This Friday night, Mercury Cafe, 2199 California Street, Denver, 7:30
PM. Sponsored by the Colorado Coalition for the Prevention of Nuclear War.
It will be his, “I Have A Drone” speech. He comes to us filled with his
travels, his analyses and his amazing interviews.
Dinner if you like at 6:00 PM.
JOIN US JOIN US JOIN US JOIN US!
Judith Mohling 303/447-9635
“Violence is as American as cherry pie
H.R. Schiffman, author.
Who are we as a society? According to the Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation, our murder rate is 4 to 5 times greater than most other industrialized countries; a report by the Constitution Project released last week concludes that the US had engaged in torture ofter the 9/11 attacks. The agonizing memories of Sandy Hook, Columbine, Aurora and now Boston, and others, increasingly darken our dreams.
And now, even though in his seemingly sincere Prague speech in 2009 the president promised not to deploy new nuclear weapons, the Obama administration is planning new tail fins that will turn 200 B61 gravity bombs in Europe into guided nuclear bombs that could be delivered by stealth F35 fighter-bombers, according to Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists.
Kristensen points out that these bombs plus the stealth characteristics of the F35, expand the number of targets possible because by placing the explosion closer to the target, there can be a lower explosive yield and less radiation, and therefore more “usable” nuclear weapons. Talk about violence!
You saw what happened in the US Senate last week when consideration of minimal restrictions on the sale and distribution of guns was dropped cold. As political philosopher Todd May, professor of Humanities at Clemson University puts it, “We are steeped in violence.” And it is at every level of our society, from rap music that denigrates women to nuclear missiles on hair trigger alert.
What’s the deal? Why are we as a society like this?
Dr. May posits three reasons: our deep competitive individualism, both a virtue and a curse. We are wary of others and reject the social solidarity characteristic of countries like Denmark, Sweden and New Zealand, for example. He cites the decline in our ability to control world events, and takes the “debacle” of Iraq as a dark example, and an accompanying feeling that we should have really committed to victory in Vietnam or “bombed one or another country back to the Stone Age.” The third reason is economic—“we no longer feel obligations to those with whom we share the country.”
What is the way out of this darkness? May advises us to always recognize the humanity of all others and gradually “take on the mantle of nonviolence.”
Peace Train April 6, 2013
By JUDITH MOHLING
A hair trigger means nuclear missiles may be launched within 15 minutes–either from land or sea—upon the warning of an attack. There are thousands of U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear warheads that are on hair-trigger alert, ready for launch.
Forty-nine of these missiles are sitting below ground level in the early spring sun right here in Colorado. There are 400 more scattered over Nebraska, Wyoming, North Dakota and Montana—some controlled from Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, some from Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota and the rest from Malmstrom Air Force Base in Great Falls, Montana. They represent mindboggling fire power.
Each missile has one nuclear bomb, with a blast capacity equivalent to between 12 to 18 times the size of the Hiroshima bomb.
Shift for a moment to another underground phenomenon; fracking, and its accompanying activity, disposal wells. According to Joel Dyer in “The Boulder Weekly,” some of the research that has been done recently reveals that injecting liquids into deep disposal wells at high pressure can and does cause earthquakes.
Googling for maps of both the nuclear missiles and the thousands of oil and gas wells that have been drilled in Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, Montana and North Dakota, yielded a far from precise picture of both nukes and wells being in the same general area. Hmmmm.
The quakes are created by injecting liquids under high pressure following fault lines. Could an earthquake hit a missile?
It was a lifelong nuclear activist, Magdalena Seaman, of Denver, who has visited the missile silo area many times to protest, who mused out loud during a meeting, wondering if there were any danger from fracking to the missiles. The room was silent as we all contemplated the unimaginable.
The “Precautionary Principle” states if an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public or to the environment, in the absence of scientific consensus that the action or policy is harmful, the burden of proof that it is not harmful falls on those taking an action. (Wikipedia)
I wish that the nukesters and the frackers had the responsibility long ago to prove to the rest of us that their plans would be free of harm to the public or to the environment. But, sadly, that is not the case. But, we can demand it now!
