Blueprint for Xing #45 in 16 days

This week, while the internet kept Americans buzzing, it kept them off the streets. With one poll setting pro-impeachment sentiments at 87%, to the south, people in Puerto Rico showed the U.S. the way. (Perhaps many in Puerto Rico are still without the internet after Hurricane Maria laid the island waste in Sept. 2017.) Millions took to the streets in cities, towns and villages all over Puerto Rico to protest a corrupt, misogynist U.S. stooge Governor. They did not wait for pundits to pontificate, nor did they wait for bought politicians who’ve ceased representing them long ago to take the initiative.

In 16 days Gov. Ricardo Rosselló resigned.

Monsanto, U.S. Top Terminator Corporation

This week, while the USDA opened the door to new, untested, unlabeled GMOs, it’s time to look at Monsanto, the “agricultural company” that killing bees worldwide to control the world’s food supply,.

Founded by a knight of Malta and named for his Sefardi wife, Monsanto Chemical Work’s first product was saccharin, sold to Coca Cola as an artificial sweetener, though the government knew that it was poisonous, and sued to stop its manufacture, it lost in court. Next Monsanto introduced polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) an oil that would not burn, recognized for its damage to reproductive, developmental and immune system disorders. Monsanto was fully aware of its deadly effects but hid them from the public. It’s still present in nearly all animal and human blood and tissue cells across the globe. Its plant outside of East St. Louis is surrounded by the highest fetal death clusters in the state.

 

In the 1930, Monsanto created its first hybrid seed corn, and expanded its production line with detergents, soaps, industrial cleaning products synthetic rubbers and plastics, all of them toxic. In 1940 with uranium research they participated in the Manhattan Project’s first atom bomb, killing hundreds of thousands in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Its pesticides contain dioxin, guilty of poisoning the planet’s food and water. Monsanto failed to reveal that it used dioxin in many of its  products so it wouldn’t have to admit it destroyed the environment.

It’s emblematic of Monsanto’s perseverance that when its partner, Disney attempted first to break down the “House of the Future” Monsanto had constructed, impervious to  torches, jackhammers and chain saws—even wrecking balls bounced off the glass fiber materials, which could only be removed  by choker cables biting it off piece by piece before it could be hauled away.

In the 1960s Monsanto teamed up with Dow to manufacture Agent Orange. contaminating over 3 million people, killing half a million Vietnamese, and thousands of U.S. servicemen who still suffer from it today—those who haven’t died of it. In court Monsanto was allowed to present its own research claiming dioxin was safe, and without any threat to human health, although it knew at the time that dioxin is a killer. In an internal memo it reflected: “Where do we go from here? …Go out of business, sell the hell out of [Agent Orange and dioxin] as long as we can  [and] try to stay in business…”

Partnering with I.G. Farben of Zyklon B fame, Monsanto next introduced aspartame, a neurotoxin.  Its parent G.D. Searle came up with over 100 faked studies claiming aspartame is safe, although the FDA revealed that it causes Alzheimers in humans, and tumors and massive holes in rat brains before killing them.  But Donald Rumsfeld became Monsanto CEO, using his political influence to sway the FDA. When the FDA product investigator resigned to join Searle’s law firm, the investigation was dropped.

The FDA’s attempts to keep Nutrasweet off the market were stalled by Ronald Reagan who fired the investigator, hired a stooge in his place, allowing Nutrasweet to be approved for human consumption. Now it’s present in 5,000 products, including diet and non diet sodas, sport drinks, mints, chewing gum, frozen deserts, cookies, cakes, vitamins, pharmaceuticals, milk drinks, instant tea, coffees, yogurt and BABY FOOD.

In the 90s Monsanto spent millions—the cost of doing business—to dump dioxins, and other carcinogenic products into drinking water systems.  It continued to be sued for birth defects. injury to plant workers and people living in areas where it operates. It developed synthetic bovine growth hormone and sued companies who refused to use it. When farmers refuse to use Monsanto’s terminator seeds, they are sued and driven out of business although their organic farms are contaminated through wind drift.It continued its ecocidal course with GMO round-up-resistant crops such as soy, corn, wheat and canola oil all of which are toxic, all of which are banned in the EU, but not in the U.S. GMOs are engineered to “self-pollinate”. When bees pollinate a GMO plant or flower, they die of poison. To make sure GMOs crash bee populations, Monsanto bought out Beelogics a firm researching bee colony collapse.

 

Monsanto buys up multiple seed companies trying to eliminate all natural food from the market.  But Monsanto is very careful not to serve GMOs to their employees, claiming it “believes in choice.” although poor nations and Americans at large do not share this choice. 

In the 2000s U.S. spends hundred of millions to fund Round up aerial spraying. Fish and animals die by the thousands, human respiratory distress and cancer spike. Nonetheless, now that the FDA has been captured by the industry, spraying continues. Monsanto merges with Pharmacia and Upjohn and rebrands itself as an agricultural company producing safe and nutritious food.  Its Dupont rival, too big to merge with it, agrees they will mutually drop all patent lawsuits, and share GMO technologies for their mutual benefit.  Meanwhile Monsanto files frivolous SLAP lawsuits, against farmers infringing on their terminator seed patents.  The Supreme Court sides with Monsanto each time such suits are appealed. One hundred thousand farmers in India, bankrupted by GMO crops. drink pesticide so their families can inherit their death benefits.

Whole Foods in collusion with Monsanto, crams its shelves with “natural & organic” food loaded with GMOs, pesticides, rBGH, hormones and antibiotics,  delaying as long as possible any mandatory labeling and coming up with deceptive GMO labeling laws to confuse the public, and keep it in the dark.

Monsanto and partners Archer Daniels Midland, Sodexo, and Tyson write and  push the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009, giving corporate factory farms a monopoly to police and control all food grown anywhere, including private backyards, penalizing individuals who refuse the use of its chemicals and non-organic fertilizers.

