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Protest at the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History today, 4:30 pm

October 6, 2017

Dear friends,

Stop the War Machine has called for a protest this afternoon at 4:30 pm at the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History (NMNSH), 601 Eubank Blvd SE, just south of and opposite CostCo (map).

As part of its collection of nuclear memorabilia NMNSH has erected an almost-full-scale replica of the tower that was used at the Trinity Site test range on July 16, 1945. The exhibit will be dedicated today (press release).

Hence the protest.

In the test, the first plutonium bomb was lifted to the top of the tower. At the museum, a replica bomb is now suspended from the tower, on its way up. The symbolism of this is important. For a photo of the tower, integrated into the broader picture of atomic nostalgia being promoted nationally, see this page from the Atomic Heritage Foundation.

The Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium will be there seeking compensation for the harms their communities and families experienced as a result of that test, as well as other groups.

While generally supportive of those goals, our focus will be on the present and future of New Mexico. But these issues and histories -- past, present, and future -- are all closely linked. What was personal then is, in a different way, state-wide and world-wide now.

Needless to say perhaps, but elevating The Bomb lifts it up -- as in the Mass, when the Host, representing the Body of Christ, is elevated. In this case, an engine of absolute destruction, made by human hands and subsequently used to annihilate two cities full of people, is what is being elevated.

Make no mistake, the nuclear weapons identity is a death cult. It has grievously harmed New Mexico, and not just physically, in terms of health as in the case of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders families, but also politically, morally, spiritually, and economically.

It continues to do so and to attract similar and potentially even more deadly industries, such as the proposed consolidated "interim" (i.e. for a century, meaning forever) on-and near-surface storage of commercial spent nuclear fuel.

The world does not support glorifying nuclear weapons. This was the message of the Nobel Committee earlier today (Nobel Peace Prize Goes to International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), press release - updated, Oct 6, 2017).

At NMNSC and in many other ways, New Mexico pays tribute to dangerously inverted values. This new exhibit makes it worse.

See you at 4:30 pm there, if you get this message in time.

Greg and Trish, for the Los Alamos Study Group