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Action
Alert #33 (12/14/04) Dear friends everywhere On Saturday, August 6, 2005, the Los Alamos Study Group will be hosting a day of disarmament-related action centered in Los Alamos at Ashley Pond Park and nearby Los Alamos National Laboratory. There will be a variety of artistic, musical, and direct action events occurring throughout the day and evening. Many organizations will be attending and involved, both in the park and at the laboratory. Los Alamos is the largest facility for weapons of mass destruction in the world in dollar terms. It was the design and assembly site for the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. For at least the next decade and a half if not longer, it has taken over a smaller version of the plutonium "pit" manufacturing role formerly conducted at the Rocky Flats Plant. Los Alamos also has the largest active nuclear disposal site in the Southwest. We urge all individuals and groups actively interested in halting the growth of U.S. militarism or in promoting a politics based on respect for the human person to be part of this event. If you have the freedom to come to New Mexico and want to help prepare the ground for this event, or if your group wishes to take part formally in any way, please contact any of us at the Study Group at 505-265-1200 or write to me at gmello@lasg.org. If you want to visit here to help organize opposition to nuclear weapons, we'd like to talk to you. We have several projects underway in which you could help, so your contribution would fruitfully combine with that of many others. Unless we are absolutely besieged by applicants, we can provide housing, food, and companionship in a dedicated community of fellow activists and scholars to help make your stay enjoyable, productive, and educational. Very best to all, Greg Mello back
to top Dear friends -- Claire and Elena have planned a Santa Fe Business canvassing day for Sunday, December 12. We need more volunteers! So far, over a hundred businesses have signed our disarmament petition. Hopefully on Sunday we can significantly increase this number and broaden awareness of the campaign and the underlying issues in the business community of Santa Fe. In general, we find that businesses are usually supportive if personally approached. Albuquerque volunteers will meet at the Study Group office (2901 Summit Place NE) to carpool up to Santa Fe at 9:00 am this coming Sunday. We will meet with Santa Fe volunteers at 10:30 am in the center of the Plaza. The canvassing will start at 11:00 am. At 3:00 pm we will meet back together for food and coffee at Tribes Coffee House (already a petition signer). This will be a fun day to get to know new people while making a contribution. Please join us! In solidarity, Greg, Trish, Claire and Elena back
to top Dear friends – We would like to extend a warm invitation to a demonstration on Saturday, August 6 in Los Alamos. That day will be the 60th anniversary of the crimes at Hiroshima (and 3 days later at Nagasaki). We will be pulling out all the stops to make this event and the activities which lead up to it memorable, fulfilling, large, and effective. The day’s events will begin at 9:30 am and the concluding ceremonies will end at 9:00 pm, and will be centered at Ashley Pond Park and the nearby Community Building. Our invitation extends not just to individuals but also to non-profits, churches, and businesses. At this event, organizations will be able to express themselves uniquely while finding common cause with each other in a clear endorsement of nuclear disarmament and rejection of the militarism so badly deforming U.S. society and policy today. On that same day demonstrations will occur at most – possibly all – active U.S. nuclear weapons facilities, as well as in Japan and elsewhere in the world. Further details will be posted in the coming weeks at http://www.lasg.org. Watch there for announcements of other events coming between now and August. Planning and organizing this event is a large and complex endeavor involving many people. If you want to be one of those people, call us at 505-265-1200! If you want to come to New Mexico to work with us on this or other projects, email or write us! We may be able to find you a living situation that will make it easier for you to explore an activist vocation. The “New Mexicans Call for Nuclear Disarmament” petition drive continues to gather momentum. If you haven’t already done so, please join us! You can sign up on-line at http://www.lasg.org/Campaigns/DisarmamentPetition2.htm. We especially seek endorsements from businesses, churches, nonprofit organizations, and informal associations, of course as well as from as many individuals as possible. If you are interested in working with us on this campaign, call us. Feel free to contact us for more information, printed petitions, or brochures, to schedule a speaker for your organization, church or school, or to help support this campaign financially or in other ways. In solidarity, Greg Mello back
