Not An April Fool’s Joke, Not Even Close

With the passing of our national jester, George Carlin, we are grateful for the all too rare laughs we manage to salvage. Thank goodness for the impudence and sheer cheek of people like the Yes Men. But when some clown uses an antinuclear list to assure us on April 1^st, that Tom Palmisano, a Southern California Edison officer, has suddenly defected and raised the red flag on the defective Holtec thin walled canisters, which can neither be inspected or repaired, and which the NRC has OK’d to store nuclear waste, it’s not a joke. Not even close. Because that’s one thing no one jokes about, except maybe the U.S. Nuclear “Regulatory” Commission.

Last week was not just April Fool’s, it was the anniversary of Three Mile Island, the U.S. partial meltdown nuclear accident that dumped more radiation over that region of Pennsylvania than this government wants you ever to find out about. I have seen a photographic archive which documents children born hopelessly disabled, livestock born deformed. I have learned that this government paid many persons affected in the millions of dollars to assure their silence.

The Official Story

 There are over 400 nuclear reactors in today’s climate-challenged world, all of them developed to create weapons-grade plutonium for the arms industry, 98 of them in the U.S., many of them installed at the edge of great bodies of water to take advantage of water’s cooling properties, subject for that reason to rising seas. Contrary to advocates’ belief, none are “zero-emission, or “carbon free.” They heat the planet with massive steam and water discharges as well as radiation releases, and in the process kill vulnerable newborns, and thousands of birds, bats, and ocean life. Two of them, Diablo Canyon and New York’s Indian Point, are located on earthquake faults, and Ohio’s Perry, and Virginia’s north Anna have already experienced earthquake damage.

Their installation and maintenance squander public money, delay renewables, and hang like a sword of Damocles over the vast territories which would be affected by the next nuclear disaster. For a better appreciation—if that’s the right word—of what such a disaster might mean to you or me, be sure to read Svetlana Alexievich, trans. Keith Gessen: Voices from Chernobyl. New York, St. Martin's Press, 1997. Alexievich received the Nobel, and this book is nothing short of a work of art. And, if you can find it, Natalia Manzurova, trans. Cathie Sullivan: Hard Duty: a woman’s experience at Chernobyll. 64 pages, self-published, and for an understanding of nuclear cities such as the Soviet Cheliabinsk, and the U.,S. Hanford, Washington reprocessing plants, both of them sites of the most severe nuclear accidents in the Soviet Union and U.S. respectively, and to understand the militarization of our landscapes, listen to Kate Brown talking about her new book, Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters at

https://www.c-span.org/video/?315104-1/plutopia

And by all means read Frida Berrigan at https://wagingnonviolence.org/2019/04/nuclear-weapons-ruined-my-life/  who writes: “I know the only way to get rid of these weapons is to never stop thinking about them.”

Most reactors, especially in the United States, are seriously embrittled,  although their licenses have been renewed—some of them—for 40 years, by a Nuclear “Regulatory” Commission that, according to Harvey Wasserman, keeps rubber stamping their renewals without inspecting to determine the degree to which they are “embrittled, or cracked, or improperly maintained, or earthquake-vulnerable, or handling their nuke waste properly, or determining whether the companies running them are capable of actually running these giant, aging, insanely complex reactors.”

Some of them are operated by criminal enterprises like P.G. & E, under criminal parole for the deaths of eight persons in the San Bruno fire, and sued for $10 billion by the people of northern California whose homes—nearly 12,000 of them—burned to the ground while the fire destroyed one of California’s—and the planet’s—most precious ecosystems.

Which is why you should sign the petition to Governor Gavin Newsom of California to test Diablo Canyon for safety at https://www.laprogressive.com/diablo-canyon/

Your life may depend on it.

Sign the petition to Governor Gavin Newsom of California to test Diablo Canyon for safety at https://www.laprogressive.com/diablo-canyon/

Armed Services chair plans move to kill #45 plan for low-yield nuke.

