Previously (11/09/26) Reminder and RSVP (to a real address this time!) for our Saturday November 14 celebration; 37 years of nuclear weapons resistance --  where do we go from here?

Dear friends -- 

RSVPs are filtering in for Saturday's "celebration-and-prospect" event. 

Trish and Ella are working on the menu in the other room right now. We'll be picking up lunch in trays from Tomasita's so we really do need to know BY FRIDAY how many people will be there. Please send your RSVPs to Ella Katz at ekatz@lasg.org. 

This is an important event for us, as we are eager to share photos from earlier days with you (they'll be running in the background on a screen) before and after our discussion, and we also want to honor some of those who have died who made resistance possible, and inspired us. 

We will be joined by Professor Steven Starr, a Study Group director and active participant in popular global podcasts. Steven's remarks will focus on the international situation today and its relation to our work for nuclear disarmament. I will contextualize this in New Mexico, addressing the question of "whither disarmament?" as well as the dangerous attempted takeover of this state by not just the labs but multiple elements of a nuclear-military-repression [or if you prefer, control] complex, a major historical struggle. It is, we believe, a "Fourth Entrada," one that must be resisted, as many of us are already doing.  

Bob Anderson and Jeanne Pahls, of Stop The War Machine here in Albuquerque, will be special guests as well. 

We will also speak of the growing temptation embodied in a nuclear "Thucydides Trap" -- which is how we might describe the nuclear "escalation dominance" theory that is now nascent U.S. policy. It is already a powerful mission at the weapons laboratories and production plants (LANL being both of these, and the largest). 

The quest for tactical "escalation dominance" -- in simple terms, winning wars using nuclear weapons -- has been quietly building for many years in secret programs. Under "Trump II" it has broken into the open and acquired fresh "legs" -- more money, more people, authorizations, and deadlines -- as never before. 

The danger is not only that nuclear weapons would be used. It is also that their use is increasingly threatened, the political fallout from which threats fall as much on this country as on the potential targets. That fallout, and the response complex of fear, greater funding, and greater prestige for those wielding the nuclear sword, are the main objectives. Real security and humane priorities are deterred. Insecurity for others at home and abroad are what is created. 

Well, we can discuss this and its local relevance, and what we can do about it, on this Saturday, over enchiladas, beans, etc. (and apparently cake, I am hearing!).

Please let Ella know if you are coming. 

We aren't charging attendance but if you can contribute any amount to defray our costs for this event, please, please do. 

In that vein, and last but not least: many of you getting this email won't be able to come, perhaps because you live too far away or have other plans. We hope you will contribute to our work next year nonetheless. We need that help. We'll be talking about next year on Saturday also but also in this space in the coming days and weeks. 

Best wishes. Travel safely if you are doing that. 

Greg Mello, for the Study Group

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