tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-61415050074426386932024-02-07T09:25:00.255-08:00Global Houseworkalice slaterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10644496722602607647noreply@blogger.comBlogger26125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6141505007442638693.post-64870736041602744492014-12-23T02:48:00.002-08:002014-12-23T02:48:59.113-08:00<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Time to Ban the Bomb</span></span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">by Alice Slater</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Global Momentum is building for a treaty to ban nuclear
weapons! While the world has banned chemical and biological weapons, there is
no explicit legal prohibition of nuclear weapons, although the International
Court of Justice ruled unanimously that there is an obligation to bring to a
conclusion negotiations for their total elimination.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT),
negotiated in 1970 required the five existing nuclear weapons states, the US,
Russia, UK, France and China (P-5) to make “good faith efforts” to eliminate
their nuclear weapons, while the rest of the world promised not to acquire them
(except for India, Pakistan, Israel, who never signed the NPT).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>North Korea relied on the NPT Faustian
bargain for “peaceful” nuclear power to build its own bomb, and then walked out
of the treaty. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">More than 600 members of civil society, from every corner of
the globe, with more than half of them under the age of 30 attended a fact-filled
two day conference in Vienna organized by the International Coalition to Ban
Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), to learn of the devastating consequences of nuclear
weapons from the bomb and from testing as well, and of the frightening risks
from possible accidents or sabotage of the nine nuclear arsenals around the
world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The meeting was a follow up to
two prior meetings in Oslo, Norway and Nayarit, Mexico.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>ICAN members, working for a treaty to ban
the bomb, then joined a meeting hosted by Austria for 158 governments in the
historic Hofburg Palace, which has served as the residence of Austrian leaders
since before the founding of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In Vienna, the US delegate, delivered a tone-deaf statement
on the heels of heart-wrenching testimony of catastrophic illness and death in
her community from Michelle Thomas, a down winder from Utah, and other
devastating testimony of the effects of nuclear bomb testing from the Marshall
Islands and Australia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The US rejected
any need for a ban treaty or a nuclear convention and extolled the step by step
approach (to nuclear weapons forever) but changed its tone in the wrap-up and
appeared to be more respectful of the process. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There were 44 countries who explicitly spoke
of their support for a treaty to ban nuclear weapons, with the Holy See delegate
reading out Pope Francis’ statement also calling for a ban on nuclear weapons
and their elimination in which he said<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">,
“I am convinced that the desire for peace and fraternity planted deep in the
human heart will bear fruit in concrete ways to ensure that nuclear weapons are
banned once and for all, to the benefit of our common home.”.</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This was a shift in Vatican policy which had
never explicitly condemned deterrence policies of the nuclear weapons states
although they had called for the elimination of nuclear weapons in prior
statements. </span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Hewlett-Packard/Documents/vienna%20article%20time%20to%20ban%20the%20bomb%20final2.docx" name="_ednref1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[i]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Significantly, and to help move the work forward, the
Austrian Foreign Minister added to the Chair’s report by announcing a pledge by
Austria to </span><span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-themecolor: text1;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">work for a nuclear weapons ban,
described as “taking effective measures to fill the legal gap for the prohibition
and elimination of nuclear weapons” and “to cooperate with all stakeholders to
achieve this goal.! <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Hewlett-Packard/Documents/vienna%20article%20time%20to%20ban%20the%20bomb%20final2.docx" name="_ednref2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: text1;">[ii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a></span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The NGO
strategy now as presented at the ICAN</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Hewlett-Packard/Documents/vienna%20article%20time%20to%20ban%20the%20bomb%20final2.docx" name="_ednref3" style="mso-endnote-id: edn3;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[iii]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">
debriefing meeting right after the conference closed, is to get as many nations
as we can to support the Austrian pledge coming into the CD and the NPT review
and then come out of the 70<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">th</span></sup> Anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
with a concrete plan for negotiations on a ban treaty. One thought
about the 70<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">th</span></sup> Anniversary of the bomb, is that not only should we
get a huge turnout in Japan, but we should acknowledge all the victims of the
bomb, illustrated so agonizingly during the conference by Hibakusha and down
winders at test sites. We should also think about the uranium
miners, the polluted sites from mining as well as manufacturing and use of the
bomb and try to do something all over the world at those sites on August 6<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">th</span></sup>
and 9<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">th</span></sup> as we call for negotiations to begin to ban nuclear weapons
and eliminate them. </span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Only a few days after the Vienna conference, there was a meeting of the
Nobel Laureates in Rome, who after meeting with Nobel Prize winning IPPNW
members Tilman Ruff and Ira Helfand, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>continued
the momentum created in Vienna and issued a statement which not only called for
a ban on nuclear weapons, but asked that negotiations be concluded within two
years! </span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Hewlett-Packard/Documents/vienna%20article%20time%20to%20ban%20the%20bomb%20final2.docx" name="_ednref4" style="mso-endnote-id: edn4;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[iv]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">We
urge all states to commence negotiations on a treaty to ban nuclear weapons at
the earliest possible time, and subsequently to conclude the negotiations
within two years. This will fulfill existing obligations enshrined in the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which will be reviewed in May of 2015, and
the unanimous ruling of the International Court of Justice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Negotiations should be open to all states and
blockable by none. The 70th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki in 2015 high</span></i></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">lights
the urgency of ending the threat of these weapons. </span></i></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">One way to slow down this process to negotiate a legal ban on nuclear
weapons would be for the NPT nuclear weapons states to promise at this five
year NPT review conference to set a reasonable date to bring to a conclusion
time-bound negotiations and effective and verifiable measures to implement the
total elimination of nuclear weapons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Otherwise the rest of the world will start without them to create an
explicit legal prohibition of nuclear weapons which will be a powerful taboo to
be used for pressuring the countries cowering under the nuclear umbrella of the
nuclear weapons states, in NATO and in the Pacific, to take a stand for Mother
Earth, and urge that negotiations begin for the total abolition of nuclear
weapons!<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i></span></span><!--[if !supportEndnotes]--><br />
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Hewlett-Packard/Documents/vienna%20article%20time%20to%20ban%20the%20bomb%20final2.docx" name="_edn1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[i]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> </span><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span><a href="http://americamagazine.org/content/dispatches/church-dramatic-revision-nuclear-weapons-stance"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">http://americamagazine.org/content/dispatches/church-dramatic-revision-nuclear-weapons-stance</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Hewlett-Packard/Documents/vienna%20article%20time%20to%20ban%20the%20bomb%20final2.docx" name="_edn2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[ii]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span><a href="http://www.bmeia.gv.at/fileadmin/user_upload/Zentrale/Aussenpolitik/Abruestung/HINW14/HINW14_Austrian_Pledge.pdf"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Calibri;">http://www.bmeia.gv.at/fileadmin/user_upload/Zentrale/Aussenpolitik/Abruestung/HINW14/HINW14_Austrian_Pledge.pdf</span></span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Hewlett-Packard/Documents/vienna%20article%20time%20to%20ban%20the%20bomb%20final2.docx" name="_edn3" style="mso-endnote-id: edn3;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[iii]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[iii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[iii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">
</span><a href="http://www.icanw.org/"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">www.icanw.org</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> </span></o:p></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Hewlett-Packard/Documents/vienna%20article%20time%20to%20ban%20the%20bomb%20final2.docx" name="_edn4" style="mso-endnote-id: edn4;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[iv]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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alice slaterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10644496722602607647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6141505007442638693.post-39052984415812036512014-12-23T02:44:00.001-08:002014-12-23T02:44:53.375-08:00
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"> Letter to the editor of the NY Times to
a recent story, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">China is Asked to Help Block Korea Hacking<o:p></o:p></i></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">It is ironic that the US is seeking help from China to help
block cyberattacks from North Korea in deciding how to respond to the SONY
hacking following the cancelled film premiere of a “comedy” involving a CIA
planned assassination of President, Kim Jong Un of North Korea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As Times columnist David Carr wrote today, “<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">was it really important that the head
being blown up in a comedy about bungling assassins be that of an actual
sitting ruler of a sovereign state? If you want to satirize a lawless leader,
there are plenty of ways to skin that cat, as Charlie Chaplin demonstrated with
“The Great Dictator,” which skewered Hitler in everything but name.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But seeking
China’s help, when China and Russia tabled a proposed treaty in 2011 to develop
legal rules for the peaceful use of cyberspace which was rejected out of hand
by the US, seems a little late and inadequate to the task.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The US already opened a Pandora’s box in
cyberspace when it boastfully participated in the Stuxnet attack on Iran’s
plutonium enrichment facilities sending a signal to the rest of the world, that
this kind of warfare was feasible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Times readers should be informed of how the US rejected offers from
Russia and China to negotiate an international treaty for peace in the
cybersphere (as well as in space), choosing only to discuss non-binding “rules
of the road”. Without this background information, how will we be able to make
informed judgments on US government policies <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">before</i> we reap the awful consequences of our aggressive and
provocative actions?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
alice slaterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10644496722602607647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6141505007442638693.post-65237940525774631322014-09-12T09:10:00.001-07:002014-09-12T09:11:07.401-07:00Thinking About the New War!THINKING ABOUT THE NEW WAR!<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;">It
is heartbreaking to see our country embarking on another futile effort to bomb
our way out of a situation that calls out for diplomacy, foreign aid, UN
supervision, refugee assistance, almost anything you can think of in
place of the devastating US assaults that inevitably murder innocent
civilians. How is the evil beheading of innocent journalists any worse
than the impersonal murder of innocents on the ground by a thoroughly detached
computer nerd, sitting at his lap top someplace in Colorado, pulling on his
joystick and destroying, by drone, unseen victims as they go about their lives tens of
thousands of miles away? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;">We haven’t even had a body count for all
the people who died in Iraq at the point of a US weapon. Meanwhile we
repeatedly honor and memorialize our dead soldiers, sent on a wild goose chase
after “terrorists” whose destruction of the twin towers was a criminal
act that deserved arrest and trial, not perpetual war on two countries, soon to be three. Echoes of 911 are constantly flung in our face like
metaphysical war paint, to stir the loins for battle and death. At
this time, sensible people should be calling for a global moratorium on all
arms sales. We need to stop the only ones who benefit from all this—the
arms manufacturers and their co-conspirators in endless war and grasping
Empire. Those who truly yearn for peace on earth should also be calling
for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, emulating the great success enjoyed
by South Africa when it ended a potential bloodbath and years of slaughter by
inviting people from all sides of the conflict to come forth, admit their wrong
doing, apologize, and be granted amnesty to go free. As long as we
hold out for bringing murderers to justice, they will fight us to the last
bullet, knife, bomb. That goes not only for the irregulars in the knife
slashing brigades but for our own soldiers and our leaders who ordered them
into this cruel conflict as well. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
alice slaterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10644496722602607647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6141505007442638693.post-26847178904345273922014-08-10T04:04:00.000-07:002014-08-10T04:05:03.098-07:00<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">US CONTINUES TO BLOCK CHINESE-RUSSIAN PROPOSAL TO
NEGOTIATE TREATY TO BAN WEAPONS IN SPACE</span></b> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">What is it about the rule of law that the US government
doesn’t like?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The US is still holding
out on signing the treaty to Ban Land Mines Ban, adopted in 1997,</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/globalnetwork%20chinarussia%20space%20treaty.docx" name="_ednref1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: #5f5f5f;">[i]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">
and has managed to avoid joining the Law of the Seas Treaty which was
negotiated in 1982.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/globalnetwork%20chinarussia%20space%20treaty.docx" name="_ednref2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: #5f5f5f;">[ii]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">
Isn’t it time for Civil Society to mobilize for putting a treaty to
ban weapons in space on the negotiating table if we’re to have any hope of
truly banning the bomb? After all, the Non-Proliferation Treaty calls for
the elimination of nuclear weapons “and their delivery systems”.
Aren’t we leaving a lot out when we don’t address this issue? And
will any country be willing to negotiate for nuclear disarmament when the US
blatantly proclaims its intention for full spectrum dominance and global strike
capacity?</span><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">China and Russia have been proposing a joint draft treaty
for the Prevention of the Placement of Weapons in Outer Space (PPWT) since
2008, at the UN’s Conference on Disarmament. </span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/globalnetwork%20chinarussia%20space%20treaty.docx" name="_ednref3" style="mso-endnote-id: edn3;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: #5f5f5f;">[iii]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">
The United States has repeatedly blocked consensus in the CD to move forward on
negotiating a treaty to ban weapons in space, saying, at one point, that <span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">the proposal was “a diplomatic ploy by the
two nations to gain a military advantage”.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/globalnetwork%20chinarussia%20space%20treaty.docx" name="_ednref4" style="mso-endnote-id: edn4;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: #5f5f5f;">[iv]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In June 2014, Russia and China submitted
an updated draft treaty, with an accompanying paper explaining what changes
they had made since the 2008 draft.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both
the Chinese and Russian Ambassadors invited further comment and feedback. </span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/globalnetwork%20chinarussia%20space%20treaty.docx" name="_ednref5" style="mso-endnote-id: edn5;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: #5f5f5f;">[v]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">
The US objected again, stating that the new draft “does not address the
significant flaws” in the older version such as including provisions for
effective verification or for dealing with land-based anti-satellite
systems.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As to a legally binding treaty,
the US stated that while it would consider proposals that are “equitable,
effectively reliable, and enhance the national security of international
participants”, the US has yet to see “any legally binding proposals that meet
these criteria” and wants to focus on non-legally binding efforts such as the
Code of Conduct for Outer Space Activities, and some other recent UN
initiatives for transparency and confidence building that will not have the
force of law.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/globalnetwork%20chinarussia%20space%20treaty.docx" name="_ednref6" style="mso-endnote-id: edn6;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: #5f5f5f;">[vi]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The US has been
participating since 2008 with a European Union initiative proposing a “Code of
Conduct for Outer Space Activities to provide a non-binding set of rules of the
road for a safer environment in space.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But it recently threw up new roadblocks against even that toothless <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>effort.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The US now insists that the Codes’ voluntary
promise to “refrain from any action which brings about, directly or indirectly,
damage, or to destruction, of space objects”, be qualified with the language <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">unless
such action is justified</i>”. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></b>One
justification given for destructive action is the UN Charter’s right to
individual or collective self-defense, thus lending legitimacy and codifying
the possibility for warfare in space as part of the Code’s established
norm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although the UN Charter prohibits
aggressive action by any nation without Security Council approval, it makes an
exception when a nation acts in self-defense.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There have been numerous occasions where nations by-passed the Security
Council to take aggressive action in the name of self-defense.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead of banning anti-satellite weapons
development and space warfare, this US proposal for the Code would justify such
warfare as long as it’s done, individually and collectively, under the guise of
“self-defense”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thus despite lacking
the force of law that would be established with a legally binding treaty, this
new US proposal for the Code would create the possibility for space warfare
rather than its prohibition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because of
these new blocks, the negotiations on the Code are now stalled<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/globalnetwork%20chinarussia%20space%20treaty.docx" name="_ednref7" style="mso-endnote-id: edn7;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[vii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> while at the same time
the US puts up new resistance to a reasonable proposal from Russia and China to
legally ban weapons in space.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the
words of Pogo, a popular US comic strip, published in the 1970s by Walt Kelly, and
satirized by many, “We have met the enemy and he is us!” <a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/globalnetwork%20chinarussia%20space%20treaty.docx" name="_ednref8" style="mso-endnote-id: edn8;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[viii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a></span></span><!--[if !supportEndnotes]--><br />
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/globalnetwork%20chinarussia%20space%20treaty.docx" name="_edn1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: #5f5f5f;">[i]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">
</span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottawa_Treaty"><span style="color: #5f5f5f; font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottawa_Treaty</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<div id="edn2" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/globalnetwork%20chinarussia%20space%20treaty.docx" name="_edn2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: #5f5f5f;">[ii]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">
</span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Convention_on_the_Law_of_the_Sea"><span style="color: #5f5f5f; font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Convention_on_the_Law_of_the_Sea</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<div id="edn3" style="mso-element: endnote;">
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/globalnetwork%20chinarussia%20space%20treaty.docx" name="_edn3" style="mso-endnote-id: edn3;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-themecolor: text2;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: text2;">[iii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-themecolor: text2;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></span><a href="http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/images/documents/Disarmament-fora/cd/2014/documents/PPWT2014.pdf"><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-themecolor: text2;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/images/documents/Disarmament-fora/cd/2014/documents/PPWT2014.pdf</span></span></a><u><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-themecolor: text2;"> </span></span><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-themecolor: text2;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></u></div>
</div>
<div id="edn4" style="mso-element: endnote;">
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/globalnetwork%20chinarussia%20space%20treaty.docx" name="_edn4" style="mso-endnote-id: edn4;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: #5f5f5f;">[iv]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">
</span><a href="http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/images/documents/Resources/Factsheets/outerspace.pdf"><span style="color: #5f5f5f; font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/images/documents/Resources/Factsheets/outerspace.pdf</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/globalnetwork%20chinarussia%20space%20treaty.docx" name="_edn5" style="mso-endnote-id: edn5;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: #5f5f5f;">[v]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">
</span><a href="http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/images/documents/Disarmament-fora/cd/2014/documents/PPWT2014_ExplanatoryNote.pdf"><span style="color: #5f5f5f; font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/images/documents/Disarmament-fora/cd/2014/documents/PPWT2014_ExplanatoryNote.pdf</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<div id="edn6" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/globalnetwork%20chinarussia%20space%20treaty.docx" name="_edn6" style="mso-endnote-id: edn6;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: #5f5f5f;">[vi]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">
</span><a href="http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/images/documents/Disarmament-fora/cd/2014/Statements/part2/10June_US.pdf"><span style="color: #5f5f5f; font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/images/documents/Disarmament-fora/cd/2014/Statements/part2/10June_US.pdf</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<div id="edn7" style="mso-element: endnote;">
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/globalnetwork%20chinarussia%20space%20treaty.docx" name="_edn7" style="mso-endnote-id: edn7;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: #5f5f5f;">[vii]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">
</span><a href="http://www.sfu.ca/content/dam/sfu/internationalstudies/documents/swp/WP38.pdf"><span style="color: #5f5f5f; font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">http://www.sfu.ca/content/dam/sfu/internationalstudies/documents/swp/WP38.pdf</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/globalnetwork%20chinarussia%20space%20treaty.docx" name="_edn8" style="mso-endnote-id: edn8;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: #5f5f5f;">[viii]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">
</span><a href="http://cartoonpolitics.tumblr.com/post/79989203203/we-have-met-the-enemy-and-he-is-us-walt"><span style="color: #5f5f5f; font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">http://cartoonpolitics.tumblr.com/post/79989203203/we-have-met-the-enemy-and-he-is-us-walt</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> </span></o:p></div>
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alice slaterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10644496722602607647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6141505007442638693.post-35715545676439751142014-06-26T18:09:00.001-07:002014-06-26T18:09:40.624-07:00Use of Pilotless Drones for Assasinations Violates the Rule of Law
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">USE OF PILOTLESS DRONES FOR ASSASINATIONS VIOLATES THE
RULE OF LAW<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">A secret US government legal memo, prepared for President
Obama, was recently ordered to be released to the public by a Federal Court
responding to a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union.
