"Nukes Are Nuts"
". . . and what we can't do, maybe Love can."
On March 14th of 2024, I attended a memorial service in Santa Barbara California, saluting the life and work of David Kreiger, co-founder of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (NAPF), a non-partisan, non-profit organization with consultative status to the United Nations.
The NAPF was founded in 1982 by Krieger and Frank K. Kelly (two writers, scholars, policy advocates, and committed peace activists). They were joined in this endeavor by three idealists from different backgrounds: a Harvard-trained lawyer, a middle school principal, and a retired advertising executive. All but one of these five founders had been soldiers, and one had earned a Bronze Star during the Allied advance across France. Their experience of war had left them passionately devoted to peace, and though they were most immediately concerned with the danger posed by nuclear weapons, they believed that the changes wrought after Hiroshima extended to every realm of life, from ecology to culture to civil society, and the use of nuclear energy had to be cautiously considered with as wide a lens as possible.
Under their leadership, the Foundation embarked on many long-term initiatives and actions. These include Waging Peace, a 20-year essay project on the future of human flourishing featuring voices from every field of achievement; the Nuclear Zero lawsuits, which in 2014 forced the U.S. Federal District Court and the International Court of Justice to confront the injustices inflicted by the U.S. nuclear program on the Marshall Islands; and the Nuclear Files, a pioneering web-based open-access history and archive of nuclear history from 2001. In addition, NAPF participated in the negotiations surrounding the Treaty for the Prevention of Nuclear Weapons, which went into force in 2021 (not ratified, states can ratify a treaty but a treaty as a whole can enter into force) and is currently involved in efforts to strengthen and implement the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons at the United Nations.
In September of 2007, NAPF had invited Peter, Mary, and me to accept a Distinguished Peace Leadership Award (past honorees including Daniel Ellsberg, the Dalai Lama, and Ted Turner) and perform at the Victoria Hall Theater where we were to be honored for our “decades of activism,” according to a local newspaper article at the time.
The event, which raised money for and awareness of NAPF, was a great success, and although dampened somewhat by Mary’s absence—at the time she was recovering from her latest treatment for leukemia (her death ultimately due to complications from chemotherapy two years later)—over the following years both Peter and I continued our support of David Kreiger and the NAPF movement.
In 2014 David called me to ask if i would create a song in support of the latest NAPF campaign “Nukes are Nuts!” What?! My immediate response was hesitant, and as I mention during the recording of the resultant video, I wasn’t sure that it was possible to make a serious statement about the dangers of nuclear weapon proliferation if it had to include such an odd phrase. He assured me that “other notables” had no problem with the slogan and suggested I go to a website where a brief declaration on camera by Archbishop Desmond Tutu concluded with his saying the words “Nukes are Nuts!”.
I was convinced. I thought perhaps by metaphorically presenting the case that ‘Mutually Assured Destruction’ was indeed MAD, listeners would, could and should rightly view the storage and deployment of nuclear weapons as crazy.
nukes are nuts, it's a crazy thing
just like squirrels, waiting for the spring
we hide ‘em underground, waiting for a day
when some crazy squirrel would try to blow us all away…chorus:
nukes are nuts, nukes are nuts
no ifs, no ands, no buts
nukes are nuts!it's a eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth
one nuke for another; but if that’s the truth,
be the end of the world for the human race:
no trees, no squirrels, no trace…
As hopeful as I was that the premise would be easily understood, I had not considered that an audience might actually have fun joining in on the choruses. Bizarre? Maybe, or much like the satirical songs of Tom Lehrer, once the lyrical perspective of the tune has been established there is no hesitation in us joining together—this time to proclaim the horrific absurdity of nuclear weaponry. Perhaps due in some part to the artistic and commercial success of the recent Oscar winning movie Oppenheimer, when my video came on the screen at David Kreiger’s recent memorial, the attendees sang along boisterously.
and there’s a world of voices
asking us to make peaceful choices
every woman, every man
hey even squirrels can understand (that)yeah, nukes are nuts! And the world is getting smaller,
tempers getting' shorter, walls are getting taller
we got to come up with a master plan
and what we can’t do, hey, maybe Love can!
Connections:
Archbishop Desmond Tutu proclaims “Nukes Are Nuts!”
Visit the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation website.
Vibrations:
See Noel’s musical video “Nukes Are Nuts!”
Noel’s Just Causes album (profits from song go to NAPF)
Resonance:
What would you suggest we do as a person, as a group, as a country to speak out against nuclear proliferation?
Bravo!!!
I think it would be great to solicit essays from scientists, politicians, activists, and those with some street cred and assemble the essays into a book. The people should be able to address how and why so many nukes are still deployed, some neglected and quite dangerous. Experts with name recognition need to speak to the fact of the destructive power of the nuclear arsenal--literally that these things could destroy the planet or create nuclear winter. The Cold War generation is so much older now (like me), and we need to re-educate the world as to the dangers posed by nukes. The younger generation was hijacked by social media, and I'm not sure they really understand the destructive power, scope, or widespread deployment of these weapons. Or maybe a collection of essays by lay folks. But I think there needs to be something that can be disseminated that demonstrates that a LOT of people still know that we're sitting on a possible mushroom cloud (or clouds) at a moment of history that is more destabilized, dangerous, and partisan than 50s and 60s. Some of us recall Duck and Cover from the earliest days of nuclear proliferation, but it seems like the digital age has ironically lessened our awareness of these old-style weapons of Armageddon. It’s as if we’ve forgotten about the missile silos in the Midwest and around the world. A collection of short, factual writings about nukes— an easy read, so to speak—might galvanize attention anew to the lethal warheads.