where people are starting to see that we've got more important priorities than wasting more money on nuclear weapons. And so I'm very honored to be here with you all we're gonna not only listen to me drone on but are gonna actually take action. So thanks. Thank you William Hartung of the Center for International Policy great honor to have you with us tonight. And I'm glad you mentioned that they have power and the success of the nuclear freeze movement it can be done. And we'll talk more about that I see Susan posted in the chat need a just transition for munitions weapons workers. I couldn't agree with you more and we're gonna take that subject up later on possibly in July on code P Congress. So stay tuned. And now Medea please interview not not interview introduce our next guest. Yes, wonderful. Thank you so much, Bill. And for the people watching remember you can put your questions in the chat you can also introduce yourselves in the chat and our next speaker is one of those wonderful activists Yasmin Silva who is the partnership manager for a great organization called Beyond the Bomb working with grassroots coalitions to advocate for no first use policy and sole authority blocks spending on new nuclear weapons and increased superfund support for cleaning up the toxic waste from nuclear weapons production and testing prior to working at Beyond the Bomb she was a field organizer for Global Zero and fight for 15. Thank you so much for being with us, Yasmin. Thank you so much for having me. It's really wonderful to be in a virtual room with so many activists and so many people willing to take action. And thank you to Bill. I mean a lot of what he said has really laid the groundwork well I think for why we need to take action. So I'm gonna approach this in a slightly different direction. So it's been said, but since the end of the Cold War we've seen movement to reducing our nuclear arsenal and that's thanks to pressure from activists like all of us online tonight and the steps that we were willing to take. However, during the last minute administration we really saw a reversal on all of the strides that have been made not just on nuclear weapons and foreign policy but on our domestic rights as well. So fighting for a world that we wanna see is always an uphill battle but in today's landscape I think it's even more important because I think we have not only do we have an opportunity but there are a few threats as well. So global tensions as we know from that update at the beginning of the call are at an all-time high. Warhawks and defense contractors as Bill mentioned feel entitled to profiteering off other suffering. And we've seen the US and other nuclear arm states shun a new treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons. And we know that if nuclear weapons exist it's only a matter of time before they are used whether that's by accident miscalculation or on purpose. And there's just too much at stake for us to wait around and not take steps to mitigate that risk. So every step we can take makes us a little bit safer and able to invest in our communities and it means less dollars in the pockets of those who profit off of war and again in priorities that we care about for our communities. So what do we do about it? So in the United States we are in a unique position to influence not only our own policy just due to the fact that the US has one of the largest nuclear arsenals and is the only country in the world to have used these weapons in war time but many other nations look to see and especially other nuclear arm nations look to see what the US will do when crafting their own nuclear doctrines. So experts have cited that a major step that we can take towards a world without nuclear weapons is to adopt a no first use policy. So no first use does exactly what it sounds like it means the United States will not use a nuclear weapon first. And it does the most to reduce risk of nuclear war while paving the way for a world without nuclear weapons. And we'd be in company of other nuclear arm states both China and India currently have no first use policies. And by having a no first use policy the US really opens the door to true diplomacy that can set us back on that path towards the total elimination of nuclear weapons. But we also need to defund first use and other weapons. Like Bill said, one example that I'm gonna focus on a bit is the sea launched cruise missile. And this, it's frustrating to be fighting this fight and to be having to take action on this because it's a weapon that Obama retired that Trump brought back. And Bill mentioned that that funding that we saw come out Friday out of the Biden administration Biden has set aside funding for the sea launched cruise missile. So truly not sure why this is back on the table and why we have to be fighting this fight but I do think it is a red line that we need to be fighting. And the time is now, right? The, on the opportunity side we have an administration who while they're not exactly where we want them to be is set to review our nuclear weapons. There's a summit coming up between Biden and Putin to begin dialogues on things like this. But so that's on the opportunity side and where we can make strides. But on the urgent side, we also have an administration that is hostile to other nuclear powers. I'm thinking China and potential nuclear powers like Iran. And antagonizing can only get us so far especially while we maintain US hegemony through nuclear weapons and posturing. So if there is a