Yerba Buena Center for the Arts presents
Friday, July 1, 7:30 pm
A rarely screened, devastating documentary classic,
Winter Soldier captures the testimonies of ex-GIs at
the 1971 Detroit Winter Soldier Investigation concerning
American atrocities in Vietnam. The soldiers, including
Senator John Kerry, are riveting as they provide eye-witness
testimony to war crimes and atrocities they either
participated in or witnessed. The film evokes all of the
sorrow and pain that Vietnam has come to represent.
Tickets: $8 regular; $5 YBCA members, students, seniors
Tickets can be purchased online at www.YBCA.org,
by telephone at 415.978.ARTS, or in person at the box office.
Screening location:
YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS
701 Mission Street (at Third)
San Francisco, CA, 94103-3138
P: 415.321.1323
F: 415.978.9635
www.YBCA.org
Imagine a whole new way to see.
LIFE AMPLIFIED
************************************************************
TAKE ACTION:
************************************************************
1) Cut all Public School Ties to the Military!
Speak up and Picket the S.F. Board of Education
the Fourth Tuesday of Each Month Starting:
June 28TH, 7:00 P.M.
555 Franklin St., S.F,
To get on the speakers list call:
415-241-6427, 241-6493 or 241-6000
2) COLLEGE NOT COMBAT PETITION CAMPAIGN
16TH & MISSION STREET
SATURDAY JUNE 25, 12:30 P.M.
TUESDAY JUNE 28 AND THURSDAY JUNE 30, 5 & 7 P.M.
3) COLLEGE NOT COMBAT PETITION CAMPAIGN
JULY 2,3 & 4 WEEKEND SCHEDULE
*SHOW UP TO PETITION:
SATURDAY, SUNDAY & MONDAY, JULY 2, 3 & 4, 1:00 P.M.
DOLORES PARK, 18TH AND DOLORES STS, SF
*SEE THE SAN FRANCISCO MIME TROUPE'S PLAY
"DOING GOOD"
MUSIC: 1:30 P.M. - SHOW: 2:00 P.M.
(THEN GATHER SIGNATURES AFTER THE SHOW)
4) HANDS OFF VENEZUELA SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA FILM
SHOWING: 7:00 PM, FRIDAY JULY 15
Center for Political Education
522 Valencia, Third Floor,
Near 16th Street, SF
(not wheelchair accessible)
Close the 16th Street BART
$5/$3 Students, Seniors, Unemployed
5) SAN FRANCISCO MIME TROUPE
PRESENTS: "DOING GOOD"
A play based loosely on the book, "Confessions
of an Economic Hit Man", by John Perkins.
JULY 16, PRECITA PARK
MUSIC: 1:30 P.M.
SHOW: 2:00 P.M.
(This play is fresh, new, brilliantly performed,
insightful, full of content, and the music is the
icing on the cake!...BW)
SPONSORED BY BAY AREA UNITED AGAINST WAR
Help get the word out about the ballot proposition
and upcoming antiwar events. Free antiwar posters!
FREE!
6) SAVE THE DATES: AUGUST 4, 5 & 6, 2005 FOR
PRESENTATION OF HOWARD ZINN'S ONE MAN SHOW,
"MARX IN SOHO" PERFORMED BY JERRY LEVY
LOCATION TO BE ANNOUNCED
TO BENEFIT BAY AREA UNITED AGAINST WAR
WWW.BAUAW.ORG
(FOR MORE INFORMATION CALL: 415-824-8730)
************************************************************
1) Cut all Public School Ties to the Military!
Speak up and Picket the S.F. Board of Education
the Fourth Tuesday of Each Month Starting:
June 28TH, 7:00 P.M.
555 Franklin St., S.F,
To get on the speakers list call:
415-241-6427, 241-6493 or 241-6000
Bay Area United Against War (BAUAW) will be picketing the San
Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) Board of Education
meetings the 4th Tuesday of each month beginning June 28th until
the district cuts all school ties to the military.
San Francisco voters passed Proposition N for the immediate
withdrawal of troops from Iraq by a 63 percent majority last
November. And this November 2005 we will pass an anti-recruitment
resolution initiated by College Not Combat, a coalition of groups
and individuals opposed to the U.S. militaries' school recruitment
program.
We are currently gathering the necessary signatures to place
this counter-recruitment proposition on the ballot. The
proposition says, "The people of San Francisco oppose U.S.
military recruiters using public school, college and university
facilities to recruit young people into the armed forces.
Furthermore, San Francisco should oppose the military's "economic
draft" by investigating means by which to fund and grant
scholarships for college and job training to low-income students
so they are not economically compelled to join the military!"
Proposition N, passed last November, already mandates the
SFUSD to cut all school ties to the military. Yet S.F. children
are still being actively recruited at schools throughout the
district by direct military recruitment, and through the Junior
Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) programs.
Many students are forced into JROTC in order to get the necessary
Physical Education credits they need to graduate High School. JROTC
now fulfills this requirement-and the district actually pays
a million dollars a year to the Army to support JROTC. (JROTC, by
the way, is totally managed and controlled by the U.S. Army. The
Army writes the curriculum and appoints the teachers. The district
has no say in this program.)
In fact, the U.S. military maintains a presence in the schools
at all grade levels from kindergarten on up. And now the Military
is beginning to set up JROTC "Military Academies" in the Middle
Schools. At these "academies" children are taught how to obey
orders and to practice military maneuvers with realistically
functioning toy guns.
As a result of the board's open door military policy, many San
Francisco high school graduates are currently serving in Iraq.
This must end. Schools must not be used to recruit youngsters to
kill or be killed in this illegal, immoral war! The following
resolution was presented to the board several months ago.
They still have not acted on it!
CUT ALL SCHOOL TIES TO THE MILITARY!
Resolution for San Francisco Board of Education
WHEREAS, the United States military is actively recruiting high
school students into the military to fight in Iraq; and
WHEREAS, many young San Francisco high school alumni are
presently serving in military units fighting in Iraq; and
WHEREAS, it is San Francisco City policy by virtue of
Proposition N, to bring all U.S. troops home from Iraq now; and
WHEREAS, over 1,700 U.S. soldiers and approximately
100,000 Iraqis have been killed in this war and over
10,000 U.S. soldiers and unknown thousands of Iraqis have
been wounded; and
WHEREAS, the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on the
war have robbed our children of resources that should be
spent on education and other human needs; and
WHEREAS, military presence in our schools legitimizes the
message that violence is acceptable; THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT:
It shall be the policy of the San Francisco Board of Education
to cut all ties with the United States military, including, but
not limited to: Ending military recruitment on campuses; ending
the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC); and guaranteeing
that all students and parents are informed of their right to deny
military recruiters access to their names, addresses and
telephone numbers.
