The 2012 August Peace Event was held on Sunday August 5, at St. John's Lutheran Church in Sacramento. The event was sponsored by 18 organizations and 21 individuals, and attended by nearly 150 people. Former Sacramento Mayor Anne Rudin (1983-1992) read the Peace Declaration from the Mayor of Hiroshima, and shared with us her memories of her efforts for peace over the decades, and her participation in the founding of the World Conference of Mayors for Peace. READ MAYOR RUDIN'S STATEMENT.
After an inspiring performance by the Women's Choral Ensemble Small Difference, and the telling of the story of Sadako and the Thousand Cranes, read by Marielle Tsukamoto, we were energized by the presentation by Harry Wang, President of Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), Sacramento Chapter. READ DR. WANG'S CALL TO ACTION (PDF format). Dr. Wang told us of actions by young activists who were bicycling through Japan in an annual tour organized by International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, parent organization of PSR. Quoting the Mayor of Nagasaki, Dr. Wang reminded us of the serverity of the accident at the Fuushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, and called for a moratorium on building more nuclear power plants. He reminded us of the even more destructive potential of nuclear weapons, which must be abolished altogether.
He then asked the audience to write postcards to our Representatives seeking their support for Rep. Ed Markey's bill HR 3974, the SANE Act (Smarter Approach to Nuclear Expenditures), which would save over $117 billion over the next 10 years by cutting or freezing more than dozen nuclear weapons programs.
We collected and subsequently delivered 55 postcards to Representative Doris Matsui, plus 29 to Dan Lungren, and 5 each to Mike Thompson and Tom McClintock, urging them to co-sponsor the SANE Act, to cut spending on nuclear weapons and to lead the way toward the eventual abolition of these weapons of mass destruction.
Dome of Hiroshima City Hall, a memorial to the bombing of the city in 1945.
The August Peace Event is indebted to all the groups and individuals whose donations made it possible to offer our program free to the public. We especially wish to thank Susan Hosseinien for the beautiful montage of Hiroshima City Hall that appears on our program cover.