Obama signs the “Continuing Resolution, aka Monsanto Protection Act,” guaranteeing that no federal court can stop it from planting GMO crops anywhere they want.

America happens to be Monsanto’s last stand.  Why?  Because its practices reflect U.S. domestic and foreign policies. But people have begun to notice that beyond its obscene profits, Monsanto has an even bigger fish to fry: the destruction of human health and the entire planet’s environment.

Despite Monsanto’s  appeals, recent court cases have granted cancer victims affected by use of its products millions of dollars compensation.  And people in general have become more aware that they must practice politics while grocery shopping by reading the labels on every packaged product, and by avoiding octopus Amazon’s Whole Foods.

But for people impacted by aerial spraying on industrial farms, and foreign battlefields, such escape is never guaranteed.

Demand FDA ban glyphosate at:

https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/sign-the-petition-regulate-monsanto-pesticides-they-are-literally-killing-us?source=2019Monsanto_PA&referrer=group-progress-america&link_id=0&can_id=447ac5b0d7a5124338b20f2bb702d0f8&email_referrer=email_586323___subject_761376&email_subject=what-did-they-know-and-when-did-they-know-it

Save bees from toxic pesticides at:

https://secure.actblue.com/donate/e_s19_july_pesticidebees_efundraiser_27_c4?express_lane=true&amount=27&refcode=express_lane_SLA

 

If you can't go to D.C. and surround the WH, here are the calls you need please to make NOW. Identify yourself, ask them to support an immediate impeachment  investigation via their subcommittee.

Call to impeach to Subcommittee on Constitution, Civil rights, and Liberties at:

Chair, Steve Cohen, TN 09 (202) 225-3265

Vice Chair: Jamie Raskin, MD-08 (202) 225-5341

Eeric Swalwell, CA-15 (202) 225-5065

Mary Gay Scanlon, PA-05 (202) 225-2011

Madeleine Dean, PA-04 (202) 225-4731

Sylvia R. Garcia, TX-29 (202) 225-1688

Veronica Escobar, TX-16 (202) 225-4831

Sheila Jackson Lee, TX-18 (202) 225-3816

Ask these other Judiciary Committee members to support an immediate impeachment investigation at

Chair: Jerrold Nedler, NY-10 (202) 225-5635

Zoe Lofgren, CA-19 (202) 225-3072

Hank Johnson, GA-04 (202) 225 1605

Ted Deutch, FL-22 (202) 225-3001

Karen Bass, CA-37 (202) 225 7084

Cedric Richmond, LA-02 (202) 225 6636

Hakeem Jeffries, NY-08, 202) 225 5926

David Cicilline, RI-01 (202) 225 4911

Ted Lieu, CA-33 (202) 225 3976

Pramila Jaayapal, WA-07 (202) 225-3106

Val DeMings, FL-10 (202) 225 2176

J. Louis Correa, CA-46 (202) 225 2965

 Joe Neguse, CA-01 (202) 225-2161

Lucy Mcbath, GA-06 (202) 225 4501

Greg Stanton, AZ-09 (202) 225-9888

Debbie Mucarset-Powell, FL-26 (202) 225-2778

Making 24 calls might take less time and money than a trip to D.C.

  

Foreign

Puerto Rico’s Gov. Rosselló steps down as party leader, says he won’t seek re-election, as massive demonstrations block Puerto Rico’s main highway and force him to resign 16 days later.

National strike against the Ecuadorian Government demands Assange’s freedom.

Colombia youth bring lawsuit against the president for failing to protect rights of the Amazon forest, and  of future generations.

Reiwa Shinsengumi make splash in Japanese election debut, giving voice to people with disabilities.

Costa Rica doubles its tropical rainforest in just 30 years.

Iceland to hold memorial for Okjökull glacier lost to climate change.

Taliban claims deal on U.S. troop pullout from Afghanistan is near.

Two dozen world prominent scientists ask UN to make environmental damage in conflict zones a war crime.

Crying “Climate Emergency,” Greenpeace, UK blocks Johnson’s motorcade as it makes its way to Buckingham Palace.

Domestic

In response to backlash, Twitter restores Assange activism account.

Actions to #CloseTheCamps escalate throughout the U.S.

Hundreds return to Fort Sill, OK protesting #45 plan to jail migrant kids at site.

Sen. Jim Inhofe says plans to hold incarcerated migrant children at Fort Sill have been put on hold.

Thanks to anti-ICE activism, First Third Bancorp following B of A, Wells, Chase, Suntrust, and BNP Paribas announces it will no longer finance the private prison and immigrant detention industry.

Activists pressure Wall Street to drop support for Core Civic and Geo Group the two largest private prison companies who stand to lose $1.9 billion in financing.

Hermitage, TN community members form human chain to block ICE from detaining neighbor.

Federal Judge blocks #45’s restrictions on asylum seeking at the border.

House votes to eliminate subminimum wages, one legacy of slavery.

Amazon workers, angry about low pay and sweltering heat, organize.

A federal district court judge declares registration for the draft requirement for men, but not women is unconstitutional.

California becomes latest state to consider a 2020 ballot measure assuring parolee voting rights.

Exeter and Nottingham New Hampshire adopt Right to Climate laws along with a dozen other New Hampshire communities to protect themselves from corporate polluters from hazard waste dumping. 

Toledo Ohio adopts a charter amendment recognizing the rights of Lake Erie, securing the Lake’s right to exist, flourish, and naturally evolve.

Environmental activists claim victory after Detroit incinerator closes.

San Juan Islands leads way with six-month educational and outreach program building support for recognizing their Rights of Nature in law to protect the Salish Sea. 

The White Earth Band of Objibwe adopts Right of Manoomin (wild rice) law, guaranteeing its legal rights and  securing on and off reservation protection and the clean, fresh water resources on which it depends.

