Nukes are Illegal now! Today, they have the same status as all the other Weapons of Mass, indiscriminate, horrible, immoral, Destruction. So we celebrated it, Friday, January 22,2021. St.Louis WILPF spent the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) Entry Into Force Day on the streets with a few allies from Peace Economy Project and Veterans for Peace, reading excerpts from the flood of articles about this important moment in history. Two intersections in west county along HWY 40  were so busy we could hardly hear the mic. Our third stop, City Hall with the arch in the background, was a ghost town.

Today was exactly 90 days after the fiftieth country ratified. It was Honduras. We used the Portside article primarily, written by Pat Haynes a retired Boston University  professor of Environmental Health on the board of Traprock Center for Peace and Justice. Her piece was articulate, it was upbeat and incisive, she wrote,” those now 51 “freedom fighter” countries commit to having nothing to do with nuclear weapons- no design,testing, manufacturing,storage,transport, use or threat of use. Consider this a marathon for disarmament to outpace the current nuclear arms race in which all nuclear states are in lockstep upgrading their weapons.” She continues, “thirty five additional countries are in the process of ratifying the treaty; 50 more support the Treaty; a dozen more have immense popular support, among them Canada, and are one election away from signing the Treaty. If the United States, where a majority of citizens does not want to use nuclear weapons, signed the treaty, the rest would follow.

 Support for a world beyond nukes is evident. General Electric Co. stopped producing nuclear warheads  in 1993, two of the worlds largest pension funds have divested from nukes, nukes have been divested from by one of the worlds five largest banks’ investment portfolios as “inhumane”.

56 presidents and prime ministers from NATO countries and Japan and Korea signed an open letter in support of TPNW saying, “Sooner or later our luck will run out – unless we act …There is no cure for nuclear war,  prevention is our only option”

— Lynn Sableman, WILPF president