August 5, 2025: The Bomb at 80

Voices of Reason and Resistance led a conversation on the atomic bomb--the scientists that enriched the uranium, used the process of fission to create the bomb, created the hardware that would encase it, the process of transport.  Scientists from Chicago and, Columbia Universities collaborated with those in secret locations at Los Alamos, NM, Oak Ridge, TN, and Seattle, WA and tested their marvelous new toy in NM at a site they called Trinity.  

While many scientists and five star generals argued against dropping the bomb, particularly against civilian populations in Japan--the Germans had surrendered on 5/7/45, the Japanese had stated they were ready to surrender, and that this "toy" was too destructive to be in the hands of mankind, the political decision was made to drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima on 4/6 and Nagasaki on 4/9, and we live under its pallor today.

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists say we are 89 seconds to nuclear annihilation, and many of us think they are being much too optimistic.  A country with undisclosed nuclear weaponry is conducting a genocide of the population they occupy in Palestine; two nuclear powers, the USA and Russia, stand in opposition as war rages in Ukraine; and USA President Donald Trump has sent two nuclear weaponized submarines into the Ukraine war zone.  

Once out of the bottle, the genie nuclear weapon cannot be put back in the bottle.  

Next week we will be joined by special guest Opollo Johnson to talk about housing--is it a right, a privilege, a commodity?