INKLING

2003-02-12T10:04:00.000-05:00

TOP TEN REASONS BUSH'S AMERIKA RESEMBLES HITLER'S GERMANY
10. 9. 8. 7. 6. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1.		Increasing restrictions on civil rights in the name of security Unprecedented military buildup Populace under sway of massive propaganda machine Lebensraum! Conquer (i.e. Militarize) Space! Undermining of court system and constitution Cabinet of corporate criminals and thugs Right-wing religious fanatics and wackos in places of power Roundup and detention of minority religous ethnic group Grief over destruction of national symbol used to inflame jingoistic war fever against Evil Enemy (Riechstag - WTC) Criminally psychotic, schizoid national leader (baby kisser or executioner? nice guy or world conqueror? hopeless schlub or vindictive megalomaniac?) Corrections, additions, revisions? Make your own list!

2002-09-18T11:18:00.000-04:00

A LOOK AT THE FUTURE: THE WORLD CELEBRATES THE END OF THE NUCLEAR AGE
This is from www.gracelinks.org, a great web site for information and ideas.

2002-09-17T17:22:00.000-04:00

click to morph

2002-09-07T01:03:00.000-04:00

From London Telegraph

2002-08-29T11:48:00.000-04:00

I've been very busy with the Peace Action web site. Most new information is there. However I'm going to post links here as I come across them Here's a great one:
TRUE MAJORITY: http://www.truemajority.com/

2002-08-13T02:30:00.000-04:00

Sunday, August 11
Forum and Meeting at Unitarian Church
Jonathan Schell
FROM HIROSHIMA TO BAGHDAD
57 Years On the Nuclear Brink
Nuclear Abolition or Nuclear Anarchy
    Over 50 people attended this forum and meeting. The speacker was best-selling Pulitzer Prize nominee and leading nuclear abolition advocate Jonathan Schell. Schell began by saying that the dynamic of the nuclear problem has changed dramatically in the last decade. In the Cold War era, the struggle was between nuclear abolition and the nuclear arms race -Mutual Assured Destruction and the balance of detente. With the end of the Cold War, that balanced stalemate completely broke down.
     During the 1990's, the great powers missed an important opportunity to abolish their own arsenals and lead the world to an era of peace. Instead, the US has taken a position that it alone shall possess nuclear weapons. But when a nation is threatened by nuclear weapons, it inexorably moves to possessing them itself. As a result, we now face a new and more dangerous era of worldwide nuclear proliferation. According to the State Department's count, 44 countries or groups now have the potential to develop nuclear weapons. Our struggle is now between nuclear abolition and nuclear anarchy. Unless the world chooses nuclear abolition, it will get nuclear anarchy.That is in fact the road we are now on.

Peace Is War
    The dynamic has changed so much that the Bush administration is actually espousing the cause of non-proliferation - but, of course, only for other nations. Ironically, the means proposed to accomplish this Pax Americana is Unending War On Evil - complete with a unworkable and destablizing national missile defense system and an offensive first-strike policy. At a speech at West Point, Bush emphasized that the U.S. will remain second to no country. The U.S. will becomes so dominant that the other countries will not need nuclear weapons. The battle is no longer between "idealists" in the peace movement and "realists" like Henry Kissinger. Peace activists now face ultra-right-wing hawks who envision the U.S. as the supreme global power. In their minds, the cause of peace has become synonymous with war.

Tthe Only Solution: Abolition
    But this military "solution" - for the U.S. to gain complete dominance of the world - is simply not feasible in the long run. "We need to arrest the drift towards empire," said Schell. We have to convince people that there is a "whole other way to go"-a way of cooperation and abolition of weapons of mass destruction for all countries and groups. Abolition is asking a lot. The challenge to the peace movement today is to show our leaders a detailed, active, positive abolition plan as the a more effective answer than the current agenda of full-scale militarization and world dominance. Unless we offer a clear answer, we will be on weak ground in debating this issue.

The Urgent Call
     Schell, David Cortright and Randy Forsberg,the author of the Nuclear Freeze, have lalunched UrgentCall.org, a new initiative to engage and educate a broad public about the growing danger that nuclear weapons will be used, and about practical steps to reduce that danger.
On June 11, Rep. Ed Markey introduced a House resolution, H.J. Res. 97, based on the Urgent Call. He invited us to go to the website and sign up in support of this initiative and lobby our Congressional representative to support the resolution. (Two New York representatives, Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney and Maurice D. Hinchey, have signed.) We have to act through local efforts taken across the country to influence our elected officials. Our efforts to persuade people to support abolition will not bear fruit all at once, but "people know that war is awful."

Meeting
    After the forum, Peace Action of Staten Island held a general membership meeting to discuss next steps in organizing against the war in Iraq. After short President's and Treasurer's reports, the Speakers Bureau reported excellent progress on a number of approaches to informing the local public about the issues. Invited speaker Henry Williamson of Voices in Wilderness, a group based in Chicago, spoke about his visit to Iraq, the devastating effect of the US sanctions, and the current 40-day fast being held by the group in front of the United Nations in protest of the sanctions against Iraq, gave a presentation. A planning meeting for a major rally against the attack on Iraq, to be held in Central Park on October 6, sponsored by the Not In Our Name Coaltion, will take place this Thursday at Judson Memorial Church in Manhattan. Waterfront Festival tabling will continue on Saturday August 24 and September 14.. A publicist was found, and a phone tree was started. The next meeting of the group will be September 15th

2002-08-09T12:12:00.000-04:00

Sunday, August 11
Unitarian Church, 312 Fillmore, 1 block east of Snug Harbor
11:00 AM:Forum / 12:00 Noon:Lunch / 12:30 PM:Meeting
Jonathan Schell
FROM HIROSHIMA TO BAGHDAD
57 Years On the Nuclear Brink
The speaker, be best-selling author and leading nuclear disarmament expert Jonathan Schell, is a former Newsday columnist. Schell also wrote for 20 years for The New Yorker, which first serialized many of his ten published books, including The Fate of the Earth (1982) and The Gift of Time (1998.) Three of these earned nominations for the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award and the National Critics Award. His recent work on the nuclear issues has appeared in Harper's, Foreign Affairs, and The Nation. His upcoming book on the nuclear questions, Arms and The Man, will be published this fall. Schell is currently the Harold Willens Peace Fellow at The Nation Institute. Beginning this fall, he will also teach at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
As at our first meeting, there will be a gourmet lunch break between the forum and the meeting. For latest infomation on the Forum see the Forum web page.

2002-08-06T14:22:00.000-04:00

Dubya's Finger on the Button
- Hiroshima.provides needed reminders - by Geov Parrish
Quote:... "But we're not building missile systems—not to mention more fanciful weapons systems now under development, like the Airborne Laser—to defend ourselves from North Korea. We're doing it to pay off Dubya's and Dick Cheney's buddies in the defense industry (notice how Halliburton, despite the cloud of corporate scandal hovering above it, is pulling down all these lucrative NMD contracts of late?). We're doing it to terrorize smaller countries into complying with Washington's will. We're doing it because the lives that would be lost as a result of these weapons systems' use are meaningless to the people authorizing their development, deployment, and usage. And we're doing it because building weapons is all these people know how to do."

2002-08-04T23:19:00.000-04:00

EVENTS THIS WEEK
MONDAY: Greens meet 8:00 PM at the Rosebank home of Catheine Repoley, 24 Scarboro. 720-2452.
TUESDAY: 57th Anniversary of Hiroshima bombing, birth of nuclear age. Pass out handbills at St. George Ferry for Sunday's Forum with Jonathan Schell Call Sally Jones 448-0791 or John Bostrom 816-6242
FRIDAY: Anniversary of Nagasaki. More leafletting at Ferry?
SUNDAY: JONATHAN SCHELL speaks at Unitarian Church at 11:00 AM Forum. Lunch, then Peace Action Meeting.