time to be bold and to have a loud cry from those of us here in the United States to shift our priorities from waging and funding war to celebrating and funding life, I think now is the time. So what can we do? So thankfully we have some champions in Congress who've taken up the fight that we can support and encourage other representatives to get on board which is exactly what we're doing here tonight. So Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Adam Smith have introduced legislation for the US to adopt a no first use policy. And we know this is just the beginning but no first use is a crucial step to setting the US on the path, like I said, to working with other nuclear states and eliminating nuclear weapons. And the thing that I hear the most when we set up lobby meetings or when representatives get back to us is they don't think that nuclear weapons is something their constituents care about especially on the foreign policy side. And I know that's frustrating for those of us working on it to hear but I think that that's why us keeping that drumbeat of calls, of letters, of emails up is one of the ways that we're gonna get this. And so in conjunction with no first use there's also legislation that cuts the funding for that sea launch cruise missile that I mentioned and that bill laid out where the funding was coming from. And that's from Representative Courtney and Senator Van Hollen. And so we have to encourage our representatives to co-sponsor both of these bills. I mean, there are so many bills on the table but these two I think in conjunction really do set out that really bold agenda and draw that red line in the sand that we need in order to make strides on other pieces of nuclear policy. And I think they complement each other very well. So while we are advocating for these clear policy goals I also, and this kind of gets to the job question a little bit I think that came up during Bill's presentation but I think it's extremely important that we're lifting up other important work for change that's happening here in the United States as well. Nuclear weapons are just one facet of the militarism that we see deployed on our streets through hyper militarized police forces and funding that goes into nuclear weapons could be much better spent on healthcare or education or transitioning to green and renewable energy. And we can't be thinking and talking about nuclear weapons alone it's going to take a robust intersectional movement to eliminate all of these systems of oppressions that have gotten us here in the first place. And I think thinking about the Green New Deal and that future that we want that nuclear weapons free future incorporates all of those other fabulous progressive changes that we need. So I'll leave it there but really excited to be here with you all tonight. Thank you so much. Yes, and so that would be on the bomb. We're going to take some questions from the chat now before that however I do want to point to some of the things we've already posted in the chat and maybe Mary if you can repost them Mary Miller is navigating the tech for us we appreciate you Mary. We, Medea and I co-authored an article Meet the Nuke Caucus Busting the Budget and Making the World Less Safe if you want to learn more about who these characters are who in Congress are driving this with some success. Take a look at that. Again, we have the breakdown of the military budget. Bill mentioned that there's about 43 billion in the budget for nuclear weapons. Some of that for what they're calling euphemistically the ground-based strategic deterrent that's 600 new intercontinental ballistic missiles underground missiles on high alert in those states Utah, I mean North Dakota, Wyoming and Colorado. So having said that, let's go to our Q&A and Hania and Medea are going to post that. So first question. Sure, Medea, did you want to go ahead and ask the two important questions that you brought up to both of our speakers or shall I begin? Well, okay, I'll start. I had one for Bill about the no first use as a strategy because we do hear that there are many people in the anti-nuke world who are not happy with that as a strategy and think we should just go for abolition. And I want to bring in here what Ted Daly, somebody who's worked on this for so long has brought up what about just focusing on one of the triad and making it just around the submarines and couldn't what do you think about that as a strategy? And then for Yasmin, it was how do you get young people to even know that this is an issue? And to understand what a existential threat it is and to get involved. All right. Well, I think no first use is one way at it because as Yasmin pointed out, it's partly about relations with the other nuclear powers and how to jumpstart talks on nuclear reductions. But I think there's no downside to doing broad-based education and abolishing nuclear weapons. I mean, that's the ultimate goal. So I have no issue with that. I focused on the land-based ICBM because it's, as I said, it's on hair trigger alert. And it is more likely to trigger a accidental nuclear war. The submarines are more expensive. And so of the nuclear triad, it's soaking up the most of our tax dollars. But I think in Congress, it's a harder target. But we shouldn't always just be limited to what Congress wants or is likely to do at the moment. Because if we did that, we wouldn't get anything done. So that's my sense. Yasmin may have more on the no first use. And I mean, I'm young. I'm involved. I don't