By Will Parrish, September 2006


Carrying the Abolition 2000 banner at the September 19th United for Peace & Justice march in New York City, with Monika Szymurska.

I traveled to NYC as part of a Nuclear Age Peace Foundation “Nukesapalooza” Speaking and Outreach Tour from September 17-23, largely to organize for the "Think Outside the Bomb" conference at Pace University from November 4-5.  Although the city has as many regular and committed nuclear disarmament activists as any geographic area of the U.S., its abolition movement would strongly benefit from – nay, needs – a younger generation of activists to emerge.  The purpose of the "Think Outside the Bomb" conference is to take an important step in that direction.

On my first full day in town (September 18), I hung out for most of the day with Monika Szymurska of Abolition 2000 New York, who, besides being a rock-star activist, is also a great friend (and helped immensely with making my trip possible).  After we did some fliering at Columbia University, I gave a presentation in Professor George Andreopolous' "International Law" class at New School of New York.  My presentation focused on international human rights law violations by the US nuclear weapons complex, particularly with regard to downwinders of nuclear testing, the system of "nuclear colonialism" that subjugates numerous indigenous peoples, and the exploitation inherent in each step of the entire nuclear fuel cycle.

The next day, Monika and I participated in a march and rally to the United Nations in protest of George W. Bush’s address to the UN General Assembly.  The demonstration was sponsored by United for Peace & Justice.  Roughly 3,500 people took part: a respectable turn-out for a Tuesday at 9 a.m., to be sure.  In addition to carrying the Abolition 2000 banner for part of the march, Monika and I handed out dozens of fliers for the Think Outside the Bomb conference and conducted lots of conversations with youthful people who expressed interest in taking part.

That evening, I gave a 45-minute presentation in Professor Michael Flynn’s “Social Psychology” class at York College of the City University of New York in Queens, followed by a 45-minute Q&A.  Professor Flynn is a dedicated disarmament activist who has edited two book on the psychological effects of living with nuclear weaponry.  All of the students in his class are people of color – 90 percent of them are women. 

I was happy with my presentation; the class discussion following was the highlight of the trip.  The students were particularly interested in the tangible impacts of nuclear weapons on human communities, such as with nuclear colonialism, and how the exploitation wrought by nuclear weapons links with other forms of political, social, and economic oppression.  One of the students’ questions prompted me to give an overview of the Human Radiation Experiments, with a focus on the experiments where doctors injected plutonium into unwitting patients – a major portion of them people of color – to study the substances's effects in the human body.  This anecdote elicited strong outrage from the class.

Many of the students in Michael Flynn's Social Psychology class at CUNY's York College in Queens.

When a student asked me why the people who carried out the Experiments have never been held accountable for their actions, I replied that, from the Department of Energy’s perspective, they have been: Large settlements have been paid to many of the victims of the Experiments and their families.  “If they wanted to really be accountable, though,” I said, “they’d help abolish nuclear weapons, stop producing nuclear materials, and stop using them." After some further discussion, the class and I came to the conclusion that, more than focusing on abolishing nuclear weapons, it's important to focus on demilitarizing society at large, since it's the military-centric current configuration of power that makes nuclear weapons and associated technologies manifest.

After the class, I had several more extremely illuminating one-on-one conversations with some of the students, including many who expressed passionate interest in getting involved with disarmament activism starting at the Think Outside the Bomb conference.  I loved being in that class, and I feel fortunate to be maintaining connections with some of the students I met that day.

September 20th and 21st were made up of meetings, anti-nuclear sight-seeing, and another thoroughly enjoyable presentation in Michael Flynn’s other class at York College (this time a co-presentation with Nuclear Age Peace Foundation Washington, DC Office Director Nick Roth).  On Friday the 22nd, I arrived for a meeting at the office of Educators for Social Responsibility Metro in Manhattan’s upper-west side, but instead discovered that everyone else who was to be part of that meeting had decided to attend a panel on the health effects of depleted uranium (DU) that, coincidentally, was taking place on the first floor of the same building.  The TOTB meeting was postponed until after the panel.

The panel was gut-wrenching and, at times, emotionally devastating.  Speakers included the legendary anti-nuclear activist Rosalie Bertell, Guardsman Gerard Darren Matthew, Sgt. Ray Ramos, and a veteran of Gulf War I whose name I didn’t catch. 

Following the discovery of their Depleted Uranium-induced plight, Sgt. Ray Ramos and his daughter were featured on the cover of the New York Daily News.

The latter three members of the panel are extremely ill as a result of DU exposure while serving in the military, and Sgt. Ramos’ infant daughter was born with a mutilated arm.  The stories of each of them moved many members of the audience to tears.  At one point, I was reminded of the idea I had discussed with the students in Michael Flynn’s class: the only truly accountability for the carnage of the Nuclear Age will come after nuclear weapons are abolished and all nuclear materials cease to be used.

I left the panel feeling motivated to do more to link up current nuclear disarmament activism – particularly, youth nuclear disarmament activism – with the military’s application of DU in Iraq and elsewhere.  The vast majority of young people affected by DU are, of course, young: children in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Balkans, and the young soldiers deployed in those places.

The postponed meeting following the panel went extremely well.  We left with the schedule of the Think Outside the Bomb conference completely planned, several outreach opportunities mapped out, and a sense that the conference will be a major success.

Additional Photos


Posing with the NAPF's Nick Roth and three of the students in Michael
Flynn's "Death and Dying" class at CUNY's York College.