Commentary

Top bidders to run Los Alamos National Laboratory have checkered safety records, Santa Fe New Mexican

May 8, 2018May 9, 2018

http://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/top-bidders-to-run-los-alamos-national-laboratory-have-checkered/article_cf695d0e-33bc-5dda-b5f2-71f3b1561e36.html Comment: Thank you Rebecca and the New Mexican for this introduction, which should beg many questions in curious readers’ minds. While LANL is a… Read More »Top bidders to run Los Alamos National Laboratory have checkered safety records, Santa Fe New Mexican

Questions about projected U.S. plutonium pit production capability

February 24, 2018February 19, 2019

(Previously published in the International Panel on Fissile Materials blog) During her 8 February 2018 Senate confirmation hearings as President Trump’s nominee to be the… Read More »Questions about projected U.S. plutonium pit production capability

Sustainability Requires Resistance

September 27, 2016

By Greg Mello For the Solar Times, Fall 2016 The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled… Read More »Sustainability Requires Resistance

The Crisis at Hand, the Emergency Mode, and the Need for Full-Scale Mobilization

July 31, 2016August 2, 2016

The Crisis at Hand, the Emergency Mode, and the Need for Full-Scale Mobilization [Republished here with this fine graphic, and with a few further edits,… Read More »The Crisis at Hand, the Emergency Mode, and the Need for Full-Scale Mobilization

For diplomats and international disarmament campaigners: “framework” approaches to nuclear disarmament are pernicious

May 20, 2016May 20, 2016

Yesterday I sent the following message to a large number of international disarmament campaigners and a few others. I am posting it here for the… Read More »For diplomats and international disarmament campaigners: “framework” approaches to nuclear disarmament are pernicious

Stewards of the Apocalypse: an abridged history of U.S. nuclear weapons labs since 1989

May 18, 2016May 19, 2016

What follows is a short and very abridged history of these labs since the Cold War, which will help us understand the political dynamics these… Read More »Stewards of the Apocalypse: an abridged history of U.S. nuclear weapons labs since 1989

Abandon fantasies about multilateral nuclear disarmament, embrace what is possible and powerful

April 12, 2016May 19, 2016

Last week we submitted a possible working paper (“Progress in multilateral nuclear disarmament requires a treaty prohibiting the possession, threat, or use of nuclear weapons“)… Read More »Abandon fantasies about multilateral nuclear disarmament, embrace what is possible and powerful

“We must triage the threats we face”

March 14, 2016March 14, 2016

A year ago, during an excellent symposium (“The Dynamics of Possible Nuclear Extinction“) organized by the Helen Caldicott Foundation at the New York Academy of… Read More »“We must triage the threats we face”

Perspectives on the 2016 disarmament “Open-Ended Working Group, ” now beginning

February 8, 2016February 8, 2016

The following letter was sent on January 29, 2016 to fellow campaigners working toward prohibiting nuclear weapons. Subject: Perspectives on the 2016 Open-Ended Working Group,… Read More »Perspectives on the 2016 disarmament “Open-Ended Working Group, ” now beginning

The New York Times gathers a “critical” mass of former insiders now dissing nuclear modernization plans

January 12, 2016February 8, 2016

1/13/16 update: an alert reader (Steve Starr) has noticed an important factual mistake in yesterday’s post, which I have corrected. In the process I’ve added… Read More »The New York Times gathers a “critical” mass of former insiders now dissing nuclear modernization plans

About this blog

Trish and I began this blog as a kind of experiment, to see if we could efficiently share information and commentary with a wider group of people. We do so with trepidation because sharing information and opinions is hardly important unless it draws us closer to you and inspires you to take actions and find words you could not, or did not, take or find before. We hope you in turn will inspire and amaze us. Our electronic media separate as well as connect us. We can hardly communicate without them, but they also seductively draw people away from the world we must build and the person-to-person interactions we most need to do that. We prefer the first and second grammatical persons to the third. There's always a tension between quantity, promptness, and quality, and it is difficult to know how to strike the right balance or if that is possible. So we will make all sorts of mistakes. We want to be as clear as possible, which at times will mean being firm, but we hope not to lose our humility thereby. For a time this blog was called "Enraging Desert," not so much for the fine image of the lion roaring at the enraging desert in Wallace Stevens' poem but for the political and psychological use which James Hillman made of it. (http://lasg.org/wordpress/2013/03/20/re-enraging-desert/) "Forget the rest" refers of course to the Einstein-Russell Manifesto of 1955 (http://www.pugwash.org/about/manifesto.htm) against nuclear armaments and war. The admonition to "[r]emember your humanity" is more commonly recalled, but too many people who promote weapons of mass destruction think they are doing that already. "Forget the rest" points to a much larger cultural challenge, one that is inescapable at this historical moment when two centuries of economic growth are ending. It is also a challenge each of us faces in the course of our lives when we are forced to choose, as we must. "All that's inane / Be swept away as vain." (Goethe, Faust)

We Call for Sanity, Not Nuclear Production

This call is not a petition. It is a visible and public league of solidarity. After endorsing this Call, we encourage businesses and organizations to make their voices heard by calling or writing your elected officials and in other ways. Write letters to editors and guest editorials. Recruit other businesses and organizations to join and do the same.

For individuals, we encourage you to endorse the Call as well, then recruit businesses and organizations to join you in endorsing this Call.

Nearly all our elected officials either support expanded nuclear weapons or are passive. They won’t change until politically forced to do so.