Dear friends -- 

Good afternoon everybody.

First, there is a new 4-page pull-out section from Study Group coming tomorrow in the Santa Fe Reporter. It will be on the newsstands for a week. For those whose donations made that possible -- thank you. Take it home, read it at your leisure. 

Here it is: Santa Fe: City of Peace — or of War? The City has become a key enabler in Trump's nuclear "domination" agenda. How did we get to this point and what can we do about it?, Santa Fe Reporter, Oct 14, 2026

Both the national and the New Mexico news media are not covering the gigantic boondoggle that is the production of new plutonium pits at least a decade prior to any recognizable need for them, in a $30 billion facility (all told) which will soon be duplicative of a newer, better one elsewhere. So we have to do it, in whatever way we can. This is one of those ways. 

As we say in the ad, very few people who pick up the SFR will read the ad, beyond a few headlines perhaps. That is how it has ever been, only it's worse lately. Our friends are those who actually read and think and are able to speak up, preferably with or without a comforting herd around them. Dear friends, we are writing for you, not the masses.  

Second, there is a Santa Fe City Council meeting tomorrow evening at the usual time and place -- approximately 7 pm for "Petitions from the Floor" at City Hall, 200 Lincoln Ave. If you come, it is best to come early -- three or four of us from the office will be outside Council Chambers at 6:30, hoping to conspire with a few of you for 15 minutes or so before going in. Speakers have 2 minutes to make your point, and you can be as creative as you like. You can make a sign or use one of ours. 

Our proposed resolution is not on the agenda. Some people want to be notified to come only when that happens. That, dear friends, is not when your presence is most needed. We welcome your help, your embodied ideas, and your participation now! Come for the whole game, not just the last quarter.  

The good people at the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) made an excellent instagram reel of some of the speakers at the last Santa Fe Council meeting. Check it out and forward it to your friends! 

Third, come to our joint press conference outside Santa Fe City Hall at 11 am, Oct. 19th. Use the occasion to inspire your artistic side! Help us, if you can, to make this event visually interesting and fun as well as serious. We and allied organizations will help however we can. Some of us will meet afterwards for discussion and fellowship; join us. 

I cannot sufficiently emphasize the need for disparate creative voices in this or any campaign -- or their power, which has never been greater than it is now. 

Fourth, on Saturday, Nov. 14th at 11:00 am at St. John’s United Methodist Church in Santa Fe, 1200 Old Pecos Trail, we will be celebrating 37 years of nuclear weapons resistance in New Mexico, and some of the many people involved with it. We and our guest speakers will discuss some of the opportunities and challenges ahead. An informal lunch will be served. There will be a nominal suggested donation but we won't turn anybody away. 

Fifth, if you can, please contribute financially, and ask your friends to do so as well. We do a lot with little, but we’d like to do more, a lot more. As we said in the ad, "[m]any people reading this ad probably do not know that many liberal donors and NGOs want Los Alamos to make pits. They don’t want real resistance in New Mexico, which is for them a designated nuclear weapons sacrifice area. This is usually not said out loud. The bottom line is that none of the 'usual suspects' are going to help save Santa Fe, or New Mexico, unless we ourselves show our mettle."

Finally, I would like to make a few other quick comments.  

• As we said in the ad, LANL could very easily be tasked to further grow its pit mission. (See "House passes requirement to build more than 200 plutonium nuclear warhead cores annually by 2050; Views of key senators, representatives not yet publicly known, Jul 23, 2026). Democrats in the Senate, lobbied by the New Mexico delegation and certain NGOs, could pull a larger share of pit production to New Mexico, in which case LANL's budget, staffing, facilities, influence, and environmental impact would grow. Everything "green" in New Mexico would be hurt (even more).

• It is impossible to tell whether or how the results of the upcoming national election will affect nuclear weapons policy, the roles of the labs, pit production, or even the risk of nuclear war. There are too many variables, and the "nuclear weapons ship" turns only slowly. 

• We seldom talk about the danger of nuclear war, but that danger is quite real and serious.  Both major parties in this country have contributed to setting up this danger, and many European leaders are now going whole-hog in fanning the flames of war, along with journalists. None of us or our children would survive a nuclear war. I hope everybody understands that. 

By the way, we provide a daily update on the U.S./Ukraine/NATO war against Russia with commentary here. I would like to draw your attention to today's essay on the topic of "fanning the flames" by "b" at Moon of Alabama, quoting Thomas Fazi. It is a bitter disappointment to many of our Study Group colleagues and myself that more so-called disarmament-oriented NGOs, churches, journalists, and individuals have not managed as yet to see through the propaganda-soaked Western media. But hope springs eternal. Every day we post fresh curated content. 

• Re: Expansion planned for New Mexico Innovation Hub’s Santa Fe campus (Kylie Garcia, Journal Staff Writer), 10/12/26. Informal comments: 

Perez (quoted) is wrong about tech startups leaving Santa Fe because of "lack of space." He means FREE or SUBSIDIZED space but I think that is also wrong. They leave because there are large pools of better -- i.e. more knowledgeable -- employees elsewhere, and also many tech managers want a better city, in a better state, in which to raise their families. Santa Fe has high housing costs AND poor K-12 education AND a lot of other drawbacks. Tech-wise, Santa Fe is a small pond, and it lacks a 4-year university, which Brookings says is essential for new tech hubs. Perez's idea -- which appears to be the idea of the City staff and the Council as well, which is supporting all this with taxpayer money -- is that LANL can substitute for Santa Fe's relative tech poverty and lack of educational opportunities. 

To the extent it IS successful, that would lead to a certain kind of development -- national security and related boondoggles. Should it succeed to any large extent, the salaries that would need to be paid to attract and keep the "right people" would only add to Santa Fe's housing woes. 

Meanwhile Santa Fe proceeds down the path toward unfreedom. Do you have to work for LANL or equivalent, or be among the well-off retired, to live in comfort in Santa Fe these days? Maybe. Increasingly. And what about the young people unwilling to accept the yoke of the Masters of War? Most will probably leave. As they do. "To my friends I've said goodbye / Freedom's rent was just too high." Development in LANL's image is already changing the social character of Santa Fe. 

ALL "trickle-down development" will hurt Santa Fe, and hurt New Mexico generally. Real, broad-based economic and social development is quite different, and is always based on very different principles than getting a few "high-paying jobs," that very tiresome refrain we so often hear.  

Greg Mello, for the Study Group 

PS: Some of you may get a kick out of these WWII-style satirical propaganda posters some Russians ginned up after the Trump-Putin diesel deal. 

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