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Action Alert #50 (12/24/05) Best to all in this holiday season and a happy new year of successful nuclear resistance, policy intervention, and scholarship! Contents of this alert: 1. Very important subscription information! 1. Very important subscription information! If you received this email directly from lasg@lists.riseup.net, you are subscribed to the national listserve of the Los Alamos Study Group. We will use this list very sparingly, perhaps once per month or even less. Many of you would like more information and more frequent updates. To get them, you must subscribe (send a blank email) to lasgnewmex-subscribe@lists.riseup.net, even if you think you might be subscribed to that list already. That list (lasgnewmex) became quite large and gradually less distinguishable from the national list, so we purged it to avoid sending unwanted email to people less interested in a) local details and b) more arcane aspects of national issues. If you 2. We welcome your contributions We welcome and depend upon your contributions more than you might imagine. You can support our work by credit card or electronic check at http://www.lasg.org/contribute.htm. 3. Los Alamos National Security LLC (LANS) wins contract to manage Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) You've probably read about this outcome in the news this week; you can find our reaction and some background on the “winners” at http://lasg.org/PressRelease12-21-05.htm. Background on the losers, especially Lockheed-Martin, can be found at http://lasg.org/technical/LockheedMartin.htm. A new table of prime contractors who run the National Nuclear Security Administrations (Nasals) nuclear weapons complex is available at Given the mission and the two bidders, we think, on balance, that NNSA chose the lesser evil. There are no good contractors for LANL's bad missions, of course. This particular contractor includes two of the biggest war profiteers currently operating in Iraq and Afghanistan (Bechtel and Washington Group), a nuclear weapons manufacturer (BWXT), as well as UC – which is, as of this writing, still the number 1 contractor for weapons of mass destruction in the world, with BWXT running a close second. There are of course several other research and writing projects going on here. If you think you'd like to help with these other projects, which centrally have to do with nuclear weapons policy, please contact us. We welcome volunteer research help, student internships for credit, and
professional collaborations, on a case-by-case basis. 4. Upcoming regular meetings The Study Group meets weekly on Fridays at 2:30 pm (previously 2 pm -- this is a change!) at Cloud Cliff Bakery, Café, and Art Space at 1805 2nd Street in Santa Fe, and weekly on Tuesdays at 6 pm at the RB Winnings Coffee House at 111 Harvard St. SE, Albuquerque. Meetings will
be suspended during the week after Christmas. 5. Los Alamos Disarmament Center happenings Our new Los Alamos Disarmament Center opened its doors to the public on December 10. Located in downtown Los Alamos at 1362 A-2 Trinity Drive, midway between Trinity Drive and Central Avenue, and about 300 feet due south of the Bradbury Science Museum, the Center provides an important educational presence in the Los Alamos community. At the Center you will find a small bookstore of nuclear disarmament related books, videos, papers, and other materials, a "counter-museum" anchored by an exhibit sent from the Hiroshima Peace Museum, as well as research facilities and internet access available to visiting disarmament scholars and activists (by prior arrangement only). The Center is largely staffed by volunteer docents. Being a docent is an excellent way to get more involved in disarmament work and to learn more about the issues. If you are interested in volunteering, please contact Fatima at 505-265-1200 or at twm@lasg.org. Docents are involved in a variety of projects at the Center, where they can use and develop their own unique skills and engage their interests as well as greet and assist visitors. Give us a call! No prior nuclear expertise is needed; that will come with experience. (We are also interested in donations of books, videos, and documents - as well as operating funds, of course.) 6. The Call for Nuclear Disarmament – opportunities available The list of endorsers to the Call for Nuclear Disarmament (at http://www.lasg.org) is gradually growing. We'd like it to grow faster, of course, and we are willing to raise money for allied groups who would like to help us. We find that it typically takes very roughly 30 minutes to sign up a business, and we are willing to pay $4 for each business your organization recruits. This might be perfect for the youth group at your church, for example. Of course we welcome volunteers, too! Interested individuals and organizations can contact Fatima at 505-265-1200 or at twm@lasg.org for more information on how they or their organization can be involved in this important campaign. It's possible we are approaching a "tipping point" in organizational sign-ons in New Mexico. If an organization you know hasn't signed on, whether you are based in New Mexico or elsewhere, please consider asking them to do so! Most of the hangers-back can't quite say what holds them
back – just some vague fear, perhaps. You might be the one whose gentle nudge is decisive for them. You can see who has endorsed on our web site. Anyone can sign on electronically at http://www.lasg.org. 7. Yard billboard campaign to kick off in January We now have our first few donated locations and a little seed money to kick off our "yard billboard" campaign. If you'd like to host a disarmament related billboard on your property or in your yard of any size, call Fatima at 505-265-1200 and we will confer with you regarding messages and images, and include your billboard in our initial "roll-out." This too is a volunteer-intensive project, so if you can help, we accept! 8. Los Alamos Summer Disarmament Intensive, July 5 to August 6 Plans for this year's Los Alamos Summer Disarmament Intensive are coming together. It will be a hands-on school for policy intervention and resistance, with a particular focus on nuclear disarmament and located in a particular (and very important) place. The program will feature:
