I tried to recall this email (you should have received my revised, final email last night). But it was accidentally sent prematurely, removing this part. It was recalled within seconds, but may have gone out anyway. So you should have it, as reference i case it matters. I have o secrets, except when it comes to "acting in the streets" when I don't want to make it easy to counter civil disobedience. In regards to that, I remind folks that were not involved, many in this group were part of winning the "Most Patriotic Prize (w/ $250) in the 2014 Arroyo Seco Fourth of July Parade organized by Rivera Sun in which Jeanne Greene, Marilyn Hoff, Rick Brown, Sigrid Erika also played major roles. Pics here, here.
Thanks Marilyn, who said:
Hopefully it also answers Jeanne on the issue of "decoupling'' earthquakes from pit production.
I don't want ANY more pits, at LANL or anywhere. And it has LITTLE to do with earthquakes or safety or toxicity, although they severely amplify COSTS of such a terrible idea. And as Kathy Sanchez and Marian Naranjo, have stated better, the CANCER of the soul and heart and mind outweigh the cancer of the toxins, even under earthquake conditions. It has turned us into an immoral nation, glorifying violence and the transfer of resources from the poor to the rich, from nature to ego. The IDEA of Nuclear weapons to me is a SICK, MENTALLY INSANE, concept and was started on lies under the auspices of US HEGEMONY and US World Empire. It continues even past the realization the US Empire is crumbling, the desire to build more pits now driven primarily by money. To me nuclear weapons are essentially Auschwitz on STEROIDS, and every bit as insane.
Hence MY insistence on a resolution I can support that doesn't condone pits IF the earthquake issue is solved- Others are of course free, to express " we don't want any more plutonium pits" PRIMARILY under a toxicity, health impairment issue coupled to earthquakes, but I don't see it that way. The earthquake issue has already been partially solved by moving a large part of pit production to South Carolina. If ALL pit production moves to SC, would THAT solve your concerns??? Because of the Cascadia Fault and my families presence in NW Portland, my having lived in So Calif for 12 years and knowing of the engineering responses available there and in Japan, I have no doubt the LANL earthquake issues could be "adequately" addressed (the , ie NOT be an impediment, if TPTB decide LANL is the place for pit production, and if "too costly at LA" pit production can simply be moved. And if not, since letters from DFSB to the Sect of DOE do not have to be revealed, and are often long delayed when they are, LANL can simply claim the DNSFB has stated "seismic safety concerns have bee resolved, but due to National Security issues, we cannot share that finding with you". Then what?
As Suzie confirmed by calling the DNFSB, they do NOT regulate,they are part of the Executive Branch. they report directly to the DOE Sect, ALL Five members are appointed by the President. While I fully support the sense that the earthquake safety issue is important, and that present and future health risks are reprehensible and unnecessary. I just listened to two hours (the first of Three sessions_ of the last public hearing of the DNFSB in Santa Fe, (Wednesday, June 7, 2017) on seismic issues at LANL. the agenda and video is here
I think (wishful?) that we are on the same page re Nukes, but this resolution is taking more time than I can justify, and I continue to be bothered by what I see as EGO, the unwillingness to find ways to include the City Council/Manager as a partner in this process. So I wish you all the best, and ***DO*** thank you for your efforts to ban nukes, if that is in fact the ultimate goal. At the VERY beginning I expressed concern that our efforts must "move fast enough to matter" , and this is what I meant. I see little to no fwd progress from the Taos Resolution of a decade ago, and all sorts of detail/micro-management (false precision) rather than a few simple statements from the HEART, expressing a concern, and asking for relief.
I hope pride can be swallowed, a consensus reached among VERY soon among the group. I hope you are willing to ask the Council for help and advise on how to pass a resolution, and compromise on changes (simply leave out what they are unwilling to support; NOTHING needs to be in there that YOU don't support- it may simply not be as strong a statement (you may not have as much Council support) as is optimal. Don't discard the "Good", by demanding the "Perfect". Starting from another's detailed expression, and trying to massage it to conform to one's own views is extremely problematic. I am a bad judge of whether to try to salvage the considerable work that has been invested here, or to start over. It does seem to me you are close to consensus, and I hope it does express what is in your hearts. I wish you the best in your endeavors.