2002-07-26T13:41:00.000-04:00

"The Gift of Time: The Case for Abolishing Nuclear Weapons" by Jonathan Schell

2002-07-26T13:24:00.000-04:00

Action Coalition Meeting: Wednesday, July 31, 8:00 PM, Unitarian Church.

2002-07-13T00:47:00.000-04:00

SUNDAY JULY 21 -
11:30 AM FORUM, 12:30 Gourmet Lunch, 1:00 PM Meeting

Mark next Sunday on your calendar! Be at the Unitarian Church at 11:30 AM
for a Public Forum on the New Nuclear Danger, 21st Century Nuclear Madness,
George W. Bush's New Nuclear Armageddon in the Sky.
Speaker: Kathleen Sullivan, Coordinator of the renowned Nuclear Awareness and Education
Project of Educators for Social Responsibility. Half hour presentation by Ms. Sullivan, with another half hour of disscussion.
A luncheon prepared by gourmet chef Bob Pipkins sill follow.
After lunch (1:00 PM or thereabouts) the first meeting of Peace Action of Staten Island will be convened.
After the meeting, all are invited to SIDA's Annual Fundrdaising Pool Party at the home of SIDA President and Peace Action member David Goldfarb. Admiission is $15 for SIDA members, Non members are expected to add the cost of membership.

2002-07-12T15:30:00.000-04:00

RICHMOND COUNTY GREEN PARTY MEETING MONDAY NIGHT AT 656 JEWETT
Meeting will start at 7:45 PM sharp at the home of Neysa Linzer. Ring the BOTTOM bell.
Agenda: 1. Endorse Green candidtates. 2. Possible interview and endorsement of Carl Larsen, Independence Party. 3. Deadline to file petitions for State Commttee. 4. County Committee discussion. 5. Status of Treasurere. 6. Reimbursement for mailings.
This is an official meeting of the Green Party. Meeting is open to all, but voting is restricted to those registered as Green Party members.

GREENS AND PEACE ACTION TABLING AT WATERFRONT FESTIVAL
TOMORROW, SATURDAY, ALL DAY, IN ST. GEORGE.
The tables willl be set up in the 'non-profit' area between the back of Borough Hall and the Library. Pete McParland will be manning the Greens table and Sally Jones will be womaning the Peace Action table. Stop by, give them a break, help out for a while. It's a lot of fun and very worthwhile. For more info, contact Pete, 987-0883, or Sally, 442-1448.

2002-07-11T14:32:00.000-04:00

REMAINING U.S. CEOs MAKE A BREAK FOR IT
Band of Roving Chief Executives Spotted Miles from Mexican Border
Bulk of CEOnistas Holed Up at the Alamo

San Antonio, Texas (SatireWire.com)
Unwilling to wait for their eventual indictments, the 10,000 remaining CEOs of public U.S. companies made a break for
it yesterday, heading for the Mexican border, plundering towns and villages along the way and writing the entire rampage off as a marketing expense.

"They came into my home, made me pay for my own TV, then double-booked the revenues," said Rachel Sanchez of Las Cruces, just north of El Paso. "Right in front of my daughters."

Calling themselves the CEOnistas, the chief executives were first spotted last night along the Rio Grande River near Quemado, where they bought each of the town's 320 residents by borrowing against pension fund gains. By late this morning, the CEOnistas had arbitrarily inflated Quemado's population to 960, and declared a 200 percent profit for the
fiscal second quarter.

This morning, the outlaws bought the city of Waco, transferred its underperforming areas to a private partnership, and sent a bill to California for $4.5 billion.

Law enforcement officials and disgruntled shareholders riding posse were noticeably frustrated.

"First of all, they're very hard to find because they always stand behind their numbers, and the numbers keep shifting," said posse spokesman Dean Levitt. "And every time we yell 'Stop in the name of the shareholders!', they refer us to investor relations. I've been on the phone all damn morning."

"YOU'LL NEVER AUDIT ME ALIVE!"

The pursuers said they have had some success, however, by preying on a common executive weakness. "Last night we caught about 24 of them by disguising one of our female officers as a CNBC anchor," said U.S. Border Patrol spokesperson Janet Lewis. "It was like moths to a flame."

Also, teams of agents have been using high- powered listening devices to scan the plains for telltale sounds of the CEOnistas. "Most of the time we just hear leaves rustling or cattle flicking their tails," said Lewis, "but occasionally we'll pick up someone saying, 'I was totally out of the loop on that.'"

Among former and current CEOs apprehended with this method were Computer Associates' Sanjay Kumar, Adelphia's John Rigas, Enron's Ken Lay, Joseph Nacchio of Qwest, Joseph Berardino of Arthur Andersen, and every Global Crossing CEO since 1997. ImClone Systems' Sam Waksal and Dennis Kozlowski of Tyco were not allowed to join the CEOnistas as they have already been indicted.

So far, about 50 chief executives have been captured, including Martha Stewart, who was detained south of El Paso where she had cut through a barbed-wire fence at the Zaragosa border crossing off Highway 375.

"She would have gotten away, but she was stopping motorists to ask for marzipan and food coloring so she could make edible snowman place settings, using the cut pieces of wire for the arms," said Border Patrol officer Jennette Cushing. "We put her in cell No. 7, because the morning sun really adds texture to the stucco walls."

While some stragglers are believed to have successfully crossed into Mexico, Cushing said the bulk of the CEOnistas have holed themselves up at the Alamo.

"No, not the fort, the car rental place at the airport," she said. "They're rotating all the tires on the minivans and accounting for each change as a sale."

2002-07-07T21:14:00.000-04:00

UIPCOMING EVENTS:
Check the Calendar for the following events:
Tuesday July 9: Greens meet at UU Church ( All-Star Game party upstairs, meeting downstaris) 8:00 PM
Sunday July 21: UU Forum on The New Nuclear Danger at 11:30; Peace Action Meeting 1:00. SIDA Pool Party 2:30
Wednesday July 31: Action Coaltion meeting at UU Church 8:00 PM
August 11: UU Forum to commemorate Hiroshima/Nagasaki
Sept 15: UU Forum: Reverend Billy
The Fall UU Forum seires is being retitled "What's Happening to America" and will focus on economics.

2002-07-03T11:48:00.000-04:00

PEACE ACTION 4TH OF JULY PARTY- SALLY AND DAVID JONES' - 12:00 - 2:00 PM
After visiting the Travis community and talking to people involved in the Travis 4th of July parade, it's become clear that the impulse to try to add our message to their event in any way is misguided and inappropriate. The parade is very much the creation of a small, very conservative, patriotic and pro-military neighborhood, and the people who go to the parade from around the Island tend to be of similar persuasion. The neighborhood just wants to have their patriotic parade, celebrate America, forget about controversy, let the kids have a good time. It's overwhelmingly probable that our message of peace would be seen as merely confrontational, even antagonistic.
PARTY * SEE THE BANNER * HANG WITH PEACENIKS
So we're going to leave Trais alone and have our own celebration at David and Sally Jones' place, 110 Hamilton. BYOB or just stop in. And perhaps next year we can have a parade of our own.
By the way, the Peace Action of Staten Island website is up and running. Please bookmark it.
.

