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September 25, 2023
Reminder: Oppose plutonium pit production at LANL, meet in Santa Fe this Wednesday 9/27/23 at 6:00 pm, St. John's United Methodist Church
Previous letter (09/20/23) Come to a meeting to oppose plutonium pit production at LANL in Santa Fe on September 27 at 6:00 pm at St. John's United Methodist Church! (Subscribe/Unsubscribe and other links at bottom)
Good afternoon --
Please do come to this meeting if you live in the area. Bring your friends, your family, including those in religious communities, in environmental and justice organizations, and in public service organizations of all kinds.
Whether or not they can can come to this particular meeting, encourage them and (especially) their organizations to endorse the Call for Sanity not Nuclear Production.
Of possible interest, Trish tells me this interview went well (and was edited nicely): "Plutonium Pits, New Bombs, Los Alamos Never Learns – Greg Mello," Nuclear Hotseat, Sep 5, 2023.
Also of possible interest in relation to the overall context of our work is this short talk yesterday to the adult education group of the Albuquerque Mennonite Church: "War-life and peace in the U.S. post-democratic decline"; audio with Q&A (about one hour).
There has been a small spate of pro-nuclear-weapons news articles about warhead modernization, especially at Los Alamos, generated by the Associated Press. First were these national articles:
And then one more tightly focused on Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), published just this past weekend:
New Mexico AP reporter Susan Montoya did a much better job than the author of the previous pieces, but even with a quote from me casting some shade (“For some time Los Alamosans have seemed numbed out, very involved in superficial activities but there is a very big hole in the middle where thoughtful discourse might live”) this story was quite not up to her usual high standard, in the opinions of several people who contacted us.
These kinds of stories are being generated because liberal, pro-nuclear weapons foundations are funding AP.
We have done yeoman work helping some reporters with what should be blockbuster stories, supplying whistleblowers and NNSA documents for stories that could practically write themselves. These stories have however been hanging fire for a month or more. We will see what actually comes forth. We aren't confident in good outcomes. If we weren't stretched so paper-thin we would have already written these stories ourselves. The papers have bigger megaphones, so that's the hope. Increasingly it is a vain one.
Returning to Wednesday's meeting, there is a real absence of public opposition to pit production at LANL. Thousands of people do oppose it, but most opposition is atomized, and not public. Private opinions are frankly useless, if they do not manifest in the public sphere in any of a thousand ways. Come on Wednesday to hear more about how "we" -- meaning, with your help -- propose to do that.
Finally, please do check out our Ukraine page, which we update daily with fresh information, analyses, and commentary. This war is a hinge in world affairs, and in the history of all those involved, including the U.S. Please, please, please, send your friends, family, and organizations to that page and to the fine references we provide there. It is an antidote to the war propaganda which saturates the U.S. in particular.
On the subject of propaganda and the very dangerous psychology of totalitarianism now afoot, you may be interested in Mathias Desmet, 8 minute speech to EU Parliament on the the necessity of speaking up at this historical moment, Twitter, Sep 19, 2023.
Best wishes,
Greg Mello, for the Study Group
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