OMNI SUPPORTING THE NEVADA DESERT EXPERIENCE AND ALL NUCLEAR WEAPONS RESISTANCE ORGANIZATIONS

 

OMNI

SUPPORTING THE AND ALL NUCLEAR WEAPONS RESISTANCE ORGANIZATIONS

Compiled by Dick Bennett

https://omnicenter.org/donate/

Nevada Desert Experience  "The Fierce Urgency of Now!" - Sacred Peace Walk in Nevada April 12-18, 2025.

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Web version  |  Update preferences  |  Unsubscribe   Like Tweet Forward   TABLE OF CONTENTS • Sacred Peace Walk. April 12-18   • Why We Walk   • TO USE A MOUNTAIN - yucca mountain documentary   • "The Only Sane Solution" Resisting Nuclear Weapons in Europe     Sacred Peace Walk. April 12-18 When Martin Luther King Jr. referenced "The fierce urgency of now" in his speech delivered at the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963, he was speaking to times like the present. NDE recognizes the urgency of the moment as we prepare our annual pilgrimage in the desert from Las Vegas to the nuclear test site.   Why We Walk If you cannot walk with us next week- Starting this Sunday, Alan Winson and Rebecca McKean of BCR Podcast supported by the Nevada Desert Experience will produce a series of 20 minute videos telling the stories of the participants in the 2025 Sacred Peace Walk [SPW] -- protesting nuclear armament. Episodes will be posted at 7pm Pacific Standard time - Sunday to Friday -- during Passover / Holy Week. The SPW is an interfaith journey of 60 miles from Las Vegas to the Nevada [Nuclear] Test Site -- land taken from the Western Shoshone Paiute peoples. Nearly 1,000 Atomic Bombs have been detonated above and below this desert from 1951 to 1992. And today subcritical testing of America's nuclear stockpile and development of new, more powerful nuclear bombs continues in the desert. See our 3 minute promotion video.   TO USE A MOUNTAIN - yucca mountain documentary The documentary film “To Use A Mountain” exploring the ongoing struggle to license and store the nation’s nuclear waste at Yucca mountain and other sites, premiered on April 7, 2025 at Visions du Réel (International Competition) in Switzerland.  Director, Cinematographer, Editor Casey Carter accompanied the Nevada Desert Experience Sacred Peace Walk in 2023, and credits the activists he joined on the Peace Walk in assisting him in furthering his understanding and inspiration going into this important film. In a letter written to those he joined on the Peace Walk, Mr. Carter wrote. “As this year's Peace Walk approaches, I am reminded how inspired I was by the time spent walking those many miles with all of you in 2023 - through the sun, rain, and even snow! And continue to be inspired by your commitments to this activism year after year. “Remarkably, this film now feels even more relevant in 2025 than it did when I first began to imagine the project in 2017 - especially at home in the US. On that note, I am also excited to share that the US premiere will be held in Texas, on April 28, in competition at the Dallas International Film Festival.” We wish to congratulate Mr. Casey Carter for this significant achievement! Vitally important to Las Vegas and Nevada, this film underscores the importance of activism and the Nevada Desert Experience Sacred Peace Walk in preventing the federal government’s effort to turn Nevada into a nuclear storage wasteland. Join with us to continue this important work. We will keep you informed of opportunities to see this film.     "The Only Sane Solution" Resisting Nuclear Weapons in Europe NDE's Brian Terrell wrote in his post-prison reflection, “The Only Sane Solution… Resisting Nuclear Weapons in Europe”: "Considering the enormity of the danger that the world is facing, do our small efforts, our protests and jailings make any difference? In our movements there is a false dichotomy, I think, between being faithful and being effective. 'I'm convinced that if the world survives these dangerous times, it will be tens of millions of small things that do it,' said the folk singer, Pete Seeger. Perhaps the best, the most effective contribution we can make to save the planet will be for each of us to accomplish one or two of the tens of millions of small things that need to be done." photo- Christiane Danowski and Bernd Büscher meet Brian (center) upon his release from the prison at Wittlich, Germany, on March 12 Edit your subscription | Unsubscribe instantly     1420 West Bartlett Avenue Las Vegas, NV 89106 (702) 646-4814 info@NevadaDesertExperience.org NevadaDesertExperience.org

