Peace Train

Peace Train for April 27, 2012

By JUDITH MOHLING

A photo of President Obama with CU student, Madalyn Starkey has gone viral. It was taken at the Sink, a long-appreciated bar near CU, shortly before his speech on Tuesday night to an audience of thousands of cheering students and others determined enough to have secured tickets.

Since I saw the photo it has been on my mind. Our smiling, ebullient president and Madalyn, wide-eyed, her finger pointing at him in amazement that she would be standing with Barack Obama. I want deeply for her to be safe and happy and successful in her life. The president, probably the most powerful person in the world today doesn't reveal in his wide smile and sparkling eyes the incredibly complicated and delicate landscape of interconnected problems he has responsibilities toward and the myriad forces both for and against every move he makes.

One of the most delicate issues in the world today is Iran and its nuclear program. Iranian leaders deny any plans to build nuclear weapons, only uranium enrichment for electricity and nuclear medical research . The US, the EU and Israel suspect Iran of more sinister plans—to be able to produce nukes—and have indicated the possibility of attacking Iran to stop them.

However, ten hours of talks between the P5+1,(the US, UK, France, China Russia, and Germany) and Iranian diplomats, may have dramatically improved the possibility of a resolution of the long standoff over Iran's nuclear program. These talks took place two weeks ago and will be followed by more on May 23—unless the US congress attempts to kill diplomacy. US Senator Joe Lieberman and Israel's Bibi Netanyahu are scathing in their criticism of the talks.

As a result of the talks negotiators agreed to adopt a framework for ensuring that Iran's nuclear program is only for peaceful purposes, by using the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty framework plus the “Additional Protocols” which would ensure even more intrusive inspections and guarantees.

According to the “Bloomberg Press,” Iran is considering a Russian proposal to halt the expansion of its nuclear program to avoid new sanctions on exporting their oil. A major embargo by the EU is scheduled to begin in July. In exchange, Iran would be able to continue its program of uranium enrichment for peaceful purposes.

To protect Madalyn Starkey, and her counterparts throughout Iran and the world,we need diplomacy, not war. If you saw and heard the president on Tuesday night, let him know your thoughts: 202-456-1111.

Peace Train for March 9, 2012

Media gullibility or pure propaganda?

by Ron Forthofer

The media have again failed to live up to their reporting responsibilities on the crises in Libya and Syria. In particular, the media essentially accepted the claims put forward by the oppositions to Gaddafi in Libya and Assad in Syria. Despite the violent nature of the uprisings in both countries, the media initially portrayed them as being part of the nonviolent ‘Arab Spring’.

In Libya, the media widely disseminated the false claims about massacres by Gaddafi’s forces. These claims helped build support for the rebels and soon led to a UN Security Council resolution for a ‘no-fly’ zone. It was amazing that any attempts to negotiate a resolution were brushed aside throughout the crisis. Unsurprisingly, this resolution was quickly expanded to a wide-scale bombing campaign led by France, Britain and the U.S. on the side of rebels in a civil war.

The media’s focus on massacres that hadn’t occurred drew attention from the identity of the rebels and their foreign backers. The media generally also failed to point out what life was like in Libya before the war, for example, that Libyans had the highest standard of living and the longest life expectancy in Africa as well as free health care and education. In addition, Libya had no debt and had over $150 billion invested overseas, much of which was confiscated.

The length of the military campaign, despite thousands of bombing raids, suggested that many Libyans strongly appreciated the major improvements under Gaddafi’s rule. Now Libya, like Iraq, has been devastated, and Libyans are already paying a steep price for this foreign-backed civil war.

We are seeing a repeat of this one-sided coverage now in Syria. Certainly the Assad regime has committed some terrible and horrific crimes, and those acts must be condemned. However, the media fail to point out that most Syrians are not supporting the armed uprising there. Syria’s two largest population centers remain calm with little signs of opposition to the Assad regime. Perhaps these Syrians fear the devastation of a foreign-backed civil war and thus accept Assad. Disappointingly the opposition Syrian National Council says that it won’t enter into negotiations until Assad resigns.

