33 Minutes Screening Today

Ploughshares Fund and the Center for American Progress have teamed up to deconstruct "33 Minutes: Protecting America in the New Missile Age,” the new Heritage Foundation film which warns of the looming threats posed by missiles, terrorists and nuclear weapons and stresses the need to counter threats with massive missile defense systems. Today's event compares the film to a modern-day “Reefer Madness” — the 1930s morality flick that warned that the use of marijuana often ends in incurable insanity. 

Politico reported today that arms control advocates are working with Ploughshares Fund to coordinate their messages and maximize exposure to nuclear security in order to ensure that the Obama administration follows through on its pledge to bring to Congress this year two treaties — the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty and the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

 

Ploughshares President Joe Cirincione, who will be on hand this evening to discuss the film, appeared recently on “The Colbert Report”. “Will you at least admit that a nuclear explosion is awesome?” asked host Stephen Colbert.  After a Colbert simulation of the explosion’s awesomeness, itself truly awesome, Cirincione replied, “It’s not just a beautiful cloud of fire and smoke. It’s mass destruction.”  Scroll down to watch the trailer.