Current plans involve a daily schedule that begins with public outreach to laboratory employees at various locations during the early morning, followed by refreshments and discussion. The latter part of the morning will be devoted to workshops and seminars. Afternoons will be for individual and group project work. Evenings are available for recreation, in-depth discussion with individuals associated with LANL, and other events. There will be ample opportunity and support for individual creativity; all the projects demand it in one way or another. The program is open to upper division college students, graduate students, the young at heart, and for experienced disarmament scholar-activists who would like to join us here in New Mexico this coming summer. A modest tuition will be charged on a sliding scale, and scholarships will be available. Space is limited. For more information on the program and how to apply, or to find out more about volunteering as a program mentor, contact Fatima Portugal at twm@lasg.org or Greg Mello at gmello@lasg.org. 9. January newsletter Our upcoming newsletter will feature in-depth articles on the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW, a new warhead program that just sailed through Congress without significant opposition); an update on seismic issues at LANL; more on LANL management issues; an update on prospects for closure of the Area G nuclear waste dump, news on prospects for international
citizen inspections, and a few more tidbits. Watch your mailbox. If you want to be sure you get a copy and aren't sure if you are on our mailing list, drop a line to Trish Williams-Mello at twm@lasg.org. 10. “Hiroshima 60” DVDs, T-shirts for sale We have a 20-minute video of the events of August 6, 2005 in Los Alamos, made for us by Half-Life Digital of Albuquerque, available for $10. You can pick one up at the Los Alamos Disarmament Center or here at our Albuquerque office (2901 Summit Place NE). If you like we will mail you one for $15, postage and handling included. We still have a fairly complete stock of excellent full color, organic, non-sweatshop, commemorative T-shirts available for $15. Printed on two sides, the front features a small sunflower and the words, "August 6, 2005/Los Alamos, NM." The back says "It started here, let’s stop it here," with a large graphic of a hand blocking a nuclear explosion, with the words "Hiroshima 60 Years/August 6, 2005/Los Alamos, NM," "Los Alamos Study Group," and "www.lasg.org." We also have "regular" Study Group T-shirts, which have a small logo on the left side of the chest and, on the back, "Mere praise of peace is easy, but ineffective. What is needed is active participation in the fight against war and everything that leads to it. – Albert Einstein." These T-shirts are also made of organic cotton and are "sweatshop-free." You can order and pay for any of these on-line at the secure donation portal (http://www.lasg.org/contribute.htm). Just tell us that you want in the comment field. For T-shirts, tell us what size you want (S, M, L, or XL). 11. Thank you to everyone involved for a wonderful year! It has been a wonderful year for us here at the Study Group. We've never worked harder, faced a more difficult political climate – or had more fun. We counted up some 24 public events in the first 8 months of the year, and that was just a small part of the whole. What successes we've had and what joys we've known have been entirely due to the generosity of our volunteers and donors, which has been little short of incredible. I don't want to start a list of names in this email, because I would not know where to stop. But on behalf of the overworked staff, our very generous board of directors, on behalf of Trish and I – and, if I can be very frank, on behalf of the prior generations of activists whose work and sacrifice we honor, the nuclear victims, and the future generations who depend on each of us for their very existence – thank you for your companionship, which sustains us together. "Fellowship is heaven, and lack of fellowship is hell: fellowship is life, and lack of fellowship is death: and the deeds that ye do upon the earth, it is for fellowship's sake that ye do them, and the life that is in it, that shall live on and on forever, and each one of you part of it, while many a man's life upon the earth from the earth shall wane." The new year will test us all. Let’s enter it with confidence, determined to successfully resist and discredit the apocalyptic violence of nuclear weapons. Greg Mello Of special interest to New Mexicans Of national interest, at least to a few If you can help support our programs please do so; you can donate here. Welcome to our new Outreach Director, Fatima Portugal, and new Research Associate, Damon Hill! Of special interest to New Mexicans (and perhaps others as well): It’s been a long time since our last email update, and a great deal has been happening in the nuclear weapons business and here at the Study Group. This isn’t the place to summarize everything but suffice it to say that as we approach the end of 2005, the stage is set for significant changes in the nuke business. What changes, and whether they are for good or for ill, depend more than ever on what we citizens do. What can we do? Here are five efficient and effective ways to get rid of nuclear weapons: a. Help us reach our goal for this year of 500 New Mexico endorsements to the Call for Nuclear Disarmament – and help us keep going after that. As of this week, 258 businesses and 87 organizations in New Mexico, along with 69 national organizations and 4 international organizations (one with more than 2,000 member organizations in dozens of countries) have endorsed the Call for Nuclear Disarmament. (See www.lasg.org for the text of the Call and how to endorse it if your group or business hasn’t already done so.) Thousands of individuals have also endorsed the Call, including some elected officials. As you can imagine, this permanent “registry of resistance” is very politically useful. It will be still more useful as it continues to grow. It is, for example, a foundation for city disarmament resolutions, like the recent ones in Santa Fe (passed on April 13th, 2005) and Taos (pending). [please link to text of Santa Fe resolution] Anyone can use them freely for a broad range of antinuclear lobbying efforts, and they are useful as well in all interventions with the laboratories and their federal overseers. It’s public list – anybody can use it to work more powerfully for nuclear disarmament! The Call is growing. Recently, the Northern New Mexico Citizens Advisory Board (NNMCAB) endorsed, in effect, an important part of the Call when they recommended stopping the nuclear dumping at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). Their recommendation echoes arguments we have been making for years. See http://www.nnmcab.org/ recommendations/recommendation-2005-10.pdf and our comment here. The New Mexico Conference of Churches has endorsed the Call, the first such step for them in 40 years. The Coalition to Repeal the Death Penalty has also endorsed it (and we look forward to more legislative work with them in the next session!). I am sure you see how a larger number of endorsements would be even more effective for demonstrating business, organizational, and religious support for nuclear disarmament in New Mexico – and for the growth of a politics based on human and environmental security. If you think about it, these two