Come to the next planning meeting of Bay Area United Against War (BAUAW)
Saturday, July 9, 11:30 a.m. at 474 Valencia Street
between 15th & 16th Streets, S.F.
Bay Area United Against War (BAUAW) • www.bauaw.org
P.O. Box 318021,
San Francisco, CA 94131-8021 •
414-824-8730
************************************************************
2) COLLEGE NOT COMBAT PETITION CAMPAIGN
16TH & MISSION STREET
SATURDAY JUNE 25, 12:30 P.M.
TUESDAY JUNE 28 AND THURSDAY JUNE 30, 5 & 7 P.M.
************************************************************
3) COLLEGE NOT COMBAT PETITION CAMPAIGN
JULY 2,3 & 4 WEEKEND SCHEDULE
*SHOW UP TO PETITION:
SATURDAY, SUNDAY & MONDAY, JULY 2, 3 & 4, 1:00 P.M.
DOLORES PARK, 18TH AND DOLORES STS, SF
*SEE THE SAN FRANCISCO MIME TROUPE'S PLAY
"DOING GOOD"
MUSIC: 1:30 P.M. - SHOW: 2:00 P.M.
(THEN GATHER SIGNATURES AFTER THE SHOW)
Based loosely on the book, "Confessions
of an Economic Hit Man", by John Perkins.
This play is fresh, new, brilliantly performed,
insightful, full of content, and the music
is the icing on the cake!
SPONSORED BY BAY AREA UNITED AGAINST WAR (BAUAW)
BAUAW is setting up a COLLEGE NOT COMBAT
PETITION CAMPAIGN table by invitation
from the Mime Troupe. THERE WILL BE AN
ANNOUNCEMENT FROM THE STAGE.
We will be able to gather signatures before
and after the performance. After the performance
we will also fan out over the city to give this
petition drive a big push over the July 4th weekend.
COME HELP GATHER SIGNATURES FOR THE
COLLEGE NOT COMBAT BALLOT INITIATIVE
FOR THE SAN FRANCISCO, NOVEMBER 2005, ELECTIONS:
"The people of San Francisco oppose U.S.
military recruiters using public
school, college and university
facilities to recruit young
people into the armed forces.
Furthermore, San Francisco should
oppose the military's "economic
draft" by investigating means
by which to fund and grant
scholarships for college and job
training to low-income students
so they are not economically compelled
to join the military!"
LOOK FOR OUR TABLE TO PICK UP PETITIONS.
FREE ANTIWAR POSTERS!
WE ONLY HAVE A FEW WEEKS TO GO!
GET THE MILITARY OUT OF OUR SCHOOLS!
MONEY FOR EDUCATION NOT FOR WAR!
BRING THE TROOPS HOME NOW!
FREE! FREE! FREE! FREE! FREE! FREE! FREE! FREE! FREE!
************************************************************
4) HANDS OFF VENEZUELA SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA FILM
SHOWING: 7:00 PM, FRIDAY JULY 15
Center for Political Education
522 Valencia, Third Floor,
Near 16th Street, SF
(not wheelchair accessible)
Close the 16th Street BART
$5/$3 Students, Seniors, Unemployed
With the Poor of the World
Con los pobres de la Tierra (2003) 56 minutes.
by Marta Harnecker on Venezuela
In Spanish with English Subtitles
This video gives the background and context of the
current struggles in Venezuela since 1993. Using TV
news footage and archival video, this film documents
the rise of Chavez and the Oligarchy's three attempts
to overthrow him.
May Day in Caracas
(2005) 22 minutes.
by a J. Carlos Flores.
In Spanish with English Subtitles
A short documentary about international labor day in
Venezuela
Hands off Venezuela will show these films as a benefit
to bring Stalin Peres Borges, a leader of the National
Union of Workers of Venezuela (UNT) a dynamic new
Venezuelan Trade Union federation.
Call Adam at 415 864 3537 or email sfbay@ushov.org for
more info or to arrange a speaker to talk about the
inspiring events in Venezuela and the need to protect
it from US attack.
Also Come To The Next Hands Off Venezuela Organizing
Meeting (all welcome): 7:00 PM, Thursday, June 30,
Socialist Action Bookstore, corner Valencia and 14th,
SF
www.handsoffvenezuela.org
************************************************************
5) SAN FRANCISCO MIME TROUPE
PRESENTS: "DOING GOOD"
A play based loosely on the book, "Confessions
of an Economic Hit Man", by John Perkins.
JULY 16, PRECITA PARK
MUSIC: 1:30 P.M.
SHOW: 2:00 P.M.
(This play is fresh, new, brilliantly performed,
insightful, full of content, and the music is the
icing on the cake!...BW)
SPONSORED BY BAY AREA UNITED AGAINST WAR
Help get the word out about the ballot proposition
and upcoming antiwar events. Free antiwar posters!
FREE!
************************************************************
6) SAVE THE DATES: AUGUST 4, 5 & 6, 2005 FOR
PRESENTATION OF HOWARD ZINN'S ONE MAN SHOW,
"MARX IN SOHO" PERFORMED BY JERRY LEVY
LOCATION TO BE ANNOUNCED
TO BENEFIT BAY AREA UNITED AGAINST WAR
WWW.BAUAW.ORG
(FOR MORE INFORMATION CALL: 415-824-8730)
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
BAUAW NEWSLETTER – JUNE 22, 2005
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1) Picture-perfect killers
Military weapons are often technological
marvels but always instruments of death
Norman Solomon
Sunday, June 19, 2005
2) Holocaust Survivor Says He's Leaving The US
by Joey Picador
http://www.justicefornone.com
3) "by slow degrees we learn the full extent . . . "
From: "Barbara Deutsch"
4) Iraqi Hospitals Ailing Under Occupation
http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/reports/HealthcareUnderOccupationDahrJamail.pdf
5) HIP HOP SHOW AND RALLY TO CLOSE CYA YOUTH PRISONS
Saturday, July 16, noon-2pm
Frank Ogawa Plaza, 14th St. and Broadway (Downtown Oakland)
4th Annual "Not Down with the Lockdown" Hip Hop Show and Rally
to Close the CYA Youth Prisons
FREE! All ages!
6) National Council of Churches urges grassroots campaign
To call on Congress to pass bi-partisan 'end the war' resolution
New York, June 16, 2005 - The National Council of Churches USA has welcomed bi-
partisan legislation introduced in Congress today urging President Bush "to announce
a plan for the withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Iraq by the end of the year."
Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.) and Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii) introduced the
legislation.
http://www.ncccusa.org/news/050617BipartisanResolution.html
7) A VICTORY FOR SHEILA DETOY
8) A.M.A. to Study Effect
of Marketing Drugs to Consumers
By STEPHANIE SAUL
Published: June 22, 2005
"The American Medical Association, the nation's largest
organization of physicians, agreed yesterday to study
whether consumer drug advertising leads to unnecessary
prescriptions, potentially harming patients and driving
up health costs....Many critics say advertising fueled
the widespread use of cox-2 painkillers, recently linked
to serious cardiovascular problems. Vioxx, the cox-2 drug
that Merck withdrew from the market in September, was widely
advertised to consumers. Studies later indicated that,
for many patients, it was no more effective than other,
safer pain killers."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/22/business/media/22adco.html
9) Tales of the Poor, Working
to Survive in America
By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS
June 22, 2005
http://movies2.nytimes.com/2005/06/22/movies/22wagi.html
10) Iraqi Rebels Refine Bomb Skills,
Pushing Toll of G.I.'s Higher
By DAVID S. CLOUD
Published: June 22, 2005
"WASHINGTON, June 21 - American casualties from bomb attacks
in Iraq have reached new heights in the last two months as
insurgents have begun to deploy devices that leave armored
vehicles increasingly vulnerable, according to military records."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/22/international/middleeast/
22bomb.html?hp&ex=1119499200&en=4de3c8b99cb57c82&ei=5094&partner=hom
epage
11) Social Security Opened Its Files for 9/11 Inquiry
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
Published: June 22, 2005
"WASHINGTON, June 21 -The Social Security Administration has
relaxed its privacy restrictions and searched thousands of
its files at the request of the F.B.I. as part of terrorism
investigations since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, newly
disclosed records and interviews show."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/22/politics/
22terror.html?hp&ex=1119499200&en=f4bb907c3b74271d&ei=5094&partner=hom
epage
12) Muni drivers threaten
walkout at month's end
By Marisa Lagos
Staff Writer
Published: Thursday, June 16, 2005 10:57 PM PDT
Some rank and file members of Muni's drivers union are
threatening to walk off the job June 30, saying union
leadership has not held strong opposing layoffs and service
cuts as its membership asked.
http://sfexaminer.com/articles/2005/06/17/news/20050617_ne11_muni.txt
13) NYT Editorial
Abu Ghraib, Rewarded
Published: June 22, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/22/opinion/22wed1.html
14) Posts Considered for Commanders
After Abuse Case
By ERIC SCHMITT and THOM SHANKER
Published: June 20, 2005
WASHINGTON, June 19 - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld
is considering new top command assignments that would possibly
include promoting Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the former
American commander in Iraq during the Abu Ghraib prison
abuse scandal, Pentagon and military officials say.
Such a move, which has been urged by senior Army officers
and civilian officials now that an Army inquiry has cleared
General Sanchez of wrongdoing, seems to reflect a growing
confidence that the military has put the abuse scandal behind it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/20/politics/20military.html
15) Extending Democracy to Ex-Offenders
Published: June 22, 2005
"The laws that strip ex-offenders of the right to vote across
the United States are the shame of the democratic world. Of an
estimated five million Americans who were barred from voting
in the last presidential election, a majority would have been
able to vote if they had been citizens of countries like
Britain, France, Germany or Australia. Many nations take
the franchise so seriously that they arrange for people to
cast ballots while being held in prison. In the United States,
by contrast, inmates can vote only in two states, Maine
and Vermont.
This distinctly American bias - which extends to jobs, housing
and education - keeps even law- abiding ex-offenders confined
to the margins of society, where they have a notoriously
difficult time building successful lives. A few states,
at least, are beginning to grasp this point. Some are
reconsidering postprison sanctions, including laws that
bar ex-offenders from the polls."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/22/opinion/22wed3.html
16) The crisis in United Russia
By Misha Steklov in Moscow
http://www.marxist.com/Russia/crisis-united-russia220605.html
17) Russia after the war in Iraq
By Alan Woods
http://www.marxist.com/Russia/after_war_in_iraq.html
18) The crisis in United Russia
By Misha Steklov in Moscow
http://www.marxist.com/Russia/crisis-united-russia220605.html
19) Insurgents killed in Afghan fighting
5 U.S. soldiers wounded in gunbattle in south of country
The Associated Press
Updated: 1:09 p.m. ET June 22, 2005
"KABUL, Afghanistan - American warplanes pounded a suspected
Taliban safe haven in the mountains of southern Afghanistan
during an assault that killed up to 76 insurgents and 12
security forces, officials said Wednesday. Five American
soldiers were wounded.
The bodies of those killed in Tuesday's fighting littered
a rugged Afghan mountainside. The surge in violence has
raised fears that an Iraq-style quagmire is developing
here, just months ahead of key legislative elections."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8197613/
20) Current, former Walgreen
workers file suit
Drugstore chain accused of discriminating against
black employees
The Associated Press
Updated: 6:51 p.m. ET June 21, 2005
"ST. LOUIS - Eleven black current and former Walgreen Co.
workers in Michigan and six other states sued the nation's
top-selling drugstore chain Monday, accusing it of having
a policy of discriminating against black employees.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in East St. Louis,
Ill., says the company has a "pervasive policy" of steering
black employees to work in stores in areas that have mostly
black or poorer customers, using an internal system to
categorize stores based on race and income."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8307598/
21) Marines win Iraq desert battle, war far from over
By Peter Graff
Tue Jun 21, 2005 08:08 AM ET
KARABILA, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. Marines claimed success on
Tuesday in another battle against insurgents in the Iraqi
desert but acknowledged that the war was far from over and that
guerrillas would soon recover lost ground.
http://www.reuters.com/
newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=8850204&src=eDialog/GetContent
22) The Washington Post and the Downing Street memo
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/jun2005/post-j22.shtml
23) From Marti Hiken of the Military Law Task Force (MLTF)
of the National Lawyers' Guild
Two MLTF members in the Bay Area have formed the Berkeley Draft
Information Project and have published a booklet for [school]
counselors, parents and young people: "FAST FAXTS about
"Military Recruitment, The Potential for a Draft and
Related Issues."
Their address is: Berkeley Draft Information Project,
2124 Kittredge St., #66, Berkeley, CA 94704.?
info@berkeleydraftinformationproject.org
www.berkeleydraftinformationproject.org
24) Vote on this online poll to help protect student's privacy!
Hi Everyone,
I received a note saying that New York State School
Boards Association is considering supporting changing
federal law to not send student contact information to
military recruiters without their consent. All you
have to do is vote on their online poll:
http://www.nyssba.org/ScriptContent/Index.cfm
25) Mass Mobilizing Meeting
Wednesday, July 6 at 7 PM
Global Exchange: 2017 Mission St. #303, San Francisco
(across the street from the 16th St. BART station)
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
1) Picture-perfect killers
Military weapons are often technological
marvels but always instruments of death
Norman Solomon
Sunday, June 19, 2005
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/06/19/INGK0D963N1.DTL
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
2) Holocaust Survivor Says He's Leaving The US
by Joey Picador
http://www.justicefornone.com
One of our neighbors is moving. I've been in this neighborhood for
about six years now, but didn't really know them very well at all -
just waves and nods, mostly.