know. No, I think you're exactly right. I don't think it's either or I think we need voices coming from all positions as long as they're not advocating for more nuclear weapons or the status quo. I think that this is my personal belief. I want to see the abolition of nuclear weapons. I don't think we're going to go from where we are right now to the total abolition of nuclear weapons. And so for me, presenting no first use is that intermediary step that is kind of the first domino that gets us there. And that's to say, though, that if we're not also advocating for abolition and we don't keep that in mind, we're not going to achieve that. So I think we need to be loudly calling for that. And working hand in hand, those of us who are working with legislators for those intermediary steps and those of us who want to see a world without nuclear weapons right now, if we're not communicating, if we're not working together, we're not going to get to the end goal. But that's a personal thing. And I welcome, if you believe very wholeheartedly that it's abolition or nothing, let's have a conversation because I think that that's worth having. In terms of getting young people involved, I think that that's a lot of what the end of my remarks were kind of driving at in a way is, I think, to be frank, nuclear weapons are really hidden. They're a hidden issue. And if we're meeting people where they're at, it's not something that I or a lot of folks my age or younger, especially, are getting education on. Or if they were exposed to it, it was under the auspice of Trump in this idea that, oh, a madman has these codes, but now it's different and it's better because we don't have a madman in the White House. And so we need to be finding ways to plug in with things that they care about. And I think nuclear weapons are intrinsically linked to every other progressive item that we care about, whether that's, again, overfunding for the military, whether that's environmental justice. Actually, I'm wearing a climate justice shirt right now. I think that all of these things are so interwoven. And it's about meeting people where they're at and not saying you have to drop everything else because there are so many other existential threats. Nuclear weapons aren't the only one. We need, like, poverty is an existential threat. Like, folks can't afford their bills. Like, if you can't afford your health care, who am I to go in and tell you no, you need to drop everything and work on nuclear weapons? I think it's a question of giving them ways to plug in. And I think the budget is an amazing way to do that. I think if people care about hypermilitarization to police, if we're talking about the funding that goes there, if we're talking about the culture of war, there are so many ways to meet people where they're at with this issue. I think it's just about getting creative and having the time to have those conversations, really. Thank you so much, Yasmin. Another point that was brought up by one of our audience members here is that you mentioned that since the end of Cold War, we have seen more of a move towards reduction in the nuclear weapons. And that was reversed during the Trump administration. It was the Obama regime that really originated the 1.7 trillion upgrade on the nuclear arsenal. Can you elaborate on that for us a little bit? Definitely. And maybe Bill will know better than I do, but my understanding of the modernization is it's replacing warheads. It's not creating new ones. So the idea is we're retiring old ones. So I think it's deployed warheads remain the same and the retired warheads increase. And that's my understanding of it, but happy to have someone else jump in if I'm not correct on that. Yeah, Bill. I would like to just jump in with one thought and that is when we were working on this article Meet the Nuke Caucus, I kept struggling with this term nuclear modernization and I'd like to see us reject it and not use it at all and just call it nuclear rearmament because to build 600 new ICBM missiles is nuclear rearmament, my thought. Bill. Yeah, the Pentagon's plan to build a new generation of nuclear weapons was already well on the works and it got a boost under Obama, partly because especially with the nuclear warhead side, he wanted to buy off Republicans in Congress to get them to support a new start. So he made what I consider a bad bargain by saying, yeah, we'll get a new start, but we'll pour more money into the nuclear weapons complex. So it does definitely predate Trump. Trump added some additional egregious elements himself. And of course he was more vocal and more unhinged, but as Yasmin said, we're not safe with nuclear weapons in anybody's hands. So the idea that Trump in that sense makes us say, him not being with his finger on the button makes us safer is not necessarily the case. I have a question. What are the environmental risks downsides with production of new nuclear warheads? Do you want me to start, Yasmin? Sure. Well, I mean, the whole cycle from the mining of the uranium to the working with these materials in the factories to the waste that's produced as part of the nuclear weapons production complex, which is not part of that 43 billion spending, there's tens and tens of the billions of dollars to clean up current and former nuclear weapons sites, much of which may not be even able to be cleaned up. So there's excess cancers, there's still the legacies of a nuclear weapons testing in the Marshall Islands and then Western part of the United States. And