to top Dear friends – The “Call for Nuclear Disarmament” petition drive launched a few weeks ago is beginning to gather momentum! Hundreds of people and dozens of businesses have signed up to register their resistance to nuclear weapons and more are signing up every day. If you haven’t already done so, please join us! You can sign up on-line at <http://www.lasg.org/Campaigns/DisarmamentPetition2.htm>. Or you can also print out a petition from there and mail it to us at our main office (Los Alamos Study Group, 2901 Summit Place NE, Albuquerque, NM 87106). We especially seek endorsements from businesses, churches, nonprofit organizations, and informal associations, as well as from as many individuals as possible. Don’t worry if signing this petition seems like a trivially small act. It isn’t! You can always do more, or recruit more – but at minimum, sign up yourself! The next step is to sign up organizations to which you belong and businesses you know. If we speak up, even by so small an act as signing this petition, we will inspire others to do so as well. Conversely, if we remain silent, that silence is interpreted as approval for the weapons of mass destruction being built in our state and in our name. If you aren’t a member of any group, call up your friends and form one! That’s the way effective action starts. Don’t agonize, organize! If you want, we can help you with the basics. Just ask! There are some useful talking points in the accompanying brochure, <http://www.lasg.org/campaigns/DisarmamentBrochure.pdf>, which you can print out yourself or request from us in larger quantities. This petition continues and extends the campaign to halt nuclear waste disposal in northern New Mexico, already endorsed by thousands of people and dozens of organizations see (<http://www.lasg.org/waste/area-g.htm>). Again, please return all signed petitions to us at the address above. If you want to help with the campaign, or have further questions, call Trish Williams-Mello, Claire Long, or Elena Hushbeck at 505-265-1200 in our Albuquerque office, or Lydia Clark at 505-795-8025 in our Santa Fe office. Feel free to contact us for more information, printed petitions, or brochures, to volunteer in this campaign, to schedule a speaker for your organization, church or school, or to help support this campaign financially or in other ways. We are ready to work with you! Finally, if you are a scientist, engineer, or a student in these disciplines, we also encourage you to sign the Scientist's and Engineers' Pledge to Renounce Weapons of Mass Destruction, at <http://www.lasg.org/what/pledge.htm> and to discuss the issues involved with your friends. Contact us if you have questions or want to schedule a speaker for your organization or class. In solidarity, Greg Mello “Where commands are no longer obeyed, the means of violence are of no use; and the question of this obedience is not decided by the command-obedience relation but by opinion, and, of course, by the number of those who share it. Everything depends on the power behind the violence. The sudden dramatic breakdown of power that ushers in revolutions reveals in a flash how civil obedience -- to laws, to rulers, to institutions -- is but the outward manifestation of support and consent." Hannah Arendt back
to top Dear friends – It’s been a while since
I’ve written, and a great deal has been happening at the Study Group
and in New Mexico, too much for a single email. The most important and
urgent highlights follow. 1. Disarmament petition launched; participation and help wanted! Nuclear weapons are by far the most destructive kind of weapon. The conscience of humanity recoils from them. Yet without a public registry of resistance here in New Mexico, our stifled silence is taken as enthusiastic support for these weapons and everything they stand for. Why? Because 49% of U.S. nuclear weapons spending occurs in this state, making nuclear weapons New Mexico’s largest industry in dollar terms. They directly account for 6% of our state’s gross economic product – a fraction 20 times greater than in any other state. Those of us who live here don’t need to imagine the political, moral, economic, and social ramifications. We live with them every day. Given the worsening facts on the ground, we need an enduring place to publicly register a firm “No!”, not just to this or that manifestation or symptom, but to nuclear weapons themselves. There will be no relief from the symptoms – no end to the nuclear dumping, no cleanup of old dump sites, no economic or social renewal, and no real national security -- until our political leaders clearly understand that weapons of mass destruction are not legitimate in this or any society. But who are our political leaders? Friend, that’s where you and I come in. If we want nuclear disarmament, we must stand up and be counted. This petition (“New Mexicans Call for Nuclear Disarmament,” <http://www.lasg.org/Campaigns/DisarmamentPetition2.htm>) is one place to do that. You can sign up on-line, or print out a petition and mail it to us. We especially seek endorsements from businesses, churches, nonprofit organizations, and informal associations as well as from as many individuals as possible. Don’t worry if signing seems like a trivially small act. Do more, recruit more – but also do this. If we speak up, even by so small an act as signing this petition, we will inspire others to do so as well. There’s useful talking
points in the accompanying brochure, <http://www.lasg.org/campaigns/DisarmamentBrochure.pdf>,
