NH #757: SPECIAL - Uplifting Stories of Nuclear Resisters, Heroes, Success! - Jack Cohen-Joppa

This Week’s Year-End SPECIAL: Uplifting Stories of Nuclear Resisters, Heroes, Success! with Jack Cohen-Joppa

Yes, fighting nuclear is an uphill battle – but sometimes we win! Here, for a year-end boost of optimism, hope and community is Jack Cohen-Joppa. He and his wife, Felice Cohen-Joppa, are co-founders and co-coordinators of The Nuclear Resister, a 45 year-old newsletter reporting on anti-nuclear and anti-war civil resistance actions, with a focus on supporting activists imprisoned for their acts of conscience.

The Nuclear Resister has become a monthly feature on Nuclear Hotseat, with Jack providing stories from our history that most of us – myself included – have never heard. So come, let’s end 2025 on a hopeful note, with visions of successful actions to stop the nukesters dancing in our heads, hearts, and minds.

• We start with the inaugural report, on NH #695 from October 15, 2024. – In a new monthly feature.  Jack Cohen–Joppa, who along with his wife, Felice Cohen–Joppa, publish The Nuclear Resister newsletter and have since 1980.  Here, Jack shares stories from their archive, bringing our shared activists history to life.  https://nuclearhotseat.com/podcast/nobel-peace-prize-small-modular-reactor-weapon/
• Fifty years ago, in a classic case of civil disobedience, a young anti-nuclear activist toppled a tower and blazed a trail through the courtroom that nuclear resisters have followed ever since. https://nuclearhotseat.com/podcast/combating-nuclear-greenwashing/ From NH #702 – Dec 3 2024.


  BTW, that farm in Western Massachusetts had among its members a very young Harvey Wasserman, who coined the term “NO NUKES!” and used what he learned from this action to fuel his activism for decades since then.
• 717 – March 25, 2025 – 35 years ago, rural communities in Western New York took nonviolent direct action to Bump the Dump, stopping the state and the nuclear industry from trashing their countryside with ‘low-level’ nuclear waste.” Jack Cohen-Joppa tells the true tale of two counties that stood up and shut the door when the nuclear industry came knocking. https://nuclearhotseat.com/podcast/three-mile-island-reactor-restart/
• 713 – February 25, 2025 – In 1980, the Plowshares Eight hammered on nuclear warhead nosecones and sparked a global movement of direct action for nuclear disarmament. https://nuclearhotseat.com/podcast/united-nations-tpnw-nuclear-weapons-ican/

And here is a link to a film starring Martin Sheen and the Plowshares 8, just prior to their sentencing.

• Activism against nukes was hardly limited to the United States. In a legendary anti-nuclear victory, British women came together at the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp, and succeeded in kicking U.S. nuclear missiles out of England. Here’s The Nuclear Resister from NH #709 – January 28, 2025. Links: https://nuclearhotseat.com/podcast/anti-nuke-eco-broadcast-network/
• 722 – April 29, 2025 – Missouri is the “Show Me!” state, and the Missouri Peace Planters did just that when they repeatedly occupied multiple nuclear missile silos in the summer of 1988, causing a furor that helped raise awareness of this hidden danger at the height of the Cold War. Here’s Jack-Cohen-Joppa with this month’s Nuclear Resister. https://nuclearhotseat.com/podcast/hb-305-new-nukes-stealth-legislation/
• 739 – August 26, 2025 – Milk and cookies time! Here’s another story of heroism in the fight against nuclear weapons with Jack Cohen-Joppa of The Nuclear Resister. This week, focus on the protest events surrounding 1985’s 40th anniversary of the US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
• 750 – November 11, 2025 – This month’s contribution to our understanding the history of nuclear resistance: A big ELF that menaced the North Woods and threatened the world for thirty years was finally chased out by the teach-ins, petitions, lawsuits, and hand saws of popular resistance.  https://nuclearhotseat.com/podcast/savannah-river-site-nuclear-weapons/

And from the final thought:

• Ways of Knowing: A Navajo Nuclear History https://www.waysofknowing.us/