2002-06-28T00:05:00.000-04:00

FIRST MEETING OF PEACE ACTION: SUNDAY AFTERNOON, JULY 21
The meeting will be held at the Unitarian Church around 1:00 PM, following coffee and sandwiches after the Forum on 21st Century Nuclear Madness: the New Face of Nuclear War. The Forum begins at 11:30 AM and features Katherine Sullivan, Coordinator of the Nuclear Weapons Education & Action Project of Educators for Social Responsibility, Metropolitan Area

2002-06-27T23:24:00.000-04:00

ACTION COALITION ADOPTS MISSION STATEMENT
     The newly named ACTION COALITION met Wednesday in the UU church and adopted the following mission statement:

     Even before the tragedy of September 11th, numerous groups on Staten island were addressing vital community issues such as overdevelopment, environmental quality, health, education, accountability of government, racial profiling, affordable housing, homelessness, drugs, unemployment, veterans' issues, and so forth. September 11th brought to light a host of new issues and problems with a more global perspective. Concerned Staten Islanders immediately responded as a community to provide assistance to the victims. New efforts then emerged to help us better understand, through public discussion, the impact of global events on our local community. In the past four months, we have held forums and town hall meetings on these issues - US foreign policy, globalization, the socio-economic causes and consequences of the "War on Terrorism," the conflict in the MidEast, the civil rights of immigrants and citizens alike, the closure of Indian Point, and the threat of nuclear proliferation and nuclear war with Iraq. We came together in search of ways to understand and influence issues which often seem beyond our control These gatherings have given us a renewed sense of grassroots participation in a democratic culture.

    We sense a growing consensus that we need to connect with each other to face these issues and act on them more effectively. We are therefore forming an Action Coalition of concerned Staten Island groups. In recognition of the work already being done by so many groups, and so as not to "reinvent the wheel," we have adopted these following three very simple goals.

     • To get to know each other better through monthly meetings;
     • To share information about what we are doing;
     • To explore ways we might help each other by working together
      on projects beyond the scope of any single group.

    Possible common initiatives might include public forums or teach-ins at a larger venue, large demonstrations or petition drives, speakers' bureau facilities, coordinated calendars, a broad-based newsletter, a television program, and so forth.

    The structure of the coalition will also be as simple and open as possible. Membership and meetings will be open to all persons in agreement with the goals and values of the coalition. Meetings will be conducted on the basis of the three goals mentioned above, and cooperative projects will emerge informally as group members band together to address specific issues as they see fit.

    We invite all concerned to join us in forming the coalition, strengthening our voices and efforts, and making Staten Island a better place in these difficult times.

A subcommitee is now working on Bylaws. The next meeting of the Action Coalition will be Wednesday, Juky 31, 8:00 PM, at the Unitarian Church.

2002-06-25T11:02:00.000-04:00

CLOSE INDIAN POINT:
CB THREE MEETING TONIGHT
Indian Point activists will meet before the Board Meeting at 6:00 PM at the Front Page Diner, 75 Page Avenue. The CB3 meeting is at the CYO Center of the Mission of Mount Loretto, 6581 Hylan Blvd. The map at right shows both locations - the blue pin is the Front Page Diner, the red star is Mount Loretto.
The public speaking session begins promptly at 7:30 and ends at 8:00, and we probably have to sign up to speak, so everyone should be at Mount Loretto by 6:45 latest.

2002-06-24T10:29:00.000-04:00

SUCCESSFUL WATERFRONT FESTIVAL TABLING
   The event was very successful and I'm looking forward to doing it every month.
   Pete McParland arrived very early and set up the table. Betsy WIlson and I came later with a signs for the Greens and Peace Action. Dalia Chase, Pete Levine, and Sally Jones also helped. I had to leave for several hours to xerox more literature, so I may have missed other volunteers. The table was jammed with literature on the table about Indian Point, Greens, Peace Action, and the July 21 UU Forum, and Sally made up blue Peace Action of Staten Island stickers for people to wear, which created instant walking promotion.
   At first I was disappointed to learn that the table was not in the Municipal Parking Lot, but in a "non-profit area" along the triangular island between Stuvesant Place and Hyatt Street, facing the back entrance to Borough Hall, across the street from the side of the Library. I thought that we would get almost no traffic compared to the crowds in the parking lot .(The booths there cost $75 our "non-profit" booth was $50.) It was also very hot - we had no shade until late afternoon.
   But I was wrong; it turred out to be a very productive location. SIDA, the AIDS Task Force, and several other non-profits were there wth us, along with some vendors across the way. A music stage could be heard clearly a block away down behind the bus station - great folk and blues performers including Carolyn Cutroneo and Robert Ross. The flowers at our back smelled nice. And above all, people stopped by the table all day long, until around six when everyone headed over to the Yankees game.
   We netted several hundred new contacts, including signatures on the Close Indian Point petition, entries on the Greens mailing list, and Peace Action memberships and donations, plus and lots of invaluable personal discussion and networking. (The names will go into the Inkling/Coalition database/mailing list.)
   The next event is Saturday,. July 13, a week before the UU Forum, and the Festivals will continue each month through October.

2002-06-22T02:50:00.000-04:00

Staten Island Activism Calendar
See the Staten Island section at left for a new link to the
SI Activism Calendar - a page that actually looks like a calendar, where you can click on any event for more details.
For now, it goes up to October, with special emphasis on September 11th and Oct 7th. We need to think about what we are going to do to make sure the memory of the tragedy is not once again co-opted by the military-industrial-corporate-globalized-media complex.

2002-06-21T12:48:00.000-04:00

PEACE ACTION OF STATEN ISLAND IS OFFICIAL
In a little more than one week, 38 people have already joined the new chapter. Ken Estey of Peace Action New York State has officially recognized the chapter. A web page for the Staten Island group will be going up shortly on NYState Peace Action's web site. Our first meeting will be announced shortly.
We will be tabling tomorrow at the Staten Island Waterfront Festival in St. George.

2002-06-21T12:37:00.000-04:00

Staten Island Waterfront Festival in St. George - All Day Saturday (Tomorrow)
Featuring a table from the where you can hang out, distribute/receive literature, and get the word out. Meet members of Staten Island Greens, Close Indian Point Coaliton, Peace Action of Staten Island, UU Social Concerns Committee, Pax Christi, etc. Plus tons of other cool stuff like media presenttions from Alan Moore in the LIbrary, music from Carolyn Cutroneo, Stout, and others, antique classic car show and swap meet in St. George parking lot, children's activities, lots of other cool stuff.
Parade starts at 10:00 AM from Jersey St and Richmond Terrace and moves to behind Borough Hall for Opening Ceremonies. All day activities - till it gets dark, around 7PM/ Mor info: 720-5378

2002-06-21T11:50:00.000-04:00

The Warlords Win in Kabul
Op Ed piece in today's NY Times by Omar Zakhilwal and Adeena Niazi of CESR (the group that brough Prof Hadi Gharemi with Afghanistan videos to the UU Forum)

2002-06-19T12:44:00.000-04:00

IN STORES NOW!
In time for Christmas!
No, wait - in time for your 9/11 Memorial Party!
The Number One Selling Toy in the USA!
The All-American Toy!
The Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator!
With twenty FREE American Flag stickers and FREE map of Iraq!!
(One Megaton Fallout Kit sold separately)

2002-06-18T16:33:00.000-04:00

THE PENETRATOR

And you thought the nuclear arms race ended with the Cold War. Guess again. While Clinton was busy with other matters, the boys in the Pentagon have been hard at work. One of the designs they've had on the books since the 80's is called, in typical sado-phallic Pentagonese, "the Penetrator." What does it penetrate? Mother Earth, of course. It's official name: the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator.

Unfortunately for the military machine, there were pesky treaties in the way, like the one banning work on new nuclear weapons, and laws, like one in 1994 specifically banning work on earth-penetrating "mini-nukes" with less than 5-kiloton yields. So the Penetrator didn't see the light of day during the Clinton years.