By JUDITH MOHLING
“It is the first audit of the Fed in United States history since its beginnings in 1913.The findings verify that over $16 trillion was allocated to corporations and banks internationally, purportedly for “financial assistance” during and after the 2008 fiscal crisis.” Forbes, September 1, 2012
In an unusual moment of bipartisanship, the House of Representatives passed a bill by Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) to audit the Federal Reserve. This very first audit of the Federal Reserve revealed that $16,000,000,000,000.00 had been secretly given out to US banks and corporations and foreign banks from France to Scotland. From the period between December 2007 and June 2010 (at the start of the Obama Administration), the Federal Reserve had secretly bailed out not only many of the world’s banks, but corporations, and even governments as well.
The Federal Reserve refers to these secret bailouts as loans, but none of the money has been returned. While Americans have been struggling with failed mortgages, putting food on the table consistently, losing jobs and inability to find work, the Federal Reserve did not inform Congress and gave these trillions of OUR MONEY to Goldman Sachs, $813 billion, Morgan Stanley, $2.04 trillion, Royal Bank of Scotland and Deutsche Bank, $2 trillion, and other banks the remainder of $16 trillion.
There was no debate, even though the US budget that is so profoundly debated and argued about is only $3.5 trillion. With this money the Fed could have paid off every residential and commercial mortgage in the US, with plenty left over.
“This is a clear case of socialism for the rich and rugged, you’re-on-your-own individualism for everyone else.”- Bernie Sanders (I-VT) Isn’t this the Ayn Randian philosophy at its very worst, at least for the rest of us, and for the earth itself?
This kind of behavior temporarily benefits the wealthy of our world while plundering the world economy. It couldn’t possibly be sustainable.
“We must remake our failed economic system that impoverishes millions while destroying the ecosystem. Using a diversity of tactics that includes a Rolling Jubilee, a People’s Bailout, and vigorous organizing towards a debt strike, Strike Debt seeks to abolish debt and reconstruct a just society where our debts and bonds are to one another and not the 1%.” From “Strike Debt.”
There are 49 Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles in NE Colorado each with a nuclear bomb capable of 30 times the explosive power of the Hiroshima Bomb. Do the Math.
Citizens of Colorado should know that each of these is on “Launch On Warning” alert meaning that they could be launched within 30 minutes from now, either based on wrong information or intentionally.
We believe the Colorado State Legislature should resolve that these missiles be stood down from this hair trigger alert as a confidence measure in attempting to lead the nuclear armed nations toward their commitment to complete nuclear disarmament. Nothing drives other nations to withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty and to develop their own nuclear arsenal more than the snail’s pace approach of the nuclear armed powers to keeping their commitments to nuclear disarmament.
The International Court of Justice has declared that the threat of use or use of such weapons is a contradiction of International Humanitarian Law.
Should we give our silent assent to the missiles in our backyard? We think not and we encourage every Coloradoan to contact their State Senator and Legislature calling upon them to pass a resolution directed at the National Government to remove them beginning by reducing their alert status. Our conscience must not be shrouded in the darkness of fear or self-righteousness. We have a responsibility to work seriously to eliminate these weapons of mass destruction now.
Spend an evening
WITH
DAVID BARSAMIAN
www.alternativeradio.org
“I HAVE A DRONE”
Friday, May 3, 7:30 PM
Mercury Cafe
2199 California Street, Denver
SPONSORED BY
THE COLORADO COALITION FOR THE PREVENTION OF NUCLEAR WAR
WWW.COLORADOCOALITION.ORG
Suggested donation: $10.00
For those who wish, supper at 6:00 PM
By JUDITH MOHLING
“People want to think that it’s over, that it’s clean, that we don’t need to think about it anymore — and that is absolutely not the case,” Kristen Iversen said from New York on Wednesday. “There are so many people who don’t know anything about Rocky Flats and know nothing about the environmental effects of building nuclear triggers there.” “The Denver Post”
Kristen Iverson is the author of “Full Body Burden, Growing Up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats.” She has been traveling the US talking about her book and people are buying and enjoying her book because it is an absorbing story, and they are learning about the health effects of nuclear radiation at the same time. Her story has influenced Coloradans who are opposed to the Jefferson Parkway project—a highway that would be built along the eastern edge of Rocky Flats—the most contaminated side of the Flats. It is plutonium that is the contaminant of greatest concern. It just takes one miniscule particle breathed in to result in possible lung cancer in 20 years. As Kate Bush sings, “ Chips of plutonium are twinkling in every lung.” from “Breathing.”