So I heard the moving van pull up this morning. When I got home this
evening I happened to spy my neighbor (he's like 85 years old - I
don't know exactly, but he's old, talks and moves very slowly)
standing on the sidewalk next to the van. I walked over and shook his
hand, and we started talking. I asked him where he was moving, and he
said, "Back to Germany."
I had been stationed in Germany for two years while in the military,
so I lit up, and commented about how beautiful the country was, and
inquired if he was going back because he missed it.
"No," he answered me. "I'm going back because I've seen this before."
He then commenced to explain that when he was a kid, he watched with
his family in fear as Hitler's government committed atrocity after
atrocity, and no one was willing to say anything. He said the news
refused to question the government, and the ones who did were not in
the newspaper business much longer. He said good neighbors, people he
had known all his life, turned against his family and other Jews,
grabbing on to the hate and superiority "as if they were starved for
it" (his words).
He said he was too old to see it happen right in front of his eyes
again, and too old to do anything about it, so he was taking his
family back to Europe on Thursday where they would be safe from George
W. Bush and his neocons. He seemed resolute, but troubled,
nonetheless, as if being too young on one end and too old on the other
to fight what he saw happening was wearing on him.
I gotta tell you - it was chilling. I let him talk, and the whole
time, my gut was churning, like I had mutated butterflies in my
stomach. When he was finished, he shook my hand, gripping it really
hard, until his knuckles turned white and he was shaking. He looked me
in the eyes, hard, and said, "I will pray for your family and your
country." He let go of my hand and hobbled away.
I have related this event to you in the hopes it will serve as a
cautionary anecdote about the state of our Union, and to illustrate
the path we Americans are being led down by a group of fanatics bent
on global economic and military dominion. When a man who survived the
fruits of fascism decides its time to leave THIS country because he's
seeing the same patterns that led to the Holocaust and other Nazi
horrors beginning to form here, it is time for us to recognize the
underlying evil inherent in the actions of those who claim they work
for all Americans, and for all mankind. And it is incumbent upon all
Americans, Red and Blue, Republican and Democrat, to stop them.
http://www.justicefornone.com/handbills/leaving1.htm
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
3) "by slow degrees we learn the full extent . . . "
From: "Barbara Deutsch"
:
My source adds the following as preface to the
INDEPENDENT story
George Weller was the first
Western journalist in Nagasaki
after we dropped the plutonium bomb.
[General Douglas] Macarthur [who
was in charge of US occupation of Japan,
a country which had never before
known military defeat, and who, according to
Stephen Bezruchka –
www.alternativeradio.org/programs/BEZS001.shtml
-- by prescribing for Japan
a demilitarized, democratic, decentralized society
with universal education, strong
collective rights and protections for workers,
and restrictions on private wealth
and power, caused a rather mediocre life
expectancy rate, even without any appreciable
change in health care or delivery
(and even despite effects of bombs
and the contamination from them)
to become the highest in the world]
censored Weller's reports, but
Weller's son just discovered the
original stories in cartons.
The NYT coverage of this story
omitted this information:
William Laurance, a science
reporter with The New York Times and - it
later emerged - someone also paid
by the White House as a "consultant,"
was among a group of reporters taken
to the atomic testing site in New Mexico
to demonstrate there was no lingering
radiation. Laurance's subsequent story
said: "This historic ground in
New Mexico, scene of the first atomic explosion
on earth and a cradle of a new era
in civilisation, gave the most effective
answer today to Japanese propaganda
that [radiation was] responsible for
deaths even after the day of the explosion . . . .
Awestruck, we watched
it shoot upward like a meteor coming from
the earth instead of from outer
space, becoming ever more alive as it climbed
skyward through the white clouds . . . .
it was a living thing, a new
species of being, born right
before our incredulous eyes."
For which reporting Laurance
won the Pulitzer prize.
The article below, unlike the
NYT coverage, quotes Gregg Mitchell,
co-author of Hiroshima in America:
A Half Century of Denial , and
explains the theme of his book:
[it] details the official suppression
of the effect of the atomic weapons
and the controversy surrounding
America's decision to use them . . . .
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=648484
Nagasaki: Wasteland of war, by the
first Western reporter to witness it
The American journalist George Weller
was the first Allied observer to see
the devastation wreaked by the atomic
bomb on the Japanese city of Nagasaki.
But his account was censored at the
command of General MacArthur, and only now,
three years after his death, have his
astonishing reports finally been published.
Independent (London) 21 June 2005
By Andrew Buncombe
The scenes that confronted the
reporter George Weller would fill his
dispatches with horror and stay
with him for life. The first Western
reporter into the bombed and
off-limits city of Nagasaki in September
1945, Weller encountered sickness
and suffering of a kind never seen
before. He described the cityscape
though which he passed as a "wasteland
of war".
But his unflinching reports written
a month after the atomic bomb had
dropped caught the eye of General
Douglas MacArthur's US military censors.
Concerned at the effect Weller's
reporting would have on worldwide opinion
as well as his subsequent political
ambitions, the general ensured that
none of the reportage he filed from
Nagasaki would be published.
Until now. Three years after Weller's
death at the age of 95, and 60 years
after the US dropped atomic bombs on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki killing more
than 200,000 people and ushering the
world into the nuclear era, some of
those first-hand dispatches have been
published in a Japanese newspaper.
They provide a raw and unique insight
into the bomb's devastation and the
horrifying effect of radiation poisoning,
known to the author of the
reports and the bewildered doctors
he spoke to simply as "Disease X."
In a report filed from Nagasaki on
8 September 1945, Weller wrote: "In
swaybacked or flattened skeletons of
the Mitsubishi arms plants is
revealed what the atomic bomb can do
to steel and stone, but what the
riven atom can do against human
flesh and bone lies hidden in two
hospitals of downtown Nagasaki. Look
at the pushed-in faÁade of the
American consulate, three miles from
the blast's centre, or the face of
the Catholic cathedral, one mile in
the other direction, torn down like
gingerbread, and you can tell that
the liberated atom spares nothing in
the way." Weller's remarkable dispatches
might not have been discovered
but for his son Anthony, also a writer
and journalist, who was dealing
with his father's belongings after his
death in 2002. At his father's home
in San Felice Circeo, Italy, Mr Weller
was working his way through a box
of papers when he came across 75 typed
pages of carbon-paper copies
containing reports from the war in the
Pacific, which his father had
believed lost. The reports ran to
about 25,000 words.
