Tuesday, August 17, 2010

October 22nd Clarification Meeting

Dr. Ed Chasteen asks, What do we win? The answer is, FRIENDS! Will Rogers is famous for having said, “I never met a man I didn’t like.” Dr. Chasteen has always wondered if he would have said, “I never liked a man I didn’t meet.”

Five friends will join us on October 22nd for a Clarification Meeting on Race and Religious Relations from 7 to 8:30pm. Our panel discussion will be led by the following folks:

Bassam Helwani - a businessman from Syria who lives in Lawrence, he attended KU.
Ed Chasteen - likes to meet every person he can and expects to like every person he meets.
Samuel Shareef - a Kansas City businessman who heads a non-profit to help young black males.
Taalib-ud-Din Al Ansare - a Muslim chaplain at Research Hospital.
Yahya Furqan - a Vietnam vet, a Muslim Imam and a father of 11 beautiful children.

Dr. Chasteen says, We five are friends. We meet together nearly every week to plan and dream. Four of us are Muslim. One is Christian. One was born in Syria. Three trace their roots to Africa; one to Europe. We go by invitation anywhere in the Kansas City area to talk to folks about the ordinary, everyday things that give meaning to all our lives: our parents, our brothers and sisters, grandparents, uncles, aunts; our home town, our wives, our children, our schooling, our jobs, our neighborhoods, our favorite foods, our leisure time activities, our hobbies. Friendships need not be limited by race or religion. We all are part of humanity. We all are weak and fragile, easily made fearful of the future and of each other. Life at its longest is short. Friends help us make it through the day. That’s what by our presence we demonstrate. Invite us and we will come. Join us and we will win.

Please study the verse Galatians 3:28 "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." and be prepared with questions you may have for our panel.

Kansas City WMDs - Not on our watch!

From our friend Frank Burgh:

Kansas City WMDs - Not on our watch!

Over 75 protesters, ranging in age from 8 to nearly 80 and hailing from 12 states, descended upon the construction site of a future Nuclear Bomb manufacturing plant this morning, blocking power equipment and bringing construction activities to a halt for nearly 2 hours. KC police eventually arrested 14 protesters, all of whom were released this afternoon. The plant will be the first new USA nuclear weapons manufacturing facility in 32 years, despite President Obama's continued message of nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament.

The Kansas City government is actively seeking to subsidize this new federal nuclear weapons production plant with $815 million in municipal bonds outside of NNSA's annual budget. Taxpayers will pay an estimated $4.5 billion over 20 years for the new Kansas City Plant, which is intended to replace the current KC Plant. The existing plant has been in operation since 1949, manufacturing 85% of the non-nuclear components of the USA's nuclear arsenal, despite documented reports of health and environmental hazards resulting in employee illnesses and ecosystem contamination.
Please see the following:

http://www.nbcactionnews.com/dpp/news/local_news/groups-to-protest-site-of-new-weapons-plant-in-southern-kansas-city
http://blog.ericbowersphoto.com/2010/08/kansas-city-nuclear-plant-protest/
http://www.nukewatch.org/KCNukePlant/
http://kcnukeswatch.wordpress.com/2010/08/16/statement-of-resistance-to-nuclear-weapons-production-in-kansas-city-mo-aug-16/
http://www.kansascity.com/2010/08/16/2153596/kc-police-arrest-nuclear-protesters.html
http://www.kansascity.com/2010/08/16/2154151/police-arrest-14-at-honeywell.html
http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/activists-gather-kansas-city-resist-nuclear-weapons-plant
http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=2010kc-nukes
http://iplextra.indiatimes.com/article/0bH28WB8qH95f?q=Kansas+City
http://www.allvoices.com/news/6533244-kc-police-arrest-nuclear-protesters-at-honeywell-construction-site
Resources:
http://groups.google.com/group/kcnukewatch?pli=1

Green Jobs, Not Mean Jobs.
Clean it. Close it. Don't Repeat it.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

And from our friend Ron Faust:

I wonder if most people understand the complexity, secrecy and seriousness of the KC plant. It is a key component of the nuclear weapons strategy with Los Alamos NM and Oak Ridge TN, but we are what makes it work. Purported to be $685 million but rising into the billions, the city has collaborated with tax abatements over the next 20 years, leased from Zimmer for 5.4 million and justifying their role in offering jobs. Although we have some confusion about a Jim Cross ? owning this land. Yet, this seems to be the mantra for building weapons without wondering what will be the result. The protestors spread over the field and shut down the bulldozers scouring over the soy bean field declared as a blighted area. They planted seeds and raised sun flower replicas. Police tried to issue orders of trespassing and to move from the area, but it was like herding too many cats. Fourteen were arrested, many who have a faith based reason to engage in civil disobedience and raise the question of what we are trying to do to ourselves. The inertia to extract this cancer seems terminal once the lump of nuclear weapons is created. Allerting the public continues.