But now Bush is in the White House (please, don't remind me how he got there.) And right now, as we speak, the Penetrator is being sold to the Senate as an indispensable part of the Bush administration's new "defense means strike first" policy. The cost? $15 million of our taxpayer dollars.

The Pentagon PR flacks are calling this weapon a "bunker buster" and a "survivable" nuke. But don't be confused. This monster is capable of a lot more the puny weapons, also called "bunker busters" the Air Force used in Afghanistan.

On March 25, the San Jose Mercury News reported that government defense labs in Livermore and Los Alamos were about to begin work on "a new earth-penetrating hydrogen bomb" called the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator. Bush administration officials were trying to fend off criticism by claiming that the Penetrator wasn't really a new weapon, but "a modification" of an old design, and so didn't actually break any treaties or laws. And besides, they really hadn't officially decided to begin work yet.

The article went on to place the maximum yield of the Penetrator at over one megaton. That's a million tons of TNT, a hundred Hiroshimas, and two million times the Air Force's Afghanistan bunker busters. Of course, that isn't being highlighted in the Senate hearings.

ACTION ALERT: Get more information on what these weapons actually do at the Peace Action web site. While you're there, scroll down and send a convenient and timely message to our glorious Senators Clinton and Schumer. You may think you don't need to, that these Democrats already going to vote against the Penetrator. Guess again. Schumer shares the same nuclear vote record - 14% - as Strom Thurmond! And Clinton is rated zero. They need to hear from you, now, urgently. Do it. This is a perfect opportunity to think globally, act locally.

2002-06-16T10:31:00.000-04:00

WORD OF THE DAY: PSEUDO-DEMOCRACIES
Quote from Dr. Johannes B. Koeppl, Ph.D. a former German defense ministry official and advisor to former NATO Secretary General Manfred Werner, who warned as early as 1983, through Op-Ed pieces published in NEWSWEEK and elsewhere, that Brzezinski and the Council on Foreign Relations are part of an effort to impose a global dictatorship.

"In 1983/4 I warned of a take-over of world governments being orchestrated by these people. There was an obvious plan to subvert true democracies and selected leaders were not being chosen based upon character but upon their loyalty to an economic system run by the elites and dedicated to preserving their power.

"All we have now are pseudo-democracies."
See HOW STUPID DO THEY THINK WE ARE?

2002-06-16T10:03:00.000-04:00

INDIAN POINT UPDATE: CB 3 {REVISED 6/13]
Community Board 3 is the now hot spot for Indian Point action on the Island. Last Wednesday, the Environmental Committee of CB met with a grouip of Staten Island Close Indian Point activists, led by Linda Barbato, a South Shore resident, and backed up by Elizabeth Shanklin of the Coalition and experts she brought along for the occasion. Two representatives from Entergy were also present, one from the PR agency and one worker from the plant. These may have been alerted to the meeting by Congressman Fosella's office, who were reported as having called the CB 3 Office to inquire what speakers were being brought by the Coalition.

The District Manager of CB3, Marie Bodnar, attended the meeting, but besides the Chair, only one of the other four members of the Environmental Committee was present. By at the end of the meeting, the Chair was in favor of closing the plant, but the other member was opposed. As there was no quorum, an official vote could not be taken.

The only way to get the Board to vote on the question before it adjourns for the summer is for Prof. Talley to make a motion to the Board to bring the matter up for their own discussion and possible vote. This is what he suggested and the group agreed to the idea.

BOARD MEETING TUESDAY JUNE 25: The next full CB3 meeing will be on Tuesday June 25, at Mount Loretto CYO on Hylan Blvd. . The first agenda of the meeting is the Publc Contact Session, which lasts 30 minutes, generally limited to two minutes per person, between 7:30 and 8:00 PM.. After that the public may not speak, though they can watch the meeting. At some time in the meeting, Prof. Talley intends to make a motion to discuss and vote on closing Indian Point. There is no absolute guarantee that the motion will be seconded, discussed or voted on, but the Coalition is hoping to influence the Board through the 30-minute Public Contact Session. The plan is for Elizabeth Shanklin and other experts to speak, supported by as many people as possible, especially South Shore residents. If dozens of people show up, not everyone may be able to speak, but more people present to show support, the better.

GET INVOLVED Call Linda Barbato, 967-3117, Betsy Wilson, 556-3941, Patty Knudsen, 442-7999, or Pete McParland, 987-0883, or for further details

2002-06-14T22:39:00.000-04:00

LIGHT SUMMER READING

Do you find yourself wishing you were in an alternate, pre-9/11 universe? Asking yourself "How the *!!?#%!? did things ever get to this point?" Are you getting tired of seeing our supposedly free press draped in red-whiie-and-blue AMERICA AT WAR banners, as if this they were cheerleaders for destruction?

Then check out the following excerpt from The New Nuclear Danger, by Helen Caldicott, It's not escapism, but you know when you wake up hearing a noise downstairs, and you think it might be a burglar? Turning over and going back to sleep isn't the smartest option. If you give a damn, you get up and check it out. It helps to know what exactly you're up against. Information is the best thing to conquer fear.

THE TRAGEDY OF WASTED OPPORTUNITIES

"The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist. McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the designer of the F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technologies is called the United States Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps."
-Thomas Friedman, New York Times Magazine, March 18, 1999

"Imagine this: The cold war is over. A wise and visionary young American president, elected in 1992, decides that now is the time to rid the world of nuclear weapons. Six months into this first term he flies to Moscow to meet with a pliable Russian president, who agrees to sign a treaty to eliminate Russian and American nuclear weapons within five years. The governments of France, China, England, and Israel follow suit. India and Pakistan choose not to pursue the development of nuclear armaments, a path they were about to take. The United Nations is vested by the international community with the authority and funding to prevent lateral proliferation of nuclear weapons. Hundred of tons of deadly plutonium are removed over the next five years from the world's total of 52,972 nuclear weapons. The overwhelming relief that the world will son be free from the threat of instant annihilation catalyzes effective international planning and cooperation to solve the problem of where and how to store the plutonium.

"American tax dollars are diverted from massive Pentagon and corporate military gadgets into projects designed to take care of the nation's people. A government-funded system of universal health care is initiated, and free, state-of-the-art education from kindergarten through college gradually becomes available throughout the nation. Congress passes a law mandating that all cars be built to operate at 80 miles per gallon, and appropriates funding for public transportation initiatives in every state. Legislation is enacted requiring that most buildings be retrofitted to collect solar energy, and that every new building be powered, heated, and cooled by solar energy. Generous safety nets are put in place, providing for the old, the poor, the sick, and the indigent, and the Social Security system remains immune to the work of "market forces." Every American child will be fully immunized, and no child will live below the poverty line.

"Almost five decades since the dawn of the atomic age, the Unites States of America is on the way to becoming truly secure, no longer dependent on a nuclear barricade for its safety. The nation become an inspirational example to all other countries as we enter the twenty-first century.

"Now blink and reenter reality.

"A newly elected president - touched paradoxically with both hubris and timidity, who had never acquired an in-depth knowledge of matters military or nuclear, was handicapped by a severe leadership impediment: he had evaded the Vietnam draft. In his own mind he never overcame this apparent character deficit, and the military that he allegedly commanded made sure that he never forgot it. To exacerbate this situation, several acute personal problems of a deeply embarrassing - not to mention compromising - nature occupied this president, to the point where he contemplated possible resignation and faced actual impeachment.

"Partly to compensate for these "deficiencies," Clinton used U.S. military forces overseas - in Bosnia, Iraq, and Kosovo, among other places - more frequently than any other U.S. president of the last twenty years. Further, his was the only administration since Eisenhower's that did not negotiate a single significant nuclear arms control treaty.