goals are really just two sides of a single coin: less weapons of mass destruction = more security. If each of us pitches in, the Call will grow. Each one of us has connections with one or more businesses, and each one of us, if we stop to think about it, is involved with one or more organizations, probably several. If we just sign up the people and organizations we know, we will quickly reach many, many people and organizations. The resistance we sometimes feel in talking to our friends and acquaintances about nuclear disarmament or stopping nuclear dumping is nothing more than the “active edge” of political and social change. It’s supposed to be just a little bit challenging; if it weren’t, nothing would be happening! Social change happens one conversation at a time, and if we want political change we have to have those conversations. We are the only ones that can make this happen. Change means change, not ideas about change. The irreducible quantum of energy necessary for this change is just our own, the first person singular. There are now 345 business and organizational endorsements. When we reach 500, we will hold a press conference. Perhaps there will be ensuing publicity, and if so that will bring even more endorsements! With each endorsement, and each news article, the remaining ones get a little easier, and those reluctant to sign – sometimes for very good reasons – get a little more motivated to join the rest of us. To motivate ourselves, consider this: if we can’t stop militarism of the worst sort right in our own back yard, where can we stop it? If we can’t ask our friends and associates, whom can we ask? Here is the place, now is the time, and we are the people! More information on the Call can be found at www.lasg.org , or you can call us at 505-265-1200. Endorsements are simplest on-line (on-line signup is broken right now, but should be back up in a few days). Endorsement forms, brochures, petitions, and other supplies can also be picked up at our office (2901 Summit Place NE, Albuquerque, NM 87106) or at Cloud Cliff Restaurant in Santa Fe (1805 Second Street). We can also mail them to you. We will support your efforts in any and every way. Lastly, if you live in New Mexico, are very interested in participating in this campaign but not sure you can afford to help much, or know of others in the same boat, talk to us. Creative solutions may be possible. b. Be a docent at our new Los Alamos Disarmament Center. Our new Disarmament Center will be opening on December 10 in downtown Los Alamos, across the street from the Bradbury “Science” Museum. The Center will be a resource and outreach center where any and all can find an alternative perspective, visiting activists and interns can work, from which citizen inspections can be launched, and where discussions can be held. We are looking for volunteer docents to help staff the Center. If you think you might be interested in being a part-time docent, please contact Fatima at 505-265-1200 or at twm@lasg.org. Being a docent will be a great way to reach out to the public and the lab community, to learn about the issues -- and to practice non-violent communication. It will also be a supportive place from which to work on the Call and other projects. c. Host a small billboard. Since 1998, the Study Group has been challenging nuclear weapons policy using billboards along major highways, mostly between the Albuquerque airport and Los Alamos. These billboards, of which there have been 15, have been seen more than 100 million times by hundreds of thousands of people. They have been very cost-effective, but they are suddenly getting much more expensive. We hope to supplement our remaining billboards with many smaller billboards along highways, roads, and streets, especially (but not just) in areas of high traffic flow. These small billboards can be made in a variety of sizes and shapes and can display a variety of messages. Various production methods are possible. Will you help with this campaign? Above all we need volunteer hosts for cool, kick-ass signs. And we want YOUR design and messaging ideas (but be forewarned: most of our collective ideas end up on the cutting room floor). And we need volunteers to install these signs. If you want to help in any way with this project, contact Fatima at 505-265-1200 or twm@lasg.org. d. Donate money. Ask your friends to do so. Guess what, it takes money to make these things happen. We can’t do these things without raising money from somewhere. And this is by no means an easy thing to do. Many people are now effectively poorer than they used to be, and the middle class is dwindling fast. Fuel costs are very high, and the victims of human and natural disasters need urgent help. Still, nuclear weapons are our particular “little” problem in New Mexico, our own special contribution to the world’s woes. A lot of people, including some very nice Democrats, are prepared to allow New Mexico to be a sacrifice zone, absorbing even more nuclear programs like plutonium pit production. So if we don’t stop these terrible programs, who will? New Mexico is a pivotal site. It is no exaggeration to say that what happens here could determine the future of nuclear weapons worldwide. Leave aside for a moment the question of where we give – of where and how we apply our talents, attention, and resources. The key thing for all of us to realize is that whatever we do, we cannot hold back any longer. Folks, the torch of humanity has been handed to us, and it is guttering. We have to rise to the occasion or the flame it will go out. Whatever we decide do, we must really do it. To protect life, even to be fully human in a time such as this, we must act. We must deeply understand and accept that, however difficult things become, “we were born for such a time as this.” We who fancy ourselves free must now measure our freedom by the scope and effectiveness of our active, prudential compassion, because that is what is required. Now, most of us don’t have much money. There is, however, more than enough money in our communities to rid the world of nuclear weapons and to accomplish a huge amount besides. Changing the direction of expenditures in our communities, from things we as individuals don’t really need to the things we as a community really do all need – which includes nuclear disarmament – is really a kind of social change itself. If you want to help our programs you can donate by credit card or electronic check at our secure portal (http://www.lasg.org /contribute.htm), or send a check by mail. You can also call us to arrange a gift of stock or other equity. e. Subscribe to our newsletter. If you want to know more about developments in nuclear disarmament and related issues, with special emphasis on developments here in New Mexico, please consider subscribing to our new monthly newsletter, which will come to you via snail mail if you ask The first issue