In California Berkeley leads way banning natural gas hookups.

Oakland’s Police Commission calls for firing five Oakland officers involved in shooting of Joshua Pawlik in 2018.

California legislature votes to ban Ticketmaster scalping software.

House of Reps passes anti-robocall legislation to end harassment and costly calls.

California’s Gov. Newsom calls out Bureau of Land Management for proposing oil and gas development in  California’s Central Coast region in conflict with California policies reducing fossil fuel consumption. 

California and four major automakers uphold fuel efficiency standards in response to #45 fecklessness.

Pushing back against #45’s call for billions of cuts, progressive advocates make case for expanding Social Security during historic House committee hearing.

In Iowa, activists confront 2020 candidates about drones and war making.

Forth Circuit Court of Appeals throws out Atlantic Coast Pipeline permit to continue construction.

This Week's Quiz

WHAT IS A ROCK STAR DOING WEARING A SUIT AND RED POWER TIE?

Impersonating a president of the United States.

WHY IS A PUTZ FRAU (German for lavatory attendant) DOING WITH A FACE LIFT?

Impersonating the Speaker of the House. Brushing impeachment and climate change off the table, whiting out the “Squad” (AOC, Tlaib, Omar, and Pressley) from the (Progressive) map, allocating billions to ICE to Keep Kids in Kages, and showering billions on the Pentagon to insure more waroholism, more bases, and more intense and faster climate collapse.

Our quiz today is designed to point out one important, and entirely overlooked factor governing today’s politics: #45 can’t be touched, no mud slinging, no protestations, no revilements can reach him. We have a rock star phenomenon on our hands, and rock stars are impervious, hailed for racking up their peckerdildos on bedposts. Wasn't it John Lennon who said in an interview: “We’re better than Jesus?” And indeed, his mob views #45 as the Second Coming, and Nuclear war as the long-sought Rapture. Global warming is too slow for them: they're slathering to get there first.

Better'n Jesus

There is a very real chance that we may have to endure the twittering pronouncements of #45 for an additional 4 years.  The U.S. vote has been hacked by Republican-owned voting machines, by the Gov. of Florida who reversed the recent Florida legislation restoring the vote to 4 million ex-felons, not to mention nationwide gerrymandering, a Republican popular sport, recently abetted by the Supreme Court’s decision. And topping the list, keep in mind that rock stars are not like you and me. They are walking mythologies, ambulating myths, this one groupied by MAGA mob hysteria.

In Empire of Illusion: The end of literacy and the triumph of spectacle, Chris Hedges laid down the ground rules of a culture governed by trash TV, by Facebook (which has just been slapped with the highest penalty fine ever, 5 billion U.S. dollars) by a politics no longer predicated on the issues, but rather on appearances, and by a stenographic media which depends on sound bites to convey news-as-entertainment. Call it the vulgarization of everything. And the beastialization of the U.S. presidency, which from the start, was never particularly fastidious about with ethics. Pegged on the over-the-top funeral of Michael Jackson, prominently displaying his gold casket, Hedges’ work foregrounds the simulacrum that passes for Americans’ most popular pursuit.

Putz Frau with Putsch Broom

How to down a rock star, not on electoral terms, and not on Congressional terms, but on a symmetrical playing field, charged with the same level of trashiness, unreason, and obscene display?  That is the question before us all.  To assume that a roster of would-be Democratic candidates or a Congress dominated by a putz frau is an appropriate or symmetrical weapon, is utter nonsense.

Digging up “Treasure” on Treasure Island. Maybe Not So Much

This past weekend, I took in a performance of Treasure Island by  the San  Francisco Mime Troupe, the longest operating (60 years) theater in San Francisco.  The secret to their longevity? The San Francisco Mime Troupe is a political agit prop theater and has been from its inception, passing through various performance styles such as Italian commedia, noir, melodrama, and now docudrama. 

S. F. Mime Troupe presents Treasure Island

Treasure Island, created in 1936,  became a Naval Base in 1941,  for the duration of WWII, before the city turned it over entirely to the Navy. During that time, it was used as a military firing area, for weapons storage, ship and aircraft storage and refueling, illegal dumping, open burning of “debris.” and repairing ships with deck makers painted with radium.  

After the war, the Navy established a training center for dealing with radiological contamination, where the mock ship USS Pendemonium, containing cesium 137, a radiological isotope, served as a tool for Navy students preparing for atomic warfare. Swabs practiced decontamination by scrubbing the decks—just as they continued doing after the Fukushima earthquake and explosions, when U.S. navy vessels became highly contaminated, technology be damned.

When the Navy base closed, San Francisco City legislation required the city to develop Treasure Island for housing low income folks. Today it provides subsidized housing to 1,561 residents of the total 3,129, mostly people of color, who live below the poverty line. Most of them live in Site 12, previously used by the Navy as an ammunition bunker and storage area, which contain such contaminants as polychlorinated biphenyls, polyaromatic hydrocarbons, dioxins, arsenic, lead and radium 226. Soil samples contain elevated levels of lead, DDT, dioxins, PCBs, PAHs, motor oil pollutants, arsenic and vanadium. Residents, who complain of serious health problems such as asthma and cancer, are instructed not to dig, garden, or drag soil from their backyards or from the schoolyard or the daycare into to their homes.  

Although contaminants remain, and so-called “clean-up” is ongoing, San Francisco plans up to 8,000 new residences, hotels, shops and offices on Treasure Island, fully aware of its contamination. In fact, far from trustworthy, one of the companies involved in decontamination is Tetra Tech, the very same outfit that committed massive fraud in the botched cleanup of Hunter’s Point Shipyard Superfund Site, yet despite whistleblowers who’ve come forward with reports of similar fraud at Treasure Island, the government refuses to investigate. 