 

GLOBAL NUCLEAR WEAPONS RESISTANCE ORGANIZATIONS       International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) (Nobel Peace Prize), International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (DATE ESTABLISHED)

·       Arms Control Association (1971)

·        ATOM Project (2012)

·       Back from the Brink (2017)

·       Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (1957)

·       Council for a Livable World (1962)

·       Code Pink (2002)

·       Economists for Peace and Security

·       FCNL (1943)

·       Global Security Institute

·       Global Zero (2008)

·       Ground Zero Center (1977)

·       International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), Nobel Peace Prize (2007)

·       International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility  (1991)

·       International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, (1980)

·       Nuclear Free World Policy (1998)

·       Nevada Desert Experience (1984)

·       Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (1982)

·       The Nuclear Resister (1980)

·       H.R.2850 - Nuclear Weapons Abolition and Economic and Energy Conversion Act of 2021,117th Congress (2021-2022)

·       Nukewatch (1978)

·       OMNI Center for Peace, Justice, and Ecology (2001) .

·       OPANAL (1967)

·       Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, (2012)

·       Pax Christi International,  (1945)

·       Peace Action (1957)

·       Performers and Artists for Nuclear Disarmament

·       Physicians for Social Responsibility (1961)

·       Plowshares Movement (1980)

·       Scientists against Nuclear Arms (1981)

·       Ploughshares Fund (1981)

·       Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs (1957)

·       The Ribbon International, (1983)

·       United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs (1998)

·       WAND Women’s Action for a New Direction (1982)

·       Win Without War (2002)

·       World Beyond War

·       World Disarmament Campaign (1967)

·        

Compiled by Dick Bennett, 5-7-24

OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #224, APRIL 9, 2025.

 

OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #224, APRIL 9, 2025.    Compiled by Dick Bennett.

Making Distinctions for Peace, Justice, and Ecology

Roy Eidelson.  “The American Psychological Association and the Weaponization of Antisemitism.” 
 Alterman, Eric.   When Presidents Lie: A History of Official Deception and Its Consequences.

 

 Roy Eidelson.  “The American Psychological Association and the Weaponization of Antisemitism.”   https://royeidelson.com/the-american-psychological-association-and-the-weaponization-of-antisemitism/

Thank you for this opportunity. I want to use my 15 minutes to describe how the weaponization of antisemitism has impacted the American Psychological Association (APA) — and our profession more broadly — since the Hamas-led attacks inside Israel on October 7th, 2023. To be clear, these are my views alone, and I am not representing any group. 

 I’ll begin with four important points for context. First, those attacks and the hostage-taking on October 7th were war crimes. They were undeniably horrific and traumatizing, deeply affecting Jews and non-Jews around the world.   
Second, real antisemitism is “discrimination, prejudice, hostility or violence against Jews as Jews.” It is dangerous, it is growing, and it must be condemned and combatted. But it’s important to emphasize that scholarly research — such as that by Eitan Hersh and Laura Royden — shows that while antisemitic attitudes in the United States exist across the political spectrum, they are “far more prevalent on the right” than on the political left. I’ll add that there’s no more obvious evidence of this than the white supremacists in the current administration in Washington, DC.
Third, support for Palestinian rights, dignity, and freedom is not antisemitic. In my view, to claim otherwise is at best misguided and at worst deceitful. Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a prototypical example of the latter. But he is far from alone.
And fourth, I believe denial, blindness, minimization, or disregard for the horrors that have unfolded in Gaza over the past 17 months is, quite simply, outrageous and indefensible. I’ll add here a finding from a Pew Research Center poll last spring: only 4% of Israeli Jews said that Israel’s military response against Hamas in Gaza had gone too far. Only 4%. 

So, what do I mean by the “weaponization of antisemitism”? I understand it this way: as a psychologically powerful, gaslighting propaganda machine with two complementary narrative engines. One engine takes the State of Israel and dramatically expands it, so it becomes “All Jews Worldwide.” This profound distortion is intentional. It is used to claim that condemnation of Israel’s genocidal assault is an attack on all Jews — and is therefore an unacceptable expression of “antisemitism.”  

