Daniel Ellsberg and Takashi Tanemori join Hiroshima Day protest at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory

Daniel Ellsberg speaks during a demonstration to protest nuclear weapons outside the fence of the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in Livermore, Calif., on Thursday, Aug. 6, 2015. Thursday marked the 70th anniversary of the nuclear attack on Hiroshima. (Kristopher Skinner/Bay Area News Group)

Bay area activists protest nuclear weapons on 70th anniversary of atomic bomb, Contra Costa Times, 7 Aug 15 By Dan Lawton dlawton@bayareanewsgroup.com LIVERMORE — About 300 activists from a wide range of Bay Area organizations converged early Thursday on Lawrence Livermore Laboratory to protest nuclear weapons on the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima.

Dozens of the protesters — many of them elderly — were peacefully arrested after refusing an order by the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office to disperse. According to organizers, the gathering had a dual focus: to raise awareness about the money spent on nuclear weapons research at the lab and to pay respect to the Hiroshima victims. The Aug. 6, 1945, bombing, along with the subsequent bombing of Nagasaki three days later, are credited with expediting the end of World War II.

Similar events were held across the world.

“U.S. plans to modernize the arsenal are also underway at Livermore Lab,” said Marylia Kelley, a lead organizer and executive director of Tri-Valley Cares, which was one of about 40 organizations taking part in the protest.

Kelley said a large part of the lab’s funding in the 2016 fiscal year — about 85 percent, or $1 billion — is earmarked for weapons. Those statistics are backed up by documents from the Department of Energy. She said that money is being spent on tasks such as designing new long-range warheads and other improvements to the nuclear arsenal.

The United States is prohibited from manufacturing new nuclear weapons by a nonproliferation treaty signed in 1968……

Takashi Tanemori, who was an 8-year-old boy living in Hiroshima when the atomic bomb was dropped, told the crowd that he has made peace with losing his family in the bombing, as well as his eyesight.

“The greatest way to avenge your enemy is by learning how to forgive,” he said.

But Tanemori, dressed in flowing black robes and wearing sunglasses, also cautioned the crowd that the threat of nuclear weapons will be extremely hard to eradicate……

Also speaking at the event was Daniel Ellsberg, the whistleblower and former military contractor who released the Pentagon Papers in 1971. The documents were a top-secret study of U.S. strategy in Vietnam. Ellsberg was sentenced to 109 years in prison for his actions, but his conviction was eventually overturned.

Now a prominent anti-nuclear weapons activist, Ellsberg, 84, said he still remembered the “ominous feeling” he had when the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

“The killing at Hiroshima was mass murder,” he said…….http://www.contracostatimes.com/breaking-news/ci_28597321/bay-area-activists-protest-nuclear-weapons-70th-anniversary