which you can print out yourself or request from us. Please return all signed petitions to the main Study Group office (2901 Summit Place NE, Albuquerque, NM 87106). Contact us for more information, printed petitions or brochures, to volunteer in this campaign (YES!), to schedule a speaker for your organization, church or school, or to help support this campaign financially or in other ways. If you want to help, call us at 505-265-1200 (our main office in Albuquerque) or 505-795-8025 (our new Santa Fe office). We want to talk to you! If you are a scientist or engineer, you also may be interested in signing the Scientist's and Engineers' Pledge to Renouce Weapons of Mass Destruction, at <http://www.lasg.org/what/pledge.htm>. 2. Important public meeting TOMORROW regarding Los Alamos nuclear waste disposal and “cleanup” On September 1, the Department of Energy (DOE), University of California (UC), and the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) released their proposed “cleanup” plan for Los Alamos. They will explain and defend that plan tomorrow, Wednesday, at the Cities of Gold Hotel in Pojoaque at 7:00 pm. If you want cleanup of Los Alamos, you might consider going, because this plan doesn’t actually involve any firm cleanup requirements, and it is silent on the subject of continued disposal. Very silent. But WE won’t be silent. We’ll be there, presenting the outline of a better plan, one that would actually work. Help us if you can, by your presence. The DOE/NMED plan is in the form of a consented administrative order (“Order”), negotiated in secret over the past two years. The Order says it preempts all normal decision-making processes, like the site’s hazardous waste permit hearings. In other words, the agreeing parties want this Order to be the whole enchilada, as far as cleanup of Los Alamos is concerned. To repeat, the Order does not require ANY cleanup. Nor does it set any schedule for cleanup, apart from the handful of small cleanup actions already begun by LANL. It describes an 11-year odyssey of expensive, needless investigations and POSSIBLE cleanup, with future cleanup decisions subject to site-specific “risk analyses,” themselves based on “projected land uses” and many subjective factors, all in the context of a “dispute resolution process” rather than any clear regulatory requirement. In fact NMED promises in this Order to promptly remove all permit requirements for cleanup. You can find the 271-page
Order at <http://www.nmenv.state.nm.us/hwb/lanl/>. Links to Study
Group comments about the Order, as well as the outlines of a better cleanup
plan, can be found at <http://www.lasg.org>. Further background
on LANL cleanup can be found at <http://www.lasg.org/waste/lanl-waste-index.htm>.
If you want to learn more about contamination at LANL, you can also check
out the Study Group’s interactive map of nearly all the contaminated
areas, found at <http://www.lasg.org/maps/pages/contents/TAmainmap.htm>.
3. Citizen Inspections – August, successful; November 8-13, coming up. We had a great set of citizen inspection activities in August (for details, see the schedule sent in Alert #28 or archived at www.lasg.org). The next inspection will be held the week of November 7. Watch this space; details will be forthcoming in the next Alert. back
to top Dear friends -- On July 1, we told you about our citizens’ fact-finding inspection and review of activities at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and Sandia National Laboratories (SNL). These plans are moving forward nicely, with some very important changes. The Aug. 7 public tour and teach-in at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) has been CANCELLED BY LANL. We invite you instead to two other events. The first is a public workshop on the weapons labs, including what you need to know to conduct YOUR OWN INSPECTIONS -- both at the laboratories as well as “virtual” inspections using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and other tools. It will take place from 6:00 to 9:00 pm on Monday, Aug. 2 at the Unitarian Church in Santa Fe, 107 W. Barcelona Road. The title of this workshop is “Normalizing Terror: Sandia, Los Alamos, and the Resurgence of the Nuclear Option. Its purpose is to empower citizens like you and give you the tools you need to help roll back the nuclear militarism that has impoverished New Mexico and the nation, endangered our democracy and ethical traditions, and undercut national and human security. On Tuesday, Aug. 4, a more in-depth version of the same workshop will be offered in Albuquerque at Woodward Hall at the University of New Mexico’s main campus, concluding with a public discussion and debate about the new kinds of nuclear weapons now being promoted by the weapons laboratories (see detailed schedule below). The second new event is an OPEN CITIZEN INSPECTION of Los Alamos on Thursday, Aug. 5. On that day, we encourage you and your friends to conduct your own fact-finding inspection. Some of us will begin at 1:00 pm in Technical Area 3. You may begin when you like, commencing at any LANL technical area you may choose that is open to you. Prior to the inspection, some of us will meet for lunch in the main LANL cafeteria at 11:45 am; all are welcome to join us there. All who wish may reconvene with us at 3:00 pm at a location to be determined at lunch that day for a PRESS CONFERENCE. A “citizen’s guide to inspecting Los Alamos National Laboratory,” including all the maps and other information you will need to get started as well as to share what you learn with others, will be available at the workshops on Aug. 2 and 4. In this inspection, each person or group of inspectors will not be under our – that is, Los Alamos Study Group -- supervision. Indeed, we will not know who all the inspectors are. But we do very much encourage you to come, and to bring your friends. We also strongly encourage anyone who visits the laboratory to follow any instructions that may be given to you by LANL security