The Administration’s legal reasoning clearly fails to justify the use of
pilotless drones, controlled by a killer operator, sitting behind a desk
somewhere in the US, aiming his computer joy stick at human targets on
the ground, thousands of miles away. The heavily edited “legal”
rationale has only highlighted the disgraceful lack of respect for the very
laws and constitutional protections that America has always proclaimed as its
unique contribution to world order and the advancement of
civilization. </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">More than 4,000 people have been murdered by drones, many
of them civilians-- old people, and children as well-- in attacks aimed at
people selected for assassination by the President of the United States in
weekly meetings with intelligence and military officials without benefit of
charges, evidence, or trial. The President of the United States, a
former Constitutional professor at one of America’s most prestigious schools of
law, Harvard University, acts as judge, jury and executioner all in one—a
terrible violation of the US Constitution’s promise to protect the rights of
individuals. </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Shortly after the court-ordered release of the memo a new
bipartisan commission of former military and security officials issued a report
warning that US drone policy had put us on a “slippery slope” towards a
proliferation of similar actions by other countries. They made a whole
series of recommendations to help America avoid “blowback” from its unregulated
use of this lethal new technology, which is easily capable of being replicated
by other countries who may wish to wreak similar harm and havoc upon the US.</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">There is a growing lawlessness at the highest levels of
government, justified by the criminal destruction of the World Trade towers in
2001. Instead of treating that tragic catastrophe as a criminal
act, punishable in a court of law, a phony “war on terror” was declared and
enabled the obscene growth of the US military-industrial complex, and a
flagrant disregard for traditional American rights. With the continued
incarceration of suspects in Guantanamo prison in Cuba, America has suspended
the common law tradition of the ancient Magna Carta, in which it was held that
the British king had no right to lock someone away in a dungeon and throw away
the key without evidence, charges, and an opportunity for a trial. This latest
secret memo, now partially revealed by a court decision, which attempts to
justify illegal assassinations by drones, serves only to highlight how far
America has strayed from its own ideals and professed respect for the rule of
law. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
alice slaterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10644496722602607647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6141505007442638693.post-59165085786181821552014-05-27T09:56:00.004-07:002014-05-27T09:57:17.869-07:00New Campaign for a Treaty to Ban Nuclear Weapons Gains Momentum<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">New Campaign for a
Treaty to Ban Nuclear Weapons Gains Momentum<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">by Alice Slater<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
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<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT),<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>extended indefinitely in 1995 when it was due
to expire, provided that five nuclear weapons states which also happened to
hold the veto power on the Security Council (P-5)-- the US, Russia, UK, France,
and China-- would<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“pursue negotiations
in good faith”</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/yesbantreatysus.docx" name="_ednref1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: #5f5f5f;">[i]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">
for nuclear disarmament.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To buy the
support of the rest of the world for the deal, the nuclear weapons states
“sweetened the pot” with a Faustian bargain promising the non-nuclear weapons
state an “inalienable right”</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/yesbantreatysus.docx" name="_ednref2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: #5f5f5f;">[ii]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">
to so-called “peaceful” nuclear power, thus giving them the keys to the bomb
factory. </span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/yesbantreatysus.docx" name="_ednref3" style="mso-endnote-id: edn3;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: #5f5f5f;">[iii]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every country in the world signed the new treaty
except for India, Pakistan, and Israel, which went on to develop nuclear
arsenals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>North Korea, an NPT member,
took advantage of the technological know-how it acquired through its
“inalienable right” to nuclear power and quit the treaty to make its own
nuclear bombs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Today there are nine
nuclear weapons states with 17,000 bombs on the planet, 16,000 of which are in
the US and Russia!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In 2012, the International Committee of the Red Cross made
an unprecedented<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>breakthrough effort to
educate the world that there was no existing legal ban on the use and
possession of nuclear weapons despite the catastrophic humanitarian
consequences that would result from nuclear war, thus renewing public awareness
about the terrible dangers of nuclear holocaust. </span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/yesbantreatysus.docx" name="_ednref4" style="mso-endnote-id: edn4;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: #5f5f5f;">[iv]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A new initiative<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">, </i>the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">(ICAN)</i> </span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/yesbantreatysus.docx" name="_ednref5" style="mso-endnote-id: edn5;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: #5f5f5f;">[v]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">
was launched to make known the disastrous effects to all life on earth should
nuclear war break out, either by accident or design, as well as the inability
of governments at any level to adequately respond.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are calling for a legal ban on nuclear
weapons, just as the world had banned chemical and biological weapons. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Norway also took up the call of the International Red Cross
in 2013, hosting a special Conference on the Humanitarian Effects of Nuclear
Weapons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Oslo meeting took place
outside of the usual institutional settings such as the NPT, the Conference on
Disarmament in Geneva and the First Committee of the General Assembly, where
progress on nuclear disarmament has been frozen because the nuclear weapons
states are only willing to act on non- proliferation measures, while failing to
take any meaningful steps for nuclear disarmament. This, despite a host of
empty promises made over the 44 year history of the NPT, and nearly 70 years
after the 1945 bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The P-5 boycotted the Oslo conference,
issuing a joint statement claiming it would be a “distraction” from the NPT!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Two nuclear weapons states did show up—India
and Pakistan, to join the 127 nations that came to Oslo and those two nuclear
weapons states again attended this year’s follow-up conference hosted by
Mexico, with 146 nations.</span><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">There
is transformation in the air and a shift in the zeitgeist in how nations and
civil society are addressing nuclear disarmament.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are meeting in partnership in greater
numbers and with growing resolve to <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">negotiate
a nuclear ban treaty which would prohibit the possession, testing, use,
production and acquisition of nuclear weapons as illegal</b>, just as the world
has done for chemical and biological weapons. The ban treaty would begin to
close the gap in the World Court decision which failed to decide if nuclear
weapons were illegal in all circumstances, particularly where the very survival
of a state was at stake. This new process is operating outside of
the paralyzed institutional UN negotiating structures, first in Oslo, then in
Mexico with a third meeting planned in Austria<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">, this very year</b>, not four years later in 2018 as proposed by the
non-aligned movement of countries which fail to grasp the urgent need to move
swiftly for nuclear abolition, and has not received any buy-in from the
recalcitrant P-5. Indeed, the US, France and UK didn’t even bother to send a
decent representative to the first high level meeting in history for heads of
state and foreign ministers to address nuclear disarmament at the UN’s General
Assembly last fall. And they opposed the establishment of the UN Open
Ended Working Group for Nuclear Disarmament that met in Geneva in an informal
arrangement with NGOs and governments, failing to show up for a single meeting
held during the summer of 2013.</span><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">At Nayarit, Mexico, the Mexican Chair sent the world a
Valentine on February 14, 2014 when he concluded his remarks to a standing
ovation and loud cheers by many of the government delegates and the NGOs in
attendance saying:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span> </div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The broad-based and comprehensive
discussions on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons should lead to the
commitment of States and civil society to reach new international standards and
norms, through a legally binding instrument. It is the view of the Chair that
the Nayarit Conference has shown that time has come to initiate a diplomatic
process conducive to this goal. Our belief is that this process should comprise
a specific timeframe, the definition of the most appropriate fora, and a clear
and substantive framework, making the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons
the essence of disarmament efforts. <b>It is time to take action. The 70th
anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki attacks is the appropriate milestone
to achieve our goal. Nayarit is a point of no return</b></span></i><b><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> </span></b><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">(emphasis
added). </span><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">One obstacle that is becoming apparent to the success of
achieving a broadly endorsed ban treaty is the position of “nuclear umbrella”
states such as Japan, Australia, South Korea and NATO members. They ostensibly
support nuclear disarmament but still rely on lethal “nuclear deterrence”, a
policy which demonstrates their willingness to have the US incinerate cities and
destroy our planet on their behalf.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Achieving a ban treaty negotiated without the nuclear
weapons states would give us a cudgel to hold them to their bargain to
negotiate for the total elimination of nuclear weapons<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>in a reasonable time by shaming them for not
only failing to honor the NPT but for totally undermining their “good faith”
promise for nuclear disarmament.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They
continue to test and build new bombs, manufacturing facilities, and delivery
systems while Mother Earth is assaulted with a whole succession of so-called
“sub-critical” tests, as these outlaw states continue to blow up plutonium
underground at the Nevada and Novaya Zemlya test sites.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The P-5’s insistence on a “step by step”
process, supported by some of the nuclear “umbrella states”, rather than the
negotiation of a legal ban demonstrates their breathtaking hypocrisy as they
are not only modernizing and replacing their arsenals, they are actually
spreading nuclear bomb factories around the world in the form of nuclear
reactors for commercial gain, even ”sharing” this lethal technology with India,
a non-NPT party, an illegal practice in violation of the NPT prohibition
against sharing nuclear technology with states that failed to join the treaty. </span><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">With a follow up meeting coming in Austria, December 8<sup>th</sup>
and 9<sup>th</sup> of <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">this year</i></b>, we should be strategic in
pushing the impetus forward for a legal ban. We need to get even more
governments to show up in Vienna, and make plans for a massive turnout of NGOs
to encourage states to come out from under their shameful nuclear umbrella and
to cheer on the burgeoning group of peace-seeking nations<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>in our efforts to end the nuclear scourge!</span><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Check out the ICAN
campaign to find out how you can participate in Vienna.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></b><a href="http://www.icanw.org/"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #5f5f5f; font-family: Calibri;">www.icanw.org</span></b></a><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></b></div>
<br />
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<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/yesbantreatysus.docx" name="_edn1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: #5f5f5f;">[i]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">"Each of the Parties to the
Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures
relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear
disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament."</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/yesbantreatysus.docx" name="_edn2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: #5f5f5f;">[ii]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">
<i><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">Article IV</span></i><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable
right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use
of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination…” </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<div id="edn3" style="mso-element: endnote;">
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/yesbantreatysus.docx" name="_edn3" style="mso-endnote-id: edn3;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: #5f5f5f;">[iii]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">
</span><a href="http://www.un.org/en/conf/npt/2005/npttreaty.html"><span style="color: #5f5f5f; font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">http://www.un.org/en/conf/npt/2005/npttreaty.html</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/yesbantreatysus.docx" name="_edn4" style="mso-endnote-id: edn4;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: #5f5f5f;">[iv]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">
</span><a href="http://www.icrc.org/eng/war-and-law/weapons/nuclear-weapons/overview-nuclear-weapons.htm"><span style="color: #5f5f5f; font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">http://www.icrc.org/eng/war-and-law/weapons/nuclear-weapons/overview-nuclear-weapons.htm</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<div id="edn5" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/yesbantreatysus.docx" name="_edn5" style="mso-endnote-id: edn5;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: #5f5f5f;">[v]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">
</span><a href="http://www.icanw.org/"><span style="color: #5f5f5f; font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">www.icanw.org</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
</div>
alice slaterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10644496722602607647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6141505007442638693.post-16353611577245337432014-03-24T22:06:00.001-07:002014-03-24T22:07:11.293-07:00Time for a 21st Century US Foreign Policy<br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";"><o:p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"> </span></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";"><a href="http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/03/24-8"><span style="color: blue;">http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/03/24-8</span></a></span>
<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">Published on
Monday, March 24, 2014 by <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/"><span style="color: blue;">Common Dreams</span></a>
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<b><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 18pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Time for a 21st Century
US Foreign Policy<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">by <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/author/alice-slater"><span style="color: blue;">Alice Slater</span></a> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<o:p> </o:p><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">With 16,000 of the world’s 17,000 nuclear
bombs in the US and Russia, the US should certainly not be fanning the fires
for a new cold war after the distressing events in Crimea and the
Ukraine. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">Rather, we should acknowledge our broken
promise to Gorbachev that we wouldn’t expand NATO if Russia didn’t object to a
reunified Germany’s entry into NATO when the wall came down, and promise not to
invite the Ukraine or Georgia to become members of our old Cold War military
alliance. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">We should be disbanding NATO and working
for reform of the UN system so that it can fulfill its peacekeeping mission
without archaic reliance on regional military competitive
alliances. Further, we should remove our missiles from Poland,
Romania and Turkey and negotiate the space weapons ban which China and Russia
repeatedly proposed, and which only the US blocked for several years in the
UN’s committee on Disarmament in Geneva which requires consensus. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">We should also reinstate the 1972
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty which Bush walked out of in 2001 and take up
Russia’s offer to negotiate a treaty to ban cyberwarfare, which it proposed
after the US boasted about its virus attack on Iran’s enrichment facilities and
which the US rejected out of hand. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">We need to stop being the world’s bully,
as described last week by Jack Matlock, Reagan and Bush’s Ambassador to Russia
who has examined our provocative actions towards Russia which resulted in these
terrible events in Crimea.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">It’s ironic that Obama is now in the Hague
at his third “Nuclear Security Summit” to talk about locking down and securing
loose bomb-making materials, without any discussion about how to honor our Non-Proliferation
Treaty promise to eliminate our massive nuclear arsenal, for which we are
planning to spend $640 billion over the next ten years for two new bomb
factories, and new lethal delivery systems—missiles, planes, submarines.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">The sad history of our bad faith
relationships with Gorbachev and Putin and our aggressive military
provocations, including today’s announcement that NATO will be doing military
war games in Poland, will do nothing to make our world a safer, more peaceful
place.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">The US needs more creative 21st century
thinking on how to relate to the rest of the world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<o:p> </o:p>alice slaterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10644496722602607647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6141505007442638693.post-35555767916830640952014-03-08T07:44:00.001-08:002014-03-08T13:13:27.856-08:00<div class="comment-content">
My friend Nelly's poem in response to the chaos in Ukraine:</div>
<div class="comment-content">
<br />
Into?<br />
Neras, 3/6/2014<br />
The word, democracy,<br />
(Not a new concept by any means) <br />
Is in the pipeline, though the <br />
Conduit is no peace pipe. <br />
Instead, flatulent gasses<br />
Of controlling interests<br />
<br />
Poison the air, destroy the forests,<br />
Pollute the waters, all neatly labeled <br />
“Freedom and Progress” wrapped<br />
In blankets contaminated with<br />
Modern plagues<br />
Damp still, with innocent tears<br />
<br />
The simple folk, everyday dreamers, <br />
Turned GMO fodder, <br />
Waiting, <br />
Struggling <br />
In the digestive track<br />
Of the world <br />
To recombine the poison gasses<br />
Into…?</div>
<span class="comment-actions secondary-text" id="bc_0_0MN" kind="m"><a href="javascript:;" kind="i" o="r" target="_self"></a></span><br />alice slaterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10644496722602607647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6141505007442638693.post-57460332610501836772014-03-07T16:13:00.000-08:002014-03-08T13:12:17.738-08:00My letter to the editor of the NY TIMES<br />
<span class="text_exposed_show">March 7, 2014<br /><br /> Re: Natural Gas as a Diplomatic Tool<br /><br /> Does the Times really believe that America should be “heralding the rise of a new era of energy diplomacy” by beefing up our oil and gas sales to Europe and boasting about our huge potential to export carbon-laden filthy fuel to Russia’s fossil fuel customers as a way to curb Putin? Is this a rational solution to the disturbing events in Ukraine? Pour more carbon into the environment and watch the earth’s ecosystems collapse! Pick your poison—nuclear war or catastrophic climate change!! The follow up editorial to this tone deaf reporting, “Natural Gas as a Diplomatic Tool”, is even more cynical, arguing for speeding up export applications and easing restrictions, knowing it would take years and costs billions of dollars. Advising that “American officials should use natural gas exports as one component of diplomacy” is like selling smallpox laden blankets to the indigenous people of America. It’s a death sentence for our planet and the billions should be spent instead on a Manhattan Project for solar, wind, geothermal and hydro energy which can power the whole planet by 2050 and undercut so many of the geopolitical resource-driven motives for war.</span>alice slaterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10644496722602607647noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6141505007442638693.post-3780960662149208872014-01-27T06:10:00.000-08:002014-01-27T06:10:11.030-08:00<strong>A FRIEND FROM INDIA ASKED WHAT IS A "FAIR" CTBT?</strong><br />
<strong>(Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty)</strong><br />
<strong></strong><br />
<strong>MY REPLY:</strong><br />
<strong></strong><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;">In answer to your question, What’s a “fair” CTBT?”, a fair CTBT
would forbid laboratory testing of nuclear weapons and sub-critical underground
tests where plutonium is blown up with high explosives to help in designing and
improving nuclear weapons even though there’s no chain reaction. The US
has done 26 of them since we signed the treaty and Russia does them at Novaya
Zemlya. The US has been modernizing and designing new nuclear weapons,
regardless of the CTBT. I’m not sure about China.
