loco

Diametric Goals

Japanese monks begin trek across West to remember nuclear bombings

A lantern containing a remnant of the fire from a nuclear attack that destroyed Hiroshima is on its way to New Mexico, the birthplace of atomic weapons.

Buddhist monks will carry the lantern – by foot – south and west during the next three weeks, passing through California, Arizona and part of New Mexico. Their goal is the Trinity Site at White Sands Missile Range, where the world’s first nuclear weapon was detonated on July 16, 1945.

“I’m comforted in knowing someone would walk more than 1,000 miles to make a statement for world peace,” said Mark Weiss, 41, who attended a welcome ceremony in Palo Alto Sunday.

The Japanese monks, dressed in robes and rope sandals, set out from San Francisco on Saturday, the 60th anniversary of the test. They plan to reach the test site on Aug. 9, the day the atomic bomb called “Fat Man” detonated over Nagasaki.

“In the eastern calendar, 60 is the end of a cycle,” said the Rev. Keishi Miyamoto, one of the monks. “I would like to bring the flame back to the place it came from and extinguish it in the hope that there won’t be another use of nuclear weapons ever again.”

The “atomic flame” is a vivid reminder of the day a U.S. bomber dropped the “Little Boy” nuclear bomb on the Japanese city. More than 200,000 Japanese died in the bombing, and thousands died later of radiation illnesses.

ON THE NET

Global Nuclear Disarmament Fund: http://www.gndfund.org

ABQjournal: New-Nuke Design Efforts Expedited By John Fleck, Journal Staff Writer

Pentagon planners and nuclear weapons scientists, working on a shoestring budget, are moving quickly to begin designing a new easy-to-maintain nuclear warhead, according to an internal congressional analysis. …

The United States has not built a new nuclear warhead since 1989, when the Rocky Flats plutonium factory outside Denver was shut down. …

The [Congressional Research Service] report notes that the new warhead design effort has won widespread congressional support. Both the House and Senate have already voted to nearly triple the budget for the work next year to $25 million, well above the Bush administration’s $9.4 million request for the work.

Note that the second story is not about the nuclear bunker busters we are also pursuing. mjh

I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones. – Albert Einstein (1879 – 1955)

Either war is obsolete or men are. – R. Buckminster Fuller (1895 – 1983)

Dump Duhbya

Spying On You

FBI has files on ACLU, Greenpeace, other rights groups

The FBI has thousands of pages of records in its files relating to the monitoring of civil rights, environmental and similar advocacy groups, the Justice Department acknowledges.

The organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union and Greenpeace, are suing for the release of the documents. The organizations contend that the material will show that they have been subjected to scrutiny by FBI task forces set up to combat terrorism.

The FBI has identified 1,173 pages related to the ACLU and 2,383 pages about Greenpeace, but it needs at least until February to process the ACLU files and until June to review the Greenpeace documents, the government said in a filing in U.S. District Court in Washington. …

“This administration has a history of using its powers against its peaceful critics. If, in fact, the FBI has been deployed to help in that effort, that would be quite shocking,” John Passacantando, Greenpeace’s U.S. executive director, said. …

A memo from Sept. 4, 2003, about Internet sites that were promoting protests at the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York was addressed to counterterrorism units in Boston, Los Angeles and New York.

“Why is this being labeled as counterterrorism when it’s nothing more protests at a political convention, a lawful First Amendment activity?” ACLU’s executive director, Anthony Romero, asked.

ACLU Says FBI Compiling Dossiers on Non-Violent Activist Groups

The document was released in response to an ACLU lawsuit filed two months ago to expedite its FOIA request for FBI surveillance files on the ACLU, Greenpeace, United for Peace and Justice, Code Pink, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and the Muslim Public Affairs Council.

“The UFPJ [United for Peace and Justice, a national peace organization,] report underscores our concern that the FBI is violating Americans’ right to peacefully assemble and oppose government policies without being branded as terrorist threats,” said Ann Beeson, associate legal director of the ACLU. “There is no need to open a counterterrorism file when people are simply exercising their First Amendment rights.”

FBI Spy Files
Is the FBI Spying on You?

Spy Agency Targets Bush Critics – Global News on the World Crisis Web by William Fisher

Those who remember recent history will not be surprised to learn that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has been amassing files on the American Civil Liberties Union, Greenpeace and other critics of the George W. Bush administration.

Back in the 1960s and 1970s, the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of Defence and other intelligence agencies had all conspired to engage in widespread spying on ordinary U.S. citizens — and illegal covert operations.

The targets back then were left-wing groups and individuals, civil rights and anti-Vietnam activists and, of course, Pres. Richard Nixon’s “enemies list”. …

But it was the FBI’s spying on Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. that ended that era of government snooping. The FBI had used wiretaps and a covert operation, personally directed by Hoover, to unearth derogatory information intended to destroy King as a national civil rights leader.