"Bill Clinton's basic disinterest, distraction, draft handicap, and lack of vision allowed the military - Pentagon, nuclear scientists, and military corporations - to move into this presidential vacuum. They wooed, seduced, and bought Congress and the administrative staff, and the opportunity for nuclear disarmament was tragically lost. Ironically, as we enter the twenty-first century, after eight years of a Democratic administration, the world is in a position even more dangerous than it was at the height of Reagan's buildup of nuclear weapons and Star Wars dreams. It is against this unfortunate backdrop that the events of September 11, 2001 took place, adding ominously to the possibility of intentional nuclear war or nuclear accidents, and the U.S. nuclear arsenal was placed on the highest state of alert, and international tensions rose. U.S nuclear policy and weaponry have never been more aggressive."

Those are the first two pages plus from Chapter 1, THE TRAGEDY OF WASTED OPPORTUNITIES. She goes on from there to spell out exactly what's going on. For those of us like me, who have been pretty much asleep to what' the military industrial complex has been up to for the past ten years, it's a big eye-opener.

If you care about the survival of this planet, get this book. It's an essential handbook for what we have to do now, which is to abolish nuclear weapons once and for all. .Dr. Caldicott is once again leading the way. She believes it can be done in five years with a dedicated campaign, and she has formed the Nuclear Policy Research Institute to make that objective a reality. I've included a link to NRPI in the "Global" links section at left, and I highly recommend the site as an information source..
jb

2002-06-12T14:23:00.000-04:00

REPORT ON THE 20TH ANNIVERSARY
PEACE ACTION RALLY - WEDNESDAY,
ETHICAL CULTURE SOCIETY

SUMMARY: AN URGENT CALL, A REBORN MOVEMENT TO ABOLISH NUCLEAR WEAPONS
(Trying to summarize this powerful meeting is difficult. I took extensive notes from each speaker, and below is an index linking to various parts of this document in an attempt to recreate what each speaker said in the order in which they appeared.)
Twenty years ago, we worked to Freeze the Arms Race and stop nuclear proliferation. To a large degree, we were successful. The US/USSR arms race stopped. The number of nukes worldwide dropped by some twenty to thirty thousand. The Cold War stopped.
But then, tragically, we stopped too. We left the nineties to Bush Sr. and Clinton. And as Helen Caldicott points out in The New Nuclear Danger, Clinton, for all his supposedly encyclopedic expertise, had a severe blind spot on matters military and nuclear. He was also was psychologically and politically handicapped by his Vietnam draft evasion, and the military never let him forget it. Perhaps it was psychological compensation for this and other character defects that led Clinton to used U.S. military forces overseas - in Bosnia, Iraq, and Kosovo, among other places - more frequently than any other U.S. president of the last twenty years. and waste the opportunity to negotiate, after the end of the Cold War. what could have been the final and most signifcant nuclear arms control treaty of all time. Instead, his was the first administration since Eisenhower's. not to negotiate a single nuclear arms control measure.
In the sixties, when Women Strike For Peace protested against the health dangers of nuclear testing, showing that strontium-90 was present in the teeth of children near nuclear test areas. But this did not abolish testing. It merely drove it literally underground. So, after the Freeze made the threat of the nuclear arms race a huge public issue, the machinations of the nuclear military-industrial complex simply went underground, Dr. Caldicott:
"... the Pentagon, nuclear scientists, and military corporations moved into this presidential vacuum. They wooed, seduced, and bought Congress and the administrative staff, and the opportunity for nuclear disarmament was tragically lost. Ironically, as we enter the twenty-first century, after eight years of a Democratic administration, the world is in a position even more dangerous than it was at the height of Reagan's buildup of nuclear weapons and Star Wars dreams. It is against this unfortunate backdrop that the events of September 11, 2001 took place, adding ominously to the possibility of intentional nuclear war or nuclear accidents, and the U.S. nuclear arsenal was placed on the highest state of alert, and international tensions rose. U.S. nuclear policy and weaponry have never been more aggressive."
We now face a huge right-wing push for newer,"better," "usable," and "survivable" nukes, the militarization of space, first strike preemptive nuclear policy, the non-renewal of the ABM treaty, and a host of other new nuclear horrors hidden in the secretive labs of Lawrence Livermore and the "Manhattan II" project. .
What must we do? We're going to mobilize again. And this time, we are going for Total Nuclear Abolition. This time, we're not going to stop until we actually get it, once and for all. This time, we're not going to fade away when we appear to have a success. This time, we're smarter, more experienced, and more dedicated. And this time, we have the resources of the internet to help us activate thousands of already existing or dormant groups and millions of citizens..
The movement has begun with this rally. The Nation has just published an entire issue featuring An Urgent Call to End the Nuclear Danger. The Urgent Call has been just been proposed as a bill in the House by Representative Markey, who also introduced the Nuclear Freeze bill in 1982. Congressman Dennis Kucchinik and thirty others have just sued Bush for breaking the ABM treaty without Senate approval.
LOCAL ACTION
On Staten Island, we are immediately forming a chapter of Peace Action. To join, just send me an email with your name, address, phone number and JOIN PEACE ACTION in the subject. I will take care of the rest and notify you of our first meeting. Please pass the word along.

DETAILED ACCOUNT OF THE MEETING
A NOTE ON ACCURACY:
Everything below is reconstructed from my notes. The longer the quote, the more chance that it is not exact. even when in quotation marks,. It's all paraphrasing, not exact quotes, though I did the best I could. Better than nothing, but not exact. Please bear this in mind and do not repeat anything here as the speaker's exact words. I'm just trying to give you a sense of what happened.

INDEX
Opening
Welcome - Ethical Culture Society
Opening Remarks- Dr. Ken Estey, NY State Peace Action
Ossie Davis, Master of Ceremonies
Message from Rev. William Sloane Coffin (read by Jane Alexander)
Leslie Cagan, Coordinator, 1982 Central Park Rally
Cora Weiss, National Board, Peace Action
Jonathan Schell, An Urgent Call to End the Nuclear Danger
Randy Forrester, End the Nuclear Danger
Message from Rep. Dennis Kuchinik
Circus Amok: Get Free of Nuclear Chains
Bill Hartung, Fellow, World Policy Institute: Missile Shield Demo
SANITY (Students Against Nuclear Insanity for Tomorow's Youth)
Grace Paley: Prose and Two Poems
Kathleen Sullivan: They All Laughed
Kevin Martin, ED National Peace Action
Ken Estey: Closing Remarks

OPENING
The rally was held in a theatre-like room with descending rows of upholstered seats leading to a stage. It was packed, SRO, to the rafters. The Obie-winning street band Circus Amok -five women on drums, accordion, bass, and trumpet and a guy on trombone - opened the rally marching down the aisle and onto stage right playing razmatazz ragtime.

