The Lost Art

The Thinker

The Trouble with God...

if a myth ...but ya believe in 'em, ya can't fool 'em

if for real ...but ya don't believe in 'em, ya won't fool 'em

URGENT: Divine Strake - Stop massive explosion simulating nuclear-bunker buster bomb

See Update: Good News for Mitchell, Indiana & 4th District

Friends:
It is extremely urgent that each and all of us call our Senators immediately to stop Divine Strake, a massive military explosion simulating a bunker buster nuclear bomb. This explosion of 700 tons of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil will create a 10,000 foot mushroom cloud of toxins and pollutants. It will contaminate groundwater.

This test simulates a nuclear weapon -- clearly meant for offensive use in a strike on Iran. Such a strike would shock the world and incite terrorism. It would be criminal under international law.

Originally planned for the Nevada test site, but stopped there by determined activists, Divine Strake is now under consideration for a quarry near Mitchell, Indiana or for White Sands, New Mexico. It must not happen anywhere. If you are in Indiana or New Mexico, your Senator has a special responsibility to stop Divine Strake. If you are in another state and have a Senator with a concern for arms control, peace, or environment, please ask her or him to show leadership. Remember, if we don't stop this test, President Bush will be an important step closer to a nuclear attack on Iran.

We must act immediately. The best chance for Congress to stop it is directly upon us. On September 5th, the Senate will resume its floor debate prior to voting on the Defense Appropriations Bill. (As you know, Appropriations is the second of two processes, and thus is our last Congressional chance.) PLEASE CALL YOUR SENATORS AND ASK THEM TO OFFER AN AMENDMENT BLOCKING "DIVINE STRAKE." Please call your friends and urge them
to make calls. Please forward this message widely.

Contact information for your Senators

Together, we can stop Divine Strake.
The Defense Department is considering conducting a weapons test near Bedford, IN next year to bolster the U.S.'s nuclear weapons program. Please contact your senators and urge them to block the test, called "Divine Strake." Senators could block the test by offering an amendment to a Pentagon funding bill that will be considered on the floor of the Senate Tuesday, September 5.

Take Action
Contact your senators by phone, email or fax and ask them to offer an amendment to block the "Divine Strake" test when the Military Appropriations Bill, H.R. 5631, comes to the Senate floor. (Given the delays in U.S. mail to congressional offices, postal mail will not reach the senators in time.)

Background
The "Divine Strake" test would involve an underground explosion of 700 tons of ammonium nitrate to simulate the use of a low-yield nuclear weapon against an underground target. The test would not involve nuclear material. According to Defense Department officials, it would "send a mushroom-shaped dust cloud 10,000 feet into the atmosphere and release an explosive yield equivalent to detonating 593 tons of TNT." This yield is more than 100 times the size of the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.

While the Pentagon had planned to conduct the test at the Nevada Test Site, opposition from local residents and environmental agencies in Nevada and Utah forced the Defense Department to look elsewhere. The Pentagon is now considering the use of a limestone quarry outside Mitchell, 70 miles south of Indianapolis. The other site being reviewed is the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.

The Defense Department wants to collect data on very large explosions in rock to calibrate the effects of using a nuclear "bunker buster" in Iran or North Korea. According to the Pentagon, its purpose is to "develop a planning tool that will improve the warfighter's confidence in selecting the smallest proper nuclear yield necessary to destroy underground facilities while minimizing collateral damage."

This effort to "improve" the U.S. nuclear weapons program comes even as the administration is asking Iran and North Korea to freeze their nuclear programs. The U.S. government is sending the wrong message to those two countries and the world about nuclear weapons: "do as the U.S. says, not as it does."

The military appropriations bill, H.R. 5631, which covers the Pentagon, will be on the Senate floor Tuesday, September 5.

Find Out More
Read FCNL's letter to Senators Lugar and Bayh asking them to offer an amendment to block the "Divine Strake" test.

Read a story on the test done by WTHR, an Indianapolis TV station.

Find more documents about the test on the Federation of American Scientists' website.

Find out more about nuclear disarmament on FCNL's website.
Friends Committee on National Legislation
245 Second St. NE, Washington, DC 20002-5795
fcnl@fcnl.org * http://www.fcnl.org
phone: (202)547-6000 * toll-free: (800)630-1330

[keppel]
Louisville Courier Journal
Quarry mentioned as blast test site Environmentalists fear effects of 700-ton bomb

Indianapolis Star:
Military tested explosives at Ind quarry

Ft. Wayne News Sentinel:
Company: Military tested explosives at southern Indiana quarry

Counterpunch
Divine Strake in the Bible Belt

Adapt this simple letter (one I wrote) to send to your Senators

Honorable Senator __________________,

Please continue in your sense of reason and for the sake of all that is humane work to block Divine Strake.