France closed its test site but it and the UK do laboratory tests
on nuclear designs. So the original P-5 have a technological
advantage over the new members of the nuclear club and that’s the reason that
India gave when it blocked consensus in the Committee on Disarmament when the
test ban was negotiated. India’s Ambassador Ghosh argued at that time
that if the CTBT didn’t forbid laboratory testing and other advanced technology
India would vote against it. Amazingly, for the first time in
history, Ambassador Richard Butler of Australia brought the treaty to the UN
for signature, breaking all precedent by acting without consensus.
Shortly thereafter, India did its underground nuclear tests, swiftly followed
by Pakistan. (India quietly acquired the bomb in 1974 or so, but did not
want to be left behind in the high-tech race for bigger and better bombs.) The
US plans to spend one trillion dollars over the next 30 years to build two new
bomb factories, new planes, missiles and submarines to deliver their lethal
payloads, and to keep the immoral nuclear weapons complex up and
running! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Astonishingly, the CD is looking to break consensus again for
only the second time in history, rather than let Pakistan block the
negotiations on a treaty to cut off fissile material production for weapons
purposes!! Yet when the US was the only country to block consensus in the CD on
beginning negotiations on a treaty to ban weapons in space, proposed for
several years by Russia and China, no one threatened to override consensus to
bring it to the General Assembly for negotiation as was done with the CTBT and
as nations are threatening to do with the FMCT. It’s time to give
the old colonial boys network a taste of their own medicine and disregard
consensus and bring the space treaty to the UN for negotiations.
And everyone should be calling for nuclear disarmament and a total halt to the
new weapons development going on despite the CTBT, the NPT. Indeed, I hope
India and Pakistan will come to the nuclear disarmament meeting hosted by
Mexico on the humanitarian consequences of nuclear war, just as they were the
only nuclear weapons states to attend the Oslo meeting last year.
Let’s hope we can come out of Mexico this year with a mandate to
negotiate a treaty to ban the bomb, followed by a nuclear weapons convention to
provide for their total elimination. Let’s give the earth a
Valentine in Mexico on February 14<sup>th</sup>. Let’s tell Mother
Earth we love her and come out of that meeting with worldwide call to our
governments to abolish nuclear weapons. Perhaps Asia will lead the
way!! </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;"> FOR INFO ABOUT MEXICO AND HOW TO GET YOUR GOVERNMENT TO GO, SEE:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-themecolor: dark2;"><a href="http://www.icanw.org/conference-on-the-humanitarian-impact-of-nuclear-weapons/"><span style="color: blue;">http://www.icanw.org/conference-on-the-humanitarian-impact-of-nuclear-weapons/</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
alice slaterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10644496722602607647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6141505007442638693.post-44745350669335299012014-01-26T17:46:00.000-08:002014-01-26T17:46:52.856-08:00
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;"><strong><span style="font-size: large;">On the Death of Shulamit Aloni</span></strong></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">I met Shulamit Aloni when I went to visit Israel in 1976 as part of my
job working as a fundraiser for ADL. As part of our Jewish education, ADL
set up meetings for our group of 8 American ADLers to learn about all aspects
of Israeli life. We had lunch with Rabin; visited with Myron Ben
Venisti an important scholar and thinker; saw the first settlement in Hebron
settled by Jews from Brooklyn and Chicago affiliated with Meir Kahane; and were
scolded by Shulamit Aloni, who came on like gangbusters, like Bela Abzug with
a Hebrew accent, saying “you American Jews! You’re such hypocrites!!
Don’t you people know we have a Peace Now party?! Why do you
support every stupid </span><span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"> thing this government does?!” It was news to
me! I had never heard a critical word about Israel before.
</span><br />
<span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">When we met the settler in Hebron, an American from Chicago wearing a yarmulke and living in an
apartment building in the midst of a city teeming with Arabs, surrounded by
Israeli soldiers with guns, I asked him why he was living here with his
wife and children in the middle of hostile territory After
all, Israel had just returned the Sinai to Egypt and how would Israel make
peace if they were settling in these all-Arab cities? He replied,
“We don’t care. The bible says Judea and Samaria belong to the
Jewish people!” I thought to myself, “You are a dead man.” This is
what Shulamit Aloni was warning us about in 1976 I am so sad to learn of
her passing.</span><br />
<span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">See, <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.570523">http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.570523</a></span>alice slaterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10644496722602607647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6141505007442638693.post-51112798637900366082014-01-17T02:53:00.000-08:002014-01-17T02:53:24.520-08:00US Rejects Rule of Law: Proposes Space "Code of Conduct" Instead of Binding Treaty
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Angsana New"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The most
important lesson one can acquire about US foreign policy is the understanding
that our leaders do not mean well. They do not have any noble goals of
democracy and freedom and all that jazz. They aim to dominate the world by any
means necessary. And as long as an American believes that the intentions are
noble and honorable, it's very difficult to penetrate that wall. That wall
surrounds the thinking and blocks any attempt to make them realize the harm
being done by US foreign policy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 9pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">William Blum, former member of the US State Department, author of <i>Killing
Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions since World War II<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asarticlecodeofconduct.docx" name="_ednref1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 9pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">[i]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a></i></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">More than 5,000 satellites
have been launched into orbit since the space age began</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asarticlecodeofconduct.docx" name="_ednref2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: #5f5f5f;">[ii]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">.
Today, eleven countries have space launch capability, with over sixty countries
operating about 1,100 active satellites orbiting the earth providing a constant
stream of data and information relied upon for critical civilian communications
as well as for military operations by some.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asarticlecodeofconduct.docx" name="_ednref3" style="mso-endnote-id: edn3;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: #5f5f5f;">[iii]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As we grow ever more dependent on the
ability of these satellites to perform their essential functions without
interruption, there are growing concerns that this useful technology is giving
rise to a new battleground in space for the purpose of sabotaging or destroying
the vital services our space-based communications now provide. </span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The US and Russia have
been testing anti-satellite technology (ASAT) since the space age began, and have
even contemplated using<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>nuclear tipped
ballistic missiles to destroy space assets. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1967, the US and Russia <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>realized it would be in their interest to
support the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which banned the placement of nuclear
weapons or other weapons of mass destruction in space, although they failed to
ban the use of conventional weapons in space.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And in 1972 they agreed to sign the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM)
to slow down the space race and the ability to harm each other’s assets in
space.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unfortunately, George Bush walked
out of the ABM treaty in 2002, and the race to weaponize space was on once
again in full force.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>China is getting
into the act too, having launched, in 2007, a device which destroyed one of its
aging weather satellites orbiting in space.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The US followed suit in 2008, destroying a non-functioning satellite, while
both nations denied any military mission for their acts, claiming they were
merely trying to destroy outdated satellites that no longer functioned.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">With the proliferation of
military spacecraft such as imaging and communications satellites and ballistic
missile and anti- missiles systems which often pass through outer space, there
have been numerous efforts in the UN Committee on Disarmament (CD) to outlaw
the weaponization of space through a legally binding treaty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the United States is having none of it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the CD, which requires consensus to take
action, the US has been the only nation to block every vote to begin
negotiations on such a treaty, with Israel generally abstaining in
support.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Russia and China actually prepared a draft
treaty to ban weapons in space in 2008, but the US blocked the proposal, voting
against it each year thereafter when it was reintroduced for consideration,
saying the proposal was “a diplomatic ploy by the two nations to gain a
military advantage”.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asarticlecodeofconduct.docx" name="_ednref4" style="mso-endnote-id: edn4;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: #5f5f5f;">[iv]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">While continuing to block a
legally binding treaty to ban weapons in space, the US has recently begun to
work with a group of nations in a new initiative that began in the European
Union in 2008, proposing a “Code of Conduct<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>for Outer Space Activities“ <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>which
would lay out a non-binding set of rules of the road for a safer and more
responsible environment in space.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some
of its key objectives are to mitigate damage to satellites that could be caused
by space debris orbiting the earth, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>to
avoid the potential of destructive collisions, and to manage the crowding of
satellites and the saturation of the radio-frequency spectrum, as well as to address
direct threats of hostility to assets in space. </span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asarticlecodeofconduct.docx" name="_ednref5" style="mso-endnote-id: edn5;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: #5f5f5f;">[v]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At first, the US rejected any support for
the Code, but has now agreed to participate in drafting a new version based on
the third iteration from the European Union. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Obama’s </span></span><span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Under Secretary of State
for Arms Control and International Security, Rose Gottemoeller, acknowledged in
2012 the necessity for a Code to deal with orbital debris and “other
irresponsible actions in space”, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>while
at the same time, noting that,</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is important to clarify several points with
respect to the code. It is still under development, we would not subscribe to
any code unless it protects and enhances our national security, and the code
would not be legally binding. </span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asarticlecodeofconduct.docx" name="_ednref6" style="mso-endnote-id: edn6;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[vi]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a></span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In addition, the US is insisting on a provision
in this third version of the Code of Conduct that, while making a voluntary
promise to “refrain from any action which brings about, directly or indirectly,
damage, or destruction, of space objects”, qualifies that directive with the
language <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">unless such action is justified</i>”. </b>One justification given for
destructive action is “the Charter of the United Nations including the inherent
right of individual or collective self-defense”, thus lending legitimacy and
codifying the possibility for warfare in space as part of the Code’s
established norm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And while the Charter
of the United Nations prohibits aggressive action by any nation without
Security Council approval unless a nation acts in self-defense, we know there
have been numerous occasions where nations have by-passed the Security Council
to take aggressive action, often protesting they were acting in
self-defense.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead of banning ASAT
development and warfare, this Code justifies such warfare as long as it’s done,
individually and collectively, under the guise of “self-defense”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thus despite lacking the force of law that
would be established with a legally binding treaty, this new US version of the
Code creates, as the norm it is proposing, a possibility for space warfare.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our world deserves better!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span>
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<!--[endif]--><br />
<div style="mso-element: endnote-list;">
<div id="edn1" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asarticlecodeofconduct.docx" name="_edn1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: #5f5f5f;">[i]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">
William Blum, </span><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 9pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Killing Hope: US Military and CIA
Interventions since World War II</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 9pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> (2003) (Common
Courage Press)</span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> </span><a href="http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/20869-our-leaders-do-not-mean-well"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 9pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: #5f5f5f;">http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/20869-our-leaders-do-not-mean-well</span></span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="edn2" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asarticlecodeofconduct.docx" name="_edn2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: #5f5f5f;">[ii]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> </span><a href="http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/nwgs/a-history-of-ASAT-programs_lo-res.pdf"><span style="color: #5f5f5f; font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/nwgs/a-history-of-ASAT-programs_lo-res.pdf</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="edn3" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asarticlecodeofconduct.docx" name="_edn3" style="mso-endnote-id: edn3;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: #5f5f5f;">[iii]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span><a href="http://www.cfr.org/space/code-conduct-outer-space/p26556"><span style="color: #5f5f5f; font-family: Calibri;">http://www.cfr.org/space/code-conduct-outer-space/p26556</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="edn4" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asarticlecodeofconduct.docx" name="_edn4" style="mso-endnote-id: edn4;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: #5f5f5f;">[iv]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span><a href="http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/images/documents/Resources/Factsheets/outerspace.pdf"><span style="color: #5f5f5f; font-family: Calibri;">http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/images/documents/Resources/Factsheets/outerspace.pdf</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="edn5" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asarticlecodeofconduct.docx" name="_edn5" style="mso-endnote-id: edn5;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: #5f5f5f;">[v]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> </span><a href="http://eeas.europa.eu/non-proliferation-and-disarmament/outer-space-activities/index_en.htm"><span style="color: #5f5f5f; font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">http://eeas.europa.eu/non-proliferation-and-disarmament/outer-space-activities/index_en.htm</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="edn6" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asarticlecodeofconduct.docx" name="_edn6" style="mso-endnote-id: edn6;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: #5f5f5f;">[vi]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/16/opinion/a-code-for-outer-space-as-seen-from-the-state-dept.html?_r=0"><span style="color: #5f5f5f; font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/16/opinion/a-code-for-outer-space-as-seen-from-the-state-dept.html?_r=0</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> </span></o:p></div>
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alice slaterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10644496722602607647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6141505007442638693.post-28165514761508870582013-12-07T11:13:00.002-08:002013-12-07T11:13:53.523-08:00
<strong>REMEMBERING NELSON MANDELA</strong><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I
remember when we learned that Nelson Mandela was planning to make his farewell
address to the United Nations, our Abolition 2000 Network organized an
international letter writing campaign to him to call for the abolition of
nuclear weapons in his UN speech. Sure enough, the London Guardian reported on
its front page, Nelson Mandela Calls for the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons! In
his speech he actually said "what do they need them for anyway?" I
only hope that we can honor and remember the enormous contribution he made to
peace when he used the truth and reconciliation process he started as President
of South Africa to avoid bloodshed and dedicate ourselves to making that
process work for Syria, for Israel-Palestine, and other troubled spots on our
beleaguered planet. Let us truly honor him by putting revenge and war behind us
in a more peaceful world!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">See, <a href="http://www.wagingpeace.org/articles/1998/09/21_mandela.htm"><span style="color: blue;">http://www.wagingpeace.org/articles/1998/09/21_mandela.htm</span></a></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"></span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">See how the NY
Times handled the story compared to the London Guardian, in a somewhat longer
piece about the news and how it’s reported.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><a href="http://globalhousework.blogspot.com/2011/02/nixon-in-china-max-frankel-and-me.html"><span style="color: blue;">http://globalhousework.blogspot.com/2011/02/nixon-in-china-max-frankel-and-me.html</span></a></span>alice slaterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10644496722602607647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6141505007442638693.post-61776597202693886402013-11-03T16:16:00.000-08:002013-11-03T16:16:17.551-08:00<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Grassroots Pressure Builds on
Nuclear Dependent States to Come Out from Under Their Nuclear Umbrella and Take
a Stand to Ban the Bomb</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></b></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Steve Leeps, former Chair of
the Hiroshima Peace Foundation and organizer of Mayors for Peace, wrote a great
article on recent developments in Japan, where citizen pressure caused Japan
to<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>sign on to a statement at the UN
General Assembly emphasizing the catastrophic consequences of nuclear war and stating
that nuclear weapons should not be used under “any circumstances”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This past summer in Geneva, Japan,
sheltering under the US promise to use nuclear weapons on its behalf in
retaliation for any attack it might suffer, refused to sign a similar statement
and caught tremendous disapproval from citizens active in the new International
Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons working to ban nuclear weapons, just as the
world has banned chemical and biological weapons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Steve posted his article to an expert group
of US campaigners against nuclear power </span></span><a href="http://www.hiroshimapeacemedia.jp/mediacenter/article.php?story=20131029144834760_en&query=leeper"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: blue; font-family: inherit;">http://www.hiroshimapeacemedia.jp/mediacenter/article.php?story=20131029144834760_en&query=leeper</span></span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><u><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></u></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><u><span style="color: blue; font-family: inherit;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></span></u></span></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">One campaigner asked: “</span><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Does Japan have any nuclear
weapons? I thought they did not.” </span><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">I replied as follows:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The short answer, is no, they
don’t have nuclear weapons, but they are part of a nuclear mafia that shelters
behind the US nuclear “umbrella” pledged to be used on their behalf should
their enemies fail to be “deterred”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Additionally, since every nuclear reactor has the capacity to manufacture
nuclear bomb material, Japan has all the technology it needs to swiftly
assemble nuclear bombs of its own, having enriched uranium to weapons grade, as
has Brazil and others, the very thing we are threatening to go to war over with
Iran.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In other words, it’s OK for Japan,
but not for Iran because Japan is part of our alliance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Indeed we actually park a few hundred
nuclear weapons on the territory of our NATO allies, including Germany,
Netherlands, Turkey, Italy, and Belgium!!</span> </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_sharing"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: inherit;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_sharing</span></span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: dark2;"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: dark2;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And this despite our promise
in the Non-Proliferation Treaty as one of the five recognized nuclear weapons
states (UK, France, China, Russia) not to share nuclear weapons. The NPT is a
flawed Faustian bargain in which the five nuclear weapons states promised to
give up their nuclear weapons in return for a promise from all the other
countries in the world not to get them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>To sweeten the pot, the non-nuclear weapons states were promised an
“inalienable right”, to “peaceful“nuclear power thus giving them the keys to
the bomb factory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only India, Pakistan
and Israel refused to sign and they got their own nuclear arsenals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>North Korea availed itself of its right and
then walked out of the treaty to build a bomb.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This is the right Iran is lawfully asserting.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">For
years, those of us battling nuclear power, and those of us working to ban the
bomb, have operated in separate spheres.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This was the result of a deliberate policy by the US after the
horrendous revulsion at what occurred in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to make the
atom more acceptable to people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hence,
President</span><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> Eisenhower,
seeking to counter public revulsion at the normalization of nuclear war in US
military policy, was advised by the Defense Department’s Psychological Strategy
Board that “the atomic bomb will be accepted far more readily if at the same
time atomic energy is being used for constructive ends.” Thus his Atoms for
Peace speech at the UN in 1953, in which he promised that the US would devote
“its entire heart and mind to find the way by which the miraculous
inventiveness of man shall not be dedicated to his death, but consecrated to
his life” by spreading the peaceful benefits of atomic power across the
globe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> The benefits of nuclear
power were aggressively marketed as miraculous technology that would power
vehicles, light cities, heal the sick.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The US made agreements with 37 nations to build atomic reactors and
enticed reluctant Westinghouse and General Electric to do so by passing the
Price Anderson act limiting their liability at tax-payer expense.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The
fallout from the 1954 Bravo test of a hydrogen bomb contaminating 236 Marshall
Islanders and 23 Japanese fisherman aboard the Lucky Dragon and irradiating
tuna sold in Japan resulted in an eruption of rage against the atomic bombings
which were forbidden to be discussed after 1945 by a ban instituted by US
occupation authorities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For damage
control, the US NSC recommended that the US wage a “vigorous offensive on the
non-war uses of atomic energy,” offering to build Japan an experimental nuclear
reactor and recruiting a former Japanese war criminal, Shoriki Matsutaro, who
ran the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper and Nippon TV network to shill for nuclear
power by getting him released from prison without trial.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="http://globalhousework.blogspot.com/2013_05_01_archive.html"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: inherit;">http://globalhousework.blogspot.com/2013_05_01_archive.html</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And now we’re reaping the
whirlwind with Fukushima.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Comprehensive Test Ban
Treaty Organization, does global monitoring for radiation releases, to make
sure no one is cheating on promises to stop full-blown underground tests (not
to be confused with sub-critical tests, 26 since the 1992 treaty was signed, where
the US blows up plutonium with chemicals at the Nevada Test site on Western
Shoshone land, claiming that since there’s no chain reactions they’re not
really tests!?).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The CTBTO originally
reported some of the fallout from Fukushima but now all reports are going to
the industry-corrupted IAEA and the WHO and to governments.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We need a FOIA to find out where the fallout
is going.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>See </span></span><a href="http://www.ctbto.org/"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: inherit;">www.ctbto.org</span></span></a><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: dark2;"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This has been a long answer
to a short question about Japan’s nuclear status, but y’all know more about
nuclear power than anyone else in the US and it’s important that you know about
its evil twin, the nuclear bomb.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
Abolition 2000 Network, working for a treaty to eliminate nuclear weapons
recognized the “inextricable link” between nuclear weapons and nuclear power in
1995 when we were founded.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>See </span></span><a href="http://www.abolition2000.org/"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: inherit;">www.abolition2000.org</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
ICAN campaign that Steve Leeps referred to is a new and exciting development to
get a simple treaty saying that possession, use, manufacture of nuclear weapons
is illegal and should be banned, just as we have banned chemical and biological
weapons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A legal ban treaty would have
the advantage of not needing the recalcitrant nuclear weapons states to
negotiate it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Those negotiations would
come afterwards for a treaty to actually eliminate them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the meantime, we are shaming non-nuclear
weapons states to take a less hypocritical honest position, and to stop hiding
behind the nuclear umbrella. Since the fall UN meeting, questions have been
raised in Germany and Italy as well, nations which actually house and shelter
US nuclear bombs on their territory as part of NATO’s unlawful nuclear sharing