Peace, Ron

-------------------------------------------------------------------

And from friend Frank Cordaro:

Aug. 17, 2010
National Catholic Reporter

"Catholic activists arrested at Kansas City nuclear weapons facility"

By Joshua J. McElwee - NCR staff writer jmcelwee@ncronline.org

http://ncronline.org/news/peace/catholic-activists-arrested-kansas-city-nuclear-weapons-facility

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Singing choruses of “we shall not be moved” while
scattering sunflower seeds, 14 activists were arrested here Aug. 16
after blocking an earth moving vehicle on the site of a proposed
nuclear weapons manufacturing facility.

The acts of civil disobedience came at the end of a three-day
conference which drew peace activists here from around the nation. The
efforts were aimed at building awareness of and resistance to the
construction of the weapons plant, which will replace an existing
plant here.

The new plant, which will make non-nuclear parts for nuclear weapons,
is set to be the nation’s first new major nuclear weapons production
facility in 32 years.

Before their arrest the protestors walked onto a soybean field being
plowed by several earth moving vehicles as part of the plant building
preparation effort. The group, walking in a single file, held hands;
some carried large signs. They approached and surrounded one of the
vehicles, forcing the driver to stop her work, and eventually leading
20 other vehicles to halt theirs as well.

After about a 45 minute shut down, police arrived, announcing the
protesters had two minutes to leave the privately-owned grounds. The
flurry of activity stopped all work at the site for over an hour.

In a statement to the press before they began their action, the
activists called the new facility a “crime against peace” and a “crime
against humanity.”

This is the second time that people have been arrested for civil
disobedience to the plant in two months. On Aug. 6 a local activist,
Jane Stoever, was sentenced to eight hours of community service for
having blocked the entrance to the current facility, known simply as
the Kansas City Plant. Her action took place in June.

Currently a part of the Bannister Federal Complex, located about 13
miles south of the city’s downtown area, the Kansas City Plant is
responsible for the production and assembly of approximately 85
percent of the non-nuclear components for the U.S. nuclear arsenal.
The plant is due to be relocated in 2012 to the “more modern
facility.”

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), a division of the
U.S. Department of Energy, has said the new facility will carry an
estimated price tag of $673 million for construction and $1.2 billion
over the next 20 years

Coming from 15 states and three countries by bus, train, airplane, and
caravan, anti-nuclear activists gathered here to attend the weekend
conference leading up to the civil disobedience in a local Methodist
church.

Recalling her 30 years working at the current site of the nuclear
weapons facility, Barbara Rice told those in attendance that she had
lost count of how many of her colleagues had died of cancer after 110
passed away from various kinds of the illnesses.

While she said she couldn’t prove that the deaths were related to
chemical exposure at the current facility, Rice remembered one
instance when a pipe burst at the plant and her supervisors told her
to “go home immediately and destroy her clothes.”

At the same event, Jay Coghlan, executive director of the watchdog
group Nuclear Watch New Mexico, said the new plant in Kansas City is
only one of several projects underway to increase U.S. nuclear weapons
production capability.

Coghlan said that while the international community thinks the U.S. is
working towards nuclear disarmament, "the reality is that we’re
building 3 new sites: one to process uranium, one to process
plutonium, and one to create the non-nuclear parts of the weapons such
as triggers and fuses.”

The three sites Coghlan referred to are the Oak Ridge National
Laboratory in Tennessee, the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New
Mexico and the new Kansas City Plant.

While the new facility in Kansas City is expected to continue
production of non-nuclear parts for nuclear weapons, the Chemistry and
Metallurgy Research Replacement Project at Los Alamos plans to
increase U.S. capability to produce plutonium pits, the core of a
nuclear weapon, according to Coghlan. Meanwhile, the facility at Oak
Ridge plans to reinvest in its capability to produce uranium
components for the weapons.

In the original proposal for the Kansas City project, CenterPoint
Zimmer LLC — the company which won the bidding process to design and
build the plant for the NNSA — said the new facility would simply
modernize operations for nuclear weapons parts production while
ensuring the continued employment of “a minimum of 2,100 workers at
the campus in good ‘quality jobs.’ ”

The day before the arrests the activists visited the two Kansas City
Plant sites for prayer and reflection.

After walking with the rest of the activists on the side of a busy
street where the current plant is located, Japanese native-born
Mercedarian Sr. Filo Hirota told those gathered that she envisioned a
new world order in which the “principle of nonviolence is translated
into the way how the world is organized.”

Hirota, who is the international relations officer for the Catholic
Council for Justice and Peace of the Episcopal Conference of Japan,
asked in a prayer following her brief talk for an economy “that
creates communion in equal and just relationships.”

