 so we can see where y'all are coming from. Hi, for those of you just joining us, we're gonna start pretty soon, but if you didn't hear this before, we're waiting for some more people to join, but you can go ahead and introduce yourself, where you're from, and if you work with any organization, feel free to drop that in the chat. Thank you, we're so happy you're here. All right, it's just past seven, so I'm gonna go ahead and get started. I think we're gonna have some more people trickle in, but to preserve all of your time and not pick up too much of anyone's time, we're gonna go ahead and get started. So hello, thank you so much for coming to this one hour webinar about the history and future of civil disobedience as it relates to nuclear abolition. My name is Sophie Shepard and I'm a summer intern working for Code Pink Spores Not Green Campaign. Joining me today are Ruth Ben and Ed Heuteman, organizers for New York City War Resistors League and Sally Jones, chair of the Peace Action Fund of New York State. Michelle from Code Pink is also here today to assist us with all of our Zoom needs. If you have any questions, please feel free to use the Q&A function at the bottom of the screen and Michelle will read your questions to us at the end. So as some of you may or may not know, the reason why we're here today is 40 years ago on June 14th, over 1700 activists and peacemakers were arrested in a 3,500 person action in New York City for protesting global nuclear armament missions to the UN. This day of action called blockade the bond makers a rose in response to the global nuclear arms race. Our plan tonight is to celebrate this incredible moment of resistance at its 40th anniversary and inspire you all to join us this summer for another day of action. After I finish this introduction, Ed will talk about what happened that day and Ruth will tell her story. Following that, Sally will talk about the current urgent need for taking action for nuclear abolition during the upcoming United Nations Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference in August in New York City. I will then wrap up this webinar by discussing training opportunities for civil disobedience and how you can get involved and then of course we'll end with a Q&A. I myself, I am 20 years old, blockade the bond makers happened two decades before I was born, but this event, especially as I've heard the stories from Ed and Ruth is incredibly inspiring to me. I'm a climate activist who believes that civil disobedience is the only way to make urgent change happen. And like the climate crisis, the current war in Ukraine is creating an unprecedented emergency for people and planet. The tension between the US and Russia, two states are into the teeth with nuclear weapons, has put us closer than ever to nuclear war. I think we can all agree that nuclear warfare should never be on the table. The tragedies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki demonstrate that nuclear violence is a crime against humanity and all life on earth. Together, I believe we can make a difference. In 1982, the Doomsday Clock stood at four minutes to midnight. Now that clock stands at 100 seconds to midnight. This summer is the moment to make our voices heard as you will learn from Sally later in this webinar. I hope this story of blockade the bond makers is as inspirational to you as it is to me. Thank you so much for coming and now I'm gonna pass it off to Ed. Okay, I'm gonna attempt to share a screen here. 40 years ago, 3,500 anti-nuclear weapons demonstrators converged on the United Nations missions of the seven nuclear weapons powers in order to disrupt diplomacy as usual by blocking their entrances. This resulted in 1,700 arrests making it the third largest number of arrests in a single day for a US demonstration. And here's some clippings of that day, well, the day after actually when the media picked it up. But I'm gonna give a bit of a history because there's been a long history demonstrations against nuclear weapons. The first anti-nuclear protests occurred actually spontaneously just days after the announcement of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And then a year later in 1946, there was the first organized demonstrations against nuclear weapons as a result of the US bomb tests over the Bikini Atoll. And then ever since, there's been annual Hiroshima and Nagasaki protests and demonstrations against atmospheric testing, against the hydrogen bomb, against mandatory air raid shelters, drills. And by the mid 50s, a band of bomb movement had blossomed including the formation of anti-nuclear groups in the US such as SAIN and Women's Strike for Peace. By the mid 1970s, the opposition to nuclear power and the new tactic of occupying nuclear power plants was rapidly growing, fueling the anti-nuclear power movement, which was further propelled by the accident at Three Mile Island in 1979. WL, among other organizations, made the connection between nuclear weapons and nuclear power saying that you really can't oppose one without also opposing the other. Then in 1978, the United Nations held its first special session on disarmament. The new peace and justice coalition mobilization for survival was formed and they had attended maybe 20,000 people at the demonstration. But feeling that a rally was not by itself strong enough statement, WL along with other peace groups organized the sit in for survival at which 415 people were arrested while blocking the US mission. Four years later, 1982, the UN scheduled a second special session on disarmament at a time when the anti-nuclear movement was really at its peak of popularity at least, including opposition to the crews and perishing to nuclear missiles that the US had stationed in Europe. A broad coalition of peace, environmental and religious groups organized a massive marching rally, estimated at 750,000 people on June 12th, 1982, and the