program.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>See </span></span><a href="http://www.icanw.org/"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: inherit;">www.icanw.org</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: dark2;"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span>alice slaterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10644496722602607647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6141505007442638693.post-14314333914431094412013-08-25T08:23:00.001-07:002013-08-26T10:45:16.780-07:00<br />
<div style="background: white;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Time for a Missile Ban
Treaty<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div style="background: white;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">By Alice Slater<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="background: white;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">This July, only one day after the US celebrated another anniversary of its
Declaration of Independence from tyranny, it was reported that once more, a test
of US anti-missile defenses against incoming long-range ballistic missiles,
launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California had failed again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This was the third consecutive test of the
Missile Defense Agency’s Ground-Based Mid-Course<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>system, in which our military was unable to
intercept an incoming missile, programmed to target the US, which had been
launched towards the mainland from the U.S. Army's Reagan Test Site on
Kwajalein atoll, in the Marshall Islands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This lunatic program, dreamt up by Reagan and known by its comic book
reality, Star Wars, will never work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Numerous scientists have testified that it would be impossible to
guarantee that our anti-missile interceptors could accurately hit an incoming
nuclear missile, because the enemy launch would be accompanied by a phalanx of
decoys, preventing us from ever knowing with certainty which incoming missile
would be carrying a lethal payload.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
the sixteen tests of this ill-conceived “defense”, only eight have ever hit
their target over the past nine years<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asarticleglobalnetwork2013.docx" name="_ednref1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
and the target has been rigged with a homing device sending a signal to allow
the anti-missile to zero in on its location.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>One truly need not be a rocket scientist to figure out that this ill-gotten
program, a multi-billion dollar gift to the
military-industrial-academic-congressional complex is insane because no enemy
attack would give such friendly instructions to our “defenses”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="background: white;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In 2002, the US unilaterally withdrew from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic
Missile Treaty which had been negotiated with the Soviet Union as a way to slow
down the arms race.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The two countries
reasoned that if they refrained from building anti-missile systems, they could
also stop the burgeoning pile-up of missiles they were acquiring to “deter”
each other during the Cold War.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After
the Berlin Wall came down, any good will we had built up with the Russians
swiftly began to dissipate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We expanded
NATO right up to Russia’s border, despite promises we gave to Gorbachev that if
he didn’t object to a united Germany joining NATO, it would expand no further.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Russia lost twenty million people during the
Nazi onslaught, and was understandably wary of a reunited Germany in NATO. Today
NATO is even working to admit former Soviet Republics, Georgia and Ukraine, as
members.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And we are planting our missile
“defenses” in Poland, Romania, and Turkey.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>A powerful global grassroots campaign influenced the Czech Republic to
back out of a scheduled deployment in that eastern European country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Adding
Turkey to the mix of NATO missile bases must be particularly offensive to
Russia, when you consider that part of the deal during the Cuban missile crisis
between Kennedy and Khrushchev, was a secret agreement to remove US missiles from
Turkey when the Soviets agreed to bring back their missiles from Cuba.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The US anti-ballistic missile defense program, started in 2002 after we
walked out of the ABM Treaty, now deploys about 30 interceptors in Fort Greely,
Alaska and at Vandenberg in California.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Despite the latest fizzle, the Pentagon announced that it would not be
deterred in its plans to place another 13 interceptors in Alaska at a cost of
$1billion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In addition, the Congress has
mandates that the Pentagon study an ground-based missile defense system in
either New York or Maine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One of the
biggest sticking point in moving towards meaningful negotiations for nuclear
disarmament is Russia’s strong objection to the US missile defense program.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When you realize that it wouldn’t work
anyway, that it’s costing billions of dollars and untold losses of intellectual
treasure applied to meaningless work, surely it’s time to call for a missile
ban treaty. <a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asarticleglobalnetwork2013.docx" name="_ednref2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[ii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Indeed, both China and Russia have repeatedly
offered a draft treaty to ban weapons in space where the US was the only nation
to block their proposal at the UN’s Commission on Disarmament which requires
consensus to move forward.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Any ban on
weapons in space would have to deal with the missiles as well which are an
integral part of a space fighting system.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span>
<br />
<div style="mso-element: endnote-list;">
<!--[if !supportEndnotes]--><br />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<!--[endif]-->
<br />
<div id="edn1" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asarticleglobalnetwork2013.docx" name="_edn1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: #5f5f5f;">[i]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">
</span><a href="http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Dec2002/t12172002_t1217sd.html"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="color: #5f5f5f; font-size: x-small;">http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Dec2002/t12172002_t1217sd.html</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="edn2" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asarticleglobalnetwork2013.docx" name="_edn2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: #5f5f5f;">[ii]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">
See, Beyond Missile Defense, </span><a href="http://www.abolition2000.org/a2000-files/mbmd.pdf"><span style="color: #5f5f5f; font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">http://www.abolition2000.org/a2000-files/mbmd.pdf</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
</div>
</div>
alice slaterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10644496722602607647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6141505007442638693.post-84115428475846754922013-06-09T17:31:00.000-07:002013-06-09T17:31:02.486-07:00
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Renewable Energy: An Idea Whose Time
is Now:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Obstacles and Opportunities<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Left Forum, June 9, 2013<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Despite
promising reports and overwhelming factual evidence that it is totally possible
to wean ourselves off of polluting and death delivering energy systems—fossil,
nuclear, and industrial biomass—which are threatening planetary destruction and
public health around the globe-- the common conversation about the
possibilities for a safe clean energy future has been distorted in the media--
muddled by the energy corporations, peddling their toxic fuels by flooding the
airwaves with false advertising and corrupting our elected leaders with
hundreds of millions of dollars spent in lobbying and campaign contributions to
buy their twisted votes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This month, Common Cause, New York
issued a report, </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">"</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Generating
Influence: Entergy's Spending and the Battle over the Indian Point Nuclear
Power Plant</span></i><span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">"
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeechleftforum2013.doc#_edn1" name="_ednref1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>noting that Entergy, the owner of Indian
Point, between 2005 and 2012, spent over $4.5 million in New York State and
$35.6 million in Washington on political contributions and lobbying. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Indian
Point, sitting on the Hudson River only 25 miles from New York, is applying for
a 20 year license renewal for the 40 year old plant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Its operating license expired this year,
although the industry-dominated Nuclear Regulatory Commission unprecedentedly
allows it to continue operating without a license, since they have yet to
decide on the renewal application which was submitted four years ago. <a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeechleftforum2013.doc#_edn2" name="_ednref2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[ii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
Indian Point has the distinct advantage of having been mentioned in Al Quaida’s
documents and the 911 Commission Report, as a possible target, at the time the
World Trade Center was destroyed in NYC.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It is sitting on an earthquake fault, and has been spewing radioactive
tritium, cesium and other noxious poisons into the Hudson River, killing
billions of fish, and fish eggs a year with higher incidences of childhood
cancer and leukemia reported in the local area.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Its radioactive waste pools, have built up more than four times the
radioactive waste materials that the catastrophic Fukushima accident continues
to spew out across the world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In reporting
on Entergy’s efforts to manipulate the public debate over whether its license
should be renewed, Common Cause notes that in addition to campaign
contributions and lobbying, Entergy has developed a grassroots “astroturfing”
campaign, hiring one of the most sophisticated PR firms, Burson Marsteller, to
create the appearance of public support to perpetuate the life of this unsafe
accident waiting to happen. Entergy established two shill front-group
organizations, NY AREA and SHARE, which hide their connection to their
corporate sponsor while attempting to exert influence on its behalf. <a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeechleftforum2013.doc#_edn3" name="_ednref3" style="mso-endnote-id: edn3;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[iii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>They
have hired former NY Mayor, Rudolph Giuliani, to hawk for Indian Point in slick
commercials, both print and TV, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>as a
provider of safe, clean, energy, with the ex-Mayor threatening that New Yorkers
will have to contend with blackouts if the plant closes, despite <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>numerous studies indicating <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>that the city doesn’t need Indian Point to
meet its energy needs. <a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeechleftforum2013.doc#_edn4" name="_ednref4" style="mso-endnote-id: edn4;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[iv]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Then
there are </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">the factual distortions raised in the media about the oil
industry’s efforts to mine the filthy tar sands in northern Canada and pipe in
millions of gallons of the dirtiest, most carbon-laden oil clear across
America, from Canada to New Orleans, adding to the catastrophic consequences we
are facing if we don’t rein in our use of fossil fuel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Corrupt member of Congress falsely argue that
as many as 20,000 jobs would be created by the project.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>USA Today touted that number in a headline, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“Obama Rejects Keystone Pipeline: Business
Leaders, GOP Say Decision Kills 20,000 New Jobs.”<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeechleftforum2013.doc#_edn5" name="_ednref5" style="mso-endnote-id: edn5;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[v]</span></span></b></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>,</b>
despite a Cornell University Global Labor Institute finding that the pipeline
would add only 500 to 1400 temporary construction jobs. <a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeechleftforum2013.doc#_edn6" name="_ednref6" style="mso-endnote-id: edn6;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[vi]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Obama only delayed the decision temporarily
and is now still considering whether to inflict it on the land.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Numerous
studies show that green energy jobs are growing faster than traditional
jobs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A Pew Charitable Trust report
found that between 1998 and 2007, jobs in the clean energy economy grew at a
national rate of 9.1 percent while traditional jobs grew by only 3.7 percent.
By 2007, more than 68,200 businesses across all 50 states and the District of
Columbia accounted for more than 770,000 green energy jobs, despite a lack of
sustained government support in the past decade.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeechleftforum2013.doc#_edn7" name="_ednref7" style="mso-endnote-id: edn7;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[vii]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> A
2011 Brookings Institute Report found that the clean-economy sector includes
2.7 million jobs. The oil and gas industry, by contrast, has 2.4 million jobs.
Its study,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>called "Sizing the Clean
Economy," cited jobs scattered across more than 41,000 companies
nationwide, not just in clean energy industries like solar and wind power, but
emerging fields like greenhouse-gas reduction, environmental management,
recycling, and air and water purification technologies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Smart-grid efforts directly employ nearly
16,000 people, and battery technology about the same. Conservation accounts for
a big chunk, with 314,000 jobs, as does public mass transit – 350,000 jobs. Add
to that wind power and solar power, with about 24,000 direct jobs each, and
sustainable forestry products with 61,000.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeechleftforum2013.doc#_edn8" name="_ednref8" style="mso-endnote-id: edn8;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[viii]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">A report this year by the Economic
Policy Institute, analyzing 2012 data on green jobs from the Bureau of Labor
Statistics, concluded that “greener industries grow faster than the overall economy”,
finding that the productions of green goods and services created 3.1 million
jobs in the US.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Green jobs were defined
as those which "benefit the environment or conserve natural resources"
in either their process or output such as jobs in renewable energy, efficiency,
pollution reduction and other traditionally "green" industries, along
with jobs in any industry in which workers’ duties involve making procedures
more energy efficient or environmentally benign. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">EPI found that those states which have
a higher share of employment in green jobs,<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeechleftforum2013.doc#_edn9" name="_ednref9" style="mso-endnote-id: edn9;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[ix]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
like California, New York and Texas, generally fared better in the current
economic downturn.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>EPI’s statistical
analysis found that a one percent increase in a particular industry's
"green intensity," or share of employment in green jobs, corresponded
with a 0.034 increase in annual employment growth in the last decade.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The report noted that green jobs are still
accessible to workers that don't hold a college degree. A one percent increase
in green intensity in a given industry corresponded with a 0.28 percent
"increase in the share of jobs in that industry held by workers without a
four-year college degree."<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeechleftforum2013.doc#_edn10" name="_ednref10" style="mso-endnote-id: edn10;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[x]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Working against the momentum to move
to a green energy economy, industry has been able to influence government
policy to continue to subsidize polluting fossil, nuclear, and industrial biomass
industries at much higher levels than funds made available to clean safe, sun,
wind, geothermal and hydropower.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The International
Energy Agency estimates indicate that fossil-fuel consumption subsidies
worldwide amounted to $523 billion in 2011, up from $412 billion in 2010. In
comparison, subsidies to renewable energies were $88 billion dollars. <a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeechleftforum2013.doc#_edn11" name="_ednref11" style="mso-endnote-id: edn11;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[xi]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the IEA figure
doesn’t include the </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">$50
billion a year or so which the US was giving to the Pentagon even in peace
time, just to protect the sea lanes for the oil tankers plying their way across
the oceans with their toxic cargoes. <a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeechleftforum2013.doc#_edn12" name="_ednref12" style="mso-endnote-id: edn12;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[xii]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The Obama administration has announced
an $8.3 billion subsidy to build two new nuclear reactors in Georgia—the first
new ones to be built since the catastrophe at Three Mile Island,<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeechleftforum2013.doc#_edn13" name="_ednref13" style="mso-endnote-id: edn13;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[xiii]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
giving short shrift to the greatest industrial tragedy the world has ever
experienced—the melt down of four nuclear reactors in Fukushima, Japan two
years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Germany, Sweden, Spain, Italy
and Belgium have agreed to phase out nuclear power, but the United States is in
the grip of a nuclear industry, which keeps insisting that nuclear power is the
answer to global warming because it doesn’t emit carbon during its
operation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is another gross industry
distortion since there are fossil costs associated with the whole nuclear fuel
chain—from mining, milling and processing uranium to the decommissioning at the
end of the reactor’s lifetime.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And a
report from the Union of Concerned Scientists, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Gift That Keeps on Giving</i>, estimates that the nuclear industry
has received hundreds of billions of dollars over the past 50 years from the US
taxpayer, for every aspect of the nuclear chain, including liability insurance
to cap catastrophic losses, to up to $12 billion, with any additional charges
to be borne by the taxpayers.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeechleftforum2013.doc#_edn14" name="_ednref14" style="mso-endnote-id: edn14;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[xiv]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is estimated that Fukushima will cost as
much as one trillion dollars! <a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeechleftforum2013.doc#_edn15" name="_ednref15" style="mso-endnote-id: edn15;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[xv]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Things are looking up though.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just this Friday it was announced that the
hazardous San Onofre plant in California will be shut down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Others that have announced closures in the
past year were the Pilgrim plant in Massachusetts, Keawaunee in Wisconsin and
Crystal River in Florida.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Four down, 100
more to go in the US!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Every 30
minutes, enough of the sun’s energy reaches the earth’s surface to meet global
energy demand for an entire year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wind
can satisfy <st1:personname w:st="on">the</st1:personname> world’s electricity
needs 40 times over, and meet all global energy demands five times over.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The geo<st1:personname w:st="on">the</st1:personname>rmal
energy stored in <st1:personname w:st="on">the</st1:personname> top six miles
of <st1:personname w:st="on">the</st1:personname> earth’s crust contains 50,000
times <st1:personname w:st="on">the</st1:personname> energy of <st1:personname w:st="on">the</st1:personname> world’s known oil and gas resources. Tidal, wave
and small hydropower, can also provide vast stores of energy everywhere on
earth, abundant and free for every person on our planet, rich and poor
alike.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From water, broken down by solar
or wind-powered electrolysis into hydrogen and oxygen, we can make and store
hydrogen fuel in cells to be used when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind
doesn’t blow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When hydrogen fuel is
burned, it recombines with oxygen and produces water vapor, pure enough to
drink, with no contamination added to the planet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Iceland plans to be completely sustainable by
2050, using hydrogen in its vehicles, trains, busses and ships, made from
geothermal and marine energy. <a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeechleftforum2013.doc#_edn16" name="_ednref16" style="mso-endnote-id: edn16;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[xvi]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">New
research and reports are affirming the possibilities for shifting the global
energy paradigm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Scientific American</i> reported a plan in 2009 to power 100% of the
planet by 2030 with only solar, wind and water renewables, calling for millions
of wind turbines, water machines and solar installations to accomplish that
task.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The authors assert that “the scale
is not an insurmountable hurdle; society has achieved massive transformations
before”, reminding us that “[d]uring World War II, the U.S retooled automobile
factories to produce 300,000 aircraft and other countries produced 486,000
more”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their scenario for 2030
contemplates, in part, building 3.8 million windmills to provide 51% of the
world’s energy demand which would take up less than 50 square kilometers
(smaller than Manhattan). They reassure us that even though the number seems
enormous, the world manufactures 73 million cars and lights trucks every year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The
authors review the policies that would need to be in place to make the energy
transition, such as taxes on fossil fuels, or at least the elimination of
existing subsidies for fossil and nuclear energy to level the playing field,
and an intelligently expanded grid to ensure rapid deployment of clean energy
sources. <a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeechleftforum2013.doc#_edn17" name="_ednref17" style="mso-endnote-id: edn17;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[xvii]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The
World Wildlife Fund (WWF) also issued a Report in 2010, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">100% Renewable Energy</i> which outlined a scenario for relying on 100%
renewables by 2050. <a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeechleftforum2013.doc#_edn18" name="_ednref18" style="mso-endnote-id: edn18;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[xviii]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The
Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21<sup>st</sup> Century (REN) released
their 2012 Renewables Global Status Report and had encouraging news to report:<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeechleftforum2013.doc#_edn19" name="_ednref19" style="mso-endnote-id: edn19;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[xix]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"></span><span style="color: #323232; font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"> ·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="color: #323232; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Renewable sources
supplied 16.7% of global final energy consumption. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 16.6pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.75in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .75in; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #323232; font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="color: #323232; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">118 countries –more
than half in the developing world– implemented RE targets.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 16.6pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.75in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .75in; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #323232; font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="color: #323232; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Investment in
renewables increased 17% to a record $257 billion, despite a widening sovereign
debt crisis in Europe and rapidly falling prices for renewable power equipment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 16.6pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.75in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .75in; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #323232; font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="color: #323232; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Photovoltaic module
prices dropped by 50% and onshore wind turbines by close to 10%, bringing the
price of the leading renewable power technologies closer to grid parity with
fossil fuels such as coal and gas.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.75in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .75in; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: black; font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Recent estimates indicate that about 5 million people worldwide
work either directly or indirectly in the renewable energy industries. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.75in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .75in; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: black; font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The majority of renewables jobs worldwide are located in a handful
of major economies, namely China, Brazil, the United States, and the European Union
where the renewable energy sector contributes 1.1 million jobs <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.75in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .75in; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Developing countries have begun to track green energy jobs; India
estimated 350,000 in 2009.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Yet
despite these encouraging reports and facts on the ground, the corporate
dominated media is still beating the drums for continued reliance on fossil,
nuclear and industrial biomass fuels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
is obvious that they will do all they can to block the development of green
energy because they will lose their cash cows.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Once the infrastructure is in, they can’t sell the sun, or the wind or
the tides the way they can peddle coal, oil, gas, uranium, and biomass.</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">We
mustn't buy into the propaganda that clean safe energy is decades away or too
costly. We need to be vigilant in providing the ample evidence in its favor to
counter the corporate forces arguing that it’s not ready, it’s years away, it’s
too expensive—arguments made by companies in the business of producing dirty
fuel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Here’s
what Franklin Delano Roosevelt had to say about similar forces in 1936:</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">We had to struggle with the old
enemies of peace--business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking,
class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering. They had begun to consider
the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs.
