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Permalink for this bulletin. Please forward! Previously: Bulletin 297: (04/11/22) LANL pit production is incapable of meaningfully contributing to production requirements Bulletin 298: Talk on pits & renewed U.S. nuclear weapons production Tuesday evening 4/26/22; antiwar billboard; what you can do April 25, 2022 Dear friends and colleagues -- First, of possible interest for those who live nearby, we (Greg and Trish) will speak at the University of New Mexico this week, as follows:
The troubled program to reconstitute U.S. production of the fissile cores of nuclear weapons -- thus enabling production of new-design nuclear weapons made with new, long-lasting parts -- is a microcosm of much wider dysfunctions in U.S. national security. It is also an economic, social, and environmental "dead end" for New Mexico. What, then, is to be done? This question acquires even more urgency as the U.S. and its allies escalatewhat is now a hot war against nuclear-armed Russia amidst declining environmental sustainability, social equity, and living standards decline across the globe. We are happy to speak to groups when asked. We bring facts, which can be useful if you feel like you are drowning in a sea of propaganda. Because we are. ***** Second, we hope to install a new antiwar skin on one of our (already-leased) billboards on I-25 as soon as possible. The current draft text (which must be approved by the billboard company) reads, simply: "Educate yourself. / Oppose the war!" There will be a prominent link to resource material at lasg.org. We know this is a dangerous message. There is just no point in an inane, vacuous, or vague billboard. It is a very positive, clear message, and we mean to initiate some dialog with it. Our biggest goal is to help open more political space for opposition to the U.S. war against Russia before the situation gets even more dire -- which it is doing every day. Opposing this war -- and for people reading this in Europe, opposing further expansion of NATO -- is one of the most important things peacemakers could do right now. We plan to do much more, and we hope you will also. In Bulletin 293, we provided a short source list of alternative reporting and analysis. More could be added and as always, caveat emptor. I want to reiterate that if you can't spend a LOT of time analyzing and comparing reportage, you might as well skip all U.S. mainstream media, which is by now largely just propaganda. I have no idea what people elsewhere are reading or seeing but here in the U.S., our news media depends heavily on the Ukrainian government -- a criminal enterprise, as many have documented (see for example “One less traitor”: Zelensky oversees campaign of assassination, kidnapping and torture of political opposition," Max Blumenthal and Esha Krishnaswamy, The Grayzone, April 17, 2022). Of the many valuable reviews which could be mentioned, Bruce Gagnon (Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space) recently provided a really great overview of the Ukraine situation, in an interview with Finian Cunningham: "The War in Ukraine Is Really About U.S. Pursuing Regime Change in Russia" (April 14, Strategic Culture Foundation). I just stumbled across a fine essay by John Pilger, written just before Russia's "Operation Z" began. We are pleased that in late March, our own very modest essay "A Proposed Solution to the Ukraine War," Consortium News, Mar 7, 2022, was republished in three languages at Zeit-Fragen ("Current Concerns") in Switzerland. We've engaged in quite a bit of correspondence and a few radio interviews, but again much more is needed because the war against Russia (and soon China) is of epochal significance in every policy domain. Some of you prefer audio interviews to detailed print information and commentary. This panel discussion ("The War in Ukraine and the Collapsing World Order") is very good IMO, (h/t Steve Starr), featuring Alastair Crooke, Scott Ritter, Max Blumenthal, and Seyed Mohammad Marandi at the University of Tehran. Patrick Lawrence's very thoughtful products are among the very best available (here, here, here, and here), addressing our political plight. The main problem we see in discussions is that most people are misinformed. As Pilger noted in the essay above, Marshall McLuhan's prophecy has come true: propaganda has replaced politics. Actually, propaganda prevents politics. People who can't be bothered to invest time in finding out what is behind this war cannot be said to have an informed opinion. By week's end will provide a few more resources about this war in this space, in a systematic way, to make this easier. In the meantime there is always what many of us have been doing all along: self-education, discussion, and outreach. Moral courage is especially important at this time. If you would like to help contribute to this antiwar billboard, or the coming newspaper ads, please do! ***** Third, the new Biden nuclear budget is out and there are plenty of shocking details in it. For example, when its quasi-secret work is included Los Alamos National Laboratory is now an almost $5 billion laboratory. Another: NNSA plans to build five (5) new plutonium-related buildings at LANL (one new-start per year for the next 5 years), in addition to all the pit-related buildings it has and all the "small" projects (like multi-level parking garages) it is building without specific line items. About 46 construction projects are needed in all for pit production; we don't yet know what all of them are. Neither does Congress, because NNSA isn't straight with Congress any more than it is with citizens. In part that is because NNSA itself is confused. In part it is because self-interested contractors do more than 95% of NNSA's work. ***** Finally not everyone on this, our main mailing list, has seen this local letter "What can we in New Mexico do?" It might be useful. We will discuss action tomorrow night. Please realize that there will be no return to normal, whether environmentally, economically, socially, or in national security. The time of safety and comfort is over. That was true before this war. The West's actions and inactions over the past 20 years sowed the wind, and now everyone is reaping the whirlwind. As Patrick Lawrence says, whatever happens in Ukraine, the U.S. has already lost. Stay well, be encouraged, work for peace, |
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