there's the movement of nuclear materials around the country. So there's many, many environmental issues surrounding nuclear weapons, essentially they're killing people even without being used because of the environmental impacts. Yeah, I spend a lot of my time actually talking with nuclear frontline communities and impacted communities and the US hasn't even begun to reckon with the harm that it has caused to so many indigenous low income and communities of color. The idea that Aiken, South Carolina, Savannah River site where some of these new pits, these nuclear pits would be produced is considered one of the most contaminated places on earth and we're considering just continuing with that cycle really blows my mind given the incredible, horrific health impacts that it has. So you're saying to produce these new nuclear warhead pits will create more environmental waste, radioactive waste that has to be buried? Yeah, and we haven't figured out a long-term storage solution. So if anything, it's going to communities that have already had midterm storage that were only supposed to be there for 10, 15, 20 years and now we're 50 plus years on and they're taking on more waste because we just don't have a solution for it. Yeah, it's incredible in the worst way possible. I raise that only because it seems like a natural connection with the environmental movement, the sunrise movement that we could make. Thank you. So we have two questions that are related to the non-proliferation treaty. One from Laura Gibney who asks, is the US itself violating the non-proliferation treaty through the development of new or replacement nuclear weapons? And then Jim from Milwaukee added, how do we use our obligations under the MPT as leverage in our discussions? So maybe we can start with you, Bill and then see if Yasmin wants to add to that. Well, under article six of the treaty, the declared nuclear powers should have long ago eliminated their nuclear arsenals. So to be building a new generation of nuclear weapons is certainly a violation. So in that sense, in terms of leverage, it's already international law under the MPT that these weapons should be gone. And now we've got that strengthened by the UN nuclear ban treaty, which is perhaps a more direct route to the same goal. So yeah, I would say not only they're illegal and moral, but unbelievably destructive. So there's really many different angles, but there are kind of international treaty related links that I think we could certainly make to strengthen or advance our case. But can I just delve into that a little more? Is there any international entity that can sanction the US for violating the MPT? Well, I mean, it's a question of power. I mean, in theory, the United Nations could do it, but of course you've got the Security Council, you've got the veto power and the main nuclear powers are all on the Security Council with veto power. So I think you could have an international body like there was ruling in the Hague about the illegality of nuclear weapons, but the problem is enforcement of international law. That's really where we're missing the power to make that happen, which is why a lot of it falls back to these fights country by country. I have a question. Where is most of the radioactive waste buried? So depends, because some of it isn't necessarily buried. I mean, it depends region by region. There are different storage sites. That pertains to nuclear weapons. That pertains to nuclear weapons. And then there's Tannenford in Washington State is huge. There's a processing facility in Idaho. Well, it's complicated, right? Because there's different, as Bill mentioned, there are different points of the process. And so there's different waste from different points of the process. And some of that has now been mixed in with nuclear energy waste, even though they're classified different. But so there's a bunch also in New Mexico, there are a bunch of pits and other things from a lot of the uranium mining. Actually, I currently with a few other women in the nuclear space, we're working on mapping all of this because we think it's really important to have this comprehensive resource. So we're working on mapping not only contaminated sites, storage sites, testing sites, but manufacturing sites. Like we wanna really get a handle on where the nuclear system is in the United States so we can better connect with communities there and advocate across issues to eliminate nuclear weapons. So stay tuned for that. Thank you. Yeah, I mean, I think that's essential to connect with frontline communities. I imagine they're probably indigenous communities that are most impacted and to shine a spotlight on that, to get people there to show up. Thank you. Other questions? Hania, you wanna ask one of the other ones? You're on mute. We can't hear you. We can't hear Hania, Mary, can you unmute here? So in the meantime, somebody asked, there's so many good things being discussed in the chat. We have fabulous anti-nuke activists like Ellis Lader and Jackie Cabasso and Tad Daily and Jean Haskell and all kinds of people posting great things in the chat that we should save and people should read them. And in the meantime, Hania, are you on muted to ask one of the questions? Well, Alice has her hand up. So maybe if we could unmute Alice and let her speak. Thanks. I mean, this is really good because there's like people that really know a lot of this and it's not out there yet. For instance, there's a network, the Alliance Nucleotannability that works