WELCOME - ETHICAL CULTURE SOCIETY
The spokesperson for the Ethical Culture Society noted the history of the building (declared a Peace Site in 1985) and the long involvement of ECS in peace causes including many of the organizations that participated in the Central Park Rally twenty years ago. back to INDEX

OPENING REMARKS - DR. KEN ESTEY, E.D. NY STATE PEACE ACTION.
Dr. Estey revved up the crowd with chanted questions and answers punctuated by Circus Amok. Peace Action is the largest peace organization in the United States and was key in the 1982 Central Park event. Dr. Estey thanked the Ethical Culture Society and The Nation Institute for sponsoring the event. "Twenty years ago .... we made survival imagineable again," said Estey. "We gave each other hope in a heartless, nuclear-filled world." He then introduced Ossie Davis as "one of those who work a whole lifetime for peace - the indispensable ones." back to INDEX

OSSIE DAVIS, MASTER OF CEREMONIES.
Ossie joked about coming to these rallies just to be sure he was still alive, said he would speak for Ruby Dee who was in rehearsal, and had a message from his 103-year-old mother. He recalled the old thirties worker movement play, Waiting For Lefty, in which a group of workers who want to get organized and strike hang around waiting for "Lefty" to show up. But Lefty never shows up, and the workers finally realize that they have to organize and take action themselves. Ossie said to remember that "the people are always on time - just make sure you don't miss your appointment with them. ... So If anyone in the room is waiting for a million people to show up before you act, well, hat's not going to happen." The 1982 Peace Rally and the movement that followed "got us out of Reagan's arms race," and it was the work of many days and may groups -Physicians for Social Responsibilty, Women Strike For Peace, the IFF, the UN, Mobilization for Survival, Nuclear Freeze among them. It was successful in that we halted the arms race and testing and production of nuclear weapons. But now, 20 years later, we are facing "the same hydra-headed monster," the military-industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us about, and the f Bush administration's diabolical weaponry. The questions are, How can we build a grassroots movement to stop it? What are the lessons we learned from 1982? For the answer, Ossie introduced longtime peace activist and actress Jane Alexander to read a message from Rev. William Sloane Coffin. back to INDEX

MESSAGE FROM REV. WILLIAM SLOANE COFFIN (paraphrased)
Dear Friends: It is hard to do the right thing in hard times. But it is fitting for doves stir the stale air around them with the beating of their wings. President Bush recently spoke of a threefold 'axis of evil" in the world. He was right. But it is not Iran, Iraq, and North Korea. It is environmental degradation, pandemic poverty, and a world awash in weapons. Beyond individuals, communities, and nations, the whole world is once again on the brink of destruction. The recent Bush-Putin treaty calls for the storage, not the elimination, of nuclear weapons, so that they can be used again. The United States now has more nuclear weapons than the next eight nuclear states combined. Shame on us that our country does not want to supervise world nuclear disarmament but continues to lead the way in the production of more weapons. It is the devil who makes us lust after power. In times like these we must say to the powerful the words of the prophet Ezekiel to the rulers of Tyre: "You have corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor." {also beautiful long quote from Shakespeare about the folly of man's illusory constructions] ... Remember, dissent isn't disloyal. Subservience is. ... Our anger must be measured by our love for our country and the world. If we hate evil more than we love good, we become good-haters. And there are enough of those. Finally, remember the words of Norman Thomas: "There are no loast causes, only causes that have not been won. " back to INDEX

LESLIE CAGAN, COORDINATOR, MILLION PERSON MARCH.
Leslie is now Chairperson of the National Board of Pacifica Radio. This meeting launches us into the next phase, she said. We are going to eliminate nuclear weapons entirely. Her remarks were directed at lessons we can learn from the 1982 rally and movement.
1. Mass movements are built at the base, in the work place, in communities. Without this, rallies amount to nothing. The biggest success of the 1982 rally was that it brought together 600 different groups, and created new ones, that went on to make the movement at the base. The organizing, before and after, was the key success.
2. Sometimes movements don't do what you want. They do something else. The 1982 Freeze movement didn't eliminate nuclear weapons entirely, but they put the issue on the table. No matter what you thought about nuclear disarmament, you realized that it was a major issue.
3. Our work and organizations work most effectively when they are fully inclusive - not just of races, creeds, genders, etc, but also of different tactics and strategies. June 12, 1982 was actually three ralliies - June 11, the interfaith demonstration, June 14, civil disobedience at 5 nations of the UN, and the International UN Conference on Disarmament. We allowed people to enter the movement, we respected political diversity.
4. So we can work with a number of issues: end militarization, close Indian Point, end nuclear power, it's time, and turn around the priorities of the government. It's time to focus on the needs of people, not the needs of militarization. We can build a mulit-level grass-roots movement.
Leslie also honored the memory of three organizers who recently passed: Jim Bell, Cleveland Robinson, and Sandy Pollack. back to INDEX

CORA WEISS, National Board, Peace Action.
Cora was one of the most dynamic speakers of the evening. She began by saying "I salute you! What constancy! What persistence!" She announced, to wild applause, that Representatives Russ Weingold of Wisconsin and Dennis J. Kuchinick of Cleveland Ohio had just sued President Bush for pulling out of the ABM treaty without Senate approval, under the guidance of their lawyer, her husband Peter, who got an ovation.
Way back in 1963, said Cora, Women Strike For Peace was out there teaching newspaper editior how to spell "Strontium 90/" Their message about nuclear testing was simple. It released cancerous poisons that were spread around by the wind, which got it into the grass, which cows ate, and their milk, which children drank. A d when they sent their children's teeth to Dr. Barry Commoner, he discovered that the deadly chemicals were indeed present in their teeth. "We asked for an end to nuclear testing. No one dreamed that it would just be driven underground." Part of the problem is that women are not represented as 50% of government. Nuclear weapons are illegal since UN Security Council Resolution 1325 - "but still men have guns and government." The world once again is in the grip of "nuclear brinksmanship." Even though it is crystal clear that the people want peace.
"Nothing happens unless first dreamed," however, so imagine:
• Imagine Israel and Palestine sitting down to create a statement of common needs, integrating peace education into all classrooms. 35 years is a long time for an occupation. The swamp of inequities can only be cleared by a cry for Justice, Justice, and more Justice!
• Imagine that the US hasea culture of peace, not militarism, that it is not planning war with Iran, Iraq, and "terrorism." That militarization is not eroding our liberties. "Wars are not tools to chisel peaceful tomorrows."
•; Imagine that Unocal had not set its aims for oil expansion on Afghanistan. And beware of Columbia, its next target, which will soon be pockmarked with craters and littered with corpses.
•; Imagine that every city had the Resolution of Tomoa Komai, a Japanese city whose mayor is required to protest and object to any nuclear testing. Imagine that Japan, of all countries, is not flirting with becoming a nuclear power.
•; Imagine that the UN Conference on the Rights of the Child would be taken seriously. That the 815 million people who go hungry every day become the top international priority, that the $4million a day spent for nuclear war would go instead to schools and health insurance for children.
•; Imagine that the United States would face up to its own violent cults - homophobes, racists, choice-haters - and instead of demanding only that other nations respect human rights,would clean up its own act.
•; Imagine that the Senate would ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
•; Imagine that newspaper editors learn to spell ABOLITION of nuclear weapons, ABOLITION of war.
•; As long as there are nuclear weapons, and the causes of ware are not addressed, it could all be over in one minute. KI pills won't help us.
•; So imagine that we teach peace, bring women to the table, and preserve our environment. back to INDEX

JONATHAN SCHELL: AN URGENT CALL TO END THE NUCLEAR DANGER
For the full text of the Urgent Call as published in the June 24 issue of The Nation, see http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020624&s=schell2 Jonathan Schell is the main author of the Urgent Call, along with Randall Forrester and David Cortright.
"We are not here to relive old glories," said Schell, "but to write a new chapter." And it is sorely needed. The Bush administration is now adopting a pre-emptive nuclear policy of "offensive deterrence" - a tide that sinks all boats. All this is wrong, totally wrong. The United States is saying to the rest of the world, "We possess these weapons, but you can't, and if you try to, we will blow you off the face of the earth." This is a dangerous, unworkable, inequitable, indecent message. The message of the Urgent Call is much simpler: "Get rid of them all! You said you would abolish nuclear weapons over and over in treaty after treaty. Do it now! People will say "There's nothing new in what you're proposing." Duh. No, there is no novelty. It's simple. It's obvious.
We are now on common ground, something we haven't had for two decades, since the Freeze. Congressman Dennis Kuchinik is a fresh, poweful new voice. Rep. Ed. Markety, who introduced the Freeze into Congress in 1982, is introducing the Urgent Call as a House Resolution. We need to take this Call to all groups, have them add the call to their agenda. This is everyone's business. It doesn't matter if you're a taxi driver, a real estate agent, a vetinarian, whatever. We have to tell everyone, the bombs can go off any minute, and if they do, there will be no taxi passaengers, no people to buy homes, no parakeets or dogs -every living thing will die.
Our backs have been turned to two decades. We need to be as persistent as we are fewer. Nuclear danger is back. But we're back too. And we're not going away. back to INDEX