Speaking yesterday by telephone
from his father's home, Mr Weller, 47,
told The Independent: "My father
had spoken of these reports many times
over the years and it was a source
of great frustration to him [to be
censored]. It was one of the biggest
stories of his life.
"It was very poignant to find his
carbons no more than 20 ft. from where he
was sitting. One of the rooms in
his house was overflowing with papers
from his more than 65 years as
a foreign correspondent. There were boxes
and crates with these papers
jammed into them. I spent some time going
through a crate full of mildewed
papers from the Pacific war and there
they were. The crate was a few
feet from the chair in which he used to
sit. He did not know they were there."
The story of Weller's suppressed
dispatches from the southern coastal city
of Nagasaki - devastated by the
4.5-ton "Fatman" nuclear device that was
exploded at a height of 1,500ft
at 11.02am on 9 August - are made all the
more remarkable for the effort it
took him to get into the city. With the
city and much of southern Japan
placed off-limits by MacArthur, commander
of the US forces, Weller, already
a Pulitzer Prize winner with the now
defunct Chicago Daily News, made
his way to the distant island of Kyushu.
There, with official permission,
he visited what had been a Japanese
kamikaze base. But he also noticed
that the town on the mainland - just a
few hundred yards from the island
- was connected to Nagasaki by railroad.
Using a combination of boat, train
and a bravura performance in which he
impersonated a senior US officer and
commandeered two military cars, he
was able to get into Nagasaki several
days before any other Western
reporters. Weller, who had earlier
been among the very last journalists to
leave Singapore and then Indonesia
in the face of the Japanese advance,
was not at the time particularly
opposed to the atomic bomb. "I think the
Japanese military had cleared any
sense of remorse out of him," said his
son, who usually lives in Annisquam,
Massachusetts. And his initial
reports from Nagasaki suggested
that he believed the atomic weapon, while
clearly deadly, had worked with
a rare degree of precision.
He started one early dispatch by
writing: "The atomic bomb may be
classified as a weapon capable of
being used indiscriminately, but its use
in Nagasaki was selective and proper
and as merciful as such a gigantic
force could be expected to be. The
following conclusions were made by the
writer - as the first visitor to
inspect the ruins - after an exhaustive,
though still incomplete study of
this wasteland of war." He suggested that
the death toll stood at no more
than 24,000 and that this number
(later
shown to be more than 75,000, with
another 75,000 injured and countless
more left to die later from radiation
sickness) was largely the result of
poorly designed civilian air shelters
and a refusal by the local
authorities to take air-raid warnings
seriously. He later added in his
report: "Nobody here in Nagasaki
has yet been able to show that the bomb
is different than any other,
except in a broader extent flash and a more
powerful knock-out." But as he
travelled more around Nagasaki, visiting
hospitals filled with sick and
dying people, witnessing the flattened city
and talking to the baffled Japanese
doctors unable to help so many of the
sick, Weller became aware that
something was terribly wrong. Many of those
brought into the hospitals were
not responding to treatment.
He witnessed children with red
blotches on their skin, people who had lost
their hair, patients with blackened
tongues, patients with lock-jaw.
Doctors at one hospital told him
that a month after the explosion, people
were dying at a rate of 10 a day.
He noted that the doctors had
performed precise assessments of the
patients brought to them. Their
hair had fallen out, they had skin
haemorrhages, lip sores, diarrhoea,
swelling of the throat. There had been
a fall in the number of their red
blood cells and there was an almost
absence of white blood cells.
He wrote in another dispatch: "The
atomic bomb's peculiar 'disease',
uncured because it is untreated and
untreated because it is not diagnosed,
is still snatching away lives here.
Men, women and children with no
outward marks of injury are dying
daily in hospitals, some after having
walked around for three or four
weeks thinking they have escaped. The
doctors here have every modern
medicament, but candidly confessed in
talking to the writer - the first
Allied observer to Nagasaki since the
surrender - that the answer to the
malady is beyond them. Their patients,
though their skin is whole, are all
passing away under their eyes."
After his achievement of entering
Nagasaki and acting as an eye-witness to
the destruction, Weller's mistake
was to send his reports back to Tokyo by
hand, to be approved by the military
censor. Concerned about their
potential effect on public opinion,
MacArthur ordered that that they be
destroyed.
Weller's son said his father later
believed he had lost the carbon copies
and would go to his grave summarising
his experience with the censors
simply as "They won." Indeed, at the
same time as it was suppressing
Weller's reports and denying similar
reports filed from Hiroshima by the
Australian reporter Wilfred Burchett
and published by the Daily Express in
London, the Pentagon was actively
going to great lengths to persuade its
own citizens that there was no
danger of radiation poisoning from the
atomic bombs.
William Laurance, a science reporter
with The New York Times and - it
later emerged - someone also paid by
the White House as a "consultant",
was among a group of reporters taken
to the atomic testing site in New
Mexico to demonstrate there was no
lingering radiation. Laurance's
subsequent story said: "This historic
ground in New Mexico, scene of the
first atomic explosion on earth and
a cradle of a new era in civilisation,
gave the most effective answer today
to Japanese propaganda that
[radiation was] responsible for
deaths even after the day of the
explosion."
Laurance was so liked by the
military that he was even taken in the
squadron of planes accompanying
the B-29 bomber from Tinian Island near
Guam, which dropped the Nagasaki
bomb. In contrast to Weller's reports of
suffering and sickness, Laurance
described the bomb's explosion thus:
"Awestruck, we watched it shoot
upward like a meteor coming from
the earth
instead of from outer space,
becoming ever more alive as it climbed
skyward through the white clouds
... It was a living thing, a new species
of being, born right before our
incredulous eyes." Ironically, such
reporting won Laurance himself a Pulitzer prize.
Gregg Mitchell, co-author of
Hiroshima in America: A Half Century of
Denial and editor of the magazine
Editor and Publisher, said the story of
Weller's suppressed and then lost
dispatches was one of journalism's more
considerable mysteries.
"It's different to Deep Throat,
but in nuclear history and journalism
history, [it is important]," said
Mr Mitchell, whose book details the
official suppression of the effect
of the atomic weapons and the
controversy surrounding America's
decision to use them when many in the
West believed Japan was already ready
to surrender. "It is one of the
great mysteries. People have always
wondered what was in those reports.
For them to emerge intact solves it."
Weller's son, who has also discovered
a cache of his father's photographs,
said his father had believed his reports
from Nagasaki would not be
censored. He believed that during the
three weeks he spent in Nagasaki he
was there "as a witness".
"He had been fighting the censors for
four years," he said. "[The censors]
did not want the US people to get a bad
impression of the bombs, and that
it was not MacArthur who had won the
war but a bunch of scientists in New
Mexico."