in all the grassroots communities where they've been making the bomb. It's been in existence since the 1970s and they work together. Ralph Hutchinson from a rapper and Jackie was part of Lawrence Livermore. There was a whole network that the waste, nothing has been done with the waste. It lasts for 350,000 years. We stopped them from burying the reactor waste in Yucca Mountain, but the military waste, which is the same, every indigenous site where it's, where it was mined is birth defects and cancer and then the downwind is from the, it's been a disaster and it's in leaking tanks all over. I mean, it's just a mess. So I don't know. I don't know what my, I just, I'd like to know why we can't all get behind Eleanor Holmes Norton who has a legislation to abolish nuclear weapons, join the Ban Treaty, obey the MPT and use all that money for economic conversion of the weapons sites like part of the Blue New Deal. I mean, that's, it's on the table. We have 10 members that nobody's talking about. You know, there's like a lot of energy and foundations and organizations behind, you know, other smallest steps like get rid of this weapon or give it a statement, no first use. You know, all these are good, but why aren't we putting, putting the big thing on the table? You actually have a war there. Who is it? I just like to, besides Eleanor Holmes Norton, I mean, she did get some people on it. You know, we were looking at that. That's the only abolition, abolitionist legislation actually. Well, it's how many of you respond to Alice? I never disagree with Alice. See, when people were saying we could never get a Ban Treaty, Alice was there working on it. So I think her vision is well worth following, you know. And I see Jackie's been writing a lot. Do we wanna unmute Jackie? We're having a bit of a problem with that. Yasmeen, do you wanna respond? So, it's sad because I'm of this panel and of most of you, I'm probably one of the younger people and yet I might be one of the most cynical, which makes me sad. But, and Alice, I always appreciate our conversations because I feel like you do push me to be less cynical. But the cynic, so the optimist in me, I believe we can achieve a world without nuclear weapons and I think we have to achieve a world without nuclear weapons, right? Like, I think that that's the imperative. But I think operating within the system as it exists right now means that some of us have to still be pushing for those incremental steps in order to create the political will to get there and in order to put those steps in place that set the US and other nuclear arms states up. So, this is where I was saying before that I think it's still important for people to be pushing that legislation and contacting your members of Congress around abolition and letting them know that like that's where you stand but also have you seen these other pieces of legislation because the way I equate it is we didn't, we aren't where we are right now in the healthcare conversation in the United States. If there weren't people pushing for single payer when Obama introduced Obamacare, right? Like, if we aren't constantly renegotiating because we're having this conversation right now and there are people on the right who are saying we need to go back to Cold War levels of nuclear weapons. And I think, and that's absurd. And so I think we need to by having us still talk about abolition and not putting that off the table, we are opening the political space to move the needle to get those changes that make us safer and work towards that goal. But again, I think I'm the most cynical person here and I'm sorry about that. But Alice, let's have a conversation soon because I enjoy our conversations. Thank you. If I can just do one quick thing, I don't want to. We are rejecting authors ever since Stalin asked Truman to turn the bomb over to the UN and we didn't. And Reagan rejected Gorbachev's offer because Gorbachev said, let's get rid of all of them. And he said, but don't do Star Wars. And we refuse to do that. And China and Russia keep saying, do a treaty to get weapons out of space. And then we'll talk about nuclear disarmament. They're saying that all the time. Nobody knows this. We think, we don't know how we are rejecting other people's offers. It's not impossible. What's impossible is the United States of America because we're in the grip of this corrupt system that Bill described. So, you know, so ugly. I mean, they're just, they own everybody. And that's why we can't even talk to Russia and China who were the big, you know, we're making them the enemies. We ran out of terrorists. So we got to make them the enemies then. Thank you, Alice. And on the subject of China, please join us on June 15th. We will have Madison Tang of our China's Not Our Enemy campaign and others talking about this new bill that has been introduced by Senator Schumer. That's a very dangerous bill. It's called the U.S. Innovation and Strategic Competition Act of 2021. Code Pink will be sending out petitions to sign on this bill. It's dangerous because it jins up a cold war with China. It reads like a manifesto of hate. It expands U.S. militarism in the South China Sea and undermines our climate envoy, John Kerry's agreement with China that was negotiated around Earth Day to jointly work on strengthening the implementation of the Paris Accord and achieving carbon neutrality. So it's really a horrific bill, but tucked inside this bill is $250 billion. A lot of it for technological innovation hubs in cities. So