Megan Rice 88101-020
MDC Brooklyn
Metropolitan Detention Center
P.O. Box 329002
Brooklyn, NY 11232
May 7, 2014
Dear Friends of the Transform Now Plowshares (TNP),
I open this letter for May, 2014 with a prayer for each of us sent to me by one of our 25 SOAW 1998 Prisoners of Conscience, Rita Lucey, who joins us in our community of 2014 TNP action supporters and nuclear resisters: (thanks for sharing, Rita!)
May God bless us with discomfort at easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships, so that we may live deep in our hearts.
May God bless us with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people and the earth so that we may work for justice, equity and peace.
May God bless us with tears to shed for those who suffer so you will reach out your hand and change their pain into joy.
And may God bless us with the foolishness to think that we can make a difference in this world, so we will do the things which others say cannot be done.
(A traditional Franciscan Meditation, as adapted by the
Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice, Ann Arbor, MI)
And just to let you all know what my experience is of relating with each one who has written such warm, encouraging and generous words of solidarity, plus offers of concrete help to further the momentum of our Transform Now message – here’s one more quote sent by one of you, my old friend, Maryknoll sister Jo Lucker:
“when we enter … into the field of relatedness and come to see that we are wholes within wholes” – Ilia Delio
We are building up the whole community of resistance through these letters of encouragement and sharing of information. No wonder Jim Haber observes, the nuclear industry’s remote control agents know they have odds with which to contend!
With this letter (in response collectively to all who have written with no response from me personally, as I long to be able to do), I want to share firstly some good news, then answer a very common question about “What to do to help the TNP action?”
The good news is that a trusted publisher, Blue Rider Press of Penguin USA, will be handling Washington Post reporter Dan Zak’s forthcoming book (to be published in late spring 2016). Dan wrote The Prophets of Oak Ridge, a long profile which the Post published just before our trial. His book will place our action at Y-12 in both the context of the anti-nuke movement and the federal bureaucracy created to fund and maintain the weapons complex.
And in the what-can-we-be-doing-now? category, we can begin by signing the petition at www.nuclearzero.org in support of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, which has filed suit in the International Court of Justice and U.S. Federal District Court against the nine nuclear-armed nations for “failure to comply with their obligations, under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and customary international law, to pursue negotiations for the worldwide elimination of nuclear weapons.”
Also, we can support calls from national organizations* to urge our U.S. Senators to co-sponsor, build support, and vote for Senate Bill S 2070, the SANE Act (Smarter Approach to Nuclear Expenditures), and our Representative to do the same for House Resolution HR4107, the REIN-IN Act (Reduce Expenditures in Nuclear Infrastructure Now). And we must ask them to restore full funding for the Global Threat Reduction Initiative.
These bills call for “significant reductions in these unneeded and destabilizing nuclear weapons programs to bring home appropriations for … education, health, energy conversion and jobs – the true future strength of [this country].”
We must massively promote these Acts wherever we are, and however we can, encouraging people to contact Congress and express support for them.
Enough said! Cheers, and so we carry on “in good faith” as ONE WHOLE.
Megan (and for Mike and Greg)
For more information, visit these websites:
transformnowplowshares.wordpress.com
www.nukeresister.org
orepa.org
The Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance has just produced a critical 2-page commentary on the latest “Red Team” government review and recommendation for the over-budget and outsized Uranium Processing Facility at Oak Ridge, available here:
http://orepa.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/UPF-update-May-2014.pdf
* 2020action.org summed it up this way:
Despite President Obama’s 2009 call for nuclear weapon reductions, and despite the treaty obligations of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty States to negotiate mutual nuclear reductions down to zero, the President’s Budget for FY2015 calls for a tsunami of spending on new nuclear programs. The Congressional Budget Office has projected that these new programs would cost $355 billion over 10 years (up from last year’s estimate of $240 billion). And this is in addition to our usual annual nuclear weapons spending. The President’s budget calls for “life extension” for current nuclear weapons, and the design and building of a whole new class of nuclear missiles, bombers, and submarines. This expansion needs to be stopped.
The first wave of this spending tsunami is coming in. These new nuclear expenditures are higher, in inflation-adjusted dollars, than they were at the height of the Cold War. Of particular danger, the B-61 nuclear bomb, currently a ballistic “battlefield” nuclear device, is to undergo a “life extension”, which would also give it a guided missile capability, enormously increasing its military threat. These plans are provoking other countries to increase their own nuclear capabilities. Ironically, the truly needed funds for the Global Threat Reduction Initiative, which put nuclear materials worldwide under lock and key, are being cut.
P.S. from Jack & Felice Cohen-Joppa:
Megan asked us to let you know that this letter was typed and initially distributed by us, the coordinators of the Nuclear Resister newsletter, “a chronicle of hope”. If you would like to receive a free sample issue of our quarterly newsletter – the only comprehensive chronicle of anti-nuclear and anti-war arrests, emphasizing support for jailed resisters – please send your postal address to the Nuclear Resister, POB 43383, Tucson, AZ 85733, or via email to nukeresister@igc.org. Your subscriptions and donations are greatly appreciated.