Pair of bills would protect millions of immigrants facing deportation.

Immigrant leaders call for ‘driving without fear’ campaign on May 1, 2019.

Progressives, Dems, and Pope sound alarm over #45 threat to close border.

Radiation concerns halt Brussels 5G development for now.

Rome follows Brussels in opposing 5G.

French court recognizes electromagnetic sensitivity as an occupational disease.

California Supreme Court affirms appellate court ruling against T-Mobile West LLC et al, vs. City and Co. of San Francisco et al.

In response to violence against Palestinians, Iceland votes to ban Israeli goods.

Media blackout as Israel’s largest banks pay over $1 billion in fines for U.S. tax evasion.

Africa builds wall of trees across the entire continent with worldwide changes.

Indigenous activists take Atlantic Coast Pipeline to court.

Indigenous organizers halt plans for oil drilling in Amazon.

Protesters mark 200 days of active resistance to Mountain Valley Pipeline.

Florida Power and Light’s huge solar-plus-storage the ‘new norm’ for utilities.

Zuzana Caputova, the ‘Erin Brockovich of Slovakia’ elected nation’s first female president.

Federal Alaska court rules that #45’s order to overturn permanent bans on oil and gas leasing in the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans is unlawful.

Strike Debt Bay Area launches local campaign to buy up medical debt for pennies on the dollar and forgive it.

In a first, the House sends #45 resolution demanding an end to U.S. military support for Saudi and Emirati war in Yemen.  The first time since 1973 both houses of Congress pass war powers resolution to end U.S. participation in foreign conflict.

95-year-old WWII vet takes 4 buses to march in New Zealand’s rally against racism.

Citing ‘conscience shocking’ conduct, Federal judge reinstates former Gov. Snyder in Flint Water lawsuit.

Michigan Democrats introduce bills to guarantee water access for state’s poor

Supermarket uses banana leaves to wrap produce instead of plastic.

 

Sonoma officials ban Roundup.

Water protectors protest at Enbridge drill site on Mississippi River.

U.S. judge temporarily halts hundreds of drilling projects in Wyoming for failing to take climate change into account.

To stop Shell from pulling ‘world into the abyss” climate groups deliver groundbreaking summons.

Judge rules that #45 plan to allow dripping in Arctic Ocean is “unlawful and invalid.”

John D. Dingell, Jr. Conservation Act signed into law guarantees 335,500 acres of new wilderness in California.

Extinction Rebellion calls on Edinburgh science festival to end relationship with Electricité de France Energy.

Extinction Rebellion protesters strip for ‘cheeky intervention’ in House of Commons.

In India, an organic farming project based on rural village revives traditional agriculture and yields benefits.

Thousands of maquiladora workers strike for higher wages.

Despite tear gas, and skirmishes, yellow vests flood French streets in Act XX.

AOC calls for Chelsea Manning release, citing solitary confinement as torture.

Chelsea Manning files motion for immediate release pending appeal.

Chelsea Manning released from solitary confinement after 28 days.

‘Venezuela won’t become second Syria:’ Lavrov sure S. American won’t back military invasion vs. Maduro.

Venezuela strips U.S. puppet, Guaido of immunity.

Antiwar protesters Tarak Kauff and Ken Meyers released from jail, but remain in Ireland.

Over 300 rallies nationwide held to demand full release of the Mueller Report.

Free Press Action hails committee passive of ‘Save the internet act’ as landmark net  neutrality bill advances to House floor.

Union locals build support for Green New Deal just transition.

2019 sees return of labor activism as workers strike back.

Sanders maintains double-digit lead over 2020 rivals among young Democratic

voters.

Global left celebrates Sanders 2020 bid as chance to build “worldwide progressive movement.”

Following Connecticut last year, three more states, Colorado, Delaware and N. Mexico join national popular vote interstate compact as legislation makes it way through three more states: Maine, Nevada and Oregon.

Democrats win two Louisiana state elections by big margins in formerly Trump--voting districts.