we are seeing some support from surprising elements of Congress and we wanna make sure that we send a message that we will not support this bill. So stay tuned for that. We have a question for you, Yasmin, a specific one from Tad, who says that he endorses beyond the bomb's work on medium term advocacy as well as long term vision of abolition. But for some reason, he can't understand beyond the bomb recently, he stopped advocating for ending presidential sole authority to initiate a nuclear launch. You don't oppose it, you just stopped talking about it, even though Ted Lu and Ed Markey have a bill about it, why? Yeah, we definitely don't oppose it. I think it's more to be honest with you, bandwidth and our approach. So like I mentioned before, we're working with activists who are working on a bunch of different issues. And so for us, we like to key in and focus in on certain things that folks can take action on. And so for us, that's no first use. So if it was a decision between working on no first use and sole authority, to be honest, I think no first use is a stronger step. And the idea that it would, oh, sorry, Marcy, did you say something or am I? Oh, we hear you. Oh, okay, sorry, I'm just getting some weird feedback. But the idea that it would go to Congress to be able to launch a nuclear weapon, that doesn't go far enough for me, speaking on a personal level, not speaking on a beyond the bomb level. So we think that it's still an important step. It's just when we're talking to our activists and we're trying to focus them in on some very, like I said, I focused on two key pieces of legislation tonight, that's no first use in the SLCM. And that's just because that's what we're focusing our activists in on. It doesn't mean that we don't care about the GBSD or sole authority. You need not use the acronym CS mean. Apologies, thank you, no, thank you. We have a thing at beyond the bomb, we call it the jargon giraffe. And if somebody says an acronym, you put up your jargon giraffe. So thank you for jargon giraffeing me. So GBSD stands for the ground base strategic deterrent that I believe Bill covered in his presentation. And sole authority is the idea that only the president can launch a nuclear or the president has the sole authority to launch a nuclear weapon. And so what Markey and Louisville would do would be make it so like a declaration of war, Congress could launch a nuclear, could come together and launch a nuclear weapon like a declaration of war. And so for us, if we are able to, to our activists put no first use forward on the table, like I was saying, moving the needle of what center is, if a bunch of Congress people are hearing about no first use and then they're approached with sole authority, they're gonna equate them. Actually, we see that already happening when we go to talk to folks, they're like, oh, sole authority too. So for us, if we're approaching with the stronger thing, it really advocates for both things at the same time. So this is a longer conversation and we're coming up on the hour. We certainly want people to stay for the action portion of the capital calling party. So any suggestions before we thank you and Newton, thank you, any suggestions on next steps for people who are, who want to be engaged here? You're already doing the thing. You're here. How can they get in touch with you? Oh, perfect. I can put my email in the chat and we also just like CodePink are monitoring some of the things like the Strategic Competition Act and others. And so excited to advocate on that. And we definitely update our lists pretty regularly with action. They can take on nuclear weapons specific things. So if you're hungry for just nukes, we got you covered. Thank you and Bill anything you want to add in terms of next steps or how people might connect with your organization? Well, we're at internationalpolicy.org and if you go to my part of the page, there's a report on the nuclear weapons lobby. There's a report on CEO compensation in the arms industry. There's a report on how to cut trillion or more from the Pentagon in the next decade. So that's one way I'll also write for places like Tom Dispatch, which gets around to various progressive publications. And I mean, my goal really is to create a research materials tools so that we can use them in activism. So I'm kind of a resource person or translator. How do we want to put it? So I'm always open to suggestions of things that we need to know about that would advance our activism. Thank you both so much, William Hartung with the Center for International Policy and Yasmin Silva with Beyond the Bomb. It's been our pleasure to host you tonight and we're going to follow up on some of your suggestions right now. Mary, first let's everybody, I don't know if we can unmute. I don't know if we can unmute ourselves now. For anybody who wasn't here last week, we had a problem. So we muted everybody this time, but normally we would all unmute and say thank you, thank you, thank you, you're both fantastic. Yes, you can do that. Yeah, but my suggestion would be, now that I can unmute myself, my suggestion would be to show love in the chat for our guest speakers please and hearts, emojis, and just tell them how much you appreciate them, I'm sure as much as we do. Great idea. And while you're doing that, Mary, if you wouldn't mind posting on the screen the script and I'm adding a bill that I want us to ask our representatives to co-sponsor. I'm glad that Alice later reminded me, HR 2850 calls for nuclear.