Join us Friday in celebrating: most of the world's countries want New Mexico to kick the nuclear habit (includes address of afternoon teach-in, omitted previously)

June 14, 2016

(Letter to local members; tell us if you want off this relatively exclusive list.)

Dear friends --

That is certainly one aspect of the successful negotiations last month of the UN Open-Ended Working Group (OEWG) on nuclear disarmament. A large majority of countries now support negotiation of a treaty banning nuclear weapons. About 75 of these countries came to Geneva in February and May to help start to those negotiations, where they dominated the room. There are now too many votes in the General Assembly to prevent nuclear disarmament negotiations in a new key: with or without the U.S. and other nuclear state participation.

Please join us this week on Friday evening to learn more about these exciting developments and to celebrate them.

This Friday's celebration will be at a lovely private home on the east side of Santa Fe at 6:30 pm. We need you to RSVP ASAP for this event if you plan to come. Bring your family -- they are citizens, taxpayers, and targets too. This is not a public event but if you have friends who might be particularly interested, please call us! We will serve refreshments and there will be time to greet one another before the evening program properly begins. Lydia Clark will provide live music. Our new intern Valentina Bellafante from Rome will give a short talk with slides and lead a discussion on U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe -- a fraught subject in European public opinion. Valentina just arrived last night. She has a recent master's degree in international relations from Roma Tre University and is fresh from an internship with the Italian Foreign Ministry. We'll continue with a report from the OEWG and discuss how we in New Mexico can join and help these exciting developments. We will also discuss Study Group paid internships as well as critical volunteer work. We are having a pretty good time here and have a good track record.

You might want to consider if there is anyone among your family or friends who might be a candidate for research, outreach, journalism, or lobbying -- four aspects of our work here. You yourself might consider a volunteer "staycation."

That's the second event on Friday. On Friday afternoon, starting at 1:30 pm and running until 5:30 pm, at the Center for Spiritual Living, 505 Camino de Los Marquez in Santa Fe, we are offering a longer and more detailed program to prepare for next week's "Doomsday Forum" and the ongoing assault on the state. We will provide plenty of background information and there will be plenty of discussion, poetry, and music performed and led by Lydia Clark. Carol Miller from Peaceful Skies will join us, speaking and leading a discussion on "Healing the Social, Economic and Emotional Costs of Militarism." We expect other voices as well.

Please join us Friday -- and if you can, the following Tuesday as well! (See the poster being distributed in Albuquerque, below). And pass the word!

There will be important protests on Monday the 20th as well as Tuesday the 21st, in addition to the teach-in mentioned below that will be in parallel with the military/laboratory symposium. We'll discuss those at this week's Friday afternoon event. The news media will be covering this symposium -- and New Mexicans' degree of protest to the trillion-dollar nuclear investment it will support. Please come and be counted.

Greg, Trish, Valentina, Astrid, Lydia, and the rest of the gang


If this poster does not load properly get it here.