Incredibly, the media and some politicians here are now talking about yet another war, this time against Iran. Hopefully the U.S. public remembers the disinformation campaign about Iraq and won’t support another unnecessary and illegal war.

Peace Train for March 2, 2012
By JUDITH MOHLING
On Valentine's Day our star, the sun of our lives, burst forth with solar flares that disrupted radio communication and GPS signals for airplanes on long distance flights. By comparison to other solar eruptions throughout history, these flares were modest.
It is solar flares that trigger geomagnetic storms on earth. Every eleven years there is accelerated solar activity and this round is expected to peak at the end of 2012.
Experts say that if the largest known solar eruption which occurred in 1859, happened today, the modern world would be devastated. Why? Because we depend so thoroughly on electricity and solar flares can cause geomagnetic storms on earth which create damaging surges of current in electrical, telecommunications and other networks across entire continents.
According to John Kappenman, solar expert, a geomagnetic storm in 1989 affected the North American grid and shut down electricity around Quebec, Canada—it went entirely dark. Mr. Kappenman points out that the earth has been “lashed by superstorms up to 10 times more powerful than that one and that it is likely that such a storm will happen again. When it does, it will be one of the worst disasters in recorded history.”
The world approaches one year since the 3/11 Fukushima tragedy began. The thought of a massive solar storm shutting down power grids world wide, including even a few of the world's 700 nuclear power plants and reactors, is agonizing. As Dr. LeRoy Moore has said so aptly, “Plutonium is Forever.
The Fukushima catastrophe is happening because an earth quake followed by a devastating tsunami completely disrupted power to the Fukushima reactors, and electricity is required to constantly cool the fuel rods in reactors. Without adequate cooling, the fuel rods will melt down completely.
Tom Brognan, director of Boulder's Space Weather Prediction Center, says, “What's at stake are the advanced technologies that underlie virtually every aspect of our lives."
What to do? Improve solar storm predicting, prepare power grids far better and end nuclear power—all of the world's reactors are an absolutely horrific accident waiting to happen.
Attend an event hosted by the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center's Nuclear Guardianship project at Naropa University, 2130 Arapaho, Sunday afternoon, March 11, from 3 to 5:00 PM. Explore what happened, is now happening and the current state of nuclear power in the US.

Peace Train for February 3, 2012
By JUDITH MOHLING
Maybe you have rafted or kayaked the Green River in Utah. If so, you know its beauty. On January 20, plans for Utah's first nuclear power plant received a green light when State Engineer Kent Jones gave the go-ahead to the excited planners for the use of Green River water to cool two planned- for nuclear reactors. The reactors would be built four miles from the town of Green River.
For the planners and for the area around the proposed site and for Utah, it would mean lots of money coming in, thousands of new jobs to create infrastructure and to sustain a plant. To the environmentalists and anti-nuclear power activists it means endangering farms and food production, negative effects on water recreation, endangering fish and 25 million people who rely on the water downstream and more nuclear waste for which there is no safe repository.
Six days later the U.S. Department of Energy's Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future unveiled the result of its two year long investigation into what to do with the 71,000 metric tons of accumulated spent nuclear fuel, most of which lies crowded in spent fuel pools at the 64 nuclear power plants in 31 states of the U.S. where there are 103 working reactors. The report essentially says we'll find a centralized location for it all and undergo a process that is transparent and democratic to choose where. Sadly, that is much easier said than done.
The Blue Ribbon report did not recommend prompt removal of commercial spent fuel from the crowded pools with placement in hardened On-Site Storage, HOSS, to safeguard it at the nuclear power plants as anti-nuclear activists across the country have been advocating. Nor, did it mention the idea of stopping production of spent fuel, which would be a beginning of solving or at least not exacerbating the problem.
Add to this the fact that next month is the one year anniversary of the Fukushima tragedy, hot particles of plutonium from which are reaching the west coast of the U.S., and which has brought Japan to its knees with fears of radiation, contaminated foods and displaced citizens.
It is as if nuclear power industrialists and Blue Ribbon Commissioners have forgotten what we all learned in kindergarten: “play fair, say you're sorry and clean up your mess;” and in first grade, “plan ahead.”

Peace Train February 3, 2012 Blue Ribbon Commission Report.odt 26K Scan and download