RANDY FORRESTER: END THE NUCLEAR DANGER
Holding up a copy of the June 24 issue, which was passed out to all attendees, Ms. Forrester thanked The Nation for "taking the lead" on the issue. She recalled a meeting in December 1979 when she spoke to less than 500 people for 10 minutes and told them, "If we could all come together on one focus - End The Arms Race - we could do it. We could create, not just a campaign, but a movement." And from 500 in December 1979, it grew to a million in June 1982. "We did it," said Ms. Forrester. "We ended the arms race. We ended the Cold War."
But now, the ABM Treaty,of 1972, 30 years old, is going to be dissolved tomorrow. We got the numbers of nuclear weapons down from 55,000 to about 25,000, but now the Bush administration is coming on with the "Attack of the Clones" - first use, "survivable" nukes. It's deadly serious, too. When the proposal was attacked in the House, the Chair of the Armed Forces Committee personally passed around a flyer to every Representative, which said "We neeed these new weapons! We must be able to use them!" Bush Sr. and Gorbacheve pulled back their so-called "tactical weapons, and for a time the weapons labs were falling into disuse and disarray. But now there is lots of money for nuclear weapons research, resuming testing, storing and the new policy calls for stroing maintaining the old nuclear arsenal so that it can be refitted with new parts, at a cost of billions of taxpayer dollars.
So we have a new message. It is: ABOLOISH NUCLEAR WEAPONS ALTOGETHER.
This time we're not going away when it gets some results.
We want 2000 signatures in the first three days on this petition for the Urgent Call. (The Urgent Call has a website, urgentcall.org where you can sign the Urgent Call petition online.)
We're going to have a new SDS - Sign, Donate, and Spread the word.
It's going to be a $10 million movement. Everyone must donate $10. And we will make the NRA look like nothing! .
We are wiser, more experienced, and we will follow up. Begin organizing! back to INDEX

ESSAGE FROM CONGRESSMAN DENNIS J. KUCHINIK
My thoughts and prayers are with you as we reconnect with a shared vision for a world free of nuclear weapons, space weapons, terrorism, and fear, and as we unite in hope, optimism, and confidence in the future. We are citizens of a common planet. We must act with courage and decision to rid the world of the destructive scourge of nuclear weaponry. This is the great cause of our times and our lifes. This is the moment to begin, with love and clarity, and to pledge to this cause and to each other, in the words of our founding patriots, "our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor." back to INDEX

CIRCUS AMOK: GET FREE OF THE CHAINS OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS.
A "bearded lady" from Circus Amok then performed a "metaphor for freedom from nukes" as the band played behind her. An audience volunteer straitjacketed and tightly chained her. "If I get free of this, " she said, " it means we can get free of nuclear weapons." Gyrating, grabbing the chain in her teeth, and intermittently doing a little jig, she only took about a minute for her to get free - a good omen. back to INDEX

BILL HARTUNG: MISSILE SHIED DEMO
Me. Hartung came on stage with a large plastic globe placed on a rolled-up mat as a pedistal. Helpers passes out ping-pong balls, tennis balls, and nerf balls, and wiffle balls to the audience. Hartung explained that the real problem trying to convince Bush that he's on the wrong path is not his love of nuclear weapons, but his fear of multi-syllable words. That's what was behind the Pretzel Incident - he passed out trying to read a briefing memo from Condaleeza Rice. We should also perhaps pass a law that no president who cannot pronounce the word "nuclear" should be able to start a nuclear war.
Hartung said he was reading Franics Fitsgerald's Way Out There in The Blue, a description of how Caspar Weinberger made a demo to Reagan, brought in a huge column to represent the amount Russian weapons. It was ten feet tall, and of course painted Red. And then he brought in the American column which was only 9 feet 11 inches. And immeidately, Reagan approved trillions of dollars for new weapons. So this is a demo of what we're spending $100 million on for missile defense. And it's a much cheaper test. $3.27 total cost - because some of this Bill will keep for private use.
First he put on X-ray sunglasses from a dentist's to protect against radiation. A snorkel so he could pop op out of the ocean and intercept the missles - Sea Based Defense! a tennis racket, a velcro pad for the Nerf balls (Missles Recycling Program!) even an expanding plastic Laser light saber. He stood in front of the globe, and on the count of three, everyone who had "missles" threw them at the globe. Needless to say, practically all of them went past him. None however managed to knock the globe off its pedestal. We're new at this.
Ossie Davis commented, "The opposition is mad. A little madness from us now and then is OK." back to INDEX

SANITY (STUDENTS AGAINST NUCLEAR INSANITY FOR TOMORROW'S YOUTH)
Two students read a statement. Donna Diaz read in English, her partner repeated in Spanish, and later made a short statement in in French.
Our world could be destroyed at any minute. It's not safe. And if it's not safe, where do we go?
Todays youth faces this challenge. As Arandati Roy said when she was asked what kind of book she was going to write next, "What book? Another book, now, when all human art, all books, music, everything, means nothing to the monsters who rule the world? What kind of book should I write? For now, pointlessness is my biggest enemy."
That's what the nuclear arms bombs do, whether they are used or not. They violate humanity, they change the meaning of life. This is our world and we must take care of it. Before we are American, Spansih, French, Afghanistan, Russian, Chinese, etc, we are human. Nuclear weapons threaten all our dreams, the thing we love, the ones we love, whom we cannot do without. All are on the verge of destruction.
Let us make a promise, not to ourselves or each other, but to Moher Earth who gives us so much and asks for so little: And I promise you here tonight that the work you have done for so long will not be in vain. The shoes you stand in, we will fill and walk in. back to INDEX

GRACE PALEY
Grace read one prose piece and two poems. The prose peace was about fathers passing on the tradition of glorious wars to their sons, How hard it was to keep them from mild prejudice or sleepy contempt. How each generation enjoyed their own special war. Worried about their sons reading too much, but sure that they can find the record of historical insult in their saved newspapers that jusitified their war. The father wants his son to be an airman. Not to have anxiety about possible damage to tender civilians. It's only one month till the boy is eighteene. At last - his own war!
The first poem was about beating swords into plowshares. What a terrible racket they made dong that! Letters to the editor. But the government was a poet, was trying for a living performing metaphor. Not to worry - they will be able to beat them back into swords, should swords be required by boys and men.
The second poem was called Responsibility and addressed the responsibility of society to the poet. The responsibility of society to the poet is to let the poet be a poet. The responsibility of the poet is to be a woman. To stand on street corners handing out poems, handing out tracts as well with screaming rheteoric. To be lazy and hang out. To not pay war taxes. To live in Avenue C apartments. The male poet must be a woman. The female poet must be a woman. To hear the truth from the powerless. To proclaim that there is no freedom without justice. To sing in all the traditional forms. To hear gossip and pass it on. There is no freedom without fear and bravery To keep an eye on society. To be Cassandra. But tHs time, to be listened to.
(Apoligies to the poet. She is incredible. If you don't know Grace's work, get it, it's diamond.) back to INDEX

