View the recording of David Rothauser's Aug 9 Discussion.
We commemorated #Nagasaki2022 77 years later.
Press Release:
Join us! #PeaceWave2022! Tuesday Aug. 9, 7-8:30
In commemoration of #Nagasaki, we will view a film by David Rothauser: Article 9 Comes to America, about the evolving Article 9 in Japan's Constitution. The film is sponsored by WILPF, Jane Addams Peace Assoc. and Veterans for Peace. We screened his film Hibakusha, Our Life to Live during a prior #PeaceWave.
The 1 hour film will be followed by a meet & greet and discussion with David Rothauser.
He has shared notes about Kazuo Aichi and Can Article 9 Survive the Abe Assassination for our review. And writes: I'm prepared to answer the question, "What is Article 9?" I've also prepared a "teachable" section on Japanese politicians, scholars and average citizens thoughts and polls regarding the future of Article 9 since PM Abe's assassination. And wrap it up with an assessment of the roles scientists and engineers play in the design and use of nuclear weapons and how that ties in with the daily slaughter of our collective children in schools across America.
When we asked David where he was when the bomb was dropped?
Where were you when the bomb was dropped? "I was playing in a vacant lot next to our house in Pleasantdale, NJ. I already knew that a super bomb was being developed by our military. It was common knowledge, but noone knew it would be an atomic bomb and everyone assumed it would be dropped on Germany. I went in the house for lunch. The radio announced that the bomb was dropped on Japan. Car horns were blaring, people were shouting. My Mom gave me a tin pot and a spoon. I went back to the vacant lot and banged on the pot in celebration. After the war I sent away for an atomic ring from a cereal box and even tried to make my own A-bomb using wooden match heads and my Mother's spray bottle.
Years later I read the book Hiroshima, by a NY Times journalist. I was appalled by the reality of radiation poisoning. I was living in Manhattan then and often rode busses and subways, purposely reading the book in hopes that commuters would see the cover of a blazing red sun and the title, 'Hiroshima'. I became a walking commercial for the book.
Much later while teaching at a Japanese language and culture school in Boston, I got started meeting A-bomb survivors and developing my film about them, that you saw a few years ago."
David Rothauser, filmmaker, writer. teacher, actor
Article 9 in North America https://memoryproductions.wordpress.com/
Hibakusha, Our Life to Live http://www.hibakusha-ourlifetolive.org/
ESL through Theatre eslthrutheatre.wordpress.com/"There's an excellent two volume book by Klaus Schlichtmann titled, Japan In The World; Shidehara Kijuro, Pacifism and the Abolition of War. Shidehara Kijuro was the Japanese Prime Minister at the end of WWII who brought the idea of a peace constitution to General MacArthur and the two of them worked to create Article 9 and the peace constitution that is under siege today by right wing politicos and a powerful religious cult that Abe was a member of"