demands were zero nuclear weapons and zero nuclear power. The popularity of June 12th marching rally was such that politicians were scrambling to be identified with them. Even New York City Mayor Ed Koch asked to be a speaker. He was turned down. During the rally, a New York City radio commentator warned that the disarmament movement was in danger of being co-opted by the left. Some of the more conservative among the June 12th rally organizers were fiercely opposed to anything more radical than a marching a rally. One group representatives said her organization would participate in the rally only on the condition of no CP and no CD. CP, of course, being Communist Party and those sorts. Now I'm gonna put up a quote from Martin Luther King. Martin Luther King once commented that every time he planned a civil disobedience action, he was besieged by people saying, we support you and your cause, but this is not the time for civil disobedience. It will be misunderstood. It will cause a backlash. Nevertheless, King found that nonviolent direct action raised both the level and seriousness of public debate and forced new people to go beyond mere verbal piety to genuine commitment. See, feeling that talk was not enough, a separate coalition was once again organized this time called blockade the bomb makers. It was decided that to single out the UN missions of the countries with nuclear weapons and to use nonviolent direct action to block the entrances of those missions in order to disrupt this diplomacy as usual on Monday, June 14th, 1982. There were five blockade the bomb makers had five basic demands, including a call for unilateral disarmament. And these demands were included in formal letters that were delivered to the mission ambassadors on May 25th, 1982, just a little over two weeks before the demonstration with a request for a face-to-face meeting at least a week before June 14th. Because of the large numbers that were anticipated, all participants were expected to have been trained in non-bonds and to be part of semi-autonomous affinity groups. All were encouraged to sit down upon reaching their mission entrance and if possible, go limp when placed under arrest. Eventually, 166, I'm showing some a sample of some of the affinity group names, some of the more interesting ones, whimsical and creative names for the five missions of the affinity groups that attended. That was the US mission. This is the Soviet mission. Some of them, some of the names of the affinity groups. And then the British, French and Chinese missions had some of these names. But there were also some standard names. These are just the more interesting ones. Now, the part of the theory was of the demonstration we were gonna converge on all five missions simultaneously from different directions. There was some concern that we didn't want people just to show up at the mission. So we had staging areas set up all around Midtown, Manhattan and on the upper east side. And there are some routes. Here's, I have the blown up here is the US mission, but here it is. And it shows routes coming from as far away as Bryant Park to the US mission. But, and this is the French mission here and the British mission, the Chinese and Soviet don't show on this particular map, but it just shows that we've had time these for the simultaneous arrivals. So eventually 166 affinity groups representing 34 states and 10 countries were formed. Although there were a few enthusiastic supporters who spontaneously decided to join the blockades including two United Nations NGO delegates from India. Now the, on June 14th, two days following the rally, 350 people descended on seven missions where 1691 were arrested. I mean, this is the day of the demonstration the Daily News said that there are gonna be 3,000 cops ready for sit-ins today. This is just as it was gonna begin. But over a thousand were arrested at the US mission, 278 at the Soviet mission, 127 at the French mission, 124 at the British mission, 100 at the Chinese mission, 17 at the Israeli and nine at the South African mission. This is the third largest number of arrests in a single day in US history after the two May Day actions in 1971 protesting the Vietnam War. There were police, as this shows, 3,000 of them. They anticipated it would have taken an hour to clear the streets, but the US mission remained blockaded for four hours, forcing one nearby bank to close early for lack of customers. Police were generally polite, carrying arrestees to city buses issuing summons refusing to arrest children or parents with children. Oh, this is another photo just before the demonstration showing, or actually the day of the demonstration showing the police coming with their special tactical weapons. This is SWAT team for the demonstration. I don't know what they were expecting, but anyway, there they were. So while most people did go limp at arrest, so the police altered their procedures to release all who just gave their name, address and age, even without producing an ID and some using obviously fake names like Mickey Mouse was one name that was used, but the cops let that person go because he gave a name. Consequently, many arrestees once released from the buses rejoined the blockades and were re-arrested. A few made it their goal to block all five missions. While most arrestees were soon released from city buses, 250 non-cooperators were taken downtown for arraignment. I'm going through some of the, for those who have trouble seeing, I'm going through some slides of some, this is the Chinese delegation. You can see one Chinese delegate, Chinese sit-in people offering bread and flowers to the Chinese mission. And that's another person being carried, more people sitting down. This is interesting that Ukraine was an issue. This is at the Russian, at the Soviet mission, but the Ukrainians were very unhappy about the Soviet treatment of Ukraine back 40 years ago. And then