Alan Khazei Speaks to Council and Center Supporters
On April 1, 2010 Alan Khazei spoke to a gathering of Council for a Livable World and Center for Arms Control & Non-Proliferation supporters at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, MA.
Khazei is a citizen activist with a long history of public advocacy for progressive causes. Khazei is the founder of City Year, a organization dedicated to fostering public service among young people, and Be The Change, Inc, a group the creates national public awareness campaigns to build momentum for citizen service.
He is a founding member of Global Zero, an international membership organization dedicated to building momentum and providing a pragmatic blueprint for the eventual and total elimination of nuclear weapons.
In 2009, Khazei was a candidate for the U.S. Senate seat left open by the passing of progressive icon Sen. Edward Kennedy and received the enthusiastic endorsement of Council for a Livable World. Although Khazei was defeated in the Democratic primary, the grassroots enthusiasm and support generated by his dark-horse candidacy earned him widespread recognition as an emerging figure in progressive politics.
Addressing Council and Center activists at MIT, Khazei noted that the current political and policy environments present us with unprecedented opportunities in our effort to rid the world of the scourge of nuclear weapons. In President Barack Obama we have a genuine advocate of a nuclear weapons free world in the oval office. At the same time, in the past several years a clear bipartisan consensus in support of this vision has also arisen, crystallized most clearly in the statements of the “Four Horsemen” – former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger, George Schultz, Secretary of Defense William Perry and Senator Sam Nunn – and their unambiguous call for nuclear disarmament.
Khazei spoke about the progress demonstrated by reactions to the Global Zero organization. While the organization had been greeted with skepticism upon its creation in 2008 and its founders portrayed as utopian dreamers, as public support for nuclear disarmament has grown, policy makers and the media have taken the organization more seriously.
This growing acceptance was demonstrated by attendance at the organization’s annual international summits. The first summit in 2009 was attended largely by activists, intellectuals and former government officials – a worthy basis for an activist movement, but did not demonstrative of a broad base of support. In 2010, attendance grew dramatically and included a cross section of demographic and political groups including student groups, international groups and women’s groups among many others. Significantly, the summit was also attended by sitting government officials with the ability to set immediate policy.
Khazei stressed the importance of the educational work performed by the Center and the political work performed by the Council in moving the nuclear disarmament agenda forward. The organizations stimulate citizen involvement in the political and policy process and give ordinary citizens the means to affect government policy. Without citizen involvement, serious change in U.S. and international policy that we wish to see will not be possible.
Khazei noted that major social reform movements in U.S. history combined visionary leadership by political figures with concerted public activism by concerned citizens. Khazei pointed to the examples of the 19th century abolitionist movement to end slavery, the women’s suffrage movement of the early 20th century and the civil rights and anti-war movements of the 1950s and 1960s.
Khazei noted that the movement for a nuclear weapons free world constitutes an important cause for our time. In President Obama and leaders such as the Four Statesmen, we have visionary political leaders. In the work of the Council and Center and the activists assembled at MIT, we have the makings of a citizens’ movement.
He cited the need for Massachusetts residents, whether or not they voted for him, to contact new Senator Scott Brown to urge him to vote for the treaty. Brown, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has no position nor deep knowledge about the treaty. Khazei suggested attending constituent meetings with Brown over the next week while Congress is in recess, sending personal letters or making phone calls to Brown’s office.
However, there are those opposed to this movement for nuclear disarmament. There are also conservative activists and pundits who oppose the movement purely out of opposition to President Obama and the desire to deny him policy victories on any front.
Khazei responded to questions about the positions of the nuclear weapons laboratory directors (Los Alamos, Sandia and Livermore), how it is possible to dramatize the nuclear issues, the annual spending on nuclear weapons issues, how the four statesmen (Schultz, Kissinger, Perry and Nunn) feel about that increased spending, whether those that opposed Brown can still have an impact on his views and votes, and whether the U.S. and Russia were on a collision course.
Khazei stated that historical momentum is with us and that this opposition can be overcome, but that it will not be easy. The continued engagement of citizen activists and their continued support of the work of the Council and Center are essential for our success. Khazei thanked the assembled activists for their support ad urged them to continue their hard work in realizing our shared vision of a world free of the terrible scourge of nuclear weapons.
Khazei was as usual effective in inspiring citizens to take effective action that can have a real impact.