The Mime Troupe's Treasure Island deploys a Byzantine plot to expose government and corporate malfeasance at the expense of the people who actually live there.  It leaves its audience with the final point:  once upon a time the houseless population of San Francisco were low-wage employed people who were able to rent there, and who have been turned out into the streets by rising rents and gentrification, some of them with no where left to go but radiologically contaminated Treasure Island.

But the global picture is far more dire. Wherever the U.S. military keeps its nearly one thousand bases (or leaves  them derelict) all these areas on Earth are highly polluted, home to Guillain Barré syndrome and other ailments for the military unlucky enough to be housed there, and each of those bases contributes to global climate collapse because the military uses 93% of the U.S. total yearly consumption of fossil fuels. The choice is stark: continue war-making and lose life on this planet, or learn to live in peace.

Correction

Following up on our last week’s essay about the radiologically contaminated hot spots in Japan and in the U.S.  µSv/h refers to microSieverts per hour. About 0.12µSv/h is considered the "safe" threshold for ambient radiation by the ICRP (the International Commission on Radiological Protection). That figure translates to ~1 milliSievert per year, which is also considered safe by the ICRP. (After the explosions at Fukushima, the Japanese government raised that threshold to 20 mSv/year, the maximum dosage for nuclear industry workers, in complete indifference to evidence that women are even more susceptible to radiation damage than men, and children even more so, especially female children.)

Below is a list of petitions to end war:  war in Afghanistan, war in  Syria, and to end compulsory registration for the draft. 

https://worldbeyondwar.org/thankyouafghanistan/

https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/us-out-of-syria-stop-endless-war?source=ufpj

https://couragetoresist.org/petition-end-draft-registration/

Thanks to pressure by activists, House of Representative passes defense budget including provision banning Easy Fire Nukes and limiting deployment of the weapons ordered by the #45 administration’s Nuclear Posture Review.

UN high commissioner on human rights calls for action to avoid climate apartheid.

Giant cave in week of caves as #45 walks away from citizenship question.

Maine’s Gov. Mills signs law supporting net neutrality and protecting internet users.

Zucked: Federal Trade Commission approves 5 billion fine against Facebook.

South Africa environmental justice advocates sue the government to force it to clean up the air in the Mpumalanga Highveld region.

Thanks to incompetence in high places, #45’s anti-immigrant raids slated for Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Denver, Houston, L.A. Miami, New York and San Francisco never happened.

Nearly 800 events nationwide as grassroots organizations and student and labor groups protest concentrations camps on the U.S.-Mexico border.

At Amazon ‘s annual summit, hundreds demand tech giant stop providing “invisible backbone” to #45’s anti-immigrant agenda.

Over 7,000 colleges and universities declare climate emergency and unveil three-point plan to combat it.

Beyond Regulation, a new U.S. campaign calls for moratorium on facial recognition surveillance.

Responding to Pelosi’s putdown, AOC reminds her that public “whatever” is actually called public sentiment.

Beyond Extreme Energy, the activist group makes house call on FERC Commissioner LaFleur.

State Department analyst resigns after his testimony on climate crisis is blocked by White House.

#Lights for Liberty stages a wave of protest from coast to coast.

Bank of America to stop lending to private prison firms. 

Following protests, hotel chains promise they won’t let ICE use their rooms for temporary detention.

Minnesota Amazon workers to state Prime Day strike.

More than 25,000 comments flood New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation in opposition to the Williams Pipeline.

Pipeline fighter Phillip Flagg locks down in path of Mountain Valley Pipeline near Elliston, VA. blocking construction.

15 states have already taken steps to make the Electoral College obsolete. (Where are the other 35?)

Six states, D.C and Puerto Rico are expanding the Earned Income Tax Credits this year.

Detroit’s tiny houses offers solution to homelessness.

San Francisco becomes the 12^th entity nationwide to pass a Surveillance Equipment Transparency Ordinance. 

Sanders urges all Dem candidates to reject insurance and big pharma cash.

Rep, Ilhan Omar’s new resolution affirms right to engage in boycotts.

Rep. Al Green warns impeachment can’t wait: “blood of somebody on our hands” if #45 not stopped, puts impeachment on. the table.

Amazon facing Congressional grilling as EU launches antitrust probe of online behemoth.

Dozens arrested as over 1,000 Jewish activists shut down ICE headquarter entrances, demanding closure of detention camps.

Demonstration led by Catholic groups protesting #45 immigration policies at Capaitol sustains 70 arrests. 

Nationwide bus tour pushes for higher taxes on the rich, remind the nation the fight for fair taxation is far from over.

All day standoff by several hundred native Hawaiians protesting construction of new Mauna Kea telescope as violation of sacred site results in no arrests.

House Majority Leader, Stenny Hoyer announced for the first time in history, a stand alone bill to protest the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil and gas driping has come to the House floor  for a vote.

Huge Texas win: a court fight stops Formosa Plastics discharges of plastic pollution into the Gulf's Bay of Lavaca, tops decades of clean-water heroism on the part of advocates. 

World's largest sovereign wealth firm managing part of Norway's assets to ditch fossil fuels.

Border Patrol Agent whistleblower calls migrant prison camp "a scene from a Zombie Apocalypse."

Ilhan Omar introduces pro-BDS resolution, announces visit to Israel.

House orders Pentagon to say if it weaponized ticks and released them.

Keeping Up With Tokyo’s Olympics by Flying Blind at Home

Following the triple explosions and meltdowns at Fukushima in 2011, Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, bowing to the cultural principle of face saving, announced that the Olympic games would be held in Japan in 2020, thereby demonstrating to the world that Japan had triumphantly managed what no nation had managed before, namely overcoming radiation. Does it sound like an aria from The Mikado?  In a less than musical sense, it was.