We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as
Government by organized mob</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeechleftforum2013.doc#_edn20" name="_ednref20" style="mso-endnote-id: edn20;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[xx]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">These
are the enormous forces we must overcome.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I heard Ralph Nader speak this week about his new book, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I Told You So</i>, at Barnes and Noble.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ralph is suggesting that we all organize
Town Meetings this August with our members of Congress and address an issue of
such unfairness, that it would be easy to build huge alliances and
coalitions—that is to raise the minimum wage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="color: #333333;">The current federal minimum wage is $7.25,
way below what’s needed to earn even the unrealistically low federal poverty
definition of $18,123 per year for a family of three. Adjusted for inflation,
the minimum wage in 1968 would be above $10.50 per hour.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Go to <a href="http://www.timeforaraise.org/"><span style="color: blue;">www.timeforaraise.org</span></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If we are truly the Left Forum we should be
helping<span style="color: #333333;"> tens of millions of Americans currently
struggling to make ends meet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And despite
the general breast beating and bemoaning the loss of jobs to globalization, we
know there could be tens of millions of jobs right here in America if we repair
our infrastructure and stop the corporate rape of the earth by shifting to a
green and sustainable future. </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="mso-element: endnote-list;">
<!--[if !supportEndnotes]--><br clear="all" />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<!--[endif]-->
<div id="edn1" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeechleftforum2013.doc#_ednref1" name="_edn1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[i]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><a href="http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=8667133"><span style="color: blue; font-size: x-small;">http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=8667133</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="edn2" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeechleftforum2013.doc#_ednref2" name="_edn2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[ii]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> http://www.lohud.com/article/20130513/NEWS/305130070/Indian-Point-reactor-operate-after-license-expires<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn3" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeechleftforum2013.doc#_ednref3" name="_edn3" style="mso-endnote-id: edn3;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[iii]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><a href="http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=8667133"><span style="color: blue; font-size: x-small;">http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=8667133</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="edn4" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify;">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeechleftforum2013.doc#_ednref4" name="_edn4" style="mso-endnote-id: edn4;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[iv]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 352.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Woolf, Tim, et al.
“Indian Point Replacement Analysis: A Clean Energy Roadmap: A Proposal for
Replacing the Nuclear Plant with Clean, Sustainable Energy Resources.” Synapse
Energy Economics. Cambridge, Massachusetts. October 11, 2012. Available at: </span><a href="http://www.riverkeeper.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Synapse-Indian-Point-Replacement-Study--11.pdf_"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Calibri;">http://www.riverkeeper.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Synapse-Indian-Point-Replacement-Study--11.pdf_</span></a></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">;<span style="font-size: 10pt;">.New York Assembly member James F. Brennan and New
York Assembly member Kevin A. Cahill. “Assembly Committees’ Preliminary
Findings Show Indian Point Can Be Shut Down: Proper planning would allow Indian
Point to close with little impact on ratepayers and reliability.” February 1,
2012. Available at <a href="http://assembly.state.ny.us/mem/James-F-Brennan/story/46159/"><span style="color: blue;">http://assembly.state.ny.us/mem/James-F-Brennan/story/46159/</span></a>;
New York Independent System Operator. “Final Draft: New York State’s
Transmission and Distribution Systems Reliability Study and Report.” August 30,
2012. pp. 84-85.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn5" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeechleftforum2013.doc#_ednref5" name="_edn5" style="mso-endnote-id: edn5;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[v]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> USA
Today, 1-19-12<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn6" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeechleftforum2013.doc#_ednref6" name="_edn6" style="mso-endnote-id: edn6;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[vi]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> EXTRA!,
March 2012, p.3<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn7" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeechleftforum2013.doc#_ednref7" name="_edn7" style="mso-endnote-id: edn7;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[vii]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><a href="http://www.pewcenteronthestates.org/uploadedFiles/Clean_Economy_Report_Web.pdf"><span style="color: blue; font-size: x-small;">http://www.pewcenteronthestates.org/uploadedFiles/Clean_Economy_Report_Web.pdf</span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;">,
2009<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn8" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeechleftforum2013.doc#_ednref8" name="_edn8" style="mso-endnote-id: edn8;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[viii]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><a href="http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/Programs/Metro/clean_economy/0713_clean_economy.pdf"><span style="color: blue; font-size: x-small;">http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/Programs/Metro/clean_economy/0713_clean_economy.pdf</span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;">,
2009<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn9" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeechleftforum2013.doc#_ednref9" name="_edn9" style="mso-endnote-id: edn9;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[ix]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><a href="http://www.epi.org/files/2012/bp349/Which%20states%20have%20the%20most%20green%20jobs-01.png"><span style="color: blue; font-size: x-small;">http://www.epi.org/files/2012/bp349/Which%20states%20have%20the%20most%20green%20jobs-01.png</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="edn10" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeechleftforum2013.doc#_ednref10" name="_edn10" style="mso-endnote-id: edn10;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[x]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/17/green-job-growth_n_1956207.html"><span style="color: blue; font-size: x-small;">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/17/green-job-growth_n_1956207.html</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="edn11" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeechleftforum2013.doc#_ednref11" name="_edn11" style="mso-endnote-id: edn11;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[xi]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">
</span><a href="http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/resources/energysubsidies/"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Calibri;">http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/resources/energysubsidies/</span></span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="edn12" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeechleftforum2013.doc#_ednref12" name="_edn12" style="mso-endnote-id: edn12;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[xii]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Winning
the Oil Endgame Fact Sheet, Rocky Mountain Institute.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn13" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeechleftforum2013.doc#_ednref13" name="_edn13" style="mso-endnote-id: edn13;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[xiii]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><a href="http://my.firedoglake.com/jest/2012/02/20/post-fukushima-obama-gives-nuclear-industry-an-8-3b-loan-guarantee-bailout-as-residents-die-of-cancer/"><span style="color: blue; font-size: x-small;">http://my.firedoglake.com/jest/2012/02/20/post-fukushima-obama-gives-nuclear-industry-an-8-3b-loan-guarantee-bailout-as-residents-die-of-cancer/</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="edn14" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeechleftforum2013.doc#_ednref14" name="_edn14" style="mso-endnote-id: edn14;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[xiv]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><a href="http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_power/nuclear_power_and_global_warming/nuclear-power-subsidies-report.html"><span style="color: blue; font-size: x-small;">http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_power/nuclear_power_and_global_warming/nuclear-power-subsidies-report.html</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="edn15" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeechleftforum2013.doc#_ednref15" name="_edn15" style="mso-endnote-id: edn15;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[xv]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> http://agreenroad.wordpress.com/2012/06/05/fukushima-crisis-total-cost-up-to-10-trillion-dollars/<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn16" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeechleftforum2013.doc#_ednref16" name="_edn16" style="mso-endnote-id: edn16;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[xvi]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> See
generally, A Sustainable Energy Future is Possible Now, </span><a href="http://www.abolition2000.org/a2000-files/sustainable-now.pdf"><span style="color: blue; font-size: x-small;">http://www.abolition2000.org/a2000-files/sustainable-now.pdf</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="edn17" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeechleftforum2013.doc#_ednref17" name="_edn17" style="mso-endnote-id: edn17;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[xvii]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-path-to-sustainable-energy-by-2030"><span style="color: blue; font-size: x-small;">http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-path-to-sustainable-energy-by-2030</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="edn18" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeechleftforum2013.doc#_ednref18" name="_edn18" style="mso-endnote-id: edn18;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[xviii]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><a href="http://www.worldwildlife.org/climate/energy-report.html"><span style="color: blue; font-size: x-small;">http://www.worldwildlife.org/climate/energy-report.html</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="edn19" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeechleftforum2013.doc#_ednref19" name="_edn19" style="mso-endnote-id: edn19;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[xix]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> http://www.ren21.net/REN21Activities/GlobalStatusReport.aspx<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn20" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeechleftforum2013.doc#_ednref20" name="_edn20" style="mso-endnote-id: edn20;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[xx]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><a href="http://millercenter.virginia.edu/scripps/digitalarchive/speeches/spe_1936_1031_roosevelt"><span style="font-family: "Times","serif";"><span style="color: blue; font-size: x-small;">http://millercenter.virginia.edu/scripps/digitalarchive/speeches/spe_1936_1031_roosevelt</span></span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
</div>
alice slaterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10644496722602607647noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6141505007442638693.post-84372741060208815112013-05-13T00:01:00.005-07:002013-07-05T14:41:15.801-07:00Nuclear Abolition: New Opportunities and Old Obstacles<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Nuclear
Abolition:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>New Opportunities and Old
Obstacles</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Non-Proliferation Treaty Preparatory Committee Meeting, Geneva,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>April 26, 2013 </span><o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">At the end of last year, the airwaves and internet were
filled with chatter about the ancient Mayan calendar which was predicting the
end of the world or a similar catastrophe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Some scholars argued that the Mayan prophecy related not to an impending
disaster but to the end of a 5000 year cycle which would usher in a period of
new consciousness and transformation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While
our planet seems to have dodged a bullet and survived the more gloomy
interpretations of the ancient prophecy, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the Mayans may have been on to something as it
appears we are actually seeing the breakup of a certain kind of world consciousness
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>regarding nuclear weapons this year and
it’s all for the good. </span><o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">New initiatives for nuclear disarmament are springing up in
both conventional and unconventional forums.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Norway stepped up to the plate in
February and convened an unprecedented international meeting to address the
humanitarian consequences of nuclear war.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In Oslo, 127 nations, plus UN agencies, NGOs, and the International Red
Cross participated in a debate and discussion of the catastrophic potential of nuclear
weapons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Two nuclear weapons states,
India and Pakistan attended. </span><o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The five recognized nuclear weapons states under the
Non-Proliferation Treaty, who also happen to wield the veto as permanent
members of the Security Council (the P5) the US, UK, Russia, China and France,
refused to attend.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They spoke in one
voice, as I learned on a conference call with Rose Gottemoeller, US Acting
Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security, who told us that
the US decision not to attend the conference “was made in consultation with the
P5.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They all agreed not to attend”
because “Oslo would divert discussion and energy from a practical step by step
approach and non-proliferation work. The most effective way to honor the
NPT.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Other P5 spokespeople
characterized the Oslo initiative as a “distraction.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course it was a distraction from the P5
preferred methods of business as usual in the ossified and stalled NPT process,
as well as in the procedurally stymied Conference on Disarmament in Geneva
which has been paralyzed for 17 years because of lack of consensus,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>required by its rules to move forward on
disarmament agreements—a recipe for nuclear weapons forever—with regular new
breakout threats by nuclear proliferators.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Oslo was an end run around those institutions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Taking its model from the Ottawa Process
that wound up with a treaty to ban landmines, working outside of the usual
institutional fora, it held an electrifying new kind of discussion as testimony
was heard about the devastating impacts of what would occur during a nuclear
war and the humanitarian consequences, examining the need to ban the bomb.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Prior to the Oslo meeting, more than 500
members of ICAN, a vibrant new campaign, met to work for negotiations to begin
on a treaty to abolish nuclear weapons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At
Oslo, the nations pledged to follow up with another meeting in Mexico.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Right before Oslo, The Middle Powers Initiative, working to
influence friendly middle powers to put pressure on the P5 for more rapid
progress for nuclear disarmament, held a Framework Forum for a Nuclear Weapons
Free World in Berlin, hosted by the German government, under the new leadership
of Tad Akiba, former Mayor of Hiroshima who oversaw the burgeoning Mayors for
Peace Campaign grow to a network of some 5300 mayors in more than 150 countries
calling for a treaty to eliminate nuclear weapons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At that meeting, we were urged to organize
Civil Society’s support for a new initiative promoted by the UN General
Assembly’s First Committee establishment of a Geneva Working Group to meet for
three weeks this summer to “develop proposals for taking forward multilateral
negotiations on the achievement and maintenance of a world free of nuclear
weapons. “<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And then in New York this
September, for the first time ever, Heads of State will meet at a global summit
devoted to nuclear disarmament! </span><o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Furthermore, thanks to the tireless organizing of the
Parliamentarians for Non-Proliferation and Nuclear Disarmament,, nearly 1000
parliamentarians from approximately 150 parliaments, meeting at<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the</span><a href="http://www.ipu.org/english/home.htm" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Calibri;"> Inter Parliamentary
Union (IPU)</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> in Ecuador last month chose the topic "Towards a
Nuclear-Weapons-Free World: The Contribution of Parliaments" <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>as a focus this year under their Peace and
International Security work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>IPU, which
includes most of the nuclear weapons states in its 160 parliaments enables parliamentarians
to engage on core issues for humanity. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That they chose the issue of nuclear weapons ahead of seven other
proposals indicates the rising interest and consciousness for nuclear abolition
around the world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">And just before this meeting, Abolition 2000,
the global network formed in 1995, at the NPT Review and Extension Conference,
which produced a model nuclear weapons convention, now<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>promoted by UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon
in his five point proposal for nuclear disarmament,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>held its annual meeting in Edinburg Scotland,
supported by the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, which is urging
that after the referendum on Scottish independence from England, that England’s
Trident nuclear submarine base at Faslane be closed, and that Scotland no
longer house the British nuclear arsenal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The network joined with Scottish activists at Glasgow and Faslane
supporting their call to </span><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“S</span><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">crap trident: Let Scotland lead the way to a nuclear free
world.”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Despite these welcome harbingers of a
change in planetary consciousness in favor of nuclear abolition, we cannot
ignore recent obstacles, setbacks and hardened positions in the old patriarchal
and warlike paradigm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Disappointingly
the Obama administration is proposing deep cuts in funding for nuclear
non-proliferation programs so it can boost spending to modernize its massive
stockpile of nuclear weapons adding another $500 million to the already bloated
weapons budget, which includes spending for three new bomb factories at Oak
Ridge, Los Alamos and Kansas City with programs for weapons modernization and
new missiles, planes and submarines to deliver a nuclear attack which will come
to more than $184 billion over the next ten years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-weight: normal; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">In the provocative US military “pivot” to
Asia, war games with South Korea for the first time simulated a nuclear attack
where the US flew stealth bombers capable of carrying nuclear weapons over
South Korea and sent two guided-missile destroyers off the coast of South
Korea, announcing plans to deploy an advanced missile defense system to Guam in
the next few weeks two years ahead of schedule. </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">This engendered an aggressive response from
North Korea which moved a medium-range missile to its east coast and threatened
to launch a nuclear attack on the US.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The US put a pause on what it had called its step-by-step plan that laid
out the sequence and publicity plans for US shows of force during annual war
games with South Korea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But ominously, the
New York Times reported on April 4, 2013, that the US and South Korea “are
entering the final stretch of long-stalled negotiations over another highly
delicate nuclear issue:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>South Korea’s
own request for American permission to enrich uranium and reprocess spent
nuclear fuel. “<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Which raises another key
obstacle to the surge of sentiment for moving boldly towards nuclear
disarmament.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-weight: normal; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">How can we tell Iran not to enrich
uranium when we are negotiating that issue with South Korea as well as with
Saudi Arabia?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If we are serious about
nuclear abolition we cannot keep spreading nuclear bomb factories around the
world in the form of “peaceful” nuclear power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That is why this new negotiating possibilities outside the NPT are so
promising.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In order to ban nuclear
weapons we are not bound to provide an “inalienable right” to so-called
“peaceful nuclear power, as guaranteed by the Article IV promise of the
NPT.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The tragic events at Fukushima, have
caused a time-out in the so-called nuclear renaissance that expected a massive increase
of nuclear power worldwide.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just last
week, we learned that all of Fukushima’s holding ponds for the toxic radiated
water that is used to prevent a meltdown of the stored radioactive fuel rods by
cooling them with a constant flow of water, the radioactive trash produced by
the operation of nuclear power plants, are all leaking into the earth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have not yet absorbed the full
catastrophic consequences of Fukushima which is still perilously poised to spew
more poisons into the air, water and soil; poisons which are traveling around
the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And as the Japanese people rose up to develop
plans to phase out nuclear power, members </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">of the Japanese
military, acknowledging the significance of nuclear plants as military
technology, succeeded in getting the parliament to amend Japan’s 1955 Atomic
Energy Basic Law last year, adding “national security” to people’s health and
wealth as reasons for Japan’s use of the nuclear power.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We were warned from the beginning of the atomic age that nuclear
power was a recipe for proliferation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>President Truman’s 1946 Acheson-Lilienthal Report on policy for the
future of nuclear weapons, concluded that “the development of atomic energy for
peaceful purposes and the development of atomic energy for bombs are in much of
their course interchangeable and interdependent” and that only central control
by a global authority controlling all nuclear materials, starting at uranium
mines could block the proliferation of nuclear weapons.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeech%20geneva%202013%20NAPF%20panel%20edited2.docx" name="_ednref1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[i]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nevertheless, President Eisenhower, seeking
to counter public revulsion at the normalization of nuclear war in US military
policy, was advised by the Defense Department’s Psychological Strategy Board
that “the atomic bomb will be accepted far more readily if at the same time atomic
energy is being used for constructive ends.” </span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeech%20geneva%202013%20NAPF%20panel%20edited2.docx" name="_ednref2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[ii]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">
Hence his Atoms for Peace speech at the UN in 1953, in which he promised that
the US would devote “its entire heart and mind to find the way by which the
miraculous inventiveness of man shall not be dedicated to his death, but
consecrated to his life” </span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeech%20geneva%202013%20NAPF%20panel%20edited2.docx" name="_ednref3" style="mso-endnote-id: edn3;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[iii]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">
by spreading the peaceful benefits of atomic power across the globe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The fallout from the 1954 Bravo test of a hydrogen bomb
contaminating 236 Marshall Islanders and 23 Japanese fisherman aboard the Lucky
Dragon and irradiating tuna sold in Japan resulted in an eruption of rage
against the atomic bombings which were forbidden to be discussed after 1945 by
a ban instituted by US occupation authorities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>For damage control, the US NSC recommended that the US wage a “vigorous
offensive on the non-war uses of atomic energy,” offering to build Japan an
experimental nuclear reactor and recruiting a former Japanese war criminal,
Shoriki Matsutaro, who ran the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper and Nippon TV network
to shill for nuclear power by getting him released from prison without
trial.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The benefits of nuclear power
were aggressively marketed as miraculous technology that would power vehicles,
light cities, heal the sick.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The US made
agreements with 37 nations to build atomic reactors and enticed reluctant
Westinghouse and General Electric to do so by passing the Price Anderson act
limiting their liability at tax-payer expense.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Today there is a cap of $12 billion for damages from a nuclear accident.