But this propaganda machine has another task as well: it must simultaneously stifle concerns over Palestinian suffering. So, the second engine works in the opposite direction. It takes all Palestinians and dramatically shrinks them into Hamas alone. In this way, all Palestinians are dehumanized and presented as caricatured monsters. Through this distortion, they all become supposedly legitimate targets for annihilation. And this enables some people — far too many people, apparently including some psychologists — to seemingly ignore the unconscionable misery in Gaza. That’s the weaponization of antisemitism.  

This weaponization is dangerous on multiple counts. . . .   MORE  https://royeidelson.com/the-american-psychological-association-and-the-weaponization-of-antisemitism/

See Eidelson’s book Doing Harm: How the World’s Largest Psychological Association Lost Its Way in the War on Terror.

 

[When Presidents lie the consequences escalate, particularly if the president possesses inordinate power and that power is founded upon and is increasing partly through lies.  The history of the US presidency includes its lying.   Of course, other countries, presently or becoming a dictatorship, are employing lies.   –Dick] 
 Alterman, Eric.   When Presidents Lie: A History of Official Deception and Its Consequences.    Publisher's Synopsis    A distinguished journalist assesses the profound impact of governmental and presidential lies on American culture, revealing how such lies become ever more complex and how such deception creates problems far more serious than those lied about in the beginning, and focuses on four specific instances involving FDR, Kennedy, LBJ, and Ronald Reagan.   [Skepticism, which I greatly admire, is not cynicism, which I do not.   The former is essential to science; the second is its ruination.  –D] 

 

OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS #225, April 7, 2025.

 

OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS #225, April 7, 2025.  Compiled by Dick Bennett

Wetlands Day?  To Wetlands!
Stephanie Elam, CNN.  Sea Lions Suffering from Domoic Poisoning caused by Warming.
Greenpeace Trial.
Lydia Wylie-Kellerman.  This Sweet Earth for the Children.

 

 

INTERNATIONAL WETLANDS DAY is Today? According to Google with a splendid photo of a beaver.
“How Beavers Are Preventing Wildfires and Fighting Drought in North America”   ©A family of beavers. Image by EBFoto via Depositphotos.   Imagine a creature that works tirelessly, shaping the landscape in ways that protect entire ecosystems. Enter the beaver, nature’s industrious engineer. These remarkable rodents are doing more than just building dams; they are playing a crucial role in mitigating wildfires and combating drought across North America. As climate change continues to threaten natural habitats, beavers are emerging as unexpected allies in maintaining ecological balance.  
[I like this; I lived next to a beaver dam and pond an entire summer once.  But let’s not forget that the United Nations World Wetlands Day is February 2.  Signed 1971, ratified 1975 under UNESCO depository.    Also see UN World Water Day March 22.   Wikipedia has a very helpful link:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Wetlands_Day :  UN World Wetlands Day, an official United Nations observance on February 2nd, raises awareness about the importance of wetlands for biodiversity, climate resilience, and human well-being, and marks the anniversary of the UN Convention on Wetlands, also known as the Ramsar Convention.  And see Arkansas Wetlands Day https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1552477558588042

Q: Why is UN World Wetlands Day not at the forefront?  I have noticed the omission of UN from UN Conventions before.  Have you seen an article on that?  Fellow supporters of the UN join me in insisting on naming the UN when its Conventions are named.  And of course we should lift a glass to wetlands and the UN every day!   --D)

 

Temperature Rise, Poisoned Food Chain, Sickened Sea Lions

Stephanie Elam.   “Sea lions are attacking people in the waters off California’s coast. Here’s why.”   CNN (4-6-25).
Domoic acid toxicosis caused by toxic algal bloom disturbance resulting from rising temp, apparently.   https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/06/climate/sea-lion-attacks-california?cid=ios_app    Via Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, forwarded to me by Pat Snyder, my son-in-law, who keeps me up to date.

 

Convergence of Trump-Corporate Power-Court-Secrecy v. Greenpeace. Constitution, Indigenous People, and Environment

OpinionGreenpeace

Steven Donziger.   “I was an independent observer in the Greenpeace trial. What I saw was shocking.” Fri 28 Mar 2025. 
Greenpeace lost – not because it did something wrong but because it was denied a fair trial.   The stunning $667m verdict against Greenpeace last week is a direct attack on the climate movement, Indigenous peoples and the first amendment.  The North Dakota case is so deeply flawed – at its core, the trial was really about crushing dissent – that I believe there is a good chance it will be reversed on appeal and ultimately backfire against the Energy Transfer pipeline company.

