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June 2, 2023 Quick update; more frequent letters coming to this list; let's be more than colonial complainers Friends -- Good afternoon. It's been awhile since we wrote anything on this "Activist Leaders" list. Yet apart from a week or so of family travel, we've been working darn hard here -- just not on local events or other developments that seemed appropriate for this listserve. We're changing that! First, in case you missed them, here are some recent articles you received via our main listserve (of which this "activist leaders" email list is a subset):
Greg is headed to Washington DC next week to discuss these matters and others with quite a few people on The Hill and elsewhere. We've been very busy here with correspondence in advance of that trip. Above all we will patiently explain, in DC, why LANL cannot and should not be a pit factory and is unlikely to succeed at that mission, and why "we" don't need the warhead in question. We've taken time to debunk some mistaken articles from nuclear weapons promoters and arms controllers (e.g. our friend Frank von Hippel), both camps saying the pit program at LANL should continue as planned for the foreseeable future. Great. We will send out more on that to our main listserve ASAP. We will be hosting a national zoom call on nuclear weapons modernization shortly after Greg's return from Washington; stay tuned for that announcement. 1. These "Activist Letters" are going to come to you much more frequently, even if most of them are short. The frequency may be more than some of you want; others will appreciate the richer content, which will not go to our main listserve. The content here will be more informal and action-oriented as well. If you like what you see, please share these letters any way you choose (e.g. with this permalink), and encourage others to sign up. To subscribe send a blank email here and to unsubscribe, send a blank email here. If you unsubscribe from this list you will still be on our main emailing list. We and everyone we talk to see a lot of political paralysis in New Mexico. Collectively we act like the proverbial deer in the headlights. Trish and I are at times heartbroken by this deathly failure of imagination and vitality. For example, how many guest editorials against the Ukraine war do you see in our newspapers, for example? We see zero. How many against pit production at LANL? One or two, rarely -- not enough to sway editorial policies (yet -- stay tuned). We are already sharing resources and insights among a small group of friends daily and will now be broadening that circle. Those who want to stay will stay. 2. Our Ukraine page is a very useful resource to peacemakers, which we hope you will be. We have kept faith with you, updating that page daily or near-daily with the most useful, most accessible, most reliable information and analysis available to us. If we aren't shocked, scared, or angry we aren't paying enough attention. It's not a virtue to sit around and wait for the fallout, or for the last crust of bread to be taken from hungry children to finance the latest wunderwaffen for Ukraine. It may be feel hopeless to speak out but that's precisely why it is necessary, and why speaking out is so powerful. A single candle lights up a very dark cave. I suppose you understand that this war is leading the collective West into dark places. 3. Many people are at a loss as to what to do. People tend to look at the challenge in the wrong way, from the outside as it were.Let me suggest speaking out publicly in whatever way you can, as conscientiously as possible. You can't go far wrong. Put up a yard signs. Write comments in the Santa Fe New Mexican (a very efficient and timely way to reach a significant number of interested people, not just the passive masses who really don't matter politically). You can write op-eds of course, but they are filtered and must be infrequent. Get in front of audiences in person, or get me (Greg) in front of audiences. Don't bother writing or calling NM congresspersons. Public tabling is very good. You will think of other things to do. The main thing is to do them, publicly. Put yourself out there as we have done (for example, "Anti-nuclear activist opposes helping Ukraine, encourages peace," Santa Fe New Mexican, Feb 5, 2023). Every one of us is in a different situation. Some of the best of us are barely making ends meet. Others are not well, or have close family members who are ill and need extra help. All that said, most of us have more freedom than we use. We must use it or we will lose it. 4. Know a promising young person of any age? If somebody wants to work and make a difference, there are ways we can enable that here. We do have a pretty good time with it too. 5. There is very little practical, public opposition to nuclear weapons in New Mexico, including among some demographic who used to oppose them. Generalities are worse than useless of course. Being against nuclear weapons is more or less like being in favor of motherhood and apple pie. Hopefully you can see how useless and sterile that is. Gestures of purity get boring pretty fast. A new meaningless slogan we have heard is "multilateral disarmament." It sounds like the State Department and it means exactly the opposite of disarmament. Also obviously, complaining about something is not the same as opposing it. Being a victim of things that happened in the past is not the same as opposition to what is happening now -- often, it's an easy substitute. Many wring their hands about New Mexico being a "nuclear colony." It is, but complaining merely is a very colonial thing to do. What are you going to do about it? Some people say they are "against all pit production," which is fine except it butters no parsnips. None. Not one decisionmaker in government -- not one member of Congress and no one in the Executive Branch -- shares that view or will ever share that view as long as the U.S. is an empire and has a military budget half the size of the planet. Not to mention being in an escalating war with a nuclear peer adversary. We are also "against all pit production" as we have often said (e.g. in some detail here), but that and $4 will buy us a cup of coffee Are we against pit production right now, here, or are we among the deluded who conflate potential pit production in the late 2030s with actual pit production this year, as if time, climate change, so many other pertinent realities didn't exist? As we have said (FWIW -- it's too obvious), all paths to disarmament lie through peace with Russia and China. It is idle and irresponsible to talk about nuclear disarmament while remaining silent about the war we in the U.S. have cultivated against Russia. Of course, many people are deeply uninformed about this war. As somebody said the other day, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him think. 6. So let's talk about all this!If you want to do so, please set something up! If we can, we'll come! So look for shorter and more frequently letters henceforth. And please look at the Ukraine page. Discuss it, and take action. If you or your friends are reading or watching the trash that passes for the national press, you cannot help but be misinformed. We need to have, as RFK, Jr. said, a "mature conversation" about Ukraine, as we do about pit production, and some other things. We miss many of you and hope we will have a chance to see you soon, Greg
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