Despite the operatics, Tokyo’s upcoming 2020 Olympics next year are guaranteed to be especially hot. They’re being held in many still radioactive locations around Tokyo, with events like swimming, triathlon. slalom canoeing and volley ball exceptionally hot. The map below gives sports fans all the particulars. And whereas presumably PM Abe has plans to insure participating athletes will also overcome radiation, especially in the hot spots as they swim, canoe, run, jump, and play volley ball, those expensive thousand dollar tickets are not guaranteed to protect their buyers from dangerous levels of exposure.

The Japanese phenomenon casts an ironic spotlight on radiation matters closer to home, namely the United States, and in particular California, with an especially bright spotlight on the San Luis Obispo area, where Diablo Canyon, California’s last operating nuclear power plant, remains under the operation of the utility company known as PG&E, responsible through negligence for 8 deaths in a 2010 gas pipeline explosion in San Bruno, California; with a higher 2018 death score in Paradise, California with 81 deaths, and the destruction of 15,000 acres of woodlands before the Camp Fire could be contained. Skies as far as the Bay Area, remained under a pall of smoke for nearly ten days—a truly apocalyptic event.

What further complicates the negligent, manslaughter-inclined stewardship of PG&E is that both it and Southern California Edison have purchased and continue to purchase HOLTEC canisters to store nuclear waste generated by their plant operations, fully aware that they cannot hold their loads safely and indefinitely because HOLTEC canisters develop cracks as the sea air corrodes them, but they can never be inspected, and they can never be repaired. Other nuclear countries store their waste in casks with 9 and 19 inch thick walls, but not HOLTEC! HOLTEC canisters are 5/8 of an inch thin. Moreover, they become damaged automatically when they are lowered into place.  Records obtained under the FOIA show that in connection with a TVA-owned Alabama nuclear plant, HOLTEC slipped the manager there, a $54,000 bribe to obtain a no-bid contract in the early 2000s.

This week, I received a letter from one of San Luis Obispo’s Mothers for Peace founded in 1973 as an activist group fighting to close Diablo Canyon, long before its contested final start up in 1984. (For the full timeline of events leading to its first fueling, see https://mothersforpeace.org/data/20090321timeline; and http://www.energy-net.org/01NUKE/DIABLO1.HTM where you will find encapsulated a history of the Northern California anti-nuclear movement.) 

My colleague’s letter describes how earlier this year, alarmed by radiation levels particularly at the Santa Susana site, owned by Boeing 30 miles north of L.A. after the 2018 Woolsey Fire, she obtained a Geiger counter in order to take readings in the San Luis Obispo/Diablo Canyon area and in particular readings of radiation levels in the nearby area where she keeps her ranch. She discovered a hot spot exactly in the place where she had been in the habit of harvesting chanterelle mushrooms for consumption.

But even more telling is her observation based on the radiation map of Tokyo (see above). She writes: “See those numbers in red? They are NORMAL in California. Many areas…have radiation levels of 0.11=0.16 µSv/h!! The “hotspot” I mentioned is an area that gets readings of 0.18µSv/h.” (µSv/h refers to microSieverts per hour. About 0.12µSv/h is considered the "safe" threshold for ambient radiation by the ICRP (the International Commission on Radiological protection). That figure translates to ~1 milliSievert per year, which is also considered safe by the IRP. (After the explosions at Fukushima, the Japanese government raised that threshold to 20 mSv/year, the maxium dosage for nuclear industry workers, in complete indifference to evidence that women are much more susceptible to radiation damage even than men, and children even more so, especially female children.)

While those athletes will be swimming and canoeing and playing volley ball in areas around Tokyo indicated on the map as hotspots, we in California will be quietly going about shopping and mall grazing and farming and raising kids, and practicing amateur sports of one kind or another—in the same hot, but undocumented conditions.

Is there something(s) your government colluding with the nuclear industry would prefer you didn’t know?

Get busy now demanding that your elected officials shut down the camps and reunite families at 1-202-225-3121.

Urge your members of congress in your state to visit a detention camp in your state at:

https://closethecamps.us/?link_id=2&can_id=655968a96e1bce05c463b2f640bf633c&source=email-a-52-year-old-man-from-nicaragua-died-in-cbp-custody&email_referrer=email_575667&email_subject=a-52-year-old-man-from-nicaragua-died-in-cbp-custody

In France in WWII, the French called them “les collabos.” Collabos inhabited the lower orders of pre-vertebrates. Demand California Hotels quit collaborating with ICE at:

https://www.dailykos.com/campaigns/petitions/sign-the-petition-no-hotel-should-enable-the-mass-deportation-machine?link_id=2&can_id=655968a96e1bce05c463b2f640bf633c&source=email-re-complicit-hotels-in-statefull-default-your-state&email_referrer=email_577384&email_subject=re-complicit-hotels-in-statefull-default-your-state

Add your name: Congress must hold the Customs and Border Patrol accountable for inhumane child detention at:

https://action.aclu.org/petition/congress-hold-cbp-accountable-inhumane-child-detention?ms_aff=NAT&initms_aff=NAT&ms=190709_immigrantrights_detention&initms=190709_immigrantrights_detention&ms_chan=eml&initms_chan=eml&af=33JPyZS9ewTlZ1ur294d6Ni322rPzXZ8KglYTwZndrzLqbMOn9QYdhWblY%2FrICgJfyT3qxqoV3WUYgMiRQtN6ThUb79HdlCtp6Ujp5FNAS%2B2EHnw5KsevduzqPM70ovunq5rY1lcqRi2hEQwvmQ77ImxJ7kP6wbahTZodrvEQzA%3D

House of Representative passes amendment barring #45 from striking Iran without congressional approval.

The House votes 236-193 to prohibit the administration from using funds to support the Saudi-led military operations either with munitions or intelligence.

UAE pulls out of Saudi-led coalition in Yemen.

Turkey defies U.S. as Russian S-400 missile defense arrives.

Japanese spacecraft lands on asteroid in a mission to bring back rock samples to Earth.

Morales welcomes Russia to Latin America to counter Washington’s would-be hegemony.

