Anti-Nuclear, Buy Open Borders

The Nuns, the Priest and the Bomb

A good group of people came out to The Nuns, The Priest, and the Bomb, playing last Friday at Meaningful Movies in Gig Harbor. The organizers invited me to bring books, read from Open Borders and field the after-movie discussion. The movie featured dangerous direct non-violent action by elderly people who entered high-security places: Bangor’s Trident Submarine Base in Bangor, WA and Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee. The audience applauded these actions. They favored increased travel into “enemy” countries and friendships across borders, the subject of my memoir. Over half-dozen people went home with my book tucked in their pockets, hopefully, to be inspired to move from fear to action. There is a No First Use bill awaiting votes in both houses of Congress right now. Why not call your member of Congress and encourage him or her to sign on to this bill? It’s easy to do by calling the Congressional Hotline: (866) 255-3207 Watch this TED talk by a nuclear scientist if you aren’t convinced we need to do something NOW.

Watch this and then do something. You’ll be glad you did.

Together, we can stop this madness. Citizens made a difference before. We can do it again. That’s the way Democracy works. Betsy

Anti-Nuclear, Buy Open Borders

Victory in the Legislature

Passed in Committee!

State Dems: Please don’t give Trump sole authority over nukes

By Sean Harding / WNPA Olympia New Bureau

OLYMPIA — Democratic lawmakers have asked the U.S. Congress to ensure the President does not have the sole authority to launch a nuclear strike, except in cases of retaliation to a nuclear attack.

The state House and Senate each presented memorials to the federal government and president requesting to make it U.S. policy not to use nuclear weapons first.

“Your Memorialists respectfully pray that Congress take appropriate steps to move back from the brink of nuclear war by establishing a system of checks and balances to ensure that the President shall no longer have the sole, unchecked authority to launch nuclear weapons, except in circumstances of retaliation to a nuclear attack,” the memorial reads.

Senate Joint Memorial 8006 was heard in the Senate Committee on State Government, Tribal Relations & Elections on Friday.

The document cites Washington’s unique role as the being home to the largest collection of nuclear weapons in the Western Hemisphere; the trillions of dollars required to update and maintain the U.S. arsenal; the global “catastrophic human, environmental, and economic consequences” of a nuclear strike; and the “inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and to live a life free from the threat of nuclear weapons” for all Americans, as reasons for Congress to take action.

“Ever since the beginning of the Cold War, our greatest fear: that nuclear weapons of some nation would fall into the hands of a leader who was deranged, psychopathic or mentally ill,” said Bruce Amundson with Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility. “We’re much too close to that right now.”

“It’s particularly important for the state of Washington to take point on this,” said Sen. Bob Hasegawa, D-Beacon Hill, who prime-sponsored the Senate version of the memorial. “Because we have more nuclear weapons in our state than any other state … that makes us a prime target.”

Sens. Karen Keiser, D-Kent, David Frockt, D-Seattle, Sam Hunt, D-Olympia, Patty Kuderer, D-Bellevue, Jamie Pedersen, D-Seattle, and Rebecca Saldaña, D-Seattle, co-sponsored the Senate document.

The House companion document, Joint Memorial 4008, was introduced by Reps. Gael Tarleton, D-Seattle, Steve Tharinger, D-Sequim and Gerry Pollet, D-Seattle.

“With the Trident base at Bangor, Joint Base Lewis-McChord, the naval base in Bremerton, Boeing: we are targeted in the eventuality of a full-scale nuclear attack,” Amundson said. “This Puget Sound area would be incinerated.”

The U.S. Navy’s Trident nuclear powered submarine USS Alaska is guided into an explosives handling wharf at the Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor in 1998. (Gene Royer/US Navy)

If approved by the full Legislature, copies of the memorial would be distributed to President Donald Trump; the president of the Senate, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and each member of Congress from the state of Washington.

“I think we need to not just lead by example for the benefit of the world. But for self-preservation sake,” Hasegawa said.

Citizen diplomacy is alive and well in Washington State today. Join us.

Read the story of Citizen activism in the 1980s. Open Borders, by Betsy Bell.
 