Another way to learn more about what went on at Rocky Flats that created so much contamination and concern is to join us for one last atomic film, “Dark Circle,” at Left Hand Bookstore, close to the southeast corner of Pearl and Broadway in Boulder, before the store closes for good in April. The Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center in partnership with the bookstore will show it Tuesday evening, March 19, at 7 PM.
The film is a 1982 documentary that won the grand prize that year at the Sundance Film Festival. Much of the movie focuses on Rocky Flats and its dark bomb-making connections between nuclear weapons and nuclear power. Every pit, the core of a nuclear weapon, in the US nuclear arsenal was fabricated at the Rocky Flats plant over 40 years. The film is a classic and unfortunately is more relevant than ever as the US Department of Energy jockeys to be able to produce new weapons, Iran is being accused of being on its way to producing nuclear bombs and North Korea is rattling its nuclear sabers.
And, business interests are pushing hard to bulldoze the eastern side of Rocky Flats. See the film and join the resistance.
Peace Train February 22, 2013
By JUDITH MOHLING
“McMasters didn’t realize what was going on until college, when a roommate asked her, “Why are you always going home to all these funerals? What’s going on there?” The answer: Cancer, cancer, and more cancer.” Bruce Barcott, OnEarth Blog
Kelly McMasters grew up on Long Island next to the Brookhaven National Lab and its three nuclear reactors. Brookhaven has long been one the the nation’s leading nuclear research laboratories. Thanks to citizen activists and a brave newspaper reporter, the news was revealed and reported on in the film, that the three reactors had been regularly leaking deadly nuclear materials into the local water supply.
The Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center and Left Hand Book Collective will show the film,“The Atomic States of America,” on Tuesday evening, 2/26/13, 7:00 PM, at the Left Hand Book Store, close to Broadway and the Pearl Street Mall. The film is, in part, the story of Kelly McMasters, drawn from her book, “Welcome to Shirley,” about growing up in Shirley, six miles from the Brookhaven.reactors and the deadly nuclear history of her home town and other home towns in the U.S.
The directors of the film, Sheena Joyce and Don Argott expand on her book and look at other communities adjacent to nuclear power plants and illuminate their painfully similar experiences with radioactive leaks.
But, don’t we have people overseeing nuclear power plants? Yes, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The film shows how federal agencies, including this one have a tendency to become, “puppets of the industry they were supposed to oversee.”
“In the years ahead, nuclear experts warn, the consequences of the agency’s inaction could be dire. ‘The NRC has consistently put industry profits above public safety,’ says Arnie Gundersen, a former nuclear executive turned whistle-blower. ‘Consequently, we have a dozen Fukushimas waiting to happen in America.’” Rolling Stone, April 2012.
There is footage in the film of then-Secretary of Energy Steven Chu giving in to the chiding of Representative Joe Barton, a republican from Texas who headed the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. Barton demanded to hear Secretary Chu declare that the Fukushima disaster didn’t change his plans to give government loan guarantees to private companies to build new power plants. Chu gave in and Barton chuckled. And, so it goes…..
Unless we stop it.
The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability is holding “DC Days” to visit with Congress and the Administration about our Nuclear Weapons policies and our need to responsibly manage nuclear waste. We have lots of both in Colorado. Want to attend DC Days? Visit ANAnuclear.org for details and contact us for scholarship help.
Colorado Legislature is in session. Call your Representative and Senator and urge them to co sponsor The Colorado Coalition proposed joint resolution calling for the dealerting of the 49 Nuclear Armed Missiles in North East Colorado
