Overcoming rain and interstate blockages, two teenagers' testimony supplemented that of 10 from WNC at the Department of Energy's Nov. 17 hearing in Oak Ridge, Tenn. The 12 opposed our government's proposed new $3.5 billion H-bomb factory. Despite Obama's avowal to phase out nuclear weapons, our militarists endorse a sustained global arms race for another century.
Unless we on Main Street stop the military-industrial complex, it will, through the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration, build the new bomb plant at Y12 in Oak Ridge, an act likely to provoke unprecedented global nuclear-weapons proliferation.
Working to prevent extreme environmental degradation for which there is no cure, Western North Carolina Physicians for Social Responsibility is a medical and public-health voice working to prevent the greatest environmental threats to human existence, specifically the use or spread of nuclear weapons, and working to slow, stop and reverse global warming and the toxic degradation of the environment.
On April 5 in Prague, President Obama told the world that the United States was prepared to move towards a world free of nuclear weapons. The president offered several steps, including ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
In addition, the president is negotiating with Russia for new nuclear-weapons reductions, and the U.S. is preparing a new Nuclear Posture Review.
The United States is at the brink of either, 1) promoting nuclear proliferation by continuing the present status quo course that we have been pursuing for 60 years, or 2) demonstrating our resolve to seize the opportunities to renew and strengthen commitments to treaties to which we have agreed, but with which we have not been in compliance. Over the next few months, our executive and legislative branches will have perhaps one last opportunity to reduce the risks of nuclear disaster by carrying through on arms-reduction negotiations with Russia and other nations and on good-faith negotiations to solidify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
It would be globally dangerous for the United States to construct the proposed facility, which would produce secondaries and other nuclear-weapons components that would reverse these opportunities and signal to the rest of the world that we guarantee our weapons will be capable of inhumanely killing millions of people, mostly innocent civilians, for the next 100 years. Such would be a colossal environmental disaster, catastrophically affecting the health and lives of all earth's inhabitants.
For more information: www.stopthebombs.org. You may challenge continued production of nuclear weapons in Oak Ridge by responding to the Draft Y12 Site Wide Environmental Impact Statement by sending comments to: LY12sweis.comments@tetratech.com before Jan. 29, 2010.
— Lewis E. Patrie, Chair, WNC Physicians for Social Responsibility
Asheville
Well, think about all the jobs “created or saved” from all that stimulus spending! Your rhetoric aside, these facilities have existed for many decades now and exist to service the maintenance needs of existing weapons systems. This is not an expansion. It is part of our whole nuclear defense system.
Despite Obama’s avowal to phase out nuclear weapons, our militarists endorse a sustained global arms race for another century
Are you suggesting that the Dept. of Energy is doing sneaky things behind a pacifist President or perhaps Oba Mao is actually the militerist you have in mind? Help out with some clarity here.
I will step up and argue that Obama is a militarist.
In support of my assertion, I submit this link — scroll down and check out the bullet points in this press release from the Green Party:
http://www.gp.org/press/pr-national.php?ID=254
I agree he is a militarist. Most leftist-liberals are when it suits their purposes.
I agree there are many LINOs out there. (Liberal In Name Only)
…whatever “liberal” means ;)
The “military-industrial complex” has this funny way of degrading the integrity of even our most well-meaning [already corrupt] politicians.
sheesh.
Well, it is assumed there is integrity to begin with. I am not at all sure that is the case. It was a Republican military man who introduced us to the cautions of the military-industrial complex. I think Pres. Ike was right and we have ignored the implications of a Congress and industry in bed with each other. To move away from it requires something other than the empty rhetoric of the current resident of 1600 Penn. Ave. Think about this for a moment. If you will cede that Obama has become corrupted by this same establishment after only 10 months in office, what do you suppose this leftist militarist will look like in three more years?
Poor Little T. When he’s not espousing his tired rhetoric, he’s posting links to racists on his blog.
He won’t be bringing the kind of change we were all hoping for. Realistically, I don’t think anyone could. Not in this flawed system.
The problem goes much deeper than can be discussed here.
chops, is there a deep problem postng area that works better than here? Certainly not the forums. That is as shallow as it gets.
What was the kind of change you were looking for when you voted for an unexperienced Democratr to be President?
[b]What was the kind of change you were looking for when you voted for an unexperienced Democratr (sic) to be President? [/b]
Well, I suspect it was something along the lines of “anything other than the idiots like Bush or McCain.” You know, the kinds of people you used to defend and praise, but now pretend you never liked. Now, who did you vote for again? Oh, right, McCan/Palin.