will be coming out in late November and will be free. Subsequent issues require a subscription at whatever level of support is comfortable for you, starting at $5 per month. This arrangement will help defray some of our costs, which we have to do, and at the same time help bring our community of supporters together in a way we can’t achieve by email and web publication. We hope you will find the newsletter informative and useful and we anticipate that it will be the primary outlet and nexus for the growing Los Alamos Study Group community. To subscribe, we also want you to endorse the Call for Nuclear Disarmament. Our culture has more than enough raw information. We want to re-link information, values, and common action. To subscribe send an email to Fatima at twm@lasg.org, indicating your desired level of monthly support. (You can change this at any time.) Be sure and include your mailing address if you suspect we don’t have it. a. In Santa Fe We’ll be having planning and program meetings at CloudCliff Bakery Café, 1805 Second St. in Santa Fe at 2:00 pm every Friday. While not possible for everyone, this time seems to work as well as any other. If you can, come on down to CloudCliff, have a cup of tea, and join your friends in working for nuclear disarmament! b. In Albuquerque We’ll be meeting this week at Irysh Mac’s Coffee Shop, 110 Yale Blvd., at 6:00 pm Monday evening, November 7. Come one, come all! Nuclear weapons budgets are now under greater pressure than at any time in the past decade, and this pressure will continue indefinitely, or increase. The causes are many: record federal deficits, two very expensive foreign wars, neglected flood control and other infrastructure needs, failures in the management of nuclear weapons programs as well as conceptual and technical failures in the programs themselves, inadequate security and mounting security costs, massive duplication in nuclear facilities and programs, and Mr. Bush’s tax cuts, among other causes. In this milieu, the Republican-led House Appropriations Committee has called for deep arsenal reductions, based on 1) its perception that the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. security is very limited, and on 2) its desire to direct money for other purposes. The Secretary of Energy Advisory Board (SEAB) has openly discussed the downsizing or closure of some or many existing nuclear weapons facilities, although at the same time they say they want to build a new nuclear weapons complex in a single location. What is most valuable in the SEAB discussion is their frank acknowledgement of the redundancies and potential economies around the complex, and their acknowledgement of management failures at LANL’s 27-year-old plutonium facility, TA-55. Meanwhile international criticism of U.S. nuclear policies is widespread, increasing, and potent. This criticism is in turn just part of an unprecedented, widespread discomfort with U.S. foreign policy generally. It is in fact the U.S., much more than any other country, which impedes nuclear disarmament discussions in virtually every international forum, and it is the U.S. alone which has impeded progress in bilateral disarmament vis-à-vis Russia since the end of the Cold War. There is nothing like the Cold War holding up the size of U.S. arsenals, and U.S. behavior under these circumstances has been nothing short of shameful. This too is an opportunity, if we make our outrage known. There is a wide consensus against nuclear proliferation, and there is a treaty binding on the U.S. which requires complete nuclear disarmament (not “progress on disarmament” or any other similarly vague and ultimately meaningless formulation). Nonproliferation and disarmament, however, are really just two sides of the same coin, a truth that polls show a large majority of Americans understand. These realities, which together comprise a great opportunity to disinvest in nuclear weapons, are not adequately emphasized. Bringing our gaze home now to New Mexico, we find that our state is home to nearly half of all U.S. warhead spending. If the Pantex Plant near Amarillo is included, it is more than half. Los Alamos is the only place where plutonium cores or “pits” for new U.S. weapons can be made until at least 2020, and literally billions of dollars are being spent and committed there for this unpopular mission. This manufacturing is to be substantially conducted in aging facilities under controversial safety protocols, and new plutonium infrastructure investments exceeding $1 billion are planned. Morale and productivity are however low, and serious fundamental problems have already been discovered that await community, public, and congressional awareness. These and other realities provide New Mexicans with a powerful policy voice. Our actions can change national policies, and our actions can also prevent bad policies from being successfully implemented, as they have done many times in the past. When forced to accommodate new realities, policy changes, perforce. Bold leadership, including financial leadership, is needed to take advantage of these very favorable circumstances. Disinvestment in nuclear weapons is critically important for our nation and the world, poised as we all are to enter very turbulent times already characterized by imperial overstretch and military failure. Such disinvestment is also critically important for us in New Mexico. Although not sufficient, such a change is an absolutely necessary part of any solution to New Mexico’s serious economic and social problems. Historically, our state’s decline relative to other states is contemporaneous (and inversely correlated with) growth in nuclear weapons spending. Politically, none of our problems can be solved until we can claim for ourselves a different kind of politics, one in which people and the land come first, rather than weapons and especially weapons of mass destruction. Any politics requiring a commitment to human dignity, whether at the state or the national scale, is incompatible with tacit support for nuclear weapons. Of national interest (for a few, anyway!): 1. Disinvestment in nuclear weapons – an aspect of the path forward? Many people say “Nuclear weapons will never be abolished.” Yet nuclear weapons could be effectively “abolished” in a real sense fairly promptly, if we in the arms control and disarmament community chose to press home our many political advantages. This process need not be well-organized – in fact, it cannot be – but it is certainly advanced by the clarity and publicity of our common commitment to complete nuclear disarmament. Decay and death is inevitable for institutions as it is for individuals. Forestalling the eventuality of decay is, in fact, what nuclear weapons managers worry about a lot. Dozens of reports have been written about the subject at the national level and at the labs. The poorly-founded military justifications for