personnel. We hope you will visit Los Alamos, learn more about its programs and facilities, speak directly with its staff and management, and do so as often as it takes to gain a clear understanding (given legitimate classification boundaries) of the nuclear weapons programs there. After your inspections, and indeed at any time, we urge you to join with us in communicating your growing understanding with our elected officials, who perhaps do not have as much time to review these programs as we do. Updates, downloadable posters and flyers, and additional information both theoretical and practical will soon be available at http://www.lasg.org/inspections.htm (the page that is the target of this link is now under construction and should be completed by close of business on Monday, July 19). In the meantime, a detailed schedule is appended below. Call us at 505-265-1200 for further details any time. If you have not already helped support this and subsequent inspections financially, please consider doing so. A convenient and secure credit card donation portal is available on our web site, or you can send a check. All donations are fully tax-deductible and will be matched 1:1 by generous donors and so will go twice as far in providing sound public education and policy intervention on nuclear weapons issues. Finally, an important event not organized by the Study Group but occurring in the week are the public talk in Santa Fe by Bishop Thomas Gumbleton on Aug. 5 at 6:00 pm at the Santa Maria de la Paz Parish Hall, 11 College Way (just off Richards Avenue near the Santa Fe Community College), and the walk, prayer, and vigil for peace beginning at 7:00 am in Los Alamos on the morning of August 6. We encourage people of all faiths to attend these important and inspiring events, in which nuclear weapons issues will no doubt be placed within an ethical framework based on justice and genuine human security and peace. For further details, see http://www.paxchristinewmexico.org/Archdiocese/august6flyer.html. Sincerely,
back
to top Dear friends -- On August 4, 5 and 7, 04 the Los Alamos Study Group will lead a citizens’ fact-finding inspection and review of activities at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and Sandia National Laboratories (SNL).The inspections will focus on two key aspects of the U.S. nuclear weapons program: 1.) The on-going acquisition of large-scale manufacturing capacity for key new weapons components at Los Alamos, specifically plutonium weapons cores or “pits,” and 2.) The development of new “bunker buster” and other new nuclear weapons. Since SNL has so far rejected our requests to enter into public discussion about its role in the development of new nuclear weapons, the SNL inspection will be entirely "virtual." Inspection events will begin on Wednesday, August 4 at Woodward Hall of the University of New Mexico, when an all-day multi-media educational seminar will provide an overview of the U.S. nuclear weapons program and Sandia's role in it. In the afternoon, we will be focusing on the proposed new "bunker-buster" weapons and other controversial features of current U.S. nuclear weapons policy. There also will be a press conference at which visiting weapons inspectors will present their own observations and findings. At 7:00 pm at the same location, there will be a public discussion of the same issues. The August 4 events are open to the public. There is no charge. On Thursday August 5, visiting weapons inspectors will tour Los Alamos National Laboratory (this portion of the inspection is not open to the public). The day will conclude with a public discussion of current nuclear weapons issues affecting LANL at Fuller Lodge in Los Alamos at 6:00 pm, which is open to the public at no charge. On Saturday, August 7, interested members of the public will participate in an on-site teach-in and discussion in Los Alamos National Laboratory. Travel will be by bus to and within Los Alamos National Laboratory, departing from Albuquerque at 6:45 am and from Santa Fe at 8:00 am, returning at 5:00 pm and 6:15 pm respectively. This portion of the inspection will cost $25 including a sack lunch. Seats on the buses are available on a first-come, first-serve basis and must be reserved in advance. Further information and updates about these inspections are posted at www.lasg.org/inspections.htm, or call us at 505-265-1200. If you would like to help us support these inspections financially and have not already done so, please consider a donation to the Study Group. All donations will be matched 1:1 by generous donors and so will go twice as far in providing sound public education and policy intervention on nuclear weapons issues. An important event not organized by the Study Group but occurring in the same timeframe is the public talk in Santa Fe by Bishop Thomas Gumbleton on Aug. 5 at 6:00 pm at the Santa Maria de la Paz Parish Hall, 11 College Way (just off Richards Avenue near the Santa Fe Community College), and the walk, prayer, and vigil for peace beginning at 7:00 am in Los Alamos on the morning of August 6. We encourage people of all faiths to attend these important and inspiring events, in which nuclear weapons issues will be placed within an ethical framework based on justice and genuine human security and peace. For further details, see http://www.paxchristinewmexico.org/Archdiocese/august6flyer.html. We look forward to seeing many of you at these events! Greg Mello P.S. The next citizen inspection will be held during the week of November 7, 04.