here's a demonstrator being hoisted into the bus. Most were being carried on stretchers, actually those who went limp. And here's some slides of the headlines, the New York Post, which is a day, an afternoon paper came out a little early, so they have 1300. Anyway, while most arrestees were soon released from their buses, there were 250 non-cooperators that were taken downtown for arraignment. Nevertheless, everyone was released that evening through though they many continued to non-cooperate. And here's another slide of above the US mission where cops with their stretchers are taking people from the sit-in to city buses. They didn't have enough patrol wagons, so they had to commandeer or get city buses to put all the demonstrators in. That's from Time Magazine. And this AP put out a major story that went around the world, around the country, around the world. This is, photo was probably repeated more than any other of the newspaper coverage. It shows a pedestrian trying to get through the blockade at the Soviet mission. This is another one that was put in a lot of newspapers. It's protesters burning the flags of the five nuclear powers. This is at the Israeli mission in the street in front of that. But the media coverage was extremely worldwide, but all the New York City TV stations covered the demonstration. CBS alone had 10 camera crews out covering it. Most of the coverage was fair, although the right wing New York Daily News, as you see here, had the editorial A plus and F, gushing praise for the June 12th rally while condemning the June 14th blockades as meaningless shenanigans, quote unquote. But, and then New York Post actually, which was a little more liberal paper back then, 40 years ago, was better. And the nation with their very civil disobedience, of course, was very positive about it. So this is some of the organizations that were part of the coordination and organizing for the demonstration. And this is Stan Mack of the Village Voice did a cartoon about non-violence training. Now this might not be up long enough for you to read it, but anyway, it was an amusing column using actual dialogue of some of the issues that they were having and doing non-violence training and trying to reach consensus. At this point, I will turn it over to Ruth. Well, I should say one thing. I forgot that the negative editorial from the Daily News, in a certain sense, I would worry if we did, what was something that was wrong if the establishment media and politicians instead ignored us and even commended the hundreds of people deliberately disrupting nuclear diplomacy. So I'm a little bit happy that they were upset by what we were doing. That was part of our purposes to get the attention of the authorities. All right, Ruth, sorry to go over. All right, thanks everybody for coming. Just a short bit, it was 40 years ago, so it is hard to remember the details, although I do remember in general it being an exhilarating experience and a great day. At the time I lived in Northampton, Massachusetts, I wasn't active with War Resisters League then, but I was active with a local peace group and the American Friends Service Committee. And my affinity group for this action came out of some feminist organizing in Western Massachusetts. There had been an eco-feminist conference, Women and Life on Earth, which was in 1980 in Amherst. And a lot of us participated in that and that led to organizing the women's Pentagon actions, which were in 1980 and 81. So a lot of affinity groups had already come together for the women's Pentagon action. So by 1982, our feminist activists were still together and a few of us, apparently only four of us, created an affinity group to come down to New York City. So that's me looking very distressed at the US mission and at the sit-in, but I guess it kind of shows that it was an exciting day. And Jean Grossholz is on the left and Karen Brandow was on the right. And the other woman, if you happen to be on this, you can tell me who you are. But so we actually met way over there in Bryant Park on Ed's map and we're given a route to follow to the US mission. So I'm sure we were with some other affinity groups there. We probably all walked together and sat in together. I probably was carried, I don't know if I was on a stretcher, but I did get arrested. I do remember being put onto the bus and just one of the city buses, a bunch of us on the city bus, we were driven off somewhere, given a summons and to come back to New York at some date. And then we were set, let go. So, yes, Karen Brandow presenting. We were let go. So I'm sure I did go back to the US mission and join the protest. I didn't get arrested more than once, but you could go back and just cheer on whatever was going on at the time. So it was very fun and exciting. And this is Jean Grossholz from my affinity group being arrested and Jean presente also. She was a professor at Mount Holyoke College. So, I have a promise, I just have to glance at my notes. I moved to New York City in 1985 and so this action did manage to come back to haunt me once more because I was arrested in 1999 after Amadou Diallo was killed by the police in February of 1999. And there was an organized wave of actions at one police plaza to protest his killing, which was an amazing action. And I, much to my surprise, when I was arrested there, the warrant from 1982 popped up. I had been arrested other times before 99 in New York City and it had never come up before, but at this time it turned out that the police, the NYPD had started computerizing their records. So they pulled up some old warrants and stuck them in the system. And mine came up and it just led to a few more visits to the court because actually they didn't have all the information that they, in their computer entry. And so the court couldn't really do anything with it, but it did kind of bring this whole action back to mind at the time. And it also