[b]Certainly not the forums.[/b]
awww. Just cuz you can’t post there as travelah anymore since ALL your criticisms of Obama would be contradicted by your previous defense of Bush doesn’t mean there aren’t good discussions over there. I recall several very informative threads on national and international politics.
like this one: http://www.mountainx.com/forums/viewthread/1980/
or this one:
http://www.mountainx.com/forums/viewthread/2440/
or: http://www.mountainx.com/forums/viewthread/604/
or this one: http://www.mountainx.com/forums/viewthread/370/ — where you said [i]”The greatest repressions in the history of mankind have occurred during the past century under the guise of socialist experimentation.”[/i]
or this one, where you defend McCain to the very last breath: http://www.mountainx.com/forums/viewthread/422/
ahh, good times.
Have you forgotten amnesia-travelah (aka Spankey) still posts over there?
[b]Poor Little T. When he’s not espousing his tired rhetoric, he’s posting links to racists on his blog. [b]
To be fair, Bugg, travelah can’t be expected to actually READ the blogs he links to. He’s too buys figuring out how to pretend to be an anti-war Libertarian and eschew his previous neo-con apologist ideology.
chops, another thing to keep in mind and this is one that is never remembered by most. Eisenhower, in the same speech in which he warned of a military-industrial complex, stated following as well.
“The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present — and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.”
We are apparently seeing that being exposed today with a constant source of new revelations concerning the fraud and deliberate misrepresentation of data, blacklisting opposing scientific thought and the “rigging” of peer review regarding the specious claims of anthropomorphic global warming. Perhaps the same people who use his warnings regarding the military and industrialists will also start to heed his warnings about a scientific-technological elite. It is this latter group that fueled AlGorish’ perpetual fraud and filthy riches off fake green schemes.
I should have used anthropogenic instead of anthropomorphic …
Well, I suspect it was something along the lines of “anything other than the idiots like Bush or McCain.” You know, the kinds of people you used to defend and praise, but now pretend you never liked. Now, who did you vote for again? Oh, right, McCan/Palin
GWB was elected twice by the American people. I voted for him twice and given the choices of Gore and Kerry, I would do so again. I voted for McCain over the choice of Obama or, even worse, Bob Barr. Given the downward spiral of Obama now, it was a good vote.
awww. Just cuz you can’t post there as travelah anymore since ALL your criticisms of Obama would be contradicted by your previous defense of Bush doesn’t mean there aren’t good discussions over there. I recall several very informative threads on national and international politics
I could post if I desired to. I do not as the bulk of the discussion are infantile. Perhaps you might invite entopticon to your party.
Have you forgotten amnesia-travelah (aka Spankey) still posts over there
I have never used a sockpuppet to make any posts on MX, either here or on the forums.
To be fair, Bugg, travelah can’t be expected to actually READ the blogs he links to. He’s too buys figuring out how to pretend to be an anti-war Libertarian and eschew his previous neo-con apologist ideology
I am not an anti-war libertarian nor a neo-con. I am instead a conservative who will work to deliver 1,000 votes to the SC polls on election day 2010.
Which begs the question of why does someone in Charleston, SC spend his days spreading misinformation on an Asheville, NC-based weekly?
How much does FreedomWorks pay you?
“Well, I suspect it was something along the lines of “anything other than the idiots like Bush or McCain.” You know, the kinds of people you used to defend and praise, but now pretend you never liked. Now, who did you vote for again? Oh, right, McCan/Palin.”
I am always intrigued by the ‘anything has to be better than this’ argument.
Really …. anything? Age and experience usually change that tune.
I spend my time in both Charleston and western NC and have no familiarity with “FreedomWorks.
I have also never made an “anything but this argument”. Like most voters, I cast my votes based on who I prefer. Age and experience usually does change the tune of many and that is why most people as they mature become somewhat more conservative in their outlook (they realize they actually have to pay for things).
H-Bombs are bad. Not having one when all your neighbors do: Suicidal.
There will never be zero nuclear weapons. Never ever. The Genie is out of the bottle. Pandora’s box is open. It is naive to think otherwise. There are bad guys out there who will develop them no matter what we do.
Do we have more than we need? Probably so. The ones we have need maintenance. Lots of maintenance. That’s what the Knoxville facility does. Don’t get your panties in a wad over what they are doing.