Attached is an email exchange at the start of this, copied verbatim with the exception of removing the quotes around intern which I did not realize, at the time, was offensive - a mistake I took the liberty to correct.
Gar Alperovitz deals directly (as does Stewart Udall) in the impact the lies and coverups about the building and dropping of the bomb have done, and continue to do, to undermine US culture and turn the US into a government based on lies and greed:
" History is rarely simple, and confronting it head-on, with critical honesty, is often quite painful. Myths, no matter how oversimplified or blatantly false, are too often far more likely to be embraced than inconvenient and unsettling truths. Even now, for instance, we see how difficult it is for the average US citizen to come to terms with the brutal record of slavery and white supremacy that underlies so much of our national story. Remaking our popular understanding of the “good” war’s climactic act is likely to be just as hard. But if the Confederate battle flag can come down in South Carolina, we can perhaps one day begin to ask ourselves more challenging questions about the nature of America’s global power, and what is true and what is false about why we really dropped the atomic bomb on Japan"
" Well, since new and different versions of how to say we don't want any more plutonium pits keep popping up I thought I might as well chime in."
I don't want ANY more pits, at LANL or anywhere. And it has LITTLE to do with earthquakes or safety or toxicity, although they severely amplify COSTS of such a terrible idea. And as Kathy Sanchez and Marian Naranjo, have stated better, the CANCER of the soul and heart and mind outweigh the cancer of the toxins, even under earthquake conditions. It has turned us into an immoral nation, glorifying violence and the transfer of resources from the poor to the rich, from nature to ego. The IDEA of Nuclear weapons to me is a SICK, MENTALLY INSANE, concept and was started on lies under the auspices of US HEGEMONY and US World Empire. It continues even past the realization the US Empire is crumbling, the desire to build more pits now driven primarily by money. To me nuclear weapons are essentially Auschwitz on STEROIDS, and every bit as insane.
Hence MY insistence on a resolution I can support that doesn't condone pits IF the earthquake issue is solved- Others are of course free, to express " we don't want any more plutonium pits" PRIMARILY under a toxicity, health impairment issue coupled to earthquakes, but I don't see it that way. The earthquake issue has already been partially solved by moving a large part of pit production to South Carolina. If ALL pit production moves to SC, would THAT solve your concerns??? Because of the Cascadia Fault and my families presence in NW Portland, my having lived in So Calif for 12 years and knowing of the engineering responses available there and in Japan, I have no doubt the LANL earthquake issues could be "adequately" addressed (the , ie NOT be an impediment, if TPTB decide LANL is the place for pit production, and if "too costly at LA" pit production can simply be moved. And if not, since letters from DFSB to the Sect of DOE do not have to be revealed, and are often long delayed when they are, LANL can simply claim the DNSFB has stated "seismic safety concerns have bee resolved, but due to National Security issues, we cannot share that finding with you". Then what?
As Suzie confirmed by calling the DNFSB, they do NOT regulate,they are part of the Executive Branch. they report directly to the DOE Sect, ALL Five members are appointed by the President. While I fully support the sense that the earthquake safety issue is important, and that present and future health risks are reprehensible and unnecessary. I just listened to two hours (the first of Three sessions_ of the last public hearing of the DNFSB in Santa Fe, (Wednesday, June 7, 2017) on seismic issues at LANL. the agenda and video is here
I think (wishful?) that we are on the same page re Nukes, but this resolution is taking more time than I can justify, and I continue to be bothered by what I see as EGO, the unwillingness to find ways to include the City Council/Manager as a partner in this process. So I wish you all the best, and ***DO*** thank you for your efforts to ban nukes, if that is in fact the ultimate goal. At the VERY beginning I expressed concern that our efforts must "move fast enough to matter" , and this is what I meant. I see little to no fwd progress from the Taos Resolution of a decade ago, and all sorts of detail/micro-management (false precision) rather than a few simple statements from the HEART, expressing a concern, and asking for relief.
