NH #680: Nat’l Nuclear Activism & Messaging Strategies – ReThink Media’s Mac Hamilton, Ploughshares Fund’s Bonnie Fisk

A symbol of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

Anti-nuclear activists are often isolated from each other because we focus on what’s most important to us – a local issue with radioactive waste dump, or uranium mining, or weapons, or a spike in health crises, or any one of dozens of other nuclear issues. Or we’re working on the same issues as other groups, but not necessarily in communication with each other to coordinate what we’re doing and saying to make a bigger media splash with our limited resources.

Today’s guests are among those making a difference in terms of all of us working together and strategizing so we’re all on the same page and creating our own echo chamber.

• Bonnie Fisk is Director of Development for the Ploughshares Fund, a public grant-making foundation that supports initiatives to prevent the spread and use of nuclear weapons, and to prevent conflicts that could lead to their use.
• Mac Hamilton is Program Director, Peace and Security, for ReThink Media, which builds capacity across movements, works to minimize competition, maximizes resources, and raises the voices of underrepresented spokespeople.

Together, they produced the six sold-out previews of the Oppenheimer film around the country which featured panel discussions on the issues raised – and huge leg up that led to news stories and features on what the movie did not cover. Now is a great time to review their strategies and talking points and apply them to the latest batch of issues.

I spoke with Bonnie Fisk and Mac Hamilton on Friday, August 18, 2023 for Nuclear Hotseat #635.

Links from Interview:

• Sign up for ReThink Media’s AM Nukes Roundup, sent weekdays at 8:15 AM ET.
• Other organizations to receive action alerts from:
  • Take action with the Union of Concerned Scientists
  • Take action with Global Zero
  • Sign up for action alerts with Physicians for Social Responsibility
  • Join Win Without War and take action for nuclear frontline communities
  • Follow the work of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium
• Ploughshares.org – where you will find more information about what they fund)
• Ploughshares.org/pressthebutton  – the Ploughshares Fund’s podcast)
• The ballet that includes nuclear storytelling: Yvonne Montoya’s production, “Stories from Home”

Numnutz of the Week (for Outstanding Nuclear Boneheadedness):

Japan on 7th release of tritium-contaminated radioactive waste water from Fukushima into the Pacific.

ICAN UPDATE with Alistair Burnett

The latest on work to implement the work of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, direct from ICAN headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.

LINKS:

• Why cost should not be an obstacle to compensating nuclear survivors
• From sheep camp to the city to study uranium’s damage to Navajo people
• Nuclear danger is growing. Physicists of the world, unite!