reminds me that for those of us who have the luxury, I guess, of choosing to get arrested, it is an amazing experience. And that time when I, in 99, when I had to go through the system and get processed, I was by myself and not with an affinity group. And it was really different to then be with whoever else had been arrested that day and really be aware of what's going on in the system and the so-called justice system. So it just makes me think about that a lot. And finally, I asked a couple other people about their stories from that day. One of them was Matt Meyer, who's down there sitting in front, looking very stern on the left of this picture. And he actually, well, at that time, President Carter had reinstituted draft registration. And at that time, many of the young men who refused to register in those two years were being prosecuted or headed to court for prosecution. And so Matt helped organize a couple of affinity groups of the non-registerance to the draft. And he was, so he was arrested with them. And I should mention that he had also organized an anti-draft festival on June 13th. So that ended up being a part of this whole weekend because draft registration really was a front and center issue at that time too. And then the last person I asked, I'll just read the quote from her, which you can look at Martin Luther King's quote while I read Carol's quote. She's, Carol Wald said, I was visiting my parents in New Jersey and made it a point to go to the demonstration at the US mission that day. At one point the police said, if you step over this line, you will be arrested. And I spontaneously did and was no training, no prep. It was an exhilarating and empowering moment. And I've since put my body on the line to protest the US war machine many times and in many states. And she says, sometimes the passion we feel must be expressed with our bodies. So thank you Carol and Matt for your stories. And we'll go on to Sally. Hi everybody. My name is Sally Jones. I'm with Peace Action New York State. I am very grateful to the organizers of this event for inviting me to talk about the urgent need for taking action this summer for nuclear abolition. Action can mean many things, but civil disobedience is the type of action that we feel is needed now. I was lucky to be there on June 12, 1982 among the one million people who flooded the streets and Central Park calling for a world without nuclear weapons as an individual, not as part of any group. But I wasn't there on June 14, 1982 for the civil disobedience. It wasn't until 2010 when inspired by some of the same New York City War Resisters League activists that are here, I joined the civil disobedience action. That experience strengthened my bond of commitment to nuclear disarmament work. Because the group I am part of Peace Action New York State is headquartered here in New York City, we have acted as hosts and sponsors with many other New York City groups for international conferences, rallies and marches with the peace and planet international network. Several of these have taken place when nations have met for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference, NPT RevCon for short, which takes place every five years. The 2020 conference was delayed for two years because of the pandemic and is finally taking place this summer from August 1st to 26th at the UN headquarters here in New York City. This is the 10th NPT RevCon, 52 years after the NPT treaty went into force. This treaty sought to end the spread of nuclear weapons with the ultimate goal of eliminating them. 191 nations have ratified the treaty, including the five original nuclear weapon states, US, Russia formerly Soviet Union, UK, France and China. They signed on to article six of this treaty, which states, and I quote, each of the parties to the treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures related to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control. There used to be more hope that the NPT could be used as a tool to eliminate nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, it has failed that goal and in fact led to the proliferation of civilian use of nuclear energy, which is a gateway to development of nuclear weapons capabilities. The Ukraine war has made those expectations even lower for the upcoming NPT RevCon in August. Frustrated non-nuclear weapon states and civil society worked hard to create a new treaty, the treaty for the prohibition of nuclear weapons, which went into force in January 2021 after 50 state parties ratified the treaty. Slowly but surely more nations have gone through ratification of the treaty and currently there are 65 state parties, which brings me to the urgency of the moment. The Ukraine war and the competition among the great powers have dangerously increased the danger of a third potentially nuclear world war. And even if the war in Ukraine ends, we are faced with an intense competition between the US and China and intensify nuclear and advanced technological arms races. The US and its NATO allies are spending trillions of dollars in new nuclear and high tech arms races. There is rising authoritarianism in which governments are not accountable to their people. And except for the new START treaty that was ratified during President Obama's administration, there are no meaningful arms control agreements remaining in force. The necessary cooperation among nations to contain and reverse the climate crisis and to staunch and prevent pandemics has been undermined and is almost entirely absent. This has also made the courageous actions being taken around the world to end the Ukraine war and to eliminate the existential dangers posed by nuclear weapons and climate chaos so crucial. We must demand that nuclear arms states and nuclear sharing states halt the threat and the use and deployment of nuclear weapons and adopt a policy of non-use. We must demand respect for the United