Indeed, the conclusion to one of his
father's most moving dispatches
relates to some of those very scientists,
the effect of whose labours he
had just witnessed, and who were about
to arrive in the city to measure
the radiation. "Twenty-five Americans
are due to arrive September 11 to
study the Nagasaki bombsite.
Japanese hope they will bring a solution for
Disease X."
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
4) Iraqi Hospitals Ailing Under Occupation
http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/reports/HealthcareUnderOccupationDahrJamail.pdf
** Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches **
** http://dahrjamailiraq.com **
Iraqi Hospitals Ailing Under Occupation
http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/reports/HealthcareUnderOccupationDahrJamail.pdf
Or visit:
www.dahrjamailiraq.com and click on the 'reports' section.
Dahr Jamail reports on the struggling health care situation in Iraq.
The report surveys 13 Iraqi Hospitals, examines the actions taken by
US military against hospitals and care workers that constitute war
crimes as defined by the Geneva conventions, discusses and documents
cases of US medical personnel complicit in torture through failures
to document the visible signs of torture on their patients, and much
more.
This report is endorsed by the B/Russell/s Tribunal, El Taller
International, Asian Women's Human Rights Council, Association of
Humanitarian Lawyers, SOS Iraq, and Medical Aid for the Third World,
a.o. I'd also like to thank 11.11.11 (a consortium of NGO's.), who
offered their facilities for the presentation of this report to the
press.
/** This report is submitted as evidence to the Jury of conscience
during the culminating session of the World Tribunal on Iraq
More writing, photos and commentary at http://dahrjamailiraq.com
You are subscribed to the Dahr Jamail's email Iraq Dispatches because you requested
a subscription at some point.
You can visit http://dahrjamailiraq.com/email_list/ to subscribe or unsubscribe to the
email list.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
5) HIP HOP SHOW AND RALLY TO CLOSE CYA YOUTH PRISONS
Saturday, July 16, noon-2pm
Frank Ogawa Plaza, 14th St. and Broadway (Downtown Oakland)
4th Annual "Not Down with the Lockdown" Hip Hop Show and Rally
to Close the CYA Youth Prisons
FREE! All ages!
Join us as we bring the community together with amazing Bay Area
talent to speak out against the California Youth Authority
and the prison industrial complex!
Sponsored by Books Not Bars and Let's Get Free ( http://www.booksnotbars.org )
Contact Books Not Bars:
e-mail: bnb@ellabakercenter.org
phone: 510.428.3939
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
6) National Council of Churches urges grassroots campaign
To call on Congress to pass bi-partisan 'end the war' resolution
New York, June 16, 2005 - The National Council of Churches USA has welcomed bi-
partisan legislation introduced in Congress today urging President Bush "to announce
a plan for the withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Iraq by the end of the year."
Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.) and Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii) introduced the
legislation.
http://www.ncccusa.org/news/050617BipartisanResolution.html
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
7) A VICTORY FOR SHEILA DETOY
Yesterday a San Francisco Superior Court Judge ruled on the
side of the people. The judge threw out the argument presented
by the Police Officers Union that it was too late to discipline
the officers that killed this seventeen year-old child.
The charges against Gregory Breslin and his cronies will
not be dismissed!!!!
This victory is a step towards discipline for the officers
that not only committed murder, but then covered it up.
Discipline of these officers will be a step towards peaceful
streets in San Francisco free from abusive cops like Gregory
Breslin.
The fight is not over, now we must demand that the San Francisco
Police Commission remove Gregory Breslin from the San Francisco
Police Department IMMEDIATELY!!!
SIX YEARS - NO JUSTICE FOR SHEILA DETOY
* May 13, 1998: San Francisco police officers shot up a car
full of unarmed teenagers and killed 17-year-old Sheila
Detoy. SFPD then blamed her friends for her death.
* The Office of Citizen Complaints found that Officer
Gregory Breslin is responsible for her death. The OCC
also sustained complaints against the other officers
involved in Sheila's killing.
In 2003 the San Francisco Police Commission decided
they wanted to file charges against the officers,
but the Police Officers Association tried to block
discipline, but they failed.
FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THIS CASE AND OTHER ISSUES
RELATED TO POLICE BRUTALITY IN THE BAY AREA PLEASE
CONTACT BAY AREA POLICEWATCH AT
malaika@ellabakercenter.org
or (510)428-3939 x. 224
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
8) A.M.A. to Study Effect
of Marketing Drugs to Consumers
By STEPHANIE SAUL
Published: June 22, 2005
"The American Medical Association, the nation's largest
organization of physicians, agreed yesterday to study
whether consumer drug advertising leads to unnecessary
prescriptions, potentially harming patients and driving
up health costs....Many critics say advertising fueled
the widespread use of cox-2 painkillers, recently linked
to serious cardiovascular problems. Vioxx, the cox-2 drug
that Merck withdrew from the market in September, was widely
advertised to consumers. Studies later indicated that,
for many patients, it was no more effective than other,
safer pain killers."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/22/business/media/22adco.html
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
9) Tales of the Poor, Working
to Survive in America
By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS
June 22, 2005
http://movies2.nytimes.com/2005/06/22/movies/22wagi.html
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
10) Iraqi Rebels Refine Bomb Skills,
Pushing Toll of G.I.'s Higher
By DAVID S. CLOUD
Published: June 22, 2005
"WASHINGTON, June 21 - American casualties from bomb attacks
in Iraq have reached new heights in the last two months as
insurgents have begun to deploy devices that leave armored
vehicles increasingly vulnerable, according to military records."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/22/international/middleeast/
22bomb.html?hp&ex=1119499200&en=4de3c8b99cb57c82&ei=5094&partner=hom
epage
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
11) Social Security Opened Its Files for 9/11 Inquiry
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
Published: June 22, 2005
"WASHINGTON, June 21 -The Social Security Administration has
relaxed its privacy restrictions and searched thousands of
its files at the request of the F.B.I. as part of terrorism
investigations since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, newly
disclosed records and interviews show."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/22/politics/
22terror.html?hp&ex=1119499200&en=f4bb907c3b74271d&ei=5094&partner=hom
epage
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
12) Muni drivers threaten
walkout at month's end
By Marisa Lagos
Staff Writer
Published: Thursday, June 16, 2005 10:57 PM PDT
Some rank and file members of Muni's drivers union are
threatening to walk off the job June 30, saying union
leadership has not held strong opposing layoffs and service
cuts as its membership asked.
http://sfexaminer.com/articles/2005/06/17/news/20050617_ne11_muni.txt
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
13) NYT Editorial
Abu Ghraib, Rewarded
Published: June 22, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/22/opinion/22wed1.html
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
14) Posts Considered for Commanders
After Abuse Case
By ERIC SCHMITT and THOM SHANKER
Published: June 20, 2005
WASHINGTON, June 19 - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld
is considering new top command assignments that would possibly
include promoting Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the former
American commander in Iraq during the Abu Ghraib prison
abuse scandal, Pentagon and military officials say.