Russia, China, Iran and Venezuela developing crypto to challenge U.S. financial domination.

New coup attempt in Sudan fails.

UN reports that India lifted 271 million people out of poverty in ten years between 2006 and 2016

France passes tax on tech giants despite U.S. threats.

House of Representatives creates requirement that there must be some national security basis for any foreign U.S. base or foreign military operation.

California bill AB 392 establishing one of the strongest use of force bills in the country passes in the Senate on its way to the governors desk.

Lawyers working under AG Barr in the DOJ just staged an insurrection in response to Barr’s reactionary measures.

Following the U.S. Women’s Team winning the fourth world cup, as the postgame ceremony began the stadium erupted in chants of “equal pay.”

Leading Senators Feinstein, Schumer, Harris & Blumenthal submit bill restoring local control over the deployment of 5G and  abolishing FCC regulations.

More than 100 Jewish and immigrant activists gather outside Elizabeth, NJ Contract Detention Center saying “Never Again.”  36 protestors are arrested.

After 35 years, and freed from their union-busting coercive influence, Washington D.C.’s DASH bus drivers win their first ever union election 97 to 13.

Manila’s Mayor orders solar panels and water collectors for his city’s schools.

Shakopee, Minn. Amazon warehouse workers to stage six-hour strike demanding better pay and working conditions, reduced workloads, and on site safety. 

Federal court blocks #45 Administration’s arbitrary detention of asylum seekers.

A group of Japanese women, farmers from the San Diego Area originally incarcerated at Topaz during WWII, become the first ever activists , protesting immigrant detention at Ft. Sills, Oklahoma, leading the way for native Oklahomans to take up the cudgels.

A close-the-camps demonstration this week, Friday at San Francisco’s ICE headquarters, 630 Sansome Street attracts over 200 protesters from all walks of life, including 5 Japanese women, the oldest of them 89, all of them originally incarcerated at Topaz Concentration Camp in the 40s.

HAPPY BASTILLE DAY!

Chugging Uphill, Unearthing Dead Presidents

Dear Readers:

If you haven’t seen the newsletter for a few weeks now, it’s because, after some 7 days of bad air,  an environmental infection caught up with me and tried to bench me permanently. I am back on the mend, but all that staring up at the ceiling got me to wondering—when I had energy to wonder—what keeps us going?  What can we look to?

We’ve got a burnt out battlefield of politicians on the take who’ve long ago forgotten to represent us; migrants in concentration camps forced by ICE to drink toilet water or die, a border patrol given to racism and misogyny; the folks left behind when farms and factories went belly up; an obscene income gap; and a government financed by war, which refuses to take any initiative either to confront the threat of climate catastrophe, or to take impeachment steps. Its answer is another dinosaur, Joe Biden.  What is left to us? 

The astonishing wealth of resistance, creative ideas, and all of us who devote our every waking moments to new ways of thinking and new ways of life. And the embracing solidarity with all of the rest of us who plug against the prevailing tides. Surely we have never seen a human effort on this scale of wakefulness. And that is the comfort that we are working every day to create and recreate—for ourselves and for each other.

Before I move to another subject, I do want to remind us all that—like all roses—the “Roses this Week Amongst the Thorns” are provisional.  That they fade and die unless we water them constantly with our thinking and with our actions.  Nothing in an ongoing struggle such as ours is ever fixed; everything is a battle which we must continue waging day by day, in new, inventive and courageous ways.

And now for something you’ll really enjoy, the re-publication this week of a pageant by David Solnit originally appearing on Lisa Savage’s blog, Went 2 the Bridge with credit to Our children’s Trust, the group of youth suing the U.S. government for climate negligence, (see Juliana vs. US for background).

#GOVKNEW PRESIDENTS PAGEANT
by David Solnit & Our Children's Trust

YOUTH : When did you know burning fossil fuels would cause climate change?

GRANDPARENT : Well, when I was 10 year old like you, way back in 1958, we were warned about climate change in movies and on TV shows, including the TV science show, “The Unchained Goddess” by the director of “It’s a Wonderful Life”. The U.S. Navy was one of the lead government agencies studying climate change.

YOUTH : Did the Fossil Fuel Industry know too?

GRANDPARENT : Yes, Exxon knew. Big Oil knew. Big Coal knew. Their own scientists warned them. And they spent millions to lie and cover up the scientists’ warnings. They created and funded climate denial and skepticism disinformation campaigns to undermine science and prevent any efforts to stop the climate crisis to protect their profits.

YOUTH : What about the Presidents? Did they know?

GRANDPARENT : The last 11 Presidents all knew. And you can ask them yourself!

(Presidents line up, one behind the other, backwards on stage right. Or They are hidden behind leg curtain formed by vertical banners. A “#GovKnew” banner will be on stage left. After each president recites lines they line up shoulder to shoulder behind the #GovKnew banner. It is held in front of puppeteers, and below the jackets of presidents, With each president we will walk through this call and response question, followed by succinct answers.)

(A prop person holds speech bubble above head of each president as he takes center stage. Then lowers it as the president exits to line up behind banner.)

YOUTH : President Kennedy, may I ask you a question? ( Enter President) When did you know about the looming climate crisis?

KENNEDY: “My fellow citizens, in 1961, I was warned by Senator Clinton Anderson that there could be 25 percent more atmospheric carbon by the year 2000.”

YOUTH : What did you do President Kennedy?

KENNEDY : “I expanded both private and public fossil fuel projects.”

YOUTH : ( All eleven times this question is asked it is directed to the audience) “Did our government know?”

CROWD/GRANDPARENT (BIG cue sign held up): “Government Knew!”

CHILD : President Johnson may I ask you a question? (Enter Pres. Johnson, Speech bubble in place) When did you know about the looming climate crisis?

JOHNSON : “In 1965, my Administration published an official report showing the steady rise of CO2 from burning Fossil Fuels and the dangerous impacts to come.”