Chernobyl cost $350 billion and Fukushima estimates are as high as one trillion
dollars.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeech%20geneva%202013%20NAPF%20panel%20edited2.docx" name="_ednref4" style="mso-endnote-id: edn4;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[iv]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Ironically, Barack Obama is still peddling the same snake
oil. During the Seoul Nuclear Security Summit,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>designed to lock down and safeguard nuclear materials worldwide, Obama
extolled the peaceful benefits of nuclear power while urging “<span lang="EN" style="color: black; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> nations to join us in seeking a future where we harness the awesome power
of the atom to build and not to destroy. When we enhance nuclear security,
we’re in a stronger position to harness safe, clean nuclear energy. When we
develop new, safer approaches to nuclear energy, we reduce the risk of nuclear
terrorism and proliferation.</span><span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-size: 9pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The
Good News:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We don’t need nuclear power
with all its potential for nuclear proliferation<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Following
Fukushima, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Spain and Japan have announced their
intention to phase out nuclear power. </span></span><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 39pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span class="messagebody2"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Symbol; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span class="messagebody2"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Kuwait pulled out of a contract to build 4
reactors.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 39pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span class="messagebody2"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Symbol; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span class="messagebody2"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Venezuelan -froze all nuclear development projects
.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 39pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span class="messagebody2"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Symbol; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span class="messagebody2"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Mexico-dropped plans to build 10 reactors.</span></span></span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeech%20geneva%202013%20NAPF%20panel%20edited2.docx" name="_ednref5" style="mso-endnote-id: edn5;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[v]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span class="messagebody2"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">s<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 39pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span class="messagebody2"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Symbol; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span class="messagebody2"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Bulgaria and the Philipines also dropped plans to
build new reactors<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 39pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span class="messagebody2"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Symbol; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span class="messagebody2"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Quebec will shut down its one reactor<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<strong></strong><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 39pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span class="messagebody2"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Symbol; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span class="messagebody2"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Spain is closing down another<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 39pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span class="messagebody2"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Symbol; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span class="messagebody2"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Belgium shut down two reactors because of cracks.</span></span></span><o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">New research and reports are affirming the possibilities for
shifting the global energy paradigm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Scientific American,</i> reported a plan in
2009 to power 100% of the planet by 2030 with only solar, wind and water
renewables.</span><o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) also issued a 2010 Report <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">100% Renewable Energy </i>by 2050. </span><o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted
that the world could meet 80% of its energy needs from renewables by 2050.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeech%20geneva%202013%20NAPF%20panel%20edited2.docx" name="_ednref6" style="mso-endnote-id: edn6;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[vi]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In 2009 the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>was launched and now has 187 member states.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeech%20geneva%202013%20NAPF%20panel%20edited2.docx" name="_ednref7" style="mso-endnote-id: edn7;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[vii]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">We mustn't buy into
the propaganda that clean safe energy is decades away or too costly. We need to
be vigilant in providing the ample evidence in its favor to counter the
corporate forces arguing that it’s not ready, it’s years away, its’ too
expensive—arguments made by companies in the business of producing dirty
fuel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Here’s what
Franklin Delano Roosevelt had to say about similar forces in 1936:</span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">We had to struggle
with the old enemies of peace--business and financial monopoly, speculation, </i>reckless<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> banking, class antagonism, sectionalism,
war profiteering. They had begun to consider the Government of the United
States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by
organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob</i>.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeech%20geneva%202013%20NAPF%20panel%20edited2.docx" name="_ednref8" style="mso-endnote-id: edn8;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[viii]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">These
are the enormous forces we must overcome.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The eco-philosopher Joanna Macy, describes </span>these times as ”the
great turning”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In shifting the energy
paradigm we would essentially be turning away from “the industrial growth
society</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> to a life-sustaining civilization”, foregoing a failed economic model
which “ measures its performance in terms of ever-increasing corporate
profits--in other words by how fast materials can be extracted from Earth and
turned into consumer products, weapons, and waste.”</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeech%20geneva%202013%20NAPF%20panel%20edited2.docx" name="_ednref9" style="mso-endnote-id: edn9;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[ix]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">
Relying on the inexhaustible abundance of the sun, wind, tides, and heat of the
earth for our energy needs, freely available to all, will diminish the
competitive, industrial, consumer society that is threatening our planetary
survival.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By ending our dependence on
the old structures, beginning with the compelling urgency to transform the way
we meet our energy needs, we may finally be able to put an end to war as
well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><!--[if !supportEndnotes]--><br />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<!--[endif]--><br />
<div style="mso-element: endnote-list;">
<div id="edn1" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeech%20geneva%202013%20NAPF%20panel%20edited2.docx" name="_edn1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[i]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><a href="http://www.nci.org/06nci/10/Acheson-Lilienthal%20report%20excerpt.htm"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;"><span style="color: blue; font-size: x-small;">http://www.nci.org/06nci/10/Acheson-Lilienthal%20report%20excerpt.htm</span></span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="edn2" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeech%20geneva%202013%20NAPF%20panel%20edited2.docx" name="_edn2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[ii]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><a href="http://www.japanfocus.org/-yuki-tanaka/3521"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;"><span style="color: blue; font-size: x-small;">www.japanfocus.org/-yuki-tanaka/3521#</span></span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="edn3" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeech%20geneva%202013%20NAPF%20panel%20edited2.docx" name="_edn3" style="mso-endnote-id: edn3;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[iii]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><a href="http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1439606/Atoms-for-Peace-speech"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;"><span style="color: blue; font-size: x-small;">http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1439606/Atoms-for-Peace-speech</span></span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="edn4" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeech%20geneva%202013%20NAPF%20panel%20edited2.docx" name="_edn4" style="mso-endnote-id: edn4;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[iv]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><a href="http://www.japanfocus.org/-yuki-tanaka/3521"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;"><span style="color: blue; font-size: x-small;">www.japanfocus.org/-yuki-tanaka/3521#</span></span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeech%20geneva%202013%20NAPF%20panel%20edited2.docx" name="_edn5" style="mso-endnote-id: edn5;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[v]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><a href="http://progressive.org/fukushima_nuclear_industry.html"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;"><span style="color: blue; font-size: x-small;">http://progressive.org/fukushima_nuclear_industry.html</span></span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeech%20geneva%202013%20NAPF%20panel%20edited2.docx" name="_edn6" style="mso-endnote-id: edn6;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[vi]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><a href="http://www.worldwildlife.org/climate/energy-report.html"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;"><span style="color: blue; font-size: x-small;">http://www.worldwildlife.org/climate/energy-report.html</span></span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeech%20geneva%202013%20NAPF%20panel%20edited2.docx" name="_edn7" style="mso-endnote-id: edn7;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[vii]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><a href="http://www.irena.org/Menu/Index.aspx?mnu=Cat&PriMenuID=46&CatID=67"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;"><span style="color: blue; font-size: x-small;">http://www.irena.org/Menu/Index.aspx?mnu=Cat&PriMenuID=46&CatID=67</span></span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeech%20geneva%202013%20NAPF%20panel%20edited2.docx" name="_edn8" style="mso-endnote-id: edn8;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;"><span style="color: blue;">[viii]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;">
</span><a href="http://millercenter.virginia.edu/scripps/digitalarchive/speeches/spe_1936_1031_roosevelt"><span style="font-family: "Times","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;"><span style="color: blue; font-size: x-small;">http://millercenter.virginia.edu/scripps/digitalarchive/speeches/spe_1936_1031_roosevelt</span></span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Alice/Documents/asspeech%20geneva%202013%20NAPF%20panel%20edited2.docx" name="_edn9" style="mso-endnote-id: edn9;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[ix]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><a href="http://www.ecoliteracy.org/essays/great-turning"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;"><span style="color: blue; font-size: x-small;">http://www.ecoliteracy.org/essays/great-turning</span></span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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alice slaterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10644496722602607647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6141505007442638693.post-66610936826218869572012-11-13T16:25:00.003-08:002012-11-13T16:26:34.117-08:00Military Contractors Seek More Foreign Arms Sales to Offset Budget Cuts<br />
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<b><span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Military Industrial Complex will Deal with Military Cuts by Pushing Greater
Arms</span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Sales on Foreign Countries<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Scroll
down to this story by Christopher Drew below and see how the military
industrial complex plans to save their necks from threatened arms cuts by just
upping more arms sales abroad. Exactly what we need to frighten the
people with new claims that we need even more arms here to counter all the arms
we sold abroad which are threatening our national security! What a
formula for perpetual war-- one sure way to keep the arms race going. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/11/07/business/industry-reactions-to-election.html?smid=tw-share"><span style="color: blue;">http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/11/07/business/industry-reactions-to-election.html?smid=tw-share</span></a></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Analysts Expect a Deal to Delay Military Spending Cuts</span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"></span></b><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 9pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Whether President Obama or Mitt Romney won Tuesday, the top
Pentagon contractors had already begun preparing for a new reality of shrinking
resources for the military. </span><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 9pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Boeing, for one, has slashed $2.2 billion in costs,
including 6,300 jobs, from its huge military business since 2010. It announced
Wednesday that it planned to cut an additional $1.6 billion by the end of 2015
by consolidating office space and divisions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 9pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Boeing’s actions underscored the biggest question of the
day in the industry: How soon and how deep will bigger cuts come? </span><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 9pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">For more than a year, the contractors have been pressing
President Obama and the House Republicans to reach a deal to forestall $500
billion in additional military spending cuts set to start in early January. </span><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 9pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">With Mr. Obama’s re-election, that issue will flare up
over the next few weeks in the lame-duck Congress. Political leaders will
search for ways to avert or delay the cuts while talks get under way again on a
broader deficit-reduction package.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 9pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Mr. Obama and Mr. Romney had both promised to stop the
spending cuts, and it would presumably have been easier for Mr. Romney to work
that out with House Republicans than it will be for Mr. Obama. </span><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 9pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">But most military analysts believe that a deal will be
reached that at least delays the cuts — which would automatically lop off 10
percent of the money for nearly every weapons program — because neither party
wants to see them happen.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 9pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">“I do expect a sausagelike budget deal where the really
tough parts get deferred and the sequester mechanism is deferred or altered,”
said Gordon Adams, a professor of international relations at American
University, who helped oversee military budgets in the Clinton White House. </span><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 9pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">But, he and other analysts said, the overall military
budget is still likely to decline significantly over the next decade, as the
war in Afghanistan ends and the military is required to share in reducing the
government’s $16 trillion debt.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 9pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"></span><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 9pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Tom Captain, the United States aerospace and defense
leader for Deloitte, the giant accounting firm, said that perhaps $250 billion
in military cuts could come as part of a grand bargain to reduce the deficit,
which could also include lower entitlement spending and higher taxes. </span><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 9pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Mr. Adams added that in previous military drawdowns, like
the one after the cold war, the Pentagon budget declined gradually in a
steplike fashion, with the cuts becoming deeper than initially expected as
policy makers re-evaluated the situation in preparing each year’s budget. </span><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 9pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">He said the military budget dropped by 36 percent from
1985 to 1998 in inflation-adjusted terms, and he could see the current
deficit-reduction efforts leading to total cuts of at least 15 percent, and
possibly as high as 30 percent, by the end of the decade. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 9pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"></span><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 9pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">The Pentagon’s base budget, which soared after the 2001
terrorist attacks, has already declined modestly from a peak of about $530
billion in fiscal year 2010. Mr. Obama has proposed canceling plans for $487
billion in spending increases over the next 10 years. His plan would limit the
growth in military spending to about the rate of inflation over that time.</span><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 9pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Mr. Romney had argued that Mr. Obama’s plans would weaken
the nation’s defense. He had promised to reverse those decisions and increase
military spending at a pace that some analysts had estimated would amount to a
total of $2 trillion by the early 2020s. </span><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 9pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Mr. Romney would have halted Mr. Obama’s plan to cut the
size of American ground forces back to about what it was before the 9/11
attacks. Mr. Romney also called for increasing the construction of Navy ships
to 15 a year rom nine, saying the Navy needs 350 ships to support a shift in
the Pentagon’s focus toward the Asia-Pacific region.</span><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 9pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Mr. Obama countered at the last presidential debate that
the United States still spends more on its military than several other powerful
nations combined. And after Mr. Romney noted that the Navy now has fewer ships
than it had in 1915, Mr. Obama shot back,“Well, governor, we also have fewer
horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military’s changed.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 9pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><o:p><span style="color: black; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;">
</span></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 9pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Mr. Captain, the Deloitte partner, said that even if Mr.