new weapons aren’t the strongest reasons new weapons are desired, even needed, by the weapons complex – continuity, “end-to-end” work, and ideological vitality are. What is the nuclear weapons complex, after all? Is it just the f acilities– owned and operated by DOE/NNSA, the DoD, and their contractors and subcontractors? Or just the facilities plus the m ateriel: the nuclear weapons and materials, the delivery systems, the command & control system? M oney is also needed: federal appropriations, supported by federal receipts and borrowing. People make up the complex too, in the executive branch, the uniformed military, the contractors at the labs and plants and elsewhere, and in Congress. There’s more, however, to the weapons complex than this, as the weapons community has been telling us. Knowledge is also essential: objective, tacit, and institutional forms of knowledge. Some of these are quite perishable, and considerable effort has been expended on this problem, with mixed and I would say wasting success. All this is not enough, however, to sustain nuclear weapons. Equally required are certain beliefs, ideologies, and commitments . The weapons complex simply cannot operate without these intangible moral factors in place, which are a necessary aspect of all operations, as well as recruitment and retention of staff. They are closely allied in turn with the legitimacy, authority, morale, and justification for the enterprise as a whole. These intangible factors are the key to a practical political understanding of the quest for novel nuclear weapons. In this realm, disarmament advocates have the advantage. This complex of intangible factors, which arise indirectly from considerations of conscience, are the soft underbelly of the beast, a most efficient place to attack. Our strength in these arenas is indicated by polls. Polls show large, even huge, majorities in every country in favor of mutual nuclear abolition. In the U.S., attempts to prevent proliferation while retaining our nuclear weapons were less than one-fourth as popular as nuclear abolition in an AP/Ipsos poll earlier this year. The peace and security community has, in spite of this, largely chosen a strategy of nonproliferation disassociated from disarmament – a strategy which, polls suggest, is quite unpopular with Americans when compared to universal nuclear disarmament and a universal norm of non-possession. Such an unbalanced approach will not do for us so well, and for many more reasons than we have time to enumerate here. Our narrow purpose, however, is to look at how disinvestment could become de facto disarmament. Conventional analyses of state power say the state will cling indefinitely to nuclear weapons, but there are other possibilities. When nuclear weapons are no longer a “growth industry,” when they are no longer associated with society’s creative forces, something happens to their social and political legitimacy, which very much affects their perceived political/military value – that is, the “credibility of nuclear deterrence,” and the likelihood of nuclear use. They become “not useful” in whole new ways, to whole new classes of people and whole new sectors of the policy-making community. Surely nuclear weapons have been useful to somebody or the U.S. would not have spent $7.3 trillion (in today’s dollars) over 63 years to build and maintain them. We know to whom they have been useful, and how. But in many ways nuclear weapons have never been useful, including in war. The arenas or spheres of discourse in which nuclear weapons are tacitly understood by policy elites not to be useful could expand, and could even expand by neglect and forgetfulness if we allow them. These are, in effect, the “nuclear free zones” in our own national consciousness and prospect. Nuclear weapons could go the way of some other mistakes this country has made, like Native American genocide: no real apology, but a desire to forget and move on. We Americans do have better things to do, don’t we? In fact we do, and we are beginning to collectively realize this fact. “Poll: No Nation Should Have Nuke Weapons; AP Poll Finds Most Americans Believe No Country Should Have Nuclear Weapons, Not Even U.S,” Will Lester, Associated Press, Mar. 30, 2005, article available at http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=628195 and poll available at: A more detailed poll from the previous year is that of the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA), “Americans on WMD Proliferation,” Stephen Kull, et. al., April 15, 2004, at http://www.pipa.org/OnlineReports/WMD/WMDreport_04_15_04.pdf . Or you can access the document from our website here. When PIPA researchers asked Americans if they support full nuclear disarmament in the context of an existing treaty (the NPT), 84% supported nuclear abolition. This past weekend, a record number of citizens came to (and from within) Los Alamos to press for nuclear disarmament and to call for a stop to plutonium bomb core (“pit”) production. The main, joint events then started, at about 10:30 am. The crowd present grew as the morning progressed; we estimate that at noon , after some of the news media had filed their stories (and just before it began to rain), there were about 950 people present. Whatever the number, there were clearly more people than ever before at any prior disarmament event in Los Alamos . Still more people arrived in the late afternoon, partially replacing those who filtered home or to other engagements elsewhere. People came from Japan , Canada , Colorado , Indiana , Washington , California , New York , from around New Mexico , and from many other places. The nearly 5,000 sunflowers grown by Ben and Molly Schwartz of Corrales added a great deal to the event. Participants ended up giving most of them away to the Los Alamos community at the end of the day, handing them to motorists passing by on Central Avenue who were (mostly) glad to be offered them. The speakers, music, and workshops were terrific. I attended the two afternoon workshops on a “post-nuclear”economy for New Mexico led by Michael Oden and Bill Weida, whose presentations greatly interested audiences and led to very lively Q&A sessions. A little after noon we had a quite interesting and useful exchange in front of the Los Alamos Post Office in which Santa Fe City Councilor David Coss presented to Los Alamos County Council Chair Fran Berting Santa Fe’s recent strong nuclear disarmament resolution, recommending it as a possible starting point for similar discussions in Los Alamos. Then a special appeal from the Mayor of Hiroshima (attached below) was also presented to Ms. Berting. Mr. Coss and visiting hibakusha Mr. Koji Ueda and Mrs. Masako Hashida were accompanied by a large crowd carrying sunflowers. By the time we finished, the rain was over and the sun was shining again. Ms. Berting, a Republican, speaking on behalf of the Council, expressed