KATHLEEN SULLIVAN: THEY ALL LAUGHED
Ms. Sullivan took the stage in dressed as a Roaring Twenties flapper, proclaimed herself a Defenxe Department Agent in Drag, and in that character, sang a powerful militarized version of Gershwin's They All Laughed The fetching Ms. Sullivan is quite a performer. I couldn't take my eyes off her to take notes. Sorry, but for this, you had to be there. back to INDEX

KEVIN MARTIN, E.D. NATIONAL PEACE ACTION
Mr. Martin thanked Ossie Davis, calling him a "drum major for justice." He suggested two that people interested in the 1982 Central Park Peace Rally can still buy the book "You Can't Hug With Nuclear Arms," a pictorial record. Also, there is a documentary film, "In Our Hands," being shown on
PBS Thursday night.
Martin said the administration's new "Nuclear Posture Review" might as well be called the "Nuclear Posterior Review," because if it goes through, in the words of the radio announcement, {"This has been a test of the Emergency Broadcast System. This is only a test. Had this been a real nuclear attack] you could an kiss your ass goodbye."
He also mocked the insanely hyper-macho, anti-ecological, sick-Freudian symbolism of the administration's newest "bunker-buster" "usable" nuke, which they call the "Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator." He asked people to visit the Peace Action web page, on this issue: Right Steps Up Push For Usable Nukes.
He noted that New York State Senators Clinton and Schumer are not, as one might think, behind the movement to abolish nuckear weapons. In fact last year Clinton received a ZERO rating on the right side of
Finally, he invoked the words of Gandhi when asked about nuclear arms: "The power of the bomb is nothing compared to the power of nonviolence." back to INDEX

KEN ESTEY: CLOSING
Ken Estey returned to the stage to close the rally with an appeal to register with an donate to Peace Action using the envelopes provided at people's seats. Ushers passed through the hall with collection plates for he envelopes. As the plates passed, people started to leave. I'd intended to stay later to interview the principals further, but I'd met Sally and David Jones earlier, and I gratefully accepted a ride back to Staten Island with them. Caroline Cutroneo also attended the event, but we didn't find each other. If you know Sally, David, or Caroline, ask them about it. Caroline, by the way, will be performing at The Muddy Cup's Second Open Music Night this Monday, June 17. back to INDEX

2002-06-12T11:11:00.000-04:00

GET YOUR WAR ON and other links at left
Yes, the links section has moved to the left. There's an kind of order to it: Staten Island local action at the top, New York groups in the middle, and national/global/general/etc at the bottom..
Please notice near the bottom, GET YOUR WAR ON.Totally outrageous, drop dead on target, biting confrontation of the obscenity of the War On Terrorism and the degradation and meaninglessness of life under Junior and Uncle Dick. Don't miss it.

2002-06-12T10:40:00.000-04:00

RUTH BENSON'S LETTER TO THE ADVANCE ON INDIAN POINT AND 9/11 STRESS
This appeared in the B Section, page 5, of the Sunday, June 9th Edition of The Staten Island Advance, under the heading: We Should Channel Our 9/11 Stress into Working To Close Indian Point:

To the Editor:

It was with great interest that I read your report in Sunday's paper, "WTC Impact Most Severe Here", on the prevalence of chronic PTSD symptoms among Staten Islanders...Unfortunately, people who are traumatized also feel helpless and hopeless.

We are not helpless, however, if we exert some civic responsibility and hold our legislators to account. There is a disaster looming upon our horizon about which we can do something; there is nothing vague about it.

There is an urgent and growing call to immediately decommission the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant, which even 30 years ago was called "a catastrophe waiting to happen".

Never mind that these reactors leak radioactive water into the Hudson, never mind that they are situated directly over the Ramapo Fault line (as seismic activity increases in the Northeast), never mind that the radioactive waste that they produce cannot be destroyed -- only stored -- and never mind that the power generated exceeds regional needs. And, finally, never mind that they have the worst overall performance rating of the 103 nuclear reactors in the US!

All of this is important, but the pressing issue is this: the reactors are NOT secure from terrorist attack.

We stood in helpless disbelief as we watched the Twin Towers fall. They were not supposed to be vulnerable to aircraft. Nor are the nuclear reactors supposed to be vulnerable. Research, not corporate propaganda, shows this to be untrue -- that a fully fueled jumbo airliner could wreck the same damage on the reactors with a much more horrifying result -- a deadly radioactive plume that would create a wasteland in a 50 mile radius. And that radius includes Staten Island.

There is a resolution in the New York City Council right now -- Resolution No. 64, calling for the City of New York to join the coalition calling for the immediate shutdown of the Indian Point Nuclear Facility.

I urge The Staten Island Advance to take a leadership role in investigating the dangers posed to our communities by the Indian Point Power Plant. And I also urge everyone on Staten Island, where we were so disproportionately affected by the tragedy of September 11th, to call upon our legislators...to bring all the influence at their disposal to actively pursue legislation that will immediately close this ticking time bomb.

Are we so naive [as] to trust the PR message from Entergy, the private corporation that operates Indian Point, that tells us that everything is safe, secure? Will we -- those of us who are still standing -- scratch our heads after the containment tanks have been split open by an air attack or a powerful bomb blast and say, "Gee. We should have shut that thing down ages ago."

Sincerely,
Ruth Benson
247 Potter Avenue
Staten Island, NY 10314
718-273-4660

2002-06-11T14:24:00.000-04:00

The Coalition subcommittee - Peter Levine, Bert Quaadman, Marc Quintard. and myself - met in Bert's apartment last night at 8 PM. Three hours later we had a Mission Statement for the Coalition. Here it is:

COALITION MISSION STATEMENT
Even before the tragedy of September 11, numerous groups on Staten island were addressing vital community issues such as overdevelopment, environmental quality, health, education, accountability of government, racial profiling, affordable housing, homelessness, drugs, unemployment, veterans issues, and so forth. September 11th brought a host of new issues and problems from a more global perspective. Concerned Staten Islanders immediately responded as a community to provide assistance to the victims. Then new efforts emerged to help us better understand, through public discussion, the impact of global events on our local community, and begin to find ways to influence forces which often seem so big and distant as to be completely beyond our control. In the past six months, we have held Forums and Town Hall Meetings on these issues - US foreign policy, the impact of globalization, the socio-economic causes and consequences of the War on Terrorism, the conflict in the Mideast, the civil rights of immigrants and citizens alike, the closure of Indian Point, and the threat of nuclear proliferation and nuclear war with Iraq. We sense an an emerging consensus that we need to connect with each other to face these issues and act on them more effectively.

At this time, we are proposing the formation of a Coalition of concerned Staten Island groups. In recognition of the work already being done by so many groips, and so as not to "reinvent the wheel," the coalition will have this very simple mision statement::

   • To get to know each other better through monthly meetings;
   • To share information about what we are doing;
   • To explore ways we might help each other by working together
       on projects beyond the scope of any single group.

Possible common initiatives might include public forums or teach-ins at a larger venue, large demonstrations or petition drives, speakers bureau facilities, s coordinated calendar, a broad-based newsletter, a television program, and so forth.

The structure of the coalition will also be as simple and open as possible. Membership and meetings will be open to all persons in agreement with the goals and values of the coalition. Meetings will be conducted on the basis of the three goals mentioned above, and cooperative projects will emerge informally as network group members banding together to address specific issues as they see fit. In cases where a formal vote seems appropriate, member groups would be recognized through designated representatives to protect the integrity of member groups and ensure that no group will be committed unwillingly to actions it does not support.

We invite all concerned to join us in forming the coalition, strengthening our voices and efforts, and making Staten Island a better place in these difficult times.