Resolution Passed by Town Meeting in New London, NH

This passed, at town meeting on March 15, by a 73-45 vote.

WARRANT ARTICLE PETITION

WHEREAS, the United States government spends over $2,000,000 per hour (over $48,000,000 per day and $336,000,000 per week) on nuclear weapons and their development,

WHEREAS, an entire new generation of nuclear weapons is under development, at a projected cost of $1,000,000,000,000 ($1 trillion),

WHEREAS, false alarms connected with hair trigger alert in 1960, 1961, 1962, 1979, 1980, 1983, 1984, and 1995 came within minutes of setting off full-scale nuclear warfare,

WHEREAS, Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, Secretaries of Defense Robert McNamara and William Perry, Admiral Stansfield Turner, Generals James Cartwright, William

Odom, Eugene Habiger, and George Lee Butler, and Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and George Shultz have all recommended that nuclear weapons be taken off hair trigger alert

WHEREAS, President Eisenhower declared that every warship launched and every rocket fired is a theft from those without clothing, shelter, or food,

WHEREAS, one fifth of the nation’s and one-eighth of New Hampshire’s children lack an adequate diet,

WHEREAS, the New Hampshire division of family services lacks adequate material and personnel resources to fully administer to families and abused children in need,

WHEREAS, New Hampshire’s state government lacks sufficient resources to overcome the state’s opioid crisis,

WHEREAS, Martin Luther King warned that a nation which spends more on defense than on programs of social uplift is facing spiritual death,

WHEREAS, the nation’s and state’s roads, bridges, railways, culverts, and other public works are

in acute need of repair and improvement,

WHEREAS, former Secretary of Defense William Perry has warned repeatedly that the nuclear arms race among Russia, China, and the U.S. is at its most dangerous point ever,

WHEREAS, bomber accidents in Palomares, Spain in 1966 in and Goldsboro, North Carolina during 1961 resulted in the near explosion of nuclear bombs,

WHEREAS, in 2007 and 2010, the U.S. Air Force lost track of live nuclear weapons,

WHEREAS, the United States and Russia each possess nuclear arsenals seven times more powerful than what is needed to wipe all life off the face of the earth,

WHEREAS, Gen. Cartwright recommends reducing our nuclear arsenal to 900 warheads,

WHEREAS, Article VI of the Non-Proliferation treaty of 1970 obliges its parties to negotiate in good faith to eliminate nuclear weapons,.

AND WHEREAS, that obligation has been neglected for two generations,

We, the citizens of New London, New Hampshire, petition the US government to:

cancel its nuclear weapons modernization program,

take all nuclear weapons off hair trigger alert,

implement Gen. Cartwright’s recommendation to reduce our nuclear arsenal to 900 warheads,

fully and actively honor its obligation under Article VI of the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty,

apply the resulting financial savings to meeting human and infrastructure needs,

and further petition our state government to actively promote and support the above actions