Today, in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, the FBI is again armed with expanded powers to collect information on ordinary citizens. And it has been doing so.

loco

The Boon of Public Lands Exploitation

ABQJOURNAL: Roswell Company Sole Bidder on Otero Mesa Lease

The Washington, D.C.-based Environmental Working Group said its 2 1/2-year study of federal land records found oil and gas companies already have access to a broad expanse of public land in New Mexico, but little oil and gas has resulted.

The government leased or offered more than 27.8 million acres of public land in New Mexico between 1982 and 2004, but public land in the state produced less than 18 days’ worth of U.S. oil consumption and 126 days of natural gas consumption between 1989 and 2003, the group said.

Letters-to-the-Editor

What An Ass We Have In Trever

Let’s see Trever’s latest gem:
ridiculing a fair minimum wage

What we get from the ever clever Trever is a useful insight into the thoughts of opponents of a fair and living minimum wage. This view puts the individual above all (every man for himself) and belittles anyone’s effort to improve the good of more than himself. The loud and clear message of Trever’s latest screams: “Hey, kid, it’s stupid to try to elevate an entire class. Come on, get selfish, get self-serving!” All wrapped up tidily, of course, with over-arching ridicule for caring or trying. He represents the Albuquerque Journal to a T. The Chamber of Con-men should give him an award. mjh

loco

Hiroshima, Nagasaki — Next?

I watched the news as tourists flocked to Trinity Site for the 60th aniversary of the first atomic bomb explosion. No one mentioned Hiroshima or Nagasaki or where we’ll be using the first nuclear bunker busters. mjh

Atomic Memories
Remembering Nagasaki

mjh’s Blog: Hell on Earth

Now the sun has disappeared
All is darkness, anger, pain and fear
Twisted, sightless wrecks of men
Go groping on their knees and cry in pain
And the sun has disappeared

(Simon & Garfunkel)

Remembering Nagasaki

The appearance of the city differed from other bomb sites: here, the explosion and the fires had reduced the entire city (about four square kilometers) to ashes in a single instant. Relief squads, medical and fire-fighting teams, could do nothing but wait. Only the luck of being in a well-placed air raid shelter could be of any use for survival.

Even if the medical and fire-fighting teams from the surrounding areas had been able to rush to the scene, the roads were completely blocked with rubble and charred timber. One had not the faintest idea where the water main might be located, so it would have been impossible to fight the fires. Telephone and telegraph services were suspended; the teams could not contact the outside world for help. It was truly a hell on earth. Those who had just barely survived the intense radiation-their eyes burned and their exposed skin scalded-wandered around aimlessly with only sticks to lean on, waiting for relief. Not a single cloud blocked the direct rays of the August sunlight, which shone down mercilessly on Nagasaki, on that second day after the blast.

loco

American Terrorists

The Daily Inter Lake

The documentary “The Fire Next Time,” a chronicle of two years of conflict in the Flathead Valley, will be seen by audiences nationwide July 12 and 17. …

Patrice O’Neill said her initial interest in the Flathead Valley was piqued by the Project 7 revelations, when the arrest of Project 7 leader David Burgert in February 2002 led to the exposure of an alleged plot to kill local government leaders.

Over the two-year course of the filming, the filmmakers were drawn to KGEZ radio owner and “The Edge” talk-show host John Stokes, who said at one point in the film that environmentalists were “destroying America.”

I saw this documentary. Talk Radio “host” John Stokes is a vile human being. He spews hate; he foments hate; his is the face of hate. At one point, he says he supports a recall of local government officials only because “we don’t allow assassination in this country.” The look on his face, his tone, said clearly that he disdains that fact — that the country would clearly be a better place if he could just kill the problem-makers. Horrifying.

It is very important to recognize that this guy and his followers call themselves “conservatives” and “patriots” and all of their many enemies “liberals”. I’m not saying he represents conservatives. I’m just looking for conservatives to repudiate the evil in their midst with half the condemnation they direct at liberals. Guys like this will happily split this country into warring factions. What are you going to do about it? mjh

P.O.V. – The Fire Next Time | PBS

With beautiful Flathead Lake at its center and Glacier National Park 30 miles to the north, the valley’s 80,000 residents host over two million visitors a year…. [It is also a] flashpoint in the country’s running battle between the forces of economic development, environmental activism, and anti-government extremism. …

A radio talk show host regularly called for the “eradication” of “green slime” while broadcasting the addresses of local environmental activists. …

[A] shadowy terror group called Project 7 was discovered with a cache of arms and a hit list of local government officials, police officers and their families. …

Everyone agrees things took a sharp turn when failed political aspirant John Stokes came to town, bought local radio station KGEZ, and began hosting a daily talk show that was, for some, a breath of fresh air ? and for others, a hateful and threatening voice. It’s the unapologetic Stokes who sponsors burnings of green swastikas, and who blandly disavows any hateful intent while broadcasting the home addresses of environmentalists, calling them “the enemy.” …

“We knew going in that what was disturbing the Flathead Valley involved some of the most critical issues facing the country today,” says director/producer Patrice O’Neill. “What we also discovered was a striking example of modern talk radio polarizing the political atmosphere, and just how high the stakes are ? for our whole political system when conflicts like this erupt in growing communities.”

"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds." — Sam Adams