Arriving in a caravan at the field where the new facility for the
nuclear weapons plant is under construction, activists came together
there near idle bulldozers where they blessed the land and asked
forgiveness in view of its future use.

Tom Kascoli, a Native American of Apache and Navajo background,
blessed each of the assembled, waving an eagle’s feather over a
burning sage stick while chanting a prayer in his native tongue.

Editor's Note: For more photographs from the event Aug. 16 take a look
at the slideshow in below link:
http://picasaweb.google.com/joshua.mac/KansasCityPlantConferenceWeekend?feat=flashalbum#5506406936781327026

----------------------------

14 protesters who got arrested. Ed Bloomer c/o DMCW IA,Felice Cohen-Joppa Nulcear Resister - Tucson AZ, Steve Jacobs Columbia MO CW, Frank Cordaro holding banner DMCW IA, Fr Jerry Zawada ofm Tucson AZ, Rachael Hoffman
Holy Family CW KC MO, Gina Cook Holy Family CW KC MO, Robby Jones
Columbia MO CW, Brian Terrell Maloy IA CW, Josh Armfield
Cherith Brook CW KC MO, Donna Constantineau KC MO, Beth Seberger
KC MO, Eric Garbison
Cherith Brook CW KC MO and Steve Clemens
Minneapolis MN

-------------------------------

Local NBC KC TV News Report:
http://www.nbcactionnews.com/dpp/news/local_news/groups-to-protest-site-of-new-weapons-plant-in-southern-kansas-city

"KC police arrest nuclear protesters at Honeywell construction site"
KC Star News Paper
http://www.kansascity.com/2010/08/16/2153596/kc-police-arrest-nuclear-protesters.html#ixzz0wsuwzXAN


Cherith Brook Community
3308 E 12th St
Kansas City, MO 64127
816-241-8047
cherithbrookkcmo@yahoo.com
cherithbrookkc.blogspot.com

Monday, August 2, 2010

“Close It! Clean It! Don’t Repeat It!”

Peace people from KC & around the country will gather Aug. 13-16
for the KC Nuclear Weapons Plant Conference

“Close It! Clean It! Don’t Repeat It!”

The four-day gathering begins Fri, Aug. 13, at 6:45 pm with the KC premiere of "Countdown to Zero" at the Tivoli, 4050 Pennsylvania, followed by a
panel discussion on the costs and consequences of nuclear weapons
production and the new START treaty.

Saturday, Aug. 14 at 10 a.m. we'll meet at Linwood United Church, 3151
Olive, for a conference featuring nuke-related nonviolence training,
science and spirituality.

At 7 p.m. Aug. 14, come to All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church at
4501 Walnut, KC, Mo., for peace-related scientific and spiritual
reflections/discussions, and at 9 p.m. enjoy entertainers

The Recipe

On Sun., Aug. 15, we'll visit the current and future sites of the KC Plant!

On Mon., Aug. 16, at 10 a.m., the gathering shifts to civil resistance!

Please R.S.V.P if you plan to attend, and let us know if you will need
housing (either sleeping bag room or a real bed).
Needed: folks to hold signs, folks to march, local folks to house out-
of-town protesters, and folks to cook for hungry peacemakers.
To register for the gathering and to offer housing or food, contact
PeaceWorks member Jane Stoever at janepstoever@yahoo.com or
913-206-4088. Thanks! Be peace!

“Close It! Clean It! Don’t Repeat It!”

Peace people from KC & around the country will gather Aug. 13-16
for the KC Nuclear Weapons Plant Conference

“Close It! Clean It! Don’t Repeat It!”

What’s that all about?

Well, the city of Kansas City, Missouri has sold $687 million dollars
of municipal bonds, backed by the feds, and groundbreaking has begun
for a new mind-boggling $4.8 billion dollar KC Plant, the first new
U.S. nuclear weapons plant to be built in over 30 years! It is a
complex public-private scheme that uses "urban blight" funds to
develop a soy bean field on the southern border of the city.

The current KC Plant is the primary producer of non-fissile nuclear
bomb parts - mechanical, electronic- and engineered materials.
KC makes the Bomb work! The Plant is contaminated 50 feet
underground with hundreds of hazardous chemicals and radioactive
materials, as well as the underlying water aquifer and rivers that run
nearby. Hundreds of workers have cancers and other serious illnesses,
and many have already died.

The new plant, to be built north of the former Richards Gebaur base,
is the first of three new U.S. nuclear weapons plants. The other two
are proposed for New Mexico (plutonium pits) and Tennessee (uranium
secondaries). This would expand our nuclear bomb production
capability and increase spending for nuclear weapons to the tune of
$80 billion dollars over the next 10 years!