One small nation shows how to be nuclear- free and climate friendly – theme for November 19
Citizen Advocacy: The Achievements of New Zealand`s Peace Activism, Asia Pacific Journal Pinar Temocin and Noriyuki Kawano, October 1, 2019 Volume 17 | Issue 19 | Number 2Abstract
Aotearoa New Zealand provides an important example of successful citizen activism in the form of anti-nuclear peace advocacy. The collective efforts by peace actors over several decades resulted in the successful demand for a nuclear-free nation. This paper highlights the widespread participation and political support that facilitated the process and assesses its achievements.
Introduction New Zealand, a small and isolated country, is a rare example of a nation achieving nuclear-free status. The peace-seeking nation unified around an anti-war narrative, and moved from activism based on public awareness and engagement to the passage of laws that eliminated nuclear weapons through a number of stages: from the first generation of movements against the atomic bomb after 1945 to the response to French nuclear testing in the late 60`s to US and UK nuclear warship visits in the 70`s and the early 80`s. As part of this shift, the US-led military alliance with Australia and New Zealand (ANZUS) was redefined by New Zealanders from a guarantee of security to a threat that posed a security dilemma. As this essay shows, social consciousness and activism was ultimately successful in bringing fundamental change. The Labor Party, in particular, played a critical role in translating strong public participation on the part of a broad section of the population into a significant policy outcome: `the creation of a peaceful and nuclear-free nation`.
This mobilization involved persistent and substantial public pressure over decades. Public pressure to change the nation’s foreign policy also included opposition to involvement in the United States-led coalition in the Korean and Vietnam wars. As these wars came to an end, the matter of nuclear testing became a hot-button election issue forcing each political party to adopt a policy on nuclear weapons. The anti-nuclear argument was placed within a broader moral vision. New Zealand peace advocates problematized the threatening conditions and demanded a solution under the narratives of a `democratic, egalitarian, decolonized, independent, non-violent, non-militarist nation which is intrinsically based on `a peaceful nation`. A peaceful nation for them required a nuclear-free approach in its domestic and foreign policies. To achieve this, they organized actively, coordinated professionally, sustained effective campaigns, and engaged in the policy-formation and shaping process.
Since the end of the 60s, successful protest movements have established new modes of political participation in advanced democracies.1 In some democratic societies including New Zealand, social movements have benefitted from tolerant political structures. Their success depends further on specific configurations of resources, trustworthy institutional arrangements, and historical precedents for social mobilization that facilitate the development of protest movements.2
Strong democracies are conducive to positive engagements and interactions between citizen and the state. The strengthening of practices of participation, responsiveness to a majority, and the development of inclusive and cohesive societies are powerful components of the democratic decision-making process. Therefore, citizen participation in governance with a responsive, open, and tolerant state can produce positive effects based on popular consensus……https://apjjf.org/2019/19/Temocin.html
New Zealand passes historic zero carbon bill with near unanimous bipartisan support – The New Zealand parliament has passed landmark legislation that enshrines the country’s commitment to the Paris Agreement into law, and will see the country achieve zero net carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 ….. https://reneweconomy.com.au/new-zealand-passes-historic-zero-carbon-bill-with-near-unanimous-bipartisan-support-33500/
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1.This Month
Zoom webinar – “Nuclear Winter: The Environmental Consequences of a Nuclear Exchange.”
April 7th at 11:30 am PST / 2:30 pm EST
“Nuclear Winter: The Environmental Consequences of a Nuclear Exchange”
Join us for an informative webinar with renowned atmospheric scientist, Professor Brian Toon, as he discusses the environmental risks and global impacts of a nuclear war. Despite the potential damage caused by the blast from even small nuclear weapons, many countries continue to invest in and expand nuclear arsenals. Professor Toon will provide a scientific assessment of civilian fatalities, agricultural failures, climate concerns, and complications with food supply that would follow any international nuclear conflict. We need to plan how to prevent nuclear conflict and avoid catastrophe. Politicians and military planners must be made aware of global climate and agricultural complications that would ensue. Don’t miss this opportunity to learn from, and engage in, this vital conversation.
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nuclear-news 
New Zealand always looks like a little bit of heaven. I hope that you and yours are safe from the fires in Australia? 🙏🏻
30 Years Ago, American Nun Dianna Ortiz From New Mexico Was Kidnapped and Tortured in Guatemala, She’s Still Waiting for Truth & Justice
Dianna Ortiz wanted to help people.
Diane Ortiz was forced to do something unimaginable for many nuns. “I got pregnant as a result of the multiple gang rapes,” she explained to Kennedy. “Unable to carry within me… what I could only view as a monster, I turned to someone for assistance and I destroyed that life.”
Diana moved to Guatemala to join several other nuns serving indigenous residents of San Miguel Acatan and other small villages in Huehuetenango in the western highlands.