a desire for a world free of nuclear weapons. We don’t yet have an exact copy of her prepared remarks. For many people, the high point of the event came in the evening, when 3,000 floating candle lanterns made by Dragonfly Sanctuary of Madrid, NM and many volunteers were set adrift in Ashley Pond, accompanied by a recording of Samuel Barber’s “Adagio” for strings, Opus 11. The three thousand little flames in their golden mantles crossing the water to the other shore, with ducks and geese weaving placidly between them and bats flitting across the surface of the water, were very beautiful and moving. Quite a few people from the Los Alamos community were attracted by all these doings, and in several instances local townspeople sincerely thanked those working on the event. LANL staff visited the booths of participating organizations; interesting conversations ensued. Local and visiting Buddhists brought a dignified and introspective presence. They were mostly organized under the banners of Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe , Kannon Zendo in Los Alamos , and the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. The Buddhists joined in solidarity with Pax Christi in the sackcloth and ashes witness, helping swell the overall numbers and contribute to the success of that event. From my own perspective, the best part of the day was not just the day per se but, more so, the solid work done by dozens of individuals and groups that contributed to everything that happened. This quiet, unheralded, generous work, in which so much nobility was shown by many, is really success itself, the post-nuclear society prefigured. It also augurs very well for an increased level of political leadership and participation on the nuclear disarmament issue in New Mexico in the coming months and years. We'll get pictures from the event up on our web site next week, after a short vacation. Best to all, Greg and the Study Group gang P.S. Attached please find the letter from Mayor Akiba to the Los Alamos town council and some of the press coverage, which began in Albuquerque and Santa Fe in Thursday's newspapers with lovely color pictures of Mr. Ueda and Mrs. Hashida beginning the sunflower harvest. Letter from Mayor Akiba to the Los Alamos County Council August 1, 2005
<>Such principles as these are not just basic human morality, and in their practical application also a binding legal requirement, but they are also widely accepted by citizens in both our countries. Tadatoshi Akiba <>http://www.abqjournal.com/north/377338north_news08-04-05.htm <>URL: http://www.abqjournal.com/north/377336north_news08-04-05.htm <>http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-Hiroshima.html ''No more Hiroshimas. No more Nagasakis,'' Ueda said. ''We send this message to our friends all over the world, along with a fresh determination of the 'hibakusha' (atomic bomb survivors) to continue to tell about Hiroshima and Nagasaki , aiming at a planet set free of wars of nuclear weapons.'' <>In Oak Ridge, Tenn., 15 protesters from a group of more than 1,000 were arrested for blocking a road outside the heavily guarded weapons factory that helped fuel the bomb during World War II http://www.abqjournal.com/north/378326north_news08-07-05.htm Dear read a letter that was later presented to the Los Alamos County Council from Tadatoshi Akiba, the mayor of Hiroshima. back to top back to
top 1. Nuclear Disarmament Groups to Commemorate 60th Anniversary
of Hiroshima, Nagasaki at Los Alamos back
to top Dear friends -- As we in New Mexico approach the 60th anniversary of the first nuclear explosion (Trinity) and the nuclear attacks at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, several important events are planned, including this week!!. Please come!! Even if you have other plans, we hope you will set them aside to participate, as the increasing violence that mars our world will not be stopped without our serious effort. I think you'll find these events quite rewarding. We hope you will join us! If you have time and want to help with event planning, logistics, or outreach, there is a great deal to do even though a large number of people are working together to make these events happen. We would very much welcome your help! Greg, for the Study Group community 1. "Mightier than the Sword: Poets, Writers Address the Nuclear Age" (Santa Fe venue) Friday, July 15, 7:00pm On Friday, Albuquerque poet Mary Oishi will be emceeing the event, which will feature anti-nuclear poets John Bradley and William Witherup; poet, author, educator, and Santa Fe resident Elaine Maria Upton; award-winning playwright, actor, producer, author, and educator Karen Jones Meadows; and Northern New Mexico poet Judyth Hill. After an intermission, the second half of each show will be led by poets from our communities reading in a round-robin fashion from an open microphone. Citizen-poets are encouraged, one and all, to bring their poems to share with others! There will be a silent auction at each event to raise money for the big August 6 commemoration and teach-in in Los Alamos (see http://www.lasg.org /Hiroshima60.htm). If you want to donate to the silent auction, call Claire at the Los Alamos Study Group at 265-1200. Tickets are $10 for both events. They are available at the door and online, at www.lasg.org , for both events. Tickets for Friday’s event are also available at Collected Works Bookstore and Nicholas Potter Books in Santa Fe. Tickets for Saturday’s event are available at Page One, Bookworks, and The Book Stop in Albuquerque. We’re having these events because the nuclear story, in which all of us in New Mexico occupy center stage either as actors or scenery, has not been adequately or truthfully told. Factual truths as well as emotional truths, moral truths as well as spiritual truths, are still denied. The truths denied exceed prose in any case. The shadow of denial lengthens each year, making the job of communicating accurately and succinctly ever more difficult. Milan Kundera famously said “The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.” On Friday and Saturday we will remember – remember and take stock, and inspire ourselves for the choices we must all make in the challenging years ahead. Business Sponsors: ABQ Arts, Eldorado Sun, Plants of the Southwest
Saturday, July 16, 7:00 pm On Saturday, Bill Witherup, John Bradley, and Karen Jones Meadows will perform, this time joined by Mary Oishi and by poet, playwright, and educator Maisha Baton. Business Sponsors: ABQ Arts, Eldorado Sun, 4 Alarm Services, Stone Design,