Nations Charter and the rule of international law. To learn more about these issues, I would like to invite you on Saturday, July 30th to a hybrid conference. It will be here in New York City, but also it will be online and it's going to take place at the All Souls Church. We're going to paste the information in the chat about this. It's free and it's open to the public and there will be international voices coming from US, Europe, Japan and the global south addressing some of these issues in much more detail than we can do tonight. We end our call to action with these final words from Dr. Martin Luther King. Quote, for years now we have been talking about war and peace but now no longer can we just talk about it. It is no longer a choice between violence and non-violence. It's non-violence or non-existence. And so now I turn this back over to Sophie. Thank you, Sally and thanks, Ed and Ruth for telling your stories. I mean they're so inspirational to hear like seeing that many people interested in doing an action over 40 years ago and yeah, this is exactly what we needed in this moment. So as Sally said, this summer is the moment to take action as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty meetings the review conference of Sally said is going to take place here in New York City in August. So if you're interested in joining us for this to like take action and make your voice heard it's really important to prepare for an event like this. And even if you couldn't take like a hypothetically arrestable rule pull something off like Ruth or Ed did it's really important to understand how an action works. So in between this webinar and our action in August we're gonna be working to make sure everyone is trained in the workings of civil disobedience. Our goal coming out of this webinar and shortly after is to get a hundred people to sign up to take non-violent direct action in August. We may host a specific event this summer to prepare you or direct you guys to like amazing groups such as Extinction Rebellion in New York who regularly provide direct action trainings and these sorts of trainings teach you how to engage in direct action how to prepare for it, what to do after all of that and they're an amazing opportunity to practice for August 2nd. So we're gonna drop a link in the chat. Stephanie who's an amazing comrade from World Can't Wait is gonna drop a form in the chat and you can fill that out. If you wanna be involved in August whether you wanna take direct action or not it would be super, super helpful if you could fill out this survey so we can stay in touch. We'll also send it up in a follow-up email to you guys but that would be so helpful for us to find out if you're interested if you wanna invite other people, all of that. So yeah, as all of our speakers have said it's super important that we take action now to bring an end to nuclear armament around the world. This is an urgent moment and I really hope you guys will join us. It is now 7.32 and we have plenty of time left for Q&A which is wonderful. If you haven't already submitted questions to the Q&A in the chat or the Q&A function you can use that function now it's a button at the bottom of your screen and Michelle who's helping us out from CodePink will read your questions to us. So yeah, feel free if you wanna ask about August this summer or what happened in 1982 feel free to drop a question in the Q&A. Thank you. And Michelle, feel free to ask any questions. Yeah, thanks so much. Well, there's no questions, right? So I'm gonna give you some time to type your questions but I do have one and I just wanted to say that this is amazing an amazing webinar. You guys are an example of inspiration for me and I appreciate your courage. And I did want to ask maybe Ed or Ruth what has been the difference in the response of the police for the officials between the protest before and the protest like right now and if there's a difference between movements if it's a protest for peace or if it's something related to climate change, for example. I'll start, it varies. I mean, over the years and certainly in New York City it depends on where you are. New York City is much different than some other areas of the country but even in New York City it varies. So I mean, I've been in demonstrations where I've been kicked, stepped on, dragged and a lot of other nastiness by police. And then other times, I mean, 1982 the police were very polite. I think they were counseled that they should be but there are other times where they've been unpleasant and sometimes it's a policy that seems to come from the police, higher ups and other times it's just one rogue officer. So it's hard to say that there's any trend one way or the other at the moment the most recent demonstrations I've been in the police have been decent to New York City but again, you go to somewhere else and it's gonna be a different story. I think when watching those slides I thought it was interesting to see what the police were wearing at the time like that SWAT team that came in. So they have these big cases but now you see them in there all of there like turtle suits or whatever you wanna call them carrying M-15s or whatever it is, you know it really is different looking back at 82 and just how much less equipment all the cops had on than you see them wearing now. I think we do find with war resistors league actions because generally our reputation is non-violence sitting. I don't know that we have been treated much easier than some of the more recent demonstrations obviously a couple of years ago the Black Lives Matter, the police were really rough in a way that I don't think some of our actions we've seen but still it varies and you never know. Yeah, and I noticed somebody was asking about non-cooperation and Ed had mentioned like the people who were carried off on stretchers or when we didn't cooperate in 82 the police just seemed to