Guatemalas usa sheparded reign of terror began with 1954 CIA coup that deposed Jacobo Arbenz, the popular, democratically-elected progressive president, and replaced him with a series of right-wing military dictatorships, some of which perpetrated genocidal violence against indigenous peoples. The 36-year civil war has left over 400,000 Guatemalans dead, more than 600 villages destroyed and countless people, mostly Mayan peasants, displaced. The worst dictator Rios Montt . Rios Montt was a Fundamentalist preacher endorsed by Pat Roberton and the CIa who genocided and tortured 200,000 women chlidren and men in the 80s under the supervision of Ronald reagan and George bush, butcher Eliott Abrams who is currently an active member of the Trump adinistration.
Eliot abrams catalyzed and enforced George Bushs Patriot act after 911.
“Every family in San Miguel had people who had been tortured, disappeared or killed ” Ortiz, told the literary magazine Agni in a 1998 interview. “No family was untouched.” Through it all, successive US administrations backed the perpetrators with arms, training, funding and diplomatic support.
Diana Ortiz an american catholic none was arrested , tortured and gang raped in a guatemala dungeon of horror in the late 80s by an An american CIA operative. They had inflicted 110 cigarette burns over the length of her body before her escape.
“They left me in a dark cell, where I listened to the cries of a man and woman being tortured. When the men returned, they accused me of being a guerrilla and began interrogating me. For every answer I gave them, they burned my back or my chest with cigarettes. Afterwards, they gang-raped me repeatedly”
“I was lowered into a pit full of bodies — bodies of children, men and women, some decapitated, all caked with blood. A few were still alive. I could hear them moaning… A stench of decay rose from the pits. Rats swarmed over the bodies… I passed out and when I came to I was lying on the ground beside the pit, rats all over me.”
More brutal interrogation followed. At one point, her captors held her down and began assaulting her again. One of them said, “Alejandro the CIA operative siad, come and have some fun.” Alejandro, who was tall and had fair skin, cursed in English and told the men that Ortiz was an American nun whose time had come.
Elliot Abrams Is Very active in overthrowing governments in south america under Trump now.
Eliott Abrams assisted John Poindexter to create the greatest mass surveilance state in history unde George W Bush. The multibillion dollar NSA spy complex in Draper utah is an enduring tetament and temple of hell to reemid us of that fact.
The implementation of Abrams, DICK cheney, the MIcs and poindexters gand pkand r is when mass surveilance was put into practice in the USA. Habeas corpus was abolished in the USA. The NSA was in every american computer and now has acess to every americans electronic device and data with the help of telecoms like ATT and verizon.
Two NSA spook brothers took control of the electronic voting company Diebold, in the 1990s and are very responsible for George W Bushs stealing of the 2004 election after 911, the Patriot Act and The illegal invasion of iraq that has killed millions in Iraq. The war crimes there are unsurpassable. Nuclear war in iraq with depleted uranium that has left the City of fallujah a wasteland of genocided men woman and children and bith defects.
https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_2917701
Iraq War Anniversary: Birth Defects And Cancer Rates At Devastating High In Basra And Fallujah
The main culprit of stealing the 2004 election for George W Bush was Wally O Dell
Wally O Dell is the former NSA spook who was the CEO of diebold at the time of the 2004 republican coup in america. Wally O Dell is good friends with Dick Cheney, John Poindexter and Elliot Abrams.
Elliot Abrams currently serves under the fascist monster, and nuclear war criminal, Donald Trump.
Wally O Dells legacy continues
Voter fraud
A joint study by the California and Massachusetts Institutes of Technology following the 2000 election determined that between 1.5 and 2 million votes were not counted due to confusing paper ballots or faulty equipment. The federal government’s solution to the problem was to pass the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002.
One of the law’s stated goals was “Replacement of punch card and lever voting machines.” The new voting machines would be high-tech touch screen computers, but if there’s no paper trail, how do you know if there’s been a computer glitch? How can the results be trusted? And how do you recount to see if the actual votes match the computer’s tally?
Bev Harris, author of Black Box Voting: Ballot Tampering in the 21st Century, argued that without a paper trail, electronic machines are open to massive voter fraud.
So goes it from Bill Gates, Microsft windows interfaces with most electronic voting networks in murica . Microsoft windows evoting interface has numerous backdoor hack flaws.
Diebold placed some 50,000 machines in 37 states and their track record in the earlyy 2004 leading to the 2004 debacle and coup of George W Bush.
https://freepress.org/columns/display/3/2004/834
As a right the repukicans are busy purging voters across the USA instituting jim crow polling laws and poll taxes in states with people of color and other malfeasances. They are removing polling stations in vulnerable states and preparing to block access to voting of poor people and people of color across the USA in the upcoming 2020 elections.