If you are in Albuquerque (and therefore not at the "Mightier" poetry reading in Santa Fe, the other cool place to be), PLEASE COME! Friday July 15, 4:30 pm On Friday and Saturday, July 15 & 16, the National Atomic Museum will mark the 60th anniversary of the first nuclear explosion on earth with an “action packed” parody of the Manhattan project, featuring a cocktail party & dinner, 1940s fashion & car show, and a panel discussion. A “secret identity,” “dossier,” and “secret entrance” will help establish the farcical atmosphere (“Relive the drama, secrecy, excitement, and awe”). Also attending Friday's festivities will be Ms. Shigeko Sasamori, who was one mile from the hypocenter of the explosion on August 6, 1945. Ms. Sasamori, who barely survived, was so badly burned that her parents could not tell the front of her head from the back. In the mid-1950s, she received extensive plastic surgery at Mt. Sinai Hospital as one of the celebrated “Hiroshima Maidens,” brought to the U.S. over State Department objections by author and activist Norman Cousins. Ms. Sasamori, now 73 and living in Los Angeles, has spoken widely for nuclear disarmament. Ms. Sasamori, who is being hosted by the Los Alamos Study Group, will be accompanied by citizens who will disseminate information about the use of nuclear weapons in World War II and other pertinent information. Outside the museum, images of the devastation wrought by the nuclear weapons celebrated in the Museum will be displayed. These images were recently sent by the Hiroshima Peace Museum, which (needless to say) has a diametrically different "take" on the outcome of the Manhattan Project from the museum in Albuquerque. Outside, the Study Group will be joined by other members of the “Trinity Truth Alliance,” involving several Albuquerque peace and justice organizations including Stop the War Machine and the Albuquerque Center for Peace and Justice. Endorsements for this dignified demonstration are now flowing in from around the state, thanks to the outreach efforts of Stop the War Machine. The National Atomic Museum (NAM) is substantially funded by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which designs and manufactures U.S. nuclear weapons. Funding or other assistance is also obtained from the NNSA nuclear weapon contractors and other military and nuclear industry contractors and vendors. Senator Domenici has placed a proposed appropriation of $2.5 million for the NAM in the Senate version of the Energy and Water Appropriations bill; there appears to be no such provision in the House version of the bill. Like the Bradbury Science Museum in Los Alamos and other nuclear museums currently operating and planned elsewhere in the U.S., the NAM presents U.S. nuclear weapons in a positive light, and minimizes or omits entirely – * The gruesome and lingering human effects of nuclear weapon use; * The binding legal requirement for complete nuclear disarmament under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), which was ratified by the U.S. Senate in 1970 and has been, since then, the cornerstone of global efforts to prevent nuclear proliferation; * International legal norms and treaties that made the indiscriminate bombing of cities illegal during World War II (over 60 cities were firebombed by the U.S. in Japan); * The racist propaganda used to motivate airmen and civilians who conducted these mass murders; * The economic impacts of the nuclear weapons manufacture and deployment; * The global environmental devastation wrought by nuclear weapons and nuclear power technologies, which are closely related in the materials production ; * The moral and psychological harm done to our society by nuclear weapons policies. Scientifically speaking, the NAM has a great many factual and scientific errors in its displays as regards the health effects of radiation. There was very little new ‘science’ in the Trinity test, as the scientists at Los Alamos observed at the time. It was an engineering project. That first test was all about making a supremely powerful weapon of war, which was promptly used on cities composed primarily of civilian noncombatants. The National Atomic Museum glorifies weapons of mass destruction and the work that creates and sustains them. How can we glorify absolute violence and expect to have nonviolent, peaceful lives? Why should anyone be surprised to find that other nations and peoples are beginning to seek what we have never, despite clear legal requirements, renounced? How can we sow the wind and not expect to reap the whirlwind? There's nothing like glorification of instruments of anticipatory genocide to get the public to accept the threat of mass violence as normative, or at least something too lavishly supported by authorities to bother protesting. The use of farce and irony in neutralizing concerns while memorializing questionable and sometimes illegal and immoral activities has been pioneered by the International Spy Museum (see http://www.spymuseum.org/index.asp). Important contextual material for the ongoing efforts of the National Atomic Museum to celebrate the bomb and its authors past and present can be found at http://www.atomicheritage.org/. Friday-Sunday, July 29-31 Schedule: Friday July 29 Saturday July 30 Sunday July 31 About the Speakers: Dr. John Burroughs is an accomplished specialist on treaty regimes and international law relating to nuclear and other non-conventional weapons. He represents LCNP in Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) review proceedings, the United Nations, and other international forums. In 1998, Dr. Burroughs represented LCNP at the negotiations on the International Criminal Court in Rome, and in 1995, he was the nongovernmental legal coordinator at the hearings on nuclear weapons before the International Court of Justice. Dr. Burroughs is co-editor of Rule of Power or Rule of Law? An Assessment of U.S. Policies and Actions Regarding Security-Related Treaties, Apex Press, 2003, to which he contributed the chapter on the NPT, and author of The Legality of Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons: A Guide to the Historic Opinion of the International Court of Justice, Transaction Publishers, 1998. He has published articles in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and the World Policy Journal, most recently co-authoring "Arms Control Abandoned: The Case of Biological Weapons" (World Policy Journal, summer 2003). He is an adjunct professor of international law at Rutgers Law School, Newark, where he teaches a seminar on legal controls on weapons of mass and indiscriminate destruction. He has a J.D. and Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley and a B.A. from Harvard. Jacqueline Cabasso is the Executive Director of WSLF, where she has worked since 1984. As WSLF's principal organizer, she is responsible for community education, media, networking, client coordination and fundraising. Ms. Cabasso frequently writes for and travels on behalf of WSLF, speaking at public hearings, conferences and rallies, and meeting with organizers throughout the world. She is a leading voice worldwide for nuclear weapons abolition, with a firm command of technical and policy details as well as of overall