I was part of an independent monitoring team of nine attorneys and four prominent human rights advocates who sat through every minute of the three-week trial, in a nondescript courthouse in rural North Dakota. Energy Transfer sued Greenpeace for alleged damages it claimed derived from the historic Indigenous-led Standing Rock protests in 2016 against the Dakota Access pipeline. Our presence in court was essential given that the company was able to shroud the trial in secrecy. There was no court reporter and there still is no public transcript or recording of the proceedings.  The North Dakota ruling against Greenpeace is a threat to free speech

Raising Children in This  Warming World

This Sweet Earth – Lydia Wylie-Kellerman.

Publisher’s description:    “In This Sweet Earth: Walking with Our Children in the Age of Climate Collapse, Wylie-Kellermann invites us to open to our grief and outrage as we raise our children in the time of collapse, knowing that as we suffer with a suffering world, we find the strength and resilience to act on behalf of Earth.”

About Lydia    Events    Blog    Contact

lydiawyliekellermann.com    https://lydiawyliekellermann.com › this-sweet-earth  
Google title above for a dozen reviews.  I read the substantial, commendatory review in The Catholic Worker by Amanda Daloisio, March-April, 2025.   “We  are called to find joy, even in the face of destruction. . . .with stories and poems, prayers and plans….Part of loving the children in our lives…is telling them the truth…”

OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #223, APRIL 2, 2025.

 

OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #223, APRIL 2, 2025.  Compiled by Dick Bennett.

 

SEN. TOM COTTON, AR’S MCCARTHYITE RUSSOPHOBE
“Senate Intelligence Committee hearing turns ugly with McCarthy-style lies about CODEPINK: Women for Peace.”

Editor.  mronline.org (3-30-25).

On March 25, at the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on global threats with the five heads of intelligence agencies of the U.S. government, Senator Tom Cotton, accused on national TV a group I have worked with for over 20 years, CODEPINK: Women for Peace, of being funded by the Communist Party of China.

During the hearing CODEPINK activist Tighe Barry stood up following the presentation of the Director of National Security Tulsi Gabbard’s lengthy statement about global threats to U.S. national security and yelled “Stop Funding Israel.”

This was because neither Intelligence Committee Chair Tom Cotton and Vice Chair Mark Warner had mentioned Israel in their opening statement nor had Gabbard mentioned the Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza in her statement either.

Women of Code Pink protest yet another injustice and war promoted on Capitol Hill. [Source: thehill.com]

As Capitol police were taking Barry out of the hearing room, in the horrific style of the McCarthy hearings in the 1950s, Cotton maliciously said that Barry was a “CODEPINK lunatic that was funded by the Communist party of China.”. . . .  MORE

 

Democracy?   America?  By Dick Bennett.

     Some of our national labels, such as “democracy” and “America,” are often illusions or fabrications, based upon ignorance or self-aggrandizement, used by proponents of empire to deceive and dominate.

    The label “America” to displace North America seems to be an obvious imperial weapon.    The people of Latin America who resent the history North American domination don’t like it.   This country is not America; they say,  it is North America.   South America exists, thank you very much, and is not grateful for the USA bullying.    North of the Mexican border is the United States of North America.  Latin Americans understand this geographical reality perfectly well.

     More complicated perhaps, at least for North Americans, is their almost universal label “democracy.”

   The USA is not nor ever has been a democracy.    Educated citizens know this, using the label as convenient shorthand by which they understand each other to mean the idea of democracy, especially electorally.    To say that the USA is a democracy is to say truthfully it is a 200 year old struggle to achieve the ideals of freedom and equality as expressed in the Declaration of Independence.  The US was a revolution against monarchy, against single rule.  But the US Constitution expressed the revolution as a flawed republic in its earliest stage, with large numbers of its citizens—Native Americans, Blacks, and Women—disenfranchised.  Knowing this, our Founding Fathers, included in the Constitution provisions for amendments, which have been employed to enfranchise these populations.   We could say, then, the USA today, at least electorally, is a less flawed, more authentic, more advanced democracy than it was in 1789.  That’s the idea of democracy referred to as “democracy.”  