Watch this live recording of the testimonies given by our very own WPSR/WANW Coalition members: Louise Lansberry, John Repp, Lisa Johnson, Glen Anderson; Bruce Amundson, Laura Skelton, Jade Lauw, Mary Hanson, Rodney Brunelle, and William Burns!

On Friday Feb. 22, Washington State Legislators said “No More!” to nuclear proliferation and are standing up to Nuclear War and the New Arms Race.

These multiple nuclear crises are finally being addressed with a bold and visionary pair of initiatives in the Washington State Legislature. These Joint Memorials were led by Sen. Hasegawa in the Washington Senate and Rep. Tarleton in the House and propelled by the public, call for the U.S. Congress to “take appropriate steps to move back from the brink of nuclear war.”

The Washington Against Nuclear Weapons coalition applauds Sen. Hasegawa and his colleagues for holding a hearing on Senate Joint Memorial 8006 Friday, February 22nd, 1:30 PM, by the Committee on State Government, Tribal Relations and Elections.

Thank the members of the Senate State Government, Tribal Relations and Elections Committee for their support! Get their contact info here.

Share the good news with your members and on social media by forwarding this email!

Anti-Nuclear, Buy Open Borders, Creative Non-Fiction, Events, Political Activist

Third Place Books reading

Hello, all you Anti-nuclear weapons folk! Come out to Lake Forest Park’s Third Place Books this Friday night at 6 for an outstanding program including a powerpoint overview of the Cold War from its beginning. Anne Stadler, KING 5 TV producer in the 1980s will be on the podium with me. She will talk about the power of TV to break down barriers between enemies and the importance of getting to see, hear and become familiar with the Other in times of sabre-rattling retoric between angry governments.

If you are feeling despair or anxiety about the possibility of a peaceful outcome of the current arms build-up, gathering with people to learn about what we did in the 80s to make a difference. Taking action gives you a reason to believe in a different future. I’ll be sharing from Open Borders: A Personal Story of Love, Loss and Anti-war Activism.

Third Place Books will have Open Borders for sale or you can get the e-reader version where you usually get your books.

Bring your friends. I look forward to seeing you Friday, Jan. 25th at 6 p.m.

Betsy

Anti-Nuclear, Buy Open Borders, Historical Memoir, Memoir, Political Activist, Travel

INF Treaty under threat

Today nine nations possess nuclear weapons. At least two heads of state are unpredictable and have sole authority over the use of these weapons.
I believe ordinary citizens, you, Dear Reader, have powerful influence on the world stage and can change this reality.

The US accuses Russia of breaking a treaty that bans Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces, INF, and our president decides to trash the treaty. He hints that he may not authorize talks for a new START treaty when the terms of the old one expire.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

As the NATO-USSR deployed intermediate range nuclear SS-20 missile facing off between East and West Europe in the 1970s, thousands of citizens in England and Europe protested and marched. In Central Park, New York City, throngs of people created the largest anti-arms race peace rally in the history of the modern world. Within a few years—1987—the INF treaty was signed ending this madness. By 1989, the borders between East and West opened.

We can do this again.

My husband, Don Bell, led a group of people in Seattle who challenge the government’s Peace Through Strength approach. Forty-five thousand people in the Puget Sound area educated themselves about less dangerous ways of preventing conflict.

The first Trident submarine steamed into Puget Sound in 1982. Now there are eight nuclear subs just twenty miles from downtown Seattle. They have the fire power to destroy the Earth and life as we know it. Nothing can survive a nuclear war.

Open Borders, the newly published memoir about my small role in the Seattle based movement tells the story of delivering a love letter to people in the USSR, in particular to people in our sister city, Tashkent in Uzbekistan. Thirty-three ordinary people from Seattle handed out the letters, three-thousand copies of them, each with ten signatures, to people on the streets asking them to join us in preventing nuclear war.