be overwhelmed and we're ready to let people go with the summons and be done with it unless you didn't give your name but now you do get an extra fine if you don't if you are carried they have added that maybe within the last 10 years it hasn't been too long but it's kind of a newer thing. Well, they did that before 1982 also in demonstrations so it's very. It's very, okay. Okay, thank you so much. We have a question here in the chat. So for the panelists, what do you think drove the numbers for the mass disobedience and how can we do better to get those numbers today? Good question. I mean, we've been organizing this trying to get numbers up. I mean, actually back in 1982 those of us doing the organizing for the blockade were disappointed that only 1700 were arrested we were expecting 10,000 or something like that. So obviously a little overambitious but the difference was really the ascendance of the anti-nuclear power movements and the anti-nuclear weapons movement. They came together at a certain time there are a lot of young people involved at that point and the environmental issue of the day was nuclear power and that was the one that drove a lot of interest from people who were younger. So it was a coincidence a little bit of different movements really growing and being very popular but how can we do it today? I don't know. I mean, I've put a lot of years into this and I've sought ways to see how we can maximize numbers and sometimes it's luck or the phase of the moon. I'll add on to that. Yeah, I think organizers have been trying to ask this question, you know how come we used to be able to get so many people in the streets and why can't we do that now? And I think there's a lot of reason I think everyone has their personal theory but I will just speak to what I'm seeing right now in this moment, a lot of conversations I have with people and activists is like people don't wanna march anymore people are like ready to take action people are really frustrated with how the system is working right now and people want to do something and it's just a matter of how we engage people and how we talk about it. And I think especially as people are feeling really desperate about where the world's at right now with the war in Ukraine with the climate crisis. I think the summer is like a real chance to see people hop in and take action because yeah, it's like what else do you do? I think it's a really effective tactic. Yeah, and I just to add on there were one million people in the streets of New York City on February 15th, 2003. Just as the US was preparing to invade Iraq. It was, there was organizing that was done with the United Prophets of Justice and many other groups but there was a feeling of just regular citizens and the residents of everywhere around that we had to be on the street. And I think it's like an urgency, a need that comes up that you have, you know you also felt, I don't know, I felt like if I was in the street and if I organized I could actually stop the invasion of Iraq. I believe that even though since then I've kind of learned when the war machine gets ready to go, it is really hard to stop it. But that belief that we could stop it and also going back to 1982, I wonder, you know from Ed and Ruth's point of view the belief that we could stop the nuclear arms race and we could change policy. And in fact, it actually was not completely successful but there were something like 60 to 70,000 nuclear weapons in the world in that era. Check my facts, please, someone here. There's a lot of knowledgeable people here and now there's a lot less. And that was due to that huge movement of the 80s and the different arms control, the pressure to have arms control treaties. And now we backed off from all of that because we need to feel like we can make change. We need to feel that. I hope people don't get bought off by arms control treaties because one nuclear weapon in the world can kill millions, it's too much. So we know that we have a lot of work to do. And I hope in New York City with Sophie and Sally and other groups, we can't wait. We're working on building our coalition and working together and it's a challenge but all of us need to work harder at crossing issues, right? And figuring out how to make this one big movement because all these issues are connected. So many issues are connected. Yeah, thank you so much. There's another question here. So how did you organize in 1982 pre-internet days? How did you do this by mail, letters? How did you do this? Well, yeah, certainly mail, but meetings, there used to be a thing called newsletters and publications back then that went out to a lot of people. And this was advertised in all those publications. We started organizing the June 1982 events back the summer before. So that was several months lead time and we had it in mailings. I mean, speaking for the war resistors, we had it in every mailing that would go out from the war resistors, we've mentioned at conferences, at other meetings and the word got out. I mean, we worked in coalition with many groups. It wasn't just the war resistors for the blockade and certainly not for the June 12th organizing. A lot of people think June 12th was all the freeze. It wasn't. It was a very broad coalition of many, many organizations. And the word got out that way because the organizations were able to disseminate what was happening, but we had a lot of lead time. The problem would be then, if we wanted to do a really quick demonstration, it would have been kind of tough, but we had several months lead. Thank you. Okay, so another one we have time, so let's do this. As we have seen with many other movements, civil resistance while critically important does not ever achieve its goals by itself. It needs to be part of a strategic plan that involves many kinds of action. What overall strategic plan do you advocate within with civil resistance will be couch? That's