Romney’s campaign rhetoric had raised “glimmers of hope” among some military
contractors, the reality is that the military budget will come down no matter
who is president if the federal budget deficit is to be reduced. </span><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 9pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Mr. Captain also said that the biggest military
contractors — including Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics and Northrop
Grumman — all recognized that more cuts were inevitable and had been paring
back. He said those companies and their vast networks of smaller suppliers had
cut 55,000 jobs over the last two years to reduce costs.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 9pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Boeing’s military unit said that it had been planning its
newest cost-cutting effort for some time and that it would have made the same
changes even if Mr. Romney had won. Given the reductions that started in 2010,
the unit has cut nearly 30 percent of its executives and plans to reduce the
number of middle managers. But the company has been able to reduce the impact
of some of the cuts by transferring defense workers to its thriving commercial
aircraft business, a spokesman, Todd Blecher, said.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 9pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"></span><strong><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 9pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">The big companies have been looking to increase foreign
sales to offset the Pentagon cuts. But with other nations facing their own
budget problems, Mr. Captain said, Deloitte has found that total revenue for
military contractors across the globe declined by 3.3 percent last year and
another 1 percent in the first six months of 2012. </span><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 9pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">So even with large weapons sales to countries like India
and Brazil, he said, “all of that is not going to make up for the difference.”</span></strong></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 9pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"></span><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 9pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">— CHRISTOPHER DREW<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 9pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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alice slaterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10644496722602607647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6141505007442638693.post-10017160512833372042012-10-22T17:31:00.000-07:002012-10-22T17:46:05.455-07:00Mourning George McGovern<br />
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<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p><b><span style="font-family: Calibri;">MOURNING GEORGE
MCGOVERN</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Calibri;">By Alice Slater</span></b></div>
<br />
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<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It is eerily fitting that George McGovern<b>’</b>s passing
has occurred in the final heat of a furious election campaign, precariously
balanced between the Republocrats and the Democlicans, a tweedle dum/ tweedle
dee choice between two corporately owned political parties. No matter how much
the corporate media tries to fan the public pulse with staged debates and
constant reporting on polls and money raised in this manufactured horse race,
it’s apparent that on issues of corporate welfare, empowering the rich, labor
rights, immigration, terrorism, the vast military-industry complex, war and
peace, energy policy , poverty, and the rape of the earth, there’s merely, at
best, a dime’s worth of difference between the two. Indeed, there are
third party candidates, from the Green Party, Libertarian Party, Justice Party
and others who have radically different ideas from those we are hearing from
Obamney/Rombama, but the corporate dominated media is having none of that and
refuses to carry these other views .</span><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The significance of George McGovern’s failed campaign for
the Presidency in 1972 is that it was born on the wings of a vast grassroots
conspiracy, assiduously phoning, canvassing, going door to door, running slates
of delegates to the Democratic convention, before there was an internet.
It was the last gasp of a democratic political process in the US.
The campaign to take over the Democratic Party by women, youth, gays, blacks,
liberals, and other progressive Americans, started in 1968 with Eugene
McCarthy’s candidacy to end the war in Vietnam. That effort ended in the
furious assault on our young people at Mayor Daley’s Chicago Democratic
convention. Here we witnessed on television the ugly police brutality
against students and youth protesting the war in Vietnam and the fixed rules of
the convention that favored those in power and ignored the results of that
year’s grassroots primary campaign for Gene McCarthy, and later, Bobby Kennedy,
cruelly assassinated while campaigning in LA, having entered the race after
Johnson announced he wouldn’t run for a second term.</span><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">With renewed determination, across the country we formed the
New Democratic Coalition in 1968 and vowed to change the rules of the party and
to capture the nomination in 1972 for a peace candidate that would finally end
the war in Vietnam and address issues of civil rights, poverty, human rights,
true national security---the liberal progressive agenda. George McGovern
announced as our candidate, supporting the reform of the Convention rules and
all of our issues. I went up and down my block in Massapequa, Long
Island, with an army of suburban housewives, students, commuting husbands,
canvassing my neighbors and making sure those who supported our platform came
out to vote in the Democratic primary. In 1970 we had primaries for
local candidates and actually sent Allard Lowenstein, the brilliant progressive
leader who enrolled Eugene McCarthy to challenge Lyndon Johnson in the 1968
Democratic primaries, to Congress from Long Island. These efforts took
place all over America and when I moved to Maryland in 1970, I continued my
door to door work for McGovern in Potomac. The establishment media rarely
reported on our work. They kept predicting that Edmund Muskie would
be the nominee and gave virtually no press coverage to McGovern or our
campaign. What a great surprise when our elected delegates showed up at
the Miami Convention in 1972—the sixties manifest in all its glory, with youth,
women, blacks, Hispanics, gays, a broad swath of progressive America—and we
nominated George McGovern! The energy was electric as movie stars
mingled with peace activists, civil rights workers, women’s libbers, the gay
community, and every other shade and stripe of 1960s protesters.
And we proved the political process worked! We actually captured
the nomination!! What an awful letdown to see how the establishment
fought back. They never wrote about McGovern’s forward looking
platform for peace and prosperity. They hounded him daily for
having appointed Missouri Senator Thomas Eagleton to run as his Vice President
who was later discovered to have been hospitalized for manic-depression many
years earlier. McGovern replaced him on the ticket with Sargent
Shriver, Kennedy’s brother-in-law, but the press was relentlessly opposed to
his platform and instead of talking about his WWII fighter pilot record, his
outstanding values and creative ideas for ending poverty in America and ending
the Vietnam War, they tarred him as a “hippie” with all the rest of his
supporters and he won only Massachusetts and Washington, DC in the election.</span><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The establishment has closed ranks ever
since. There has never been such an open, democratically
conducted nomination process as we enjoyed from 1968 to 1972, and which
resulted in a true people’s choice when George McGovern was nominated.
Today we have carefully staged-managed events, designed not to upset any of the
corporate sponsors, filtered through the corporate media, leaving Americans in
the dark. George McGovern’s nomination was a shining moment for a
democratic political process and also, sadly, a signal to the enemies of
democracy to close ranks and do everything in their power to never allow it to
happen again. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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alice slaterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10644496722602607647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6141505007442638693.post-15066177828217213222012-07-01T19:02:00.001-07:002012-07-01T19:02:21.964-07:00<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Here’s an interview I did on you tube with Kevin Sanders of the
World Opinion Forum, which will feature part of this talk on its Hiroshima Day
program, on August 6<sup>th</sup>. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span class="watch-page-link"><a href="http://youtu.be/xK8JmmeN2FU"><span style="color: blue;">http://youtu.be/xK8JmmeN2FU</span></a></span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>alice slaterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10644496722602607647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6141505007442638693.post-14756176645779354422012-06-17T18:56:00.002-07:002012-06-17T18:56:49.538-07:00The Folly of Mindless Science<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">THE FOLLY OF MINDLESS SCIENCE<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">by
Alice Slater</span><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In
2000, I traveled to India, invited to speak at the organizing meeting of the
Indian Coalition for Nuclear and Disarmament and Peace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>About 600 organizations, including some 80
from Pakistan gathered in New Delhi to strategize for nuclear disarmament.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>India
had quietly acquired the bomb and performed one nuclear test at Pokhran in 1974
but it was in 1998 that all hell broke out, with India exploding five
underground tests, swiftly followed by six in Pakistan.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6141505007442638693#_edn1" name="_ednref1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: #5f5f5f;">[i]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
trigger for this outbreak of nuclear testing in Asia was the refusal of the US
Clinton Administration, under the pressure of the US nuclear weapons
scientists,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>to negotiate a Comprehensive
Test Ban Treaty that precluded laboratory testing and “sub-critical” tests,
where plutonium could be blown up underground with chemicals without causing a
chain reaction—hence defined as a non-nuclear test by the US and the nuclear
club.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>India warned the nuclear powers at
the Commission on Disarmament(CD) where the CTBT was being negotiated, t</span>hat
it opposed the CTBT because it contained discriminatory "loopholes …
exploited by some countries to continue their testing activity, using more
sophisticated and advanced techniques", and <span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">it would never agree to consensus on the treaty unless the
ability to continue high-tech laboratory<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>testing and computer-driven nuclear experiments was foreclosed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In
an unprecedented move of colonial hubris, Australia, led by Ambassador Richard
Butler, brought the treaty to the UN for approval over India’s objections, the
first time in the history of that body that the UN General Assembly was asked
to endorse a treaty that had not received consensus to go forward in the
negotiating body at the CD.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I spoke to
Ambassador Butler at a UN reception where the wine was flowing a bit liberally.
I asked him what he was going to do about India’s objection.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He informed me that he had been visiting with
Clinton’s National Security Advisor in Washington, Sandy Berger, and Berger
said, “We’re going to screw India! We’re going to screw India!”, repeated twice
by Butler, for emphasis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Unsurprisingly, India and Pakistan soon tested overtly, not wanting to
be left behind in the technology race for new improved nuclear weapons which
was characterized blasphemously by the US in biblical terms, as its “stockpile
stewardship” program to protect the ‘safety and reliability” of the arsenal. </span></div>
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<div class="MsoListBulletCxSpFirst" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: none; tab-stops: .5in; text-indent: 0in;">
As for the “safety and
reliability” of the nuclear arsenal, in the late 1980s, during the heady days
of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">perestroika </i>and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">glasnost</i>, when there was talk of a nuclear
testing moratorium, initially instituted in the Soviet Union after coal miners
and other activists marched and protested the enormous health threats from
Russian testing in Kazakhstan,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a debate
in Congress resulted in an annotated Congressional record indicating that since
1950 there were 32 airplane crashes carrying nuclear weapons and not one of
them ever went off!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Two spewed some
plutonium around Palomares, Spain and Thule, Greenland that had to be “cleaned up”,
but there was no catastrophic nuclear explosion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are still some bombs unaccounted for
including an airplane still missing which crashed off the coast of Georgia <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6141505007442638693#_edn2" name="_ednref2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: #5f5f5f;">[ii]</span></span></span></span></span></a>
How much more “safer and reliable” would the weapons have to be?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fortunately, General Lee Butler, taking
command of the nuclear arsenal stopped the insanity in 1992 and ruled that the
planes carrying nuclear weapons would be grounded instead of being in the air
24/7 keeping us “safe” and “deterring” the Soviet Union.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What could they have been thinking?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sadly, there has been no corresponding move
to ratchet down the lunacy that endangers our planet at every moment from some
1500 deployed nuclear weapons mounted on missiles poised to fire against
Russian missiles, similarly cocked, in minutes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListBulletCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: none; tab-stops: .5in; text-indent: 0in;">
Even before “stockpile stewardship”,
I remember attending a meeting with the mad scientists at Los Alamos National
Laboratory, home of Dr. Strangelove, and sitting in a circle to discuss the
aftermath of nuclear policy in the shadow of the crumbled wall in Berlin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The scientists were earnestly discussing the
need for AGEX (Above Ground Experiments), to keep their nuclear mind-muscles
alive and limber, which eventually morphed into the diabolically named
“stockpile stewardship” program.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Today,
that misbegotten program is funded to the tune of $84 billion over the next ten
years, with another $100 billion budgeted for new “delivery” systems—missiles,
submarine, airplanes—as if the Cold War had never ended!<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListBulletCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: none; tab-stops: .5in; text-indent: 0in;">
At the Delhi conference, Dr.
Amulya Reddy, a nuclear physicist gave an electrifying talk on the
responsibility of science and its moral failures, explaining how shocked he was
to find documents describing how the German scientists carefully calculated,
with extraordinary accuracy and scientific precision, the amount of poison gas
required per person to kill the Jews who were routinely marched to the Nazi
“showers” in the concentration camps.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And at a workshop on the role of science, there was an extraordinary
conversation with Indian and Pakistani scientists who pondered whether scientists
have lost their moral compass because the system of higher education produced
the growth of the scientific institute, isolating scientists from the arts and
humanities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They examined whether these
separated tracks of learning, denying scientists the opportunity to intermingle
with colleagues engaged in those issues, while narrowly concentrating on their
scientific disciplines, had stunted their intellectual and moral growth and led
them to forget their humanity.<o:p> </o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoListBulletCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: none; tab-stops: .5in; text-indent: 0in;">
Now scientists are pushing
whatever boundaries might have existed to open a whole new avenue of terror and
danger for the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a profound
disregard for the consequences of their actions, US scientists are enabling a
new arms race with Russia and China as the military-industrial-academic-Congressional
complex plants US missiles in Eastern Europe and beefs up military bases in the
Pacific.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This despite efforts by Russia
and China to forestall this new arms race by calling for a treaty to ban weapons
in space, supported by every nation in the world except the US which blocks any
forward progress for negotiations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListBulletCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: none; tab-stops: .5in; text-indent: 0in;">
The US has recently admitted to
cyber warfare, targeting uranium enrichment equipment in Iran with a killer
virus to set back the Iranian program to build their own bomb in the basement,
while at home, we are talking of massive subsidies to the uranium enrichment
factory in Paducah Kentucky.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is hard
to believe how screwy this new venture into cyber warfare is in terms of
providing security to the “homeland”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>After all, cyber terror is not nuclear warfare.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Any country, or even scores of various
groups of individuals, can master the technology undetected, and wreak
catastrophic havoc on the myriads of civilian computer-dependent systems,
local, national, and global.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Similarly,
the recent expansion of drone warfare, assassinating innocent civilians
together with suspected “terrorists” in eight countries, at last count, with
the President of the US acting as judge, jury and executioner, is the
application of misbegotten science in a recipe for endless illegal war.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just as the US was the first to use the
atomic bomb, opening the door to the disturbing and uncontrollable nuclear
proliferation we witness today, it is again opening the door, taking the lead
in a new global arms race in cyber warfare and drone technology.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Despite Russia’s suggestion that there be a
treaty against cyber war, the US is resisting negotiations, indicating their
continued arrogance and disregard of what must be manifestly apparent to any
rational thinking person.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6141505007442638693#_edn3" name="_ednref3" style="mso-endnote-id: edn3;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: #5f5f5f;">[iii]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There can be no reasonable expectation that
scientists can keep the dark fruits of their lethal discoveries from
proliferating around the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is
just so 20<sup>th</sup> century, hierarchical and left-brained to imagine that
there will not be others to follow their evil example, or that they can somehow
control an outbreak of the same destructive technology to others who may not
wish them well.<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Can
there be any doubt that scientists driving US policy are out of touch with
reality?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Officials talk about “risk
assessment” as though the dreadful disastrous events at Chernobyl and
Fukushima are capable of being weighed on a scale of risks and benefits.
Scientists are constantly refining their nuclear weapons and designing new
threats to the fate of the Earth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After
the horrendous devastation in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, surely everyone with half
a brain knows these catastrophic bombs are completely unusable and yet we’re
pouring all these billions of dollars into perpetuating the weapons labs, as hunger
and homelessness increase in the US and our infrastructure is crumbling. The
high priests of Science are not including the Earth in their calculations and
the enormous havoc they are wreaking on our air, water, soil, our biosphere.