I hope pride can be swallowed, a consensus reached among VERY soon among the group. I hope you are willing to ask the Council for help and advise on how to pass a resolution, and compromise on changes (simply leave out what they are unwilling to support; NOTHING needs to be in there that YOU don't support- it may simply not be as strong a statement (you may not have as much Council support) as is optimal. Don't discard the "Good", by demanding the "Perfect". Starting from another's detailed expression, and trying to massage it to conform to one's own views is extremely problematic. I am a bad judge of whether to try to salvage the considerable work that has been invested here, or to start over. It does seem to me you are close to consensus, and I hope it does express what is in your hearts. I wish you the best in your endeavors.
Attached is an email exchange at the start of this, copied verbatim with the exception of removing the quotes around intern which I did not realize, at the time, was offensive - a mistake I took the liberty to correct.
|
Mar 10
 | | ||
Thanks, Erich. I totally agree with everything you wrote. It's all about the moola for the multinationals and trickledown to all the nuclear butlers and handmaidens. Increasingly dangerous the more we are lulled to complacency.
Marilyn
---------- Original Message ----------
From: erichwwk
To: "marigayl
Cc: Susann McCarthy, Jeanne Green , Scott Kovac , Cathie Sullivan
Subject: Re: Fw: BEST ARTICLE I'VE READ IN YEARS ABOUT UC, LOS ALAMOS AND MUCH MORE
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2018 15:27:32 -0700
---------- Original Message ----------
From: erichwwk
To: "marigayl
Cc: Susann McCarthy, Jeanne Green , Scott Kovac , Cathie Sullivan
Subject: Re: Fw: BEST ARTICLE I'VE READ IN YEARS ABOUT UC, LOS ALAMOS AND MUCH MORE
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2018 15:27:32 -0700
Thanks. Good. I remember Will well from his days as an LASG intern [orig. quotes removed], and especially a RRW meeting he took over from DOE when they tried to impose their silly short response limits from the public. THAT occasion made me aware of how vulnerable DOE is when confronted with a critical mass of opposition. Hopefully a similar effort will be mounted before we all self-destruct. We do have ourselves "a situation".
That said, one also needs to understand the level to which not only the Nuclear Weapons industry, but the ENTIRE MIC has degenerated into a self serving bunch of elite politicians and weapons manufacturers, where no other course is seen but to transfer wealth from the public to the MIC. An article that spells out that broader picture quite well is THIS ONE, by "the Saker". IMHO, too few recognize how this US focus on PROFITS, rather then on Military Defense, has left the US seriously vulnerable militarily. And DANGEROUS, if the U.S. response to this vulnerability is DENIAL, thinking the miniscule Russian economy and defense expenditures somehow allows this silly selfishness, and what is needed is to "act tough" and from "a position of (phantom) strength".
Closer to home we see the breakdown the Saker mentions at LANL, where the RCLC no longer pretends to focus solely on economic development and cleanup, having discarded the intentionally ambiguous fig leaf (ensure adequate funding for DOE missions) under which it lobbied for nuclear weapons funding while claiming at home it did not, for one that explicitly states in its Legislative Agenda "Nuclear Posture Modernization" MUST be made a legislative priority. How else to support the slush funds, high incomes, and grants for exotic "economic speculation" by the RCLC staff, and bribery to local officials?
Daniel Ellsberg says pretty much the same:
That said, one also needs to understand the level to which not only the Nuclear Weapons industry, but the ENTIRE MIC has degenerated into a self serving bunch of elite politicians and weapons manufacturers, where no other course is seen but to transfer wealth from the public to the MIC. An article that spells out that broader picture quite well is THIS ONE, by "the Saker". IMHO, too few recognize how this US focus on PROFITS, rather then on Military Defense, has left the US seriously vulnerable militarily. And DANGEROUS, if the U.S. response to this vulnerability is DENIAL, thinking the miniscule Russian economy and defense expenditures somehow allows this silly selfishness, and what is needed is to "act tough" and from "a position of (phantom) strength".