Such a move, which has been urged by senior Army officers
and civilian officials now that an Army inquiry has cleared
General Sanchez of wrongdoing, seems to reflect a growing
confidence that the military has put the abuse scandal behind it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/20/politics/20military.html
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
15) Extending Democracy to Ex-Offenders
Published: June 22, 2005
"The laws that strip ex-offenders of the right to vote across
the United States are the shame of the democratic world. Of an
estimated five million Americans who were barred from voting
in the last presidential election, a majority would have been
able to vote if they had been citizens of countries like
Britain, France, Germany or Australia. Many nations take
the franchise so seriously that they arrange for people to
cast ballots while being held in prison. In the United States,
by contrast, inmates can vote only in two states, Maine
and Vermont.
This distinctly American bias - which extends to jobs, housing
and education - keeps even law- abiding ex-offenders confined
to the margins of society, where they have a notoriously
difficult time building successful lives. A few states,
at least, are beginning to grasp this point. Some are
reconsidering postprison sanctions, including laws that
bar ex-offenders from the polls."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/22/opinion/22wed3.html
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
16) The crisis in United Russia
By Misha Steklov in Moscow
http://www.marxist.com/Russia/crisis-united-russia220605.htm
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
17) Russia after the war in Iraq
By Alan Woods
http://www.marxist.com/Russia/after_war_in_iraq.html
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
18) The crisis in United Russia
By Misha Steklov in Moscow
http://www.marxist.com/Russia/crisis-united-russia220605.htm
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
19) Insurgents killed in Afghan fighting
5 U.S. soldiers wounded in gunbattle in south of country
The Associated Press
Updated: 1:09 p.m. ET June 22, 2005
"KABUL, Afghanistan - American warplanes pounded a suspected
Taliban safe haven in the mountains of southern Afghanistan
during an assault that killed up to 76 insurgents and 12
security forces, officials said Wednesday. Five American
soldiers were wounded.
The bodies of those killed in Tuesday's fighting littered
a rugged Afghan mountainside. The surge in violence has
raised fears that an Iraq-style quagmire is developing
here, just months ahead of key legislative elections."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8197613/
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
20) Current, former Walgreen
workers file suit
Drugstore chain accused of discriminating against
black employees
The Associated Press
Updated: 6:51 p.m. ET June 21, 2005
"ST. LOUIS - Eleven black current and former Walgreen Co.
workers in Michigan and six other states sued the nation's
top-selling drugstore chain Monday, accusing it of having
a policy of discriminating against black employees.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in East St. Louis,
Ill., says the company has a "pervasive policy" of steering
black employees to work in stores in areas that have mostly
black or poorer customers, using an internal system to
categorize stores based on race and income."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8307598/
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
21) Marines win Iraq desert battle, war far from over
By Peter Graff
Tue Jun 21, 2005 08:08 AM ET
KARABILA, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. Marines claimed success on
Tuesday in another battle against insurgents in the Iraqi
desert but acknowledged that the war was far from over and that
guerrillas would soon recover lost ground.
http://www.reuters.com/
newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=8850204&src=eDialog/GetContent
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
22) The Washington Post and the Downing Street memo
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/jun2005/post-j22.shtml
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
23) From Marti Hiken of the Military Law Task Force (MLTF)
of the National Lawyers' Guild
Two MLTF members in the Bay Area have formed the Berkeley Draft
Information Project and have published a booklet for [school]
counselors, parents and young people: "FAST FAXTS about
"Military Recruitment, The Potential for a Draft and
Related Issues."
Their address is: Berkeley Draft Information Project,
2124 Kittredge St., #66, Berkeley, CA 94704.?
info@berkeleydraftinformationproject.org
www.berkeleydraftinformationproject.org
Kristin & Dianne "work from a slightly different angle on
this project: attempting to engage high school advisors
and college counselors, who have a lot of influence with
students about the 'next step' in student lives. They
also do some of the same sort of things by engaging
sports coaches, by using school e-listings, and by
having a 'hard copy' book-style product available in
bookstores to catch the eye of people who are not
explicitly searching the internet for information.
It is an important information tool for those doing
counter-recruitment/draft counseling.
Marti
National Lawyers Guild Military Law Task Force?
Marguerite Hiken, co-chair
318 Ortega Street
San Francisco, CA 94122
415-566-3732
mlhiken@pacbell.net
www.nlg.org/mltf
Kathleen Gilberd, co-chair
1168 Union Street, Ste. 302
San Diego, CA 92101
619-233-1701
KathleenGilberd@aol.com
* To visit your group on the web, go to:
* http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MOOS-BAY/
*
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
24) Vote on this online poll to help protect student's privacy!
Hi Everyone,
I received a note saying that New York State School
Boards Association is considering supporting changing
federal law to not send student contact information to
military recruiters without their consent. All you
have to do is vote on their online poll:
http://www.nyssba.org/ScriptContent/Index.cfm
The law they are considering supporting, written by
Mike Honda (D-CA), would not release student
information to recruiters unless they "opt-in".
Please vote on this online poll to urge NYSSBA to
support protecting student privacy. While it is New
York State, it has important implications for the rest
of the nation as well.
http://www.nyssba.org/ScriptContent/Index.cfm
thanks,
josh
santa cruz, ca
From the Web Site:
Military recruiters have access to students' names,
addresses and phone numbers unless parents "opt out"
by asking schools to withhold the information. Should
federal law be changed to an "opt in" system?
(See news link, below)
Yes
(376) 89.74%
No
(43) 10.26%
Total Votes: 419
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/college_not_comba
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
25) Mass Mobilizing Meeting
Wednesday, July 6 at 7 PM
Global Exchange: 2017 Mission St. #303, San Francisco
(across the street from the 16th St. BART station)
Dear Friends,
Please join us for a mass mobilizing
meeting on July 6 to build the
Seeds of Change: NO NUKES! NO WARS!
rally and march to the Livermore
nuclear weapons lab.
• Find out why, in the midst of ongoing
• slaughter in Iraq, we must call
for nuclear abolition;
• Stop the Bomb Where it Starts!
• For the 60th Anniversary of the Bombing
of Hiroshima, Help Organize the March
to the Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab!
RSVP: Tara Dorabji, Tri-Valley CARES, (925) 443-7148,
tara@trivalleycares.org
ACTION ALERT*Tri-Valley CAREs*
www.trivalleycares.org*
925-443-7148
SATURDAY AUGUST 6: SEEDS OF
CHANGE: NO NUKES! NO WARS!