YOUTH : And what Did The Johnson Administration Do?

JOHNSON : “Despite the dire warnings, we put our report on a shelf and didn’t take any actions that would address this crisis and build a great society.”

YOUTH : “Did our government know?”

CROWD/GRANDPARENT (BIG cue sign held up): “Government Knew!”

Nixon with map of Cambodia

YOUTH : President Nixon may I ask you a question? (Enter President; Speech Bubble in place) When did you know about the looming climate crisis?

NIXON : “My fellow Americans, in 1969, I received a memo that predicted a 10 foot sea level rise due to climate change. It read: ‘Goodbye New York. Goodbye Washington.’ I knew then that we needed to build an electric vehicle fleet.”

YOUTH : So what did The Nixon Administration do?

NIXON : “My Administration leased huge swaths of the Outer Continental Shelf for drilling and development.”

YOUTH : “Did our government know?”

CROWD/GRANDPARENT (BIG cue sign held up ): “Government Knew!”

YOUTH : President Ford. (Enter President; Speech Bubble in place) When did you know about the looming climate crisis?

FORD : “In 1975, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences put out the following warning: ‘our vulnerability to climate change is seen to be all the more serious . . .and we simply cannot afford to be unprepared for either a natural or man-made climatic catastrophe.’"

YOUTH : So what did The Ford Administration do?

FORD : At my 1975 State of the Union address, I proudly announced a program that proposed 250 major new coal mines, 150 major coal-fired power plants and 30 major new [oil] refineries within 10 years!”

YOUTH : “Did our government know?”

CROWD/GRANDPARENT (BIG cue sign held up): “Government Knew!”

YOUTH : President Carter. (Enter President; Speech Bubble in place) When did you know about the looming climate crisis?

CARTER : “By 1978, I had received multiple warnings that fossil fuel expansion would cause catastrophic climate change and global socio-political disruption by the year 2025. The scientists advised switching to renewable energy!”

YOUTH : So what did the Carter Administration do?

CARTER : “Instead of planning for renewable energy expansion, I proposed drastic increases in fossil fuel production since we had it in abundance!”

YOUTH : “Did our government know?”

CROWD/GRANDPARENT (BIG cue sign held up ): “Government Knew!”

YOUTH : President Reagan. ( Enter President; Speech Bubble in place) When did you know about the looming climate crisis?

REAGAN : “In 1985, my scientists recommended specific energy policy changes like permanently ending the use of coal by the year 2000 after informing me that climate change may “overwhelm earth's life-support system. ’”

YOUTH : So what did the Reagan Administration do?

REAGAN : “During my presidency, my Administration developed fracking technology for the fossil fuel industry, moved funds away from renewable research and development, and reduced automobile fuel economy standards!

YOUTH : “Did our government know?”

CROWD/GRANDPARENT (BIG cue sign held up): “Government Knew!”

YOUTH : President Bush may I ask you a question? (Enter President; Speech Bubble in place) When did you know about the looming climate crisis?

H.W. : “In 1989, We knew so much about the dangers of the climate crisis, that I announced that I would issue an executive order for government action on climate change!”

YOUTH : So what did the Bush Senior Administration do?

H.W. : “I never issued that Executive Order, and instead, my Administration refused to join 63 countries in a pledge to curb emissions!”

YOUTH : “Did our government know?”

CROWD/GRANDPARENT (BIG cue sign held up ): “Government Knew!”

YOUTH : President Clinton. (Enter President; Speech Bubble in place) When did you know about the looming climate crisis?

CLINTON : “Acknowledging the compounding evidence of our climate crisis, I supported the 1998 Kyoto Protocol, an international climate agreement to cut emissions.”

YOUTH : So what did the Clinton Administration do?

CLINTON : “My Administration was lobbied by the American Petroleum Institute, and expanded coal leasing, despite knowledge that global warming would reverse our nation’s prosperity.

It’s the economy, stupid!”

YOUTH : “Did our government know?”

CROWD/GRANDPARENT (BIG cue sign held up): “Government Knew!”

YOUTH : President Bush. (Enter President; Speech Bubble in place) When did you know about the looming climate crisis?

GEORGE W : “During my presidency, I publicly announced my concern about global warming!”

YOUTH : So what did the Bush Administration do?

GEORGE W (Bush characterization: pronounce “s” as “ch” ): “You may have misunderestimated me, because we censored climate scientists and blocked EPA climate reports about the gravity of the climate crisis and we promoted ‘clean coal’ propaganda!”

YOUTH : “Did our government know?”

CROWD/GRANDPARENT (BIG cue sign held up): “Government Knew!”

YOUTH : President Obama. (Enter President; Speech Bubble in place) When did you know about the looming climate crisis?

(Obama characterization: pauses )

OBAMA :  “People of America, I am your Green President. My administration spoke openly of the daunting climate projections and I vowed to address our climate Crisis.”

YOUTH : So what did the Obama Administration do?

OBAMA : “I proudly expanded oil infrastructure and commissioned the highest number of coal plants in 25 years! That was me, people!”

YOUTH : “Did our government know?”

CROWD/GRANDPARENT (BIG cue sign held up): “Government Knew!”

Obstacle suddenly appears in Moselle River at Metz

YOUTH : President Trump. (Enter President; Speech Bubble in place) When did you know about the looming climate crisis?

TRUMP : “Last year, we put out the National Climate Assessment. Very, very bad. The report says we are facing a YUUUUUGE existential threat.”

YOUTH : What is the Trump Administration doing?

TRUMP : “I’ve increased coal exports and expanded oil and gas extraction everywhere I can on federal public lands and committed to making the US fossil fuel energy dominant in the world. We’ll burn it at home and promote fossil fuels throughout the world. We’re going to bring back coal!”

YOUTH : “Did our government know?”

CROWD/GRANDPARENT (BIG cue sign held up ): “Government Knew!”