a tough one. I did once see, at some point, I was doing this great training by, oh, what's it called? Citizens Climate Lobby. And they talked about how there are different roles in a movement, just how there are different parts of an ecosystem that all contribute to its well-being. There are different parts of a movement and every place has its part. So there's people who lobby Congress, there's people who do direct action, there's people who try and help voter registration and get people to vote. There are all these moving pieces that contribute to a movement. And I think there is a lot of division in our theories of change and how we think we need to make change and even the finer details. But I do think we can all agree that nuclear weapons and nuclear warfare is awful and evil and we don't want it there. And so we're all advocating for it in different ways. And this group here believes in civil disobedience because if they're not listening to you when you write to Congress, when you tell your representatives, what you can do is you can show up and get in their way. And that's what I believe in. And I think every form of advocacy is incredibly important, but civil disobedience's role is to sort of get in the way and make it so they can't ignore you. And I think that's sort of gonna be the goal in August as it was in 1982. Thank you. Just to add to that about the strategies, I think it's important to have many, many strategies happening all at the same time that just like stirring the pot, like the more you're touched by different either conferences, now at Zoom or meetings or newsletters or the more personal, the better, I think it's the strategies are everything, do art, music, everything. So the strategy needs to be touch people in every way you can. And also try to keep people together. As much as possible. Definitely, yeah, so will there be a focus on the revival of past nonproliferation, limitation of strategic arms treaties that were enacted in the past and work through the United Nations? Should I answer that? Yeah, you can keep mine, have something to add, but go ahead. Okay, well, go ahead, Ruth. Well, I don't know. I think I was just gonna say that at one of our previous demonstrations at the nonproliferation treaty conference, one of our slogans was shut up and disarm and I think we're just frustrated with all of the talk for the last 75 years, whatever. 76 years. Yeah, yeah, and right, we're just trying to go there and say, just do it. Yeah, but go ahead. Well, I was just gonna say that we did bring up the treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons, which has been worked on for many years. I can, the international campaign for abolition of nuclear weapons was the, we actually received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017 because of their work I'll call it the TPNW for short. That treaty, so instead of past treaties, I would say there is a focus now and there needs to be a focus on getting more nations. Many of these nations that signed onto that treaty are small nations. They're not the nuclear weapon states. They're not the, what they call shared nuclear weapons states who are underneath some umbrella of another nuclear weapons state. It's the small states that have stood up to the powers, the imperialistic powers and the followers of the imperialistic powers. And they really have given us a lot of hope. And I just think that we need to focus on the TPNW. We still, and we need to shame the countries that are not living up to their obligations on the NPT, the Non-Proliferation Treaty. That's still enforced. It's enforced for, in 1995, it was changed so that it would not have a sunset. It would continue forever. So it is enforced now. So that's international law. And these United States, Russia in particular, plus the other seven countries with nuclear weapons, are not living up to their obligations and they need to be shamed. Thank you. I guess that also answers that question. We have on YouTube, Tat. There's another question here. Why was it called freeze? Why not abolition? Well, I mean, I'll do a stab at that. Sally's probably more likely to have the correct answer, but as I understood it, the freeze thought, that's just one step. I mean, the idea was abolition. And so, you know, you do it one step at a time. I'm speaking for the freeze and I opposed the movement because I thought it was too modest. But anyway, the idea was you freeze the nuclear weapons where they're at now and then you do step-by-step lessen the number. So I think the freeze people felt that's the least that anybody could do, but that wasn't an end goal of anybody in the freeze as far as I know. Well, I might- I totally agree with you. I mean, I think that the brilliance of the nuclear freeze movement was that it allowed people across the country to come from many different political strains to hop on board and also do things locally, you know, passing resolutions in their town councils and all of that and organize locally. And people who, you know, didn't really know that much other than they wanted the arms race to end. They were afraid of a nuclear war. So I think it was a way of the galvanizing, you know, the people in the United States and it also around the world to stop the arms race and fund human needs. And there was a lot of, I don't know if anybody here was on, there's been some other discussions about the whole 1982 organizing. There was a lot of disagreement and people came together despite that. That's, you know, behind the scenes, it's just like a theater production. There's a lot of messiness, but we were successful in pulling something off in 1982 and we can learn a lot from, you know, how to do that. You gotta bring in as many people as possible. I also like to reinforce that in 1982, the June 12th rally in March, their goals were zero nuclear weapons and zero nuclear power, not freeze. Freeze was, as I