RALLY AND MARCH TO THE LIVERMORE
NUCLEAR WEAPONS LAB.
On the 60th anniversary of the
U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima...
ACT to abolish nuclear weapons and war
PROTEST new, earth-penetrating
nuclear weapons at Livermore Lab
CELEBRATE your vision of a peaceful,
just and nuclear-free world
Livermore Lab is one of the world's
primary sites for the creation and
development of nuclear weapons.
WHEN: Saturday, August 6, 2005 at 5 PM
WHERE: William Payne Park, 5800 Patterson Pass Rd.
Livermore, CA (BART
shuttles provided by the Peace and Freedom Party)
To volunteer and for more info:
(925) 443-7148 Tri-Valley CAREs
www.trivalleycares.org
(510) 839-5877
Western States Legal Foundation www.wslfweb.org
Livermore Conversion Project (510) 663-8065.
BACKGROUND
The Bay Area's Livermore Lab is one of
the three national laboratories
that serve as the brain of the U.S.
nuclear weapons complex, which today
is modernizing and developing nuclear
weapons to support U.S. wars of
empire.
August 6 and 9, 2005 mark the 60th
anniversaries of the atomic bombings
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the
United States. Join with thousands of
people at four central US nuclear
weapons sites to call for an end to
the development and production of
nuclear warheads.
In the Bay Area, the Livermore Lab
continues to contaminate the water,
air and soil. Over 1 million curies
of airborne radiation have leaked
from the site. That is roughly equal
to the amount of radiation
deposited in the bombing of Hiroshima.
The Dept. of Energy declared the
fifty-mile radius surrounding the
facility as the affected population.
This includes over 7 million people
from San Francisco, to Stockton, to
San Jose. The storage and use of
nuclear materials at Livermore Lab
continues to increase despite safety
and security issues. The limit for
plutonium at Livermore Lab has just
been doubled to 3,080 pounds --
enough for 300 nuclear bombs!
Plutonium was recently found on site to be
absurdly stored in paint cans and food cans.
In Iraq, they never found nuclear
or other weapons of mass destruction,
yet the daily reality of death and
destruction continues, sparked by the
Bush administration's invasion and
fueled by the ongoing U.S. military
occupation. A majority of people in
this nation now oppose the war, but
the White House and most members of
Congress are resisting the only
solution to the crisis: bring the
troops home immediately. We will send
our message loud and clear to decision
-makers and the public at large:
End the war in Iraq, End the threat
of nuclear annihilation!
We found the missing weapons of mass
destruction. On August 6, we will
take our voices to the active nuclear
weapons sites across the country.
We demand an end to US nuclear weapons
development, production and
testing. We demand an end to wars of
empire and an end to nuclear
excuses for war.
NO NUKES! NO WARS!
*SEND SUNFLOWERS TO LIVERMORE NUCLEAR WEAPONS LAB*
The sunflower is the international symbol
for the abolition of nuclear
weapons. We invite you to create
paper sunflowers to be planted at the
gates of Livermore Lab. Sunflowers
can be large or small, painted, be
creative. Make sure to include your
name and hometown on the sunflower.
For full instructions and mailing directions:
www.wagingpeace.org/sunflower
AUGUST 6 NATIONAL ACTIONS
March and Rally at core nuclear weapons
sites across the United States.
Join the global majority in saying
"Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Never Again!!!"
MAJOR RALLIES AT:
Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab in CALIFORNIA
Los Alamos Nuclear Weapons Lab in NEW MEXICO
Nevada Nuclear Test Site in NEVADA
Y-12 Nuclear Production Facility in TENNESSEE
For more info on each major rally:
http://www.abolitionnow.org/augustactions.html
TUESDAY, AUGUST 9, NAGASAKI NEVER AGAIN!!!
NOVIOLENT DIRECT ACTION AT THE LIVERMORE
NUCLEAR WEAPONS LAB
WHEN: Tuesday, August 9 at 8AM
WHERE: Meet at William Payne Park,
5800 Patterson Pass Rd. Livermore
Take I-580 exit Vasco Rd. go South.
Take a right on Patterson Pass Rd.
Music at the gates will be provided by Clan Dyken.
NONVIOLENCE GUIDELINES: Nonviolence has
always been a core value of the
anti-nuclear movement. Details about
the nonviolence guidelines and a
complete list of sponsors and endorsers
are available at:
www.trivalleycares.org
www.wslfweb.org
TUESDAY AUGUST 9, NATIONALLY COORDINATED
CANDLELIGHT VIGILS
Organize a candlelight vigil at your
city hall on the 60^th anniversary
of the bombing of Nagasaki. In addition,
you can organize readings,
lantern lighting ceremonies, the shadow
projects and more. In support of
the Mayors for Peace, we are calling on
local groups to invite their
Mayors to participate in the vigils
and read out proclamations.
Contact: Jackie Cabasso,
Western States Legal Foundation,
wslf@earthlink.net, (510) 839-5877,
*www.wslfweb.org*
ASK CONGRESS TO CUT $2 BILLION FROM
THE NUCLEAR WEAPONS BUDGET
http://capwiz.com/wagingpeace/mail/oneclick_compose/?alertid=7565846
Act now to stop a new generation of
nuclear bombs. Ask Congress to cut
$2 billion to restrain dangerous nuclear
weapons programs.
Donations should be made out and
mailed to: Livermore Conversion
Project, PO Box 31835, Oakland, CA 94604.
Checks of more than $50 are
tax-deductible if made out to Agape.
To Volunteer Contact: Tara Dorabji,
Tri-Valley CAREs,
tara@trivalleycares.org, (925) 443-7148,
*www.trivalleycares.org*
Initial Cosponsors and Endorsers:
Alameda County Green Party, American
Friends Service Committee, Bay Area
United for Peace and Justice, Bill
O'Donnell Social Justice Committee,
Buddhist Peace Fellowship,
California Peace Action, Bay Area
United for Peace and Justice, Fiat Pax
Berkeley, Green Party California,
Livermore Conversion Project, Martin
Luther King Jr. Freedom Center, the
Northern California Communist Party,
Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Peace
and Freedom Party, Peace Fresno,
Tri-Valley Communities Against a
Radioactive Environment (CAREs),
Veterans for Peace San Francisco
Chapter 69, Wellstone Democratic
Renewal Club , Western States Legal
Foundation, Women's International
League for Peace and Freedom and
Women for Peace.
--
Tara Dorabji
Outreach Director
Tri-Valley CAREs
www.trivalleycares.org
tara@trivalleycares.org
ph: (925) 443-7148
fax: (925) 443-0177
Before the word, was the silence. In
this silence existed neither thought
nor judgment. First came laughter,then
the tears, and the sound was born.
With the sound, the world flooded with memories.
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