back to top Dear friends and colleagues – 1. You are subscribed to the Study Group’s email alert list-serve. The only purpose of this list-serve is to broadcast announcements of Study Group events and citizen involvement opportunities. We won’t send you more than one email per week or forward you news, analysis, or opinion. Such content will appear on our web site, http://www.lasg.org. We will usually alert subscribers of important new content to be found there, however. If you have friends who would like to subscribe, you can forward this message to them. To subscribe, send a blank email to lasg-subscribe@lists.riseup.net. 2. Upcoming Los Alamos Study Group events! *Sunday, June 6, 7:00 pm: “Occupied Iraq: An Eyewitness Report.” At the Center for Peace and Justice, 202 Harvard SE in Albuquerque. Talk and multimedia presentation by Jo Wilding and David Martinez, who have just returned from Iraq, specifically from Fallujah, where they worked transporting wounded civilians to medical care. Co-sponsored with the Center for Peace and Justice and Stop the War Machine. *Tuesday, June 8, 7:00 pm: Planning meeting at Starbucks, 1801 Central Avenue in Los Alamos, for the August 4-5 citizen’s inspections at Los Alamos and Sandia national laboratories. Planning meetings will occur each subsequent Tuesday through 7/27 and will be held on alternate Tuesdays in Santa Fe. Call for further details! *Thursday, June 10, 6:00 pm: Planning meeting at the Study Group office and garden (2901 Summit Place NE, Albuquerque) for the August 4-5 citizens inspections. Subsequent Thursdays through 7/29 at the same time and place. *Friday, June 11, 7:00 pm: David Culp of the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) and Greg Mello of the Study Group will speak on the current status of “The Bush Nucular Agenda” at the Cloud Cliff Restaurant and Art Space, 1805 2nd St. in Santa Fe. *Saturday, June 12, 2:00 pm: David Culp of FCNL and Greg Mello will speak on the current status of “The Bush Nucular Agenda” at the Center for Peace and Justice, 202 Harvard SE in Albuquerque. *Saturday, June 19, 1:00 pm: “Rocky Flats, Los Alamos, and the Resurgence of the Nuclear Arms Race” panel discussion and public forum at the United Church of Christ, 1804 Arroyo Chamiso Dr. in Santa Fe. With Wes McKinley and Caron Balkany, co-authors of “The Ambushed Grand Jury: How the Justice Department Covered Up Government Nuclear Crimes and How We Caught Them Red Handed,” Jacque Brever, Rocky Flats whistleblower, Greg Mello, and Elaine Cimino of Citizens for Environmental Safeguards, with whom we are co-sponsoring the event. $10 donation requested. *August 4-5: Citizen Inspections, Los Alamos and Sandia national laboratories. Call for current details. 3. June fundraiser and leadership call. It is a pivotal time in nuclear history, nationally and internationally. It is also a pivotal time in New Mexico’s nuclear history, a time when our state is drifting toward deeper identification with its military-nuclear industries. Our state is now America’s primary workshop for nuclear weapons; 46% of the U.S. budget for nuclear warheads and bombs is spent here. The managers of our labs, acting on their own and through “our” elected representatives, push each year for higher weapons budgets, new weapons, new targets, and new factories to build them in. We are resisting these developments in several ways, and we would like you to join us. There are two principle ways to do this. The first is to write a check or visit the secure portal on our web site at http://www.lasg.org and make a credit card donation. Directly and indirectly, the average American household pays $62 each year for nuclear weapons design and production, roughly another $150 for nuclear weapons delivery systems, and another $73 for “waste management.” What if just 1% of U.S. households gave as much or more to fight against nuclear weapons as we all pay to promote and build them? Some generous donors have stepped forward to offer an equal match for all Study Group donations received, so every dollar you give is worth two to the cause. We have defeated these kind of proposals before and we know how to do it, but it does take people working together and it does take money. Won’t you join us? The second way to help is by getting involved – by coming to the events above, learning more about the issues, recruiting your friends, and discovering the ways in which your unique skills and standpoint can make a distinctive contribution to nuclear disarmament and a culture of peace and justice in New Mexico. We don’t have your skills, or your voice, and can’t even try to replace them. But we can and will help you be heard. In solidarity, “Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as cooperation with good.” Mohandas Gandhi 2003 |
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