political and historical dimensions. She is a dynamic speaker, in demand at events across North America, Europe, and Asia. Greg Mello Greg Mello is the Executive Director of the Los Alamos Study Group. Since co-founding the Study Group in 1989, Mr. Mello has led the Study Group in its research on the activities of the U.S. nuclear weapons complex and in environmental review and analysis, as well as congressional education, community organizing, litigation, and advertising. From time to time, Mr. Mello has served as a consulting analyst and writer for other nuclear policy organizations. Mr. Mello was originally educated as an engineer (Harvey Mudd College, 1971, with distinction) and regional planner (Harvard, 1975, HUD Fellow in Urban Studies). In 2002, Mr. Mello was a Visiting Research Fellow at Princeton’s Program on Science and Global Security, working on underground nuclear weapons effects. He is a member of the Governing Council of the worldwide Abolition 2000 nuclear disarmament organization, in which the Study Group was a founding member. Last year, the Albuquerque Tribune recognized Mr. Mello as one of its ten “rising stars.” Mr. Mello, with his colleagues Dr. Burroughs and Ms. Cabasso, has provided key information to NGOs and diplomats at treaty conferences in New York and Geneva. He was invited to brief members of the European Parliament on U.S. weapons programs earlier this year. Mr. Mello’s research, analysis, and opinions have been published in the Washington Post, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Issues in Science and Technology, in the New Mexico press, and elsewhere. Over the past decade, Mr. Mello has led the Study Group in bringing to the attention of Congress and the news media a number of clandestine nuclear projects and programs. These include: a new earth-penetrating nuclear bomb; a nuclear glide bomb; the planned upgrade of more than 3,200 submarine warheads into ground-burst, first-strike weapons; above-ground testing of plutonium cores (“pits”) in steel tanks; a laboratory program to “share” nuclear weapons secrets with “friendly” nuclear nations; and others. Study Group work has substantially contributed to delaying and downscaling production of plutonium pits, preventing opening of new nuclear disposal sites (two), and to saving hundreds of millions of dollars in a variety of other wasteful and unsafe projects at Los Alamos National Laboratory – projects later found to be unnecessary from any perspective. In the course of his work, Mr. Mello and the Study Group have generated hundreds of news articles and segments in the regional, national and international press and in broadcast media. Lawrence Wittner was born in 1941 in Brooklyn, New York. He attended Columbia College, the University of Wisconsin, and Columbia University, where he received his Ph.D. in History in 1967. Since then he has taught at Hampton Institute, at Vassar College, at Japanese universities (under the Fulbright program), and at the State University of New York/Albany, where he is currently Professor of History. A former president of the Council on Peace Research in History (now the Peace History Society), he has written extensively on the history of peace movements and on the history of United States foreign policy. He has received major fellowships or grants from the American Council of Learned Societies, the MacArthur Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the United States Institute of Peace. His books include Rebels Against War (1969, rev. ed. 1984), Cold War America (1974, rev. ed. 1978), and American Intervention in Greece (1982). His most extensive project has been a scholarly trilogy entitled The Struggle Against the Bomb, a history of the world nuclear disarmament movement. The first volume, One World or None, was published in 1993 by Stanford University Press and was awarded the Warren Kuehl Prize of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations as the outstanding book on the history of internationalism and/or peace movements. The second volume, Resisting the Bomb, was published by Stanford in 1997, and the third volume, Toward Nuclear Abolition, was published in 2003. He has also edited three other books and written more than 130 articles and book reviews. A longtime participant in the peace, civil rights, and labor movements, Lawrence Wittner also performs (instrumentally and vocally) with the Solidarity Singers at peace and social justice gatherings.
Saturday, August 6, 8 am to 9 pm For more information: www.lasg.org /hiroshima60.htm On August 6, 1945, 140,000 people were killed by a single bomb at Hiroshima. Another 70,000 were killed three days later in Nagasaki. About 90,000 others died later in both cities. The bombs were built at Los Alamos. This year, sixty years later, we will gather in Los Alamos at Ashley Pond Park on August 6th to say "Never again!" This will be an historic event. Many of the 130+ endorsing organizations, and over 20 speakers, presenters and performers are participating. <>Join activists and concerned citizens from New Mexico and throughout the U.S. at Los Alamos to oppose nuclear weapons research and production and to make a commitment to work for a political culture based on the dignity of the human person rather than the violent politics of fear, hate, greed, and war. Schedule: 8 am: Traditional sackcloth-and-ashes witness organized by Pax Christi New Mexico. For details for this and related events prior to it see www.paxchristinewmexico.org. -- back to top
back to top 1. Stipends available for full-time volunteers Dear friends -- 1. New Mexico's "Disarmament Summer" is heating up -- stipends available for full-time volunteers We at the Study Group are very much interested in hosting visiting activists this summer, from now (June 20) through Tuesday, August 9, and for any period of time from one week on up. The core of our work occurs here in Albuquerque but work is also needed in other New Mexico communities. These invitations are for homestays, and they are offered by a growing network of hosts. We will also provide a $100/week food stipend for full-time work and will reimburse you for local work-related car mileage. Free tuition for the July 29-31 "Remembering Our Humanity: Law, Public Conscience, and Nuclear Weapons" seminar at the University of New Mexico is included. A car is not necessary but is helpful; be sure and bring your cell phone if you have one. So if you think you might want to visit beautiful New Mexico this summer and contribute to the new disarmament spirit stirring here, please contact us! Call 505-265-1200, or email Claire Long at clong@lasg.org.
Almost half of U.S. nuclear warhead spending occurs in New Mexico; the state's two nuclear labs (Los Alamos and Sandia national labs) are the largest in the world in dollar terms. Nuclear weapons are our state's biggest industry (in dollars) except for oil and gas extrac |
