Nuclear weapons crime in the UK has been reported to Thames Valley Police.
REBECCA JOHNSON’S OPENING SPEECH AT THE WRAP UP TRIDENT RALLY
January 24, 2015
[CND Vice President, Action AWE core group and Wrap up Trident demo coordinator]
It’s brilliant seeing so many of you here, thank you for coming and demonstrating our strong opposition to Trident replacement – and nuclear-armed violence of all kinds.
I’m speaking on behalf of ActionAWE as well as CND, which jointly organised this demo, as we had coordinated the amazing Wool Against Weapons demo last August where thousands knitted an amazing 7 mile peace scarf, which we linked between the nuclear bomb factories of Aldermaston and Burghfield on Nagasaki Day – commemorating the hundreds of thousands who died by pledging to Scrap Trident and Ban all Nuclear Weapons.
Now, with all of you, we’ve brought the peace scarf and our message to Parliament.
Last week the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists set the Doomsday Clock at 3 minutes to midnight – getting closer to human-induced destruction through nuclear or climate destruction. Before we got the cruise missiles taken out of Greenham in the 1980s the government said we’d get a Four minute warning, so I want you to think about how little time that is to build a shelter and hug your families:
[sings]
Four minutes to midnight
4 minutes to Armageddon
4 minutes before we die
4 minutes to say…. goodbye
This isn’t the way they said it would be
They promised the bomb was only keeping us free
Now they’re underground so they don’t have to see
the eyes of the dying…
3 minutes to midnight
3 minutes to Armageddon
3 minutes before we die
3 minutes to say…. goodbye
Why didn’t we shout, why didn’t we cry?
Why didn’t we call deterrence a lie?
Why didn’t we listen to the people who tried
to save us from dying?
2 minutes to midnight
2 minutes to Armageddon
2 minutes before we die
2 minutes to say…. goodbye
This isn’t the way they said it would be
They promised the bomb was only keeping us free
Now they’re underground so they don’t have to see
the eyes of our children
1 minute to midnight
1 minute to Armageddon
1 minute before we die
1 minute to sa –
[moment of silence]
If nuclear weapons are used – by us or anyone else – people’s lives will be cut short like that, brutally short. But we can prevent this by rejecting and eradicating all nuclear weapons.
In December 157 governments and the Red Cross, UN, and civil society with hundreds of activists from ICAN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons from all over the world gathered in Vienna to learn and talk about the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons. Vienna concluded by recognising the appalling, worldwide catastrophe if nuclear weapons are used again, and the huge risks and dangers of possession, deployment, accidents and miscalculations.
Why does anyone still cling to the notion that nuclear weapons are useful for defence or deterrence?
They are the most STUPID weapons in the world. They can’t be fired without committing suicide and crimes against humanity on a devastating scale, destroying everyone’s security, climate and environment.
They are horribly expensive – at a time when our real security means we need more investment in education, eradicating poverty, tackling environmental and climate destruction by ending fossil fuel dependence and polluting technologies like nuclear – and of course our NHS. I landed in hospital just before Christmas and saw first hand how wonderful are all the people who work in the NHS, and how they have to stretch because they are under resourced. They do a brilliant job. Good health is necessary for our security, not nuclear weapons.
So what do we need to do?Tell the government – and every MP and candidate before the General Election:
* Stop wasting our hard-earned money on replacing Trident – TRIDENT MUST BE SCRAPPED, NOT REPLACED!
* Join other UN nations in multilateral negotiations to BAN and ELIMINATE nuclear weapons through a universal treaty that will prohibit the use, deployment, production, stockpiling, transferring and proliferation of nuclear weapons and require their total elimination.
* The next step towards achieving that goal is for the UK to join other nations to sign the AUSTRIAN PLEDGE to “fill the legal gap for the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons” .
We’ve got a lot to do, but together we can make this happen – Thank You!
Speech given by Angie Zelter at the Wrap Up Trident demo in London
This day for me is a symbolic wrapping up of the current Government and our corrupt system.
People like you have the power to change all this. You already understand that our society is acting in an insane, ideologically perverse manner.
You are now experiencing the growing impact of privatisation and so-called ‘free’ trade that is rammed down our throats.
You know that it is wrong to enable powerful corporations to privatise and make profits from resources that we all need to live off, wrong to allow the banks to create money on debt for their own profit, wrong to impose austerity cuts on ordinary people rather than fund the jobs that are needed to operate a sane and moral society, wrong for our militarised society to use violent force and engage in never ending wars, wrong to undermine our moral integrity, by engaging in state terrorism by threatening mass destruction with nuclear weapons, wrong to force fracking against people’s will, and stupidly short-sighted to encourage more fossil fuel burning which we know is causing climate change.
All of these issues are connected and we must demand deep structural change.
I support Occupy Democracy who are demanding these changes.
It is time for us to rise up, speak out, use our votes carefully and with mindfulness, and above all to engage in civil resistance.
What we want IS possible.
I therefore invite you all, with your friends, to come to AWE Burghfield on 2nd March to join the blockade and stay as long as you can.
We will stop the traffic going in and out of that dangerous, immoral and terrifying nuclear bomb making factory . We will be part of the international people’s nuclear disarmament process working for a just and sane future by stopping this mad ‘business as usual’.
I applaud you all for being here, for not losing hope, for refusing to despair.
I hope to see you at Burghfield on the 2nd March.
