July 12, 2018

Dear friends on our New Mexico "short list" --

We saw many of you this past Saturday, July 7, in Santa Fe for the panel discussion with Godfrey Reggio and Greg Mello, hosted by the Friends of Tony Price, at the Phil Space Gallery. It was a huge success, standing room only, with about 100 people in attendance. We sincerely appreciate James Hart, Phil Space Gallery for hosting, the Friends of Tony Price, and especially Godfrey Reggio for his beautiful remarks and praise. It was a wonderful event. I have now posted a video of the event here on our YouTube channel. The video there is not as good as it is in digital here in our office, but the sound is perfect.

Santa Fe pro-nuclear-weapon "Atomic Summer" cultural events that Greg alerted you to in our May 24th letter have begun in earnest and have in fact multiplied since we last wrote. The Study Group along with a few other organizations and friends are keeping tabs on these events and will be (and some have already started) demonstrating, leafletting, and speaking out as much as possible. Your letters to the editor of the Santa Fe New Mexican and the Albuquerque Journal are always a very good way to engage and use your voice if you cannot be there in person, or in addition. Greg reminds me that attending and speaking out at these events is an opportunity to get our word out and tell more of the story that is not being told in these forums. We can use these events for educational purposes without being used by them.

Join us, with many colleagues and friends this Friday, July 13, 8:30-11:30 am, at New Mexico History Museum, 113 Lincoln Ave, Santa Fe, for a demonstration and protest at the opening of the "Tech and the West" symposium. The opening address has been christened "Welcome back to the Nuclear Age," by the pro-nuclear weapon enthusiasts in charge. If that doesn't make you ill and give you cold chills nothing will.

Also, join us this coming Monday, July 16, 6-7:30 pm, St. John's United Methodist Church, Gathering Room, corner of Old Pecos Trail and Cordova Rd, (map),open to the public. We will update you on the events of this "Atomic Summer" and what we can all do to turn this around.

Quoting Greg from an earlier letter:

"To heal nuclear history it is not enough to dispel the myths and counter the propaganda that aims at creating a nuclear identity for New Mexico, the true goal of which is to pacify the natives -- us -- and prepare us for what amounts to a second nuclear entrada. More than this, healing nuclear history calls us to look back to the cultural projects that were underway here in the Land of Enchantment before the Manhattan Project, and to a biophilic, humane future, the building of which is our task today. In the long history of efforts toward harmony and respect for human persons in the living landscape, the Manhattan Project finds no place. We need to let it go. Requiescat in pace.

Many years ago William Weida, a regional economist with whom I was working, said to me, "New Mexico's greatest economic problem is that it has never realized The Bomb was a mistake." Again: let it go. [Professor Weida also commented on the people who believe Los Alamos National Laboratory is good for New Mexico, "These are the people for whom 70 years of data is not enough."]

And yet this year, the tourism professionals and brokers of high culture in Santa Fe are embracing The Bomb more tightly and desperately than ever. Erich Fromm, a co-founder of SANE, wrote, "The destruction of the world is the last, almost desperate attempt to save myself from being crushed by it." The realities of our existential crises today are indeed crushing, but wallowing in nuclear nostalgia -- which, as propaganda, has all too clear an origin and purpose -- is just another escape from the truths and the actions which can set us free."

Join us at the events above and also speak out, write letters to the editor, comment often and loudly to your city council, county council, mayor, and any local businesses and museums that endorse these "Atomic Summer" pro-nuclear events. These events are organized to commemorate the bomb and the destruction and killing it has brought -- further demeaning the positive aspects of our New Mexico history, our culture, people, and what we truly are -- we are a culture of peace, not bombs.

Join us,

Trish & Greg for the Study Group