said, was one part of a very, very broad coalition. They included many groups beyond the freeze. Great, so here's another one and we have two more. And then I think we can wrap it up. Is any national government currently outspoken against war or nuclear war, any strong government or political support? Yes. I'll leave it to Sally to name them. I mean, they're honest. We can go to the ICANN site, ICANNW.org, and you can see all of the 65 states who have ratified the treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons. And there's some pretty amazing countries in there. And they are committed. It isn't easy to ratify a treaty. In the United States, there was the ratification of the New START treaty, but there was a devil's bargain that President Obama made with that in order to get the two thirds of the Senate. It's not even the 60 votes, it's two thirds of the hundred members of the Senate to ratify a treaty, according to our constitution. Very, very, very difficult. So these countries have different rules for ratification, but they're often not easy and it takes a while to do it. So I would suggest everybody go to ICANNW.org where you can see the 65 nations. We had a project to thank them. We've done it twice, January 2021 and January 2022 as a coalition of groups took thank yous and yellow roses to thank all those countries. We still have some more to do. And they did a similar project in Washington, DC to the embassies. These are all wonderful countries. Some of them are very tiny, tiny little countries in the Pacific, in many in the global South, in Africa, in Central America, in South America. It's very moving to go and visit their missions and talk to the delegation and how strong they feel about the TPNW. Somehow that reminds me, whose quote is it? Like Eisenhower or somebody who said people want peace so much that one-day governments are gonna have to get out of the way so we can have peace. So on the one hand, it's wonderful how many countries have signed on and of course none of the nuclear nations have which is why we are particularly focused on the US mission. But on the other hand, it's hard to trust any government and it also makes me think back to Obama's wonderful speech and Nobel Prize winning speech about getting rid of nuclear weapons and nothing came of that so frustrating. So yeah, we need to get this movement rolling again. Yeah, that was an Eisenhower quote. All right, so this is a last question. I want to know how I can motivate myself to want to leave my rural homestead in the Appalachian Mountains in North Carolina where I farm and live to put my body on the line. Well, I'll do a start on that. This is a question I asked myself not leaving rural North Carolina but just operating in New York City, what demonstrations at what point do I feel like it's necessary to risk arrest? I mean, how bad does it have to be? How bad does the world situation have to be that I'm willing to risk arrest in a demonstration and where do you draw the line? I mean, the people, the Germans and Nazi Germany, at what point were they willing to draw the line and some did to not allow what was happening? And I think, although it's not the same thing here as it was then, how bad can it get before I refuse to pay taxes openly and directly to the military or the IRS and then go to the military? So is there ever a point where I'm gonna draw a line? And that's the question I would ask whoever it might, whoever's asking it. But as I say, I asked myself that also. Yeah, the only other thing I'll add is I would say like it is a big decision. And when you sign up on our form and like say you wanna take a direct action like all questions about legal and what it means to participate in a direct action and all of that like will come. But I just as for the motivational part of it is like, I mean, the first time I took place in it, I took a role in a direct action was when I was 18 because I felt like I really needed to do something about the climate crisis and politicians and me writing letters in marches and going to marches wasn't doing anything. And so that was when I decided to take part in a direct action. And I will say like, even if you have to travel a bit far like of course we can help you figure all of that out but like it's incredibly inspiring and like invigorating to participate in these actions if you have the opportunity to because it feels like you're doing something and you're surrounded by a community of people who wanna do something too and are saying enough is enough and are willing to put their bodies on the line. So it really is a beautiful act. And if you can work up the courage, I mean, of course this webinar is just the beginning of getting started for August. And so if you do have the courage and you do have the opportunity to come I strongly encourage you to because it can be really beautiful and it's a way to show that you care and you're paying attention. So yeah, that's what I would add to it. Yeah, and then somebody put in the chat that we are putting our bodies on the line every day that there are nuclear weapons. So no more questions over here. I'll let you close. So if you have. Thank you so much, Michelle for your help. And thank you so much to everyone for writing questions. In that form, is there anything else you'd like to know part at the bottom of it? So if you have other questions you want us to answer you can go ahead and put those in that form. Please, please. I think I'm gonna Stephanie if you're there if you could drop the form in the chat one more time. So if people have it, that would be amazing. It's gonna go out in a follow-up email but it would be great. It's so easy to lose things in your inbox. So it'd be great if you could open it up now. Yes, and thank you for attending. Thank you for joining me to be inspired in this 1982 action. And we hope you guys have a wonderful night. Bye everyone. Bye, thank you.