Rev. Peter Kakos: Nuclear weapons and the resistance to reality

Published: 01-08-2023 10:51 AM

In response to J.M. Sorrell’s perceptive litany, “Resistance to reality,” (Gazette, Jan. 4), permit me to add our decades’ long blind eye to the terrifying global presence of nuclear weaponry, the summation of which keeps us held captive to the harshest fact: that we are poised for extinction.

What degree of madness possesses our citizenry to remain inured to this ominous threat to all humanity, let alone our own beloved homeland? Like it or not, the studied estimates inform us that only two percent of the current number of roughly 7,000, are needed to virtually extinguish civilization. (see the thorough analysis of the Physicians For Social Responsibility’s 5-year-long Back From The Brink campaign).

As recently as 2021, the United Nations passed a landmark “Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons,” making it a violation of international law to produce, maintain, or supply them. Presently, along with the other eight possessor-nations, we have yet to even consider abiding.

Nevertheless, as of this letter, no less than 65 nations are on board, with dozens more in the process of ratification. And as recently as this past August, at least 147 countries at the U.N., declared that the use of nuclear weapons is unacceptable “under any circumstances” (see the ICAN Treaty initiative of the U.N., as well as the recent, comprehensive Gazette column by Pat Hynes, Director of Traprock Peace Center).

Today, not tomorrow, the nuclear abolition cause has eight billion reasons to demand to know what rude awakening will it take to overcome this ultimate resistance to reality?

Rev. Peter Kakos

Northampton 

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