Our government wasn’t happy with the people in Seattle or our friendship with our “enemies”. Edward Rowney, Reagan’s ambassador to the START treaty negotiations, came out to speak at one of our educational events. Afterward, he and Don’s co-chair, Virginia, were in conversation at a private dinner party. Rowney said,

“The reason I agreed to come here was to find out what you people are thinking.”
She told him she appreciated that. After a pause, he asked expansively,
“What shall I tell the President when I return to Washington?”
“Tell the President that there are thousands of people here who are enraged by the threat of nuclear war.”
The General literally jumped in his chair and responded, “I couldn’t possibly tell the President that!”
“Why not?” Virginia remembers asking.
“Look, you don’t have to worry about that. I am working very hard on all this. I will save you!”
“What if I don’t believe you?”
“Then you aren’t worth saving.”
That comment was so outrageous—as much to Rowney as to Virginia—that they both just laughed. p. 47 Open Borders

When we are all done laughing at the absurdity of our situation—then and now—we mostly sink into denial convincing ourselves that no person would ever fire a nuclear weapon. “It won’t happen,” we tell ourselves, flooded with emotion.

Instead of nightmares, how about waking up with a commitment to change our present situation?

Our trip to the USSR was followed by dozens of friendship trips, back and forth, doctors, chefs, dancers, singers, artists, musicians (Pink Cadillac played Moscow), teachers, professor exchanges.

Want to travel to Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, China, Russian? Organize a tour with a company that specializes in this sort of trip. Let those people meet ordinary Americans. Get with others who are crafting legislation to limit presidential powers, to prevent new Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles from being built by cutting the budget, to incite a massive public outcry against this threat.

We were terrified in 1983. Our children were practicing “duck and cover” in our schools. Our buildings downtown sported large yellow bomb shelter signs. We were terrified.

We bought airplane tickets and went to meet the enemy as friends. Open Borders tells our story. Read it and be inspired to find one little thing to do to change the future.

Did we make a difference? Who knows. But, coincidentally, after our trip the Berlin Wall came down. The INF treaty got signed. As a result of that Treaty, the United States and the Soviet Union destroyed a total of 2,692 short-, medium-, and intermediate-range missiles by the treaty’s implementation deadline of June 1, 1991.

To find out who is doing what in the Puget Sound area (or wherever you are), go to PSR.org and find the chapter nearest you. Together we can turn this around.

Anti-Nuclear, Buy Open Borders, Historical Memoir, Inspiration, Memoir, Political Activist

Open Borders Book Launch

Thirty excited and curious people turned up last Tuesday, Oct. 23rd, 2018 at the University of Washington bookstore in the U District to hear Betsy Bell talk about her family’s experience during the final decade of the Cold War, 1980-1990 as written in her memoir, Open Borders: a personal story of love, loss and anti-war activism.

US Soldiers greet Russians soldiers as the allies declare victory of Germany in April 1945

If you missed this program, come to St. Mark’s Cathedral Shop, 12:15, Nov. 11th
Or
Homestreet Bank, SW Alaska branch in West Seattle, 6 – 7:30, Nov. 14th

Presentations and book signing.

 

Professor Eric Johnson began the program with a talk anchoring the historic context of Open Borders within the larger frame: the end of WWII to the arrival of the first nuclear submarine in Puget Sound.

Lack of trust and mutual understanding of how nations should be governed –communism or capitalism — divided the West from the Socialist Soviet Republics within months of the Allied forces defeat of the Axis powers.

Russia detonated an Atomic Bomb and the arms race was on. It was September, 1949.NATO on the west and the Warsaw Pact on the east. Intercontinental Ballistic Missile bases, US Naval fleets, Strategic Air Command and the building of the Berlin wall in 1961 divided the world.

 

Even those of us who lived through these frightening developments appreciated the historic overview. The younger people in the audience had only learned of these events in their high school world history classes.

Betsy took the mike to describe the response of Seattle citizens, friends and fellow parents, teachers, lawyers, doctors, ordinary people who are the characters in her memoir. (May I speak of myself in the third person for the purposes of this post?)

The reader of Open Borders travels with the band of tourists who venture behind the Iron Curtain to greet hosts in Moscow and Seattle’s Sister City, Tashkent. Our trip in 1983 unleashed a plethora of friendship exchanges between the USSR and Seattle. Dr. Rosh Doan was on hand to speak of his family’s residential stay in Tashkent, Seattle’s Sister City in 1985 as part of the medical exchange.

It was a wonderful evening, rich with discussion about what can be done; indeed, what a new group of people must do now to reverse this new and more threatening Cold War. We must end nuclear weapons as a military option.

Do good work,

Betsy

Please share this post with your friends around the country. I hope to take this book on the road.