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.
One question has come up at all four of the book launch events since Open Borders came out Oct. 16th: what can I do to prevent nuclear war? The question is slow to surface as audience members old enough to remember begin to relive the frightening times in Seattle in the 1980s when children were practicing duck and cover in their classrooms and bomb shelter signs appears on the walls of buildings downtown.
What can one do? Get involved in the anti-nuclear weapon movement through Washington Against Nuclear Weapons WANW, Washington Physicians for Social Responsibiltiy, Earth Care not War Fare and Ground Zero to name a few. Find their next meeting on the calendar under the menu tab “calendar”.
Where does the money come from to keep the nuclear war machine going? Following the money may be the most effective way to reverse current policy. The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons recently published a study revealing the money path. I encourage you to take a look at their findings. One darling of personal finance and family investment (my husband and I began building our nest egg with a $25 a month contribution back in the 1970s) is Vanguard. In fact, I just counseling my grandson to begin his investment program with a Vanguard account and promised to match his monthly contributions. I was shocked and dismayed to find Vanguard in the top ten of the companies investing in nuclear weapons.
ICAN executive director Beatrice Fihn: “If you have been wondering who benefits from Donald Trump’s threats of nuclear war, this report has that answer. These are the companies that stand to profit from indiscriminate mass murder of civilians. We grow less safe while they cash in on chaos by banking on Armageddon.”
What can I do to prevent nuclear war? Call your broker. Then write to the company after you pull your money out and explain why you have left them. Even if your account is only a pittance, your opinion will sting, register a welt that burns the skin. Enough of these welts make even a very large company uncomfortable. Perhaps even uncomfortable enough to change.
Exciting news! Open Borders will be available for purchase one month from today: Oct. 16th.
Hard to believe this long process of getting a book published is coming to a climax. Birthing Open Borders has been far more challenging than producing four daughters. The father of those daughters hasn’t been physically available to support the gestation of the story in which he is a central figure. He might have remembered a few aspects of the 1980s anti-war activities differently. But this is my story about him and me, our team efforts and our struggles. In the end, Don Bell dies and I am left with a huge question about many things. What of all we did together in our thirty five years was mine? Who was I in the process of building a legacy of political activism.
Getting the story line right depended on two things simultaneously: the world stage events that gave rise to Target Seattle and Citizen Diplomacy, and the personal events that shape-shifted our marriage from a traditional fifties relationship to a partnership of equals.
As I moved toward publication, I missed Don’s partnership. He was the one who picked up the phone and made the calls to people and to venues. He came up with program topics by working in committee. My second husband, Chuck Finney, also brainstormed ideas, reached out to people and supported me as I stepped out in leadership roles. Without these two men (Chuck died ten years ago), I found myself unsure, tentative, awkward (true confessions).
Who would host a book launch and signing party? Where would my friends come to hear me? What would I say about the book?
Epicenter Press in Kenmore is, of course, my team. Why I didn’t recognize that sooner, I can’t tell you. The publisher and staff met with me and went over the Author’s Flight Plan. I am now in full-on planning mode, making calls, lining up venues and asking possible reviewers for their pre-launch comments.
This process has given me one more opportunity to “with or without him, … stand strong.”
from the last line in my story.
Betsy
To order Open Borders, go to Amazon, Barnes and Nobel or Indiebound.org and ask for ISBN-10: 1941890210, Price: $16.95
Please share with others who are concerned about the nuclear threat we face today, which is far worse than we faced in 1980, the time period of the OpenBorders story.