YOUTH : So They did know all about the dangers of the climate crisis! And they didn’t just do nothing about it! Instead, they took sides with the fossil fuel industry for decades to cause this climate crisis and to violate my rights. Now what do we do?

(Silk flags begin to jog towards the stage area from both sides with choreographed waving, passing by the presidents and circling the crowd.)

GRANDPARENT : You’re doing it; you’re taking the government to court. And you are part of the people power and street heat necessary to help the courts force our government to address the climate crisis, just as we needed the civil rights street heat and people power to push the courts to stand up to racism. We need climate strikes and the recognition of these 21 plaintiffs’ constitutional right to safe climate system!

GRANDPARENT/YOUTH : LET THE YOUTH BE HEARD!

CROWD (Cue Sign): GOVERNMENT KNEW!

GRANDPARENT/YOUTH : LET THE YOUTH BE HEARD!

CROWD (Cue Sign): GOVERNMENT KNEW!

GRANDPARENT/YOUTH : LET THE YOUTH BE HEARD!

CROWD (Cue Sign): GOVERNMENT KNEW

-----
Photo credits:

Heat map of global surface temperature anomalies 2014 - 2018. Red indicates higher than normal temperatures, blue indicates lower than normal temperatures. By Kathryn Mersmann/NASA - Scientific Visualization Studio/AP

JFK By Cecil Stoughton, White House - This media is available in the holdings of the National Archives and Records Administration, cataloged under the National Archives Identifier (NAID) 194255., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1394145

LBJ By Arnold Newman, White House Press Office (WHPO) - http://photolab.lbjlib.utexas.edu/detail.asp?id=18170, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1455862

Nixon By Jack E. Kightlinger (White House Photo Office) - This media is available in the holdings of the National Archives and Records Administration, cataloged under the National Archives Identifier (NAID) 194674., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3853635

Ford By David Hume Kennerly - This file was derived from: Gerald Ford - NARA - 530680.jpg:, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=77034670

Carter screenshot from C-SPAN coverage of national address on the "energy crisis" February 2, 1977

Reagan Public Domain, 

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2107951

H.W. Bush From Wikipedia, captioned "President Bush visits American troops in Saudi Arabia on Thanksgiving Day, 1990" By Unknown - http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu/image.php?id=957, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=485045

Clinton From Wikipedia, captioned "The Clintons in a White House Christmas Portrait, 1993" This picture was formerly found on the site of The White House. A mirror is found here: 

http://clinton4.nara.gov/WH/kids/html/children.html,

Public Domain,

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=834851

W. Bush & Obama By White House photo by Eric Draper -https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2008/11/images/20081110_5e5u4007a-515h.html (Original, broken link: 

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/11/images/20081110_5e5u4007a-515h.html),

Public Domain, 

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5177362

Please read: http://solartopia.org/

Sign petition at: https://petitions.moveon.org/sign/gov-newsom-test-diablo?source=s.em.mt&r_hash=plIcLgbG

especially in view of major recent California earthquake.

 

Please submit your comment to Department of Housing and Urban Development to oppose proposal prohibiting 6 million renters in “mixed status” (where one member may be undocumented) from access to public housing at

https://www.keep-families-together.org/comment?link_id=8&can_id=655968a96e1bce05c463b2f640bf633c&source=email-news-two-huge-rent-control-wins-stand-up-for-immigrants&email_referrer=email_574477&email_subject=news-two-huge-rent-control-wins-stand-up-for-immigrants

In astonishing turn, Geo. Soros and Chas. Koch team up to prevent US forever war policy.

#NeverAgainIsNow: 36 arrested as hundred of Jewish protestors block road to detention center.

Judge Releases German Rescue Ship Captain, Saying Carola Rackete Was Fulfilling 'Her Duty to Protect Life'

'Time to Turn Up the Heat': Sunrise Movement Unveils 7-Week Organizing Plan to Force DNC Approval of 2020 Climate Debate

'Chuck Schumer Has Some Dinner Guests': Protesters Outside of Minority Leader's Home Demand Action on Detention Camps

Hugh tenant victory as tenants rights to organize pass in New York and California.

People Power sees to it that Dick Snyder who poisoned Flint’s population for years, resigns from his appointment to Harvard.

Climate Actions kicked off in France with a banner drop over the giant Cannes sign and a red carpet sit-in in front of the ‘Palace’. French rebels jumped the barrier to run up and block the stairs to the main, red-carpeted entrance.

Department of Justice blocks #45 administration’s efforts to add citizenship question to 2020 census.

Interfaith leaders block access to ICE office in Milwaukee.

Activist groups demand EPA remove Monsanto’s license to pollute.

In rare Guantanamo court victory, three judges reversed an eight-year rule that has prevented Guantánamo detainees from seeing and rebutting the evidence purportedly justifying their detentions.

Berkeley considers first ever nationally proposal banning new natural gas hookups.

Building on the leadership of the alliance and the land trust, Oakland’s the city council passes a balanced, fiscally responsible budget with $12 million allocated to create a municipal fund supporting community land trusts and limited equity housing cooperatives, with the purpose of taking land off of the speculative market by acquiring and preserving rental properties with 25 or fewer units. 

in Watertown, New York man builds pantry outside his home to feed the hungry.

200+ civil rights groups demand Congress decriminalize border crossings.

Nationwide growing public banking movement threatens Wall St.

For the third year, a US delegation joins German protests against US nuclear weapons (20 B61 hydrogen bombs) stored at Buchel Air Base.

Sorry, Ninth Circuit rejects #45 Administration request to allow use of military funds for border (mediaeval) wall.

Seattle Federal Judge Marsha Pechman blocks #45 asylum-seeker policy that would have kept 40,000 jailed for at least six months. (Joe Biden eat your heart out.)

As fury grows tens of thousands rally across US demanding immediate action to #CloseTheCamps.