They’re thinking with the wrong half of their brains—without integrating the
intuitive part of thinking that would curb their aggressive tendencies which
engender such deadly, irreversible possibilities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are engaged in creating<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the worst possible inventions with a Pandora’s
box of lethal consequences that may plague the earth for eternity. Still, they
continue on. Scientists are holding our planet hostage while they tinker in
their laboratories without regard to the risks they are creating for the very
future of life on Earth.” </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Alice Slater is
the NY Director of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and serves on the Advisory
Council of the Global Network Against Nuclear Weapons and Power in Space</span></i></div>
<div style="mso-element: endnote-list;">
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<div id="edn1" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6141505007442638693#_ednref1" name="_edn1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: #5f5f5f;">[i]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><a href="http://www.wisconsinproject.org/countries/pakistan/nuke98.html"><span style="color: #5f5f5f; font-size: x-small;">http://www.wisconsinproject.org/countries/pakistan/nuke98.html</span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div id="edn2" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6141505007442638693#_ednref2" name="_edn2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: #5f5f5f;">[ii]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_nuclear_accidents"><span style="color: #5f5f5f; font-size: x-small;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_nuclear_accidents</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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<div id="edn3" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6141505007442638693#_ednref3" name="_edn3" style="mso-endnote-id: edn3;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: #5f5f5f;">[iii]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/25/germany-cyber-idUSL6E8FP40M20120425"><span style="color: #5f5f5f; font-size: x-small;">http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/25/germany-cyber-idUSL6E8FP40M20120425</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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</div>alice slaterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10644496722602607647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6141505007442638693.post-30713755522007933102012-01-04T15:16:00.000-08:002012-01-04T15:16:19.264-08:00Tone Deaf US Foreign Policy Announcements Create New Provocations in Asia<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">On UN Day, at a panel on Nuclear Disarmament, Secretary General Ban-ki Moon spoke about his 2008 five point proposal for nuclear disarmament, including the requirement for negotiations to ban the bomb.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was dismaying <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>when the next speaker, a retired US Air Force General, Michal Mosley, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>breezily assured <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the audience and his fellow panelists that it certainly was now possible to rid the world of nuclear weapons, since atomic bomb technology is thoroughly out of date.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He boasted that today “we” have long range attack weapons of such “unbelievable precision and lethality” that we no longer need nuclear weapons in the US arsenal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our conventional weapons are ever so superior to those of any other nation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He said this as his fellow co-panelists, the Russian and Chinese ambassadors, took in the full import of his braggadocio, to my extreme embarrassment as a US citizen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Did the General consider for a moment the effect his words were having on the Ambassadors and the other non-US participants in the meeting?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His astonishing disregard for the effect of such provocative war talk on our fellow earth mates seems to be a major failure of our “tin ear” foreign policy.<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></b></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Hillary Clinton proclaimed a similarly tone-deaf policy in an article in November’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Foreign Affairs</i>, “America’s Pacific Century”,<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> <a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6141505007442638693#_edn1" name="_ednref1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[i]</span></b></span></span></span></a></i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>remarking that now that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were winding down, we were at a “pivot point” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and that “one of the most important tasks of American statecraft over the next decade will be to lock in a substantially increased investment—diplomatic economic, strategic <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">and otherwise</i>—in the Asia-Pacific region.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Calling for “forward-deployed” diplomacy, she defined it to include “forging a broad-based military presence” in Asia…that would be “as durable and as consistent with American interests and values as the web we have built across the Atlantic…capable of deterring provocation from the full spectrum of state and non-state actors.” She added that just as our NATO alliance “has paid off many times over…the time has come to make similar investments as a Pacific power.” <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Citing our Treaty alliances with Japan, South Korea, Australia, the Philippines and Thailand as the “fulcrum for our strategic turn to the Asian-Pacific”, she also spoke of the need to expand our relationships to include India, Indonesia Singapore, New Zealand, Malaysia, Mongolia, Vietnam, and the Pacific Island countries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While acknowledging that “fears and misperceptions linger on both sides of the Pacific", and that “some in our country see China’s progress as a threat to the United States; some in China worry that America seeks to constrain China’s growth,” she blithely asserted, “we reject both those views …a thriving America is good for China and a thriving China is good for America”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This said as the United States aggressively lines up a host of new nations in an expanded Pacific military alliance, providing them with missile defenses, ships, and warplanes, encircling China.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What is she thinking?<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Shortly after Clinton’s article appeared, Obama went to Australia to open up a new military base there with a token 250 US soldiers, and a promise of 2500 to come with plans for joint military training, promising that “we will allocate the resources necessary to maintain our strong military presence in this region.” He also adopted the “Manila Declaration”, pledging closer military ties with the Philippines and announced the sale of 24 F-16 fighter jets to Indonesia. Clinton just paid a visit to Myanmar, long allied with China, to re-establish relations there. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In her article’s conclusion Clinton bragged, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“Our military is by far the strongest and our economy is by far the largest in the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our workers are the most productive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our universities are renowned the world over.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So there should be no doubt that America has the capacity to secure and sustain our global leadership in this century as we did in the last.”</b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Didn’t anyone tell her that the <span style="color: black;">number of Americans living below the official poverty line, 46.2 million people, was the highest in the 52 years the census bureau has been publishing those figures?<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6141505007442638693#_edn2" name="_ednref2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[ii]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or that the United States deteriorating transportation infrastructure will cost the economy more than 870,000 jobs and would suppress US economic growth by $3.1 trillion by 2020, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers? <a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6141505007442638693#_edn3" name="_ednref3" style="mso-endnote-id: edn3;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[iii]</span></span></span></span></a> <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The tone-deaf quality of US foreign policy pronouncements is like an infant who pulls the covers over his head to play peek-a-boo, thinking he can’t be seen so long as he can’t see out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>China has responded as would be expected.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A Pentagon report warned Congress that China was</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> increasing its naval power and investing in high-tech weaponry to extend its reach in the Pacific and beyond. It<span class="googqs-tidbit-0"> ramped up efforts to produce anti-ship missiles to knock out aircraft carriers, improved targeting radar, expanding its fleet of</span> nuclear-powered submarines and warships and <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>making advances in satellite technology and cyber warfare. <a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6141505007442638693#_edn4" name="_ednref4" style="mso-endnote-id: edn4;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[iv]</span></span></span></span></a> What did we expect?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And now, having provoked China to beef up its military assets, the warmongers in the US can frighten the public into supporting the next wild burgeoning arms race in the Pacific and what appears to be endless war.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">This month, Mikhail Gorbachev , in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Nation</i> </span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6141505007442638693#_edn5" name="_ednref5" style="mso-endnote-id: edn5;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[v]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">, observed the US elite’s “winner’s complex”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>after the end of the Cold War, and the references to the US as a “hyperpower”, capable of creating “a new kind of empire.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He said, “[t]hinking in such terms in our time is a delusion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No wonder that the imperial project failed and that it soon became clear that it was a mission impossible even for the United States.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The opportunity to build a “truly new world order was lost.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The US decision to expand NATO eastward “usurped the functions of the United Nations and thus weakened it. We are engulfed in global turmoil, “drifting in uncharted waters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The global economic crisis of 2008 made that abundantly clear. “<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Sadly, the powers in control of US public policy and their far-flung global allies appear to have learned nothing from the extraordinary opportunity we lost for a more peaceful world at the Cold War’s end.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are now repeating those expansionary designs in Asia, and “thus we continue to drift towards unparalleled catastrophe” as Albert Einstein observed when we split the atom which “changed everything save man’s mode of thinking.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6141505007442638693#_ednref1" name="_edn1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[i]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Foreign Policy, America’s Pacific Century, Hillary Clinton, November 2011<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div id="edn2" style="mso-element: endnote;"><div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6141505007442638693#_ednref2" name="_edn2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[ii]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/14/us/14census.html?pagewanted=all<o:p></o:p></span></span></div></div><div id="edn3" style="mso-element: endnote;"><div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6141505007442638693#_ednref3" name="_edn3" style="mso-endnote-id: edn3;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[iii]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">http://dcnonl.com/article/id46259<o:p></o:p></span></span></div></div><div id="edn4" style="mso-element: endnote;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6141505007442638693#_ednref4" name="_edn4" style="mso-endnote-id: edn4;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[iv]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/navy-driving-chinas-military-expansion/articleshow/10112639.cms</span><o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="edn5" style="mso-element: endnote;"><div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6141505007442638693#_ednref5" name="_edn5" style="mso-endnote-id: edn5;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[v]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Mikhail Gorbachev, “Is the World Really Safer Without the Soviet Union”, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Nation</i>, January 9/16, 2012<o:p></o:p></span></span></div></div></span></span></span> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></span></i><br />
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</div>alice slaterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10644496722602607647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6141505007442638693.post-36408032890833478142011-10-16T03:32:00.000-07:002011-10-16T03:48:32.684-07:00US Chair Force Inviting Drone Attacks on Our Homeland<span style="font-family: inherit;">Here's a letter I wrote to the NY Times, not published in response to their op-ed, </span> <em>Coming Soon: The Drone Arms Race<o:p></o:p></em><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-size: small;">It borders on treason that the US Chair Force is permitted to sit at their computers, playing with their joysticks, assassinating” suspected terrorists” thousands of miles away, without benefit of evidence, charges, or trial—impersonally murdering selected targets based on “military intelligence”, a dubious proposition in these millennial times, given the fiascos in Iraq and Afghanistan. Does anyone believe that our computers are so finely calibrated that we are not slaughtering innocent men, women and children as well—or wreaking “collateral damage” as our military marauders are wont to call unsuspecting innocents murdered in the paths of our deadly forces?</span></span><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-size: small;">President Obama is currently authorizing this shooting frenzy in six countries--Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Yemen, and Somalia, with no publishable legal authority for these unconstitutional crimes. Even the Nazis were entitled, under America’s rule of law, to a trial at Nuremberg. But regardless of the moral, ethical or legal considerations, what about the sheer stupidity of allowing our military to set this awful precedent that will surely result in blowback and the killing of innocent Americans? After all, mastery of drones isn’t like arcane nuclear technology which enabled us to maintain our technical superiority, for the most part, for more than 65 years (although with the commercial push to spread “peaceful” nuclear technology to wannabe nuclear countries, giving them the keys to their own bomb factories, our technical superiority will fade). Any computer nerd can</span> <span style="font-size: small;">target a drone to rain terror or death by remote control anywhere in the world.</span> </span><br />
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Will somebody put a stop to our wildwest cowboys shooting off their technology, mindlessly disregarding the consequences to life and limb? Perhaps we need a Council of Grandmothers, like the one established by the Iroquois Confederacy, with absolutely authority to remove the Chief if they felt he was engaged in an ill-advised war. Isn’t it time to take the toys away from the boys and set our country on its proper, lawful path? <o:p></o:p></div><br />
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</div>alice slaterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10644496722602607647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6141505007442638693.post-50964453455130934252011-03-15T10:53:00.000-07:002011-03-15T10:53:04.167-07:00ChaosNuclear Chaos<br />
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Sometimes chaos comes along as a wake-up call to humanity. The double-whammy- earthquake-tsunami in Japan this week is overwhelmingly sad. To be at the total chaotic effect of the elements—to be wiped out by a wave of water from the sea, is an insult to the arrogance of modern humanity that thinks it can insulate and protect itself with technological know-how from the calamities visited upon our earth by Mother Nature. It is ironic that this catastrophe took place in earth-quake plagued Japan where scientists and engineers actually protected against this seventh largest earthquake cataclysm in recorded history, by spending billions on new infrastructure, building their homes, offices, and factories on rubber shock absorbers and reinforced pillars that merely swayed with the punch and didn’t collapse despite the enormous force from the renting of the earth—a force so powerful it actually moved Japan ten feet eastward and caused the axis of the earth to shift. Yet even the careful, methodical, Japanese couldn’t realistically anticipate the power of the tsunami well enough to protect their land against the violent onrush of the ocean in the wake of the spasms caused by the radical shift in the earth’s tectonic plates.<br />
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And while they had provided adequate technology to guard their lethal nuclear power plants even against the quaking earth, the surge of the ocean destroyed their best efforts to insure backup and shut down plans to always keep water pumping on the nuclear fuel, even during an earthquake. They were unable to avoid the loss of electricity essential to maintain and pump a constant stream of cool water to cover the radioactive fuel in their reactors, and after the pumping machines failed to deliver water to the overheated guts of the fuel vessel, they were unable to keep this foolhardy technology from “melting down” and spewing its lethal radiation across the land, and eventually perhaps across the planet, hanging like a sword of Damocles over the earth as radioactive particles are borne on the air currents that circle the globe. <br />
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More than 200,000 people were evacuated in the vicinity of the five nuclear reactors at Fukishima which may be failing. The reports are mixed and unclear from the Japanese government. We know that numbers of people were contaminated with radioactivity on their skin and clothing and that the government is distributing potassium iodide tablets to prevent thyroid cancer in people who may have been exposed to radioactivity released in a series of explosions at two reactors. Those tablets will not prevent other forms of cancer and leukemia that may increase exponentially from the release of the radioactivity at the reactors. We also know that US sailors aboard the aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan, that was sent from our military base in Okinawa to the vicinity of the accident, have now been contaminated by airborne radioactivity. Meanwhile the US mainstream media continues to downplay the catastrophic potential of so many reactors in Japan to create an environmental holocaust, where brave workers are struggling to cool their hot radioactive fuel, while industry spokespeople assure us that our reactors in America are much safer, that Chernobyl only had 50 immediate deaths, while Russian scientists recently reported that there were close to 1,000,000 cancer deaths since the dreadful accident in 1986 spewed lethal radiation over a broad swath of the Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and then dispersed to many other countries in the Northern Hemisphere.<br />
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Let this chaos be a wake-up call for a time out on any new nuclear energy development. And like the massive mobilization gathering strength in Japan with emergency workers coming from all over the world to help rescue and recover the tens of thousands of people overcome in their villages by the trembling earth and fierce rushing waters, let us make a massive global effort to put a solar panel on every roof, a geothermal pump in every house and building, windmills on every windswept plain, tidal energy pumps in our rivers and seas to harness the clean safe energy of our Mother Earth. <br />
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In the words of that famous visionary thinker, Buckminster Fuller:<br />
<em>We may now care for each Earthian individual at a sustainable billionaire's level of affluence while living exclusively on less than 1 percent of our planet's daily energy income from our cosmically designed nuclear reactor, the Sun, optimally located 92 million safe miles away from us.</em><br />
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</em>alice slaterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10644496722602607647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6141505007442638693.post-44882225071715576562011-02-13T18:41:00.000-08:002011-02-15T17:24:58.214-08:00Nixon in China, Max Frankel and Me<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong>Nixon in China, Max Frankel, and Me</strong> February 13, 2001</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">by Alice Slater</span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This Saturday I met my friend Nellie at the Ziegfield Theater on 54th Street, between 6th and 7th Avenues, converted to a film house after its glory days as a Broadway Theater. We went to see <em>Nixon in China</em> which was being performed that day at the Metropolitan Opera and broadcast live in High Definition TV larger than life piped in to a huge silver screen with a surround sound aural system that beat the $150 orchestra seat ticket at the Met. You could see the sweat on the brow of the conductor during the overture, and just about make out the tonsils of the soprano ululating during the four separate heart-piercing high D’s as Chairman Mao’s violent wife. Madame Mao, Jiang Qing, was leader of the infamous Gang of Four that took most of the blame for the devastating Cultural Revolution that shattered so many in China during their time of terror and troubles.</span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">John Adams the composer, as well as the conductor, has a Philip Glassian minimalist style so there’s not much to sing about in this dissonant opera. But it was great fun seeing Nixon and Mao carrying on in their groundbreaking meeting, with Pat, in her bright red dress and coat and Henry Kissinger going along for the ride with Chou En Lai. Max Frankel, the former Executive Editor of the <em>New York Times</em>, “reviewed” the opera today in the Sunday Times and as one who was present at those historical meetings, he was singularly unimpressed with the accuracy of the libretto. But then we had the Director of the Met talking to us on the big screen during the intermission and interviewing the singers, director, choreographer, librettist, noting what a breakthrough Nixon’s visit was to China after years of unrelenting hostilities between the two countries, ironically due to this very same Nixon’s antagonistic and provocative policies towards China. Even more tellingly, the Met Director was euphorically exclaiming to us on the historical significance of the Met’s lending its imprimatur to Nixon in China, by staging it for the first time since its debut in 1987, which just coincidentally happened to be the very day that the autocratic Pharaoh of Egypt resigned on a wave of unprecedented peaceful grassroots democracy that returned to Tahiri Square with their own mops and brooms today to clean up the mess of the last two week’s demonstrations. The live audience at the Met and our canned audience at the Ziegfield cheered wildly--acknowledging our joy at what had been accomplished in Egypt.</span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I had my own personal run-in with Max Frankel in 1998. India and Pakistan had just detonated their first overt nuclear tests (India had quietly tested once before in 1974 but when Clinton negotiated the Comprehensive Test Ban in 1996 and wouldn’t cut off laboratory testing and sub-critical underground tests, India broke out with a series of nuclear explosions so it wouldn’t be left behind in the technology race, swiftly followed by Pakistan). Frankel wrote a stunning mea culpa column in response, noting that the US had blown it, we had every opportunity to stop this proliferation, but we said, “I’m alright Jack. I’ve got mine” and we blew it. We did nothing to anticipate and prevent the breakout of other nuclear wannabes responding to our fierce attachment to our nuclear arsenals, unleashing potential catastrophe upon the world.</span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I wrote Max Frankel a long letter, thanking him for his observations and reassuring him that it wasn’t too late, we had lots of good creative initiatives to ban the bomb, we had generals, scientists, policy analysts ready to report on the enormous possibilities for ending the nuclear scourge and moving to a nuclear weapons free world, whose voices, if amplified by the<em> New York Times</em> would make an enormous difference in the world. </span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He responded:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dear Ms. Slater,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thank you for your note, but I am a journalist, not an advocate.</span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sincerely,</span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Max Frankel</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Several months later, Nelson Mandela announced that he would be retiring from the presidency of South Africa. We organized a world-wide letter writing campaign, urging him to call for the abolition of nuclear weapons at his farewell address to the United Nations. The gambit worked. At the UN, Nelson Mandela called for the elimination of nuclear weapons, saying, "these terrible and terrifying weapons of mass destruction --why do they need them anyway?" The <em>London Guardian</em> had a picture of Mandela on its front page, with the headline, “Nelson Mandela Calls for the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons.” The <em>New York Times</em> had a story buried on page 46, announcing Mandela’s retirement from the Presidency of South Africa and speculating on who might succeed him, reporting that he gave his last speech as President to the UN, while omitting to mention the content of his speech.</span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I sent a copy of the front page of the <em>Guardian </em>to Max Frankel, writing:</span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dear Mr. Frankel,</span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Grassroots activists from all over the world worked on a campaign to urge Nelson Mandela to call for the elimination of nuclear weapons and it was reported on the front page of the<em> London Guardian</em>, but I guess the <em>New York Times</em> didn’t think this news was fit to print!</span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sincerely, Alice Slater</span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Three days later, I had to report to jury duty. I had been postponing my summons for over a year and this was it. No further extensions! If I didn’t serve now, they would send me to jail! I went down to the NY State Courthouse on Center Street, near City Hall and the Municipal Building. I reported to the jury room and waited in the large, smoky room where people twiddled their thumbs, knitted, read, looked at newspapers, before the days of cell phones and lap tops. One by one the citizens were called by name to report to various jury panels for voir dire, where jurors are questioned about their biases and knowledge to judge their suitability for service at a particular trial. After about two hours, they called out, “Max Frankel!” I looked up and saw this medium height, compactly built, slightly graying person walk out to the jury room down the hall. Two names later they called, “Alice Slater” and I was sent to the same jury room as Frankel. About twenty of us were standing in the marbled hallway, before locked oaken double doors, guarding the entrance to the jury room. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I went up to Frankel. </span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Max Frankel?” I said.</span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Yes”, he replied.</span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“I’m Alice Slater”.</span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He looked somewhat taken aback but reached out to shake my hand as the doors opened and we all filed into the jury room sitting on rows of benches to be called for the voir dire. I sat amidst a group of jurors on the bench behind his. Up on the wall was a bomb shelter sign, left over from the fifties with a fading yellow background supporting the black trefoil, a symbol of radiation. He turned around to look at me, smiling and pointing his finger towards the nuclear shelter sign on the wall. </span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“A lot of good that will do you!” I said.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Neither of us were chosen on that jury. The next day I returned to the waiting room and there he sat, reading his <em>New York Times</em> and clipping out columns. And there I sat, reading my <em>New York Times </em>and tearing out articles for future reference. At lunch time, neither of us had been summoned and we were dismissed for lunch. I went up to him and asked him if he’d like to join me for lunch. He said he would welcome it so we strolled over to Chinatown and had a delightful meal, trading life stories and war stories. His autobiography was scheduled to be published the following month in which he describes his family’s fortuitous escape to New York from Germany, just before Hitler really got going, and his extraordinary rise to the pinnacle of the American Dream as the leading journalist at America’s most prestigious paper. He gave me his card and urged me to send him anything I thought he should see. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A few months after that he retired from the <em>Times</em>. We still can’t get the straight story published in that “paper of record”. I’m sure if people knew all the facts about the bomb and what’s keeping it in place, it would have been gone long ago. In that sense, we aren’t much different from the Egyptians who were kept in line for 30 years by a state controlled media and could only break out through the use of the internet. The <em>Times </em>is hopelessly establishment and is so immersed in the status quo, that it can’t even imagine another side to the story, or the role America plays in maintaining the nuclear terror. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span>alice slaterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10644496722602607647noreply@blogger.com0