        But an educated citizen also understands that those gains are not necessarily permanent, for the 200 year-old struggle for “democracy” continues.  Those citizens know that a significant minority of the US population doesn’t comprehend or even like the idea of democracy, as the long history of increasing executive power and of demagogues demonstrate.   Those citizens know also, that some of the population exploit the label “democracy” for personal political advantage, as in:  We are a superior, an exceptional nation—a Democracy—and can commit crimes with impunity because our values are Exceptional.
   America?  Democracy?  Understanding these histories enable adherents of the idea of democracy to understand the depth of the danger of Donald Trump’s counter-revolution and to prepare for the struggle of their lives.

“The Supreme Court's Presidential Immunity Ruling ...”

Brennan Center for Justice  https://www.brennancenter.org › analysis-opinion › sup...  

Oct 1, 2024 — The ruling in Trump v. United States, forfeiting critical checks on executive power,

 is an affront to the idea of and struggle for democracy and the rule of law,

 

 

OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS #224, March 31, 2025.

 

 

OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS #224, March 31, 2025.  Compiled by Dick Bennett

Timothy Noah.  Fighting Back.
Yale Climate Maps.
Portside Online News Magazine.
Barry Sanders’ New Book on Moby Dick as Environmental Manifesto.

 

Timothy Noah.   Fighting Back: A Citizen’s Guide to Resistance.  The New Republic (March 27, 2025).   Civil society can’t be saved in the courts alone. It’s up to us as a people to stand up and push back.

 

Yale Climate Communication MAPS
Dear Friends, Today, we are excited to release the latest Yale Climate Opinion Maps (YCOM), now current through our latest survey from December 2024. This tool identifies the diversity of public opinion across the country, including belief that global warming is happening, is human-caused, and levels of public worry about it. This version also adds a new measure: “support U.S. economy transition from fossil fuels to 100% clean energy by 2050” (66% nationally). We hope the new maps are helpful as you work to engage your audiences. 

Key Findings:  Majorities in 47 states support a U.S. transition from fossil fuels to 100% clean energy by 2050.   Urban areas are more supportive of the clean energy transition than rural areas.   Majorities of Americans in all 50 states think that global warming is affecting the weather in the U.S.       

Climate Opinion Map Highlights. . . . https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/?utm_source=Yale+Program+on+Climate+Change+Communication&utm_campaign=3a44373b51-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2025_03_11_05_58&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-3a44373b51-711536752

 

I have recently begun to receive the online magazine Portside.  Here’s a sample from Portside Snapshot, March 29, 2025:  Friday Nite Videos.   March 28, 2025.  I've Never Been to a Bernie Sanders Rally Like This. Visit Mississippi | Playing for Change. The National Security Clown Car's Excuses vs. Jeffrey Goldberg's Receipts. Could Canada Join the EU? Musk's Family Ties to Apartheid and Neo-Nazi Movements.

 

Whether you enrolled in American Literature 101 or not.
The Manifesto of Herman Melville by BARRY SANDERS.    OR Books, 2025. 

Wikipedia:   This iconoclastic and sure-to-be-contentious recasting by a renowned critic insists that Herman Melville’s legendary Moby Dick is not, in fact, a novel, but a powerful environmental manifesto. “[Sanders'] reading of Moby Dick as an enraged manifesto against American greed and destruction of the natural world will leave readers utterly convinced and shaken..”  —Deanne Urmy     “Sanders’ reading of Moby Dick is itself a manifesto and guide to reading that work as a synesthesia-inducing journey into the inner anatomy of American destructiveness.” —Peter Dimock    “This book, like the great sprawling book that inspired it, is angry, funny, passionate, entertaining, sorrowful, and yet a pure pleasure to read; it is, above all, a tonic for the ugly time in which we live.”   —John Darnielle       “The perfect guidebook to the brilliant, timely, and sometimes maddening Moby Dick, which should be required reading for every literate American.”  —Christopher Merrill  [You might remember Sanders’ excellent book The Green Zone: The Environmental Costs of Militarism, “which Project Censored named one of the top-ten censored stories of 2009.”  –D]