Closer to home we see the breakdown the Saker mentions at LANL, where the RCLC no longer pretends to focus solely on economic development and cleanup, having discarded the intentionally ambiguous fig leaf (ensure adequate funding for DOE missions) under which it lobbied for nuclear weapons funding while claiming at home it did not, for one that explicitly states in its Legislative Agenda "Nuclear Posture Modernization" MUST be made a legislative priority. How else to support the slush funds, high incomes, and grants for exotic "economic speculation" by the RCLC staff, and bribery to local officials?
Daniel Ellsberg says pretty much the same:
"You would not have these arsenals, in the U.S. or elsewhere, if it were not the case that it was highly profitable to the military-industrial complex, to the aerospace industry, to the electronics industry, and to the weapons design labs to keep modernizing these weapons, improving accuracy, improving launch time, all that."
and
"What’s it all for? It is for [military] service share of the budget. Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Grumman, Northrop. Jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, as one after another official has put it, from James Baker to others. Profits, as I say, jobs, and campaign donations. It’s embedded in all 50 states of the union, one way or another, in the various expenditures, and very hard to get rid of. Almost impossible. I just don’t see that you can say it’s impossible."
Gar Alperovitz deals directly (as does Stewart Udall) in the impact the lies and coverups about the building and dropping of the bomb have done, and continue to do, to undermine US culture and turn the US into a government based on lies and greed:
" History is rarely simple, and confronting it head-on, with critical honesty, is often quite painful. Myths, no matter how oversimplified or blatantly false, are too often far more likely to be embraced than inconvenient and unsettling truths. Even now, for instance, we see how difficult it is for the average US citizen to come to terms with the brutal record of slavery and white supremacy that underlies so much of our national story. Remaking our popular understanding of the “good” war’s climactic act is likely to be just as hard. But if the Confederate battle flag can come down in South Carolina, we can perhaps one day begin to ask ourselves more challenging questions about the nature of America’s global power, and what is true and what is false about why we really dropped the atomic bomb on Japan"
the US problem is MUCH deeper than being left with a dangerous toxic legacy and an unsafe and incompetent NL. We have a situation where the desire of old men to "save face" and "save wealth" could start a process from which there is no return.
Thanks for listening.
Best, erich
PS There are About 24,900 results on a google search
Thanks for listening.
Best, erich
PS There are About 24,900 results on a google search
of LASG .org and earthquakes, going back to 1997
PSS the 2008 JOINT ToT and Tco Res address health issues thus:
PSS the 2008 JOINT ToT and Tco Res address health issues thus:
WHEREAS, plutonium pits are used as the " triggers" for weapons of mass destruction
and plutonium creates health and environmental hazards; and
WHEREAS, the governing bodies of the Town of Taos and Taos County do not support the creation of further health and environmental hazards related to nuclear weapons for the citizens of Northern New Mexico; and
health and environmental hazards related to nuclear weapons for the citizens of Northern New Mexico;
Two whereas difficult to counter? And simple to understand?
Love, erich
health and environmental hazards related to nuclear weapons for the citizens of Northern New Mexico;
Two whereas difficult to counter? And simple to understand?
Love, erich
On Sat, Mar 10, 2018 at 1:17 PM, marigayl wrote:
This article comes with the recommendation of Cathie Sullivan, whom I knew as a highly knowledgeable anti-nuke ally on the board of directors of the Los Alamos Study Group back when I worked for LASG oh so many years ago. A recommendation from her is a recommendation indeed.Marilyn
---------- Forwarded Message ----------
From: Cathie Sullivan
To: marigayl, Gail Haggard
Subject: BEST ARTICLE I'VE READ IN YEARS ABOUT UC, LOS ALAMOS AND MUCH MORE
Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2018 21:21:03 -0700Hi Marilyn and Gail,This article, though very long, has got to be one of the best summaries and overviews of Los Alamos Lab I ever come across. It appeared in Counterpunch and I recommend it highly. You will better understand UC's role and the intentional effort of military contractors to DOE/ NNSA to direct, increase and control weapons funding. But there is much else here- almost an education in the topic in one go!Cathie