I am sad enough U.S. leaders are still barbaric that bombing our problems is still an option.

I know you are not among them... please resist the politics of fear and republican gamesmanship.

Thank you.

August 20, 2006
==============

(Note: The following letter is to Congressman Mike Sodrel. Be aware, however, that contacting Senator Bayh 202-224-5623 and Senator Lugar 202-224-4814 is our highest priority in the coming days.)
Outside Indiana: Contact your Senators

The Honorable (Your Representative)
House Address
Washington, D.C. (Zip Code)

Dear Congressman _________________________:

We are shocked to learn that the Defense Threat Reduction Agency is considering a massive military explosion, code named Divine Strake, for a limestone quarry near Mitchell, Indiana. It is an explosion of 700 tons of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil, configured to simulate a 593-ton nuclear warhead. It will produce a 10,000-foot mushroom cloud filled with toxins and pollutants, a hazard to residents from Indianapolis to Louisville. It is also likely to contaminate the vulnerable karst limestone ground-water aquifer that underlies south-central Indiana.

The government now claims that Divine Strake simulates a conventional, not a nuclear, explosion. But its own budget request for 2006 describes the experiment as a "full scale tunnel defeat demonstration using explosives to simulate a low yield nuclear weapons ground shock environment." The 2007 budget request omits the nuclear reference but leaves the experiment
unchanged.

As you know, Congress has blocked funds for low-yield nuclear weapons such as the "Bunker Buster." The Bush Administration is thus in violation of the law in proceeding with this test. Congress cannot allow the President to act in contempt for the Constitution, which he is sworn to uphold. Such contempt must be considered an impeachable offense if we are to remain a
nation of laws.

It is unacceptable that, 61 years after U.S. atomic bombs killed 200,000 people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Bush Administration is committed to developing "usable" nuclear weapons. The Nuclear Posture Review endorses using U.S. nuclear weapons first, even against non-nuclear states - undermining the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Vice President Cheney
reportedly approved Israel's bombing of Lebanon, as preparation for a U.S. strike on Iran. The administration's nuclear double-standard spurs isolated regimes such as Iran and North Korea to seek nuclear weapons. Actual use of a U.S. nuclear weapon would unleash global fury and incite nuclear terrorism. It would be nuclear terrorism.

Divine Strake must not take place - in Indiana or anywhere.

(Optional - Adaptable Paragraph)
As the ????? District Representative, you will understand that Divine Strake is unacceptable to your constituents. We respectfully submit that you have a solemn duty to stop it.

Very truly yours,

Name
Street Address
City, State Zip
Phone (opt)
Email (opt)

U.S. Sets Up Spy Operations 'Manager' for Venezuela

U.S. Launches Anti-Venezuela Spy Desk
The United States has announced that it will consolidate its intelligence activities within Venezuela in the lead up to the December 3 elections. Last Friday, U.S. National Intelligence Director John Negroponte, himself a key figure in the Central American civil wars during the 1980s, announced that the State Department would establish a “mission manager” to collect intelligence on Venezuela and Cuba. Currently only Iran and North Korea have specific spy chiefs.

According to a statement from Negroponte’s office, the mission manager “will be responsible for integrating collection and analysis on Cuba and Venezuela across the Intelligence Community, identifying and filling gaps in intelligence, and ensuring the implementation of strategies, among other duties.” The intelligence directorate claims that the office is “critical today, as policymakers have increasingly focused on the challenges that Cuba and Venezuela pose to American foreign policy.”

YOUR HELP IS NEEDED! Speak Out for Venezuela’s Democracy
Venezuela is not a threat to the United States, and by increasing covert activity just months before Venezuela’s presidential elections, the U.S. government may be dangerously interfering with Venezuela’s democracy.

Please, take five minutes today to voice your opinion. Visit our Action Center, where you can make your voice heard on this crucial matter.

Venezuela Elections Update:
Polls: Three weeks ago, Venezuelan opposition parties selected Manuel Rosales as their candidate to run against Chavez, although comedian Benjamin Rausseo remains in the race as a dark horse candidate. This weekend the first polling results since Rosales’ selection was released: Chavez is leading the pack with 57% support. Check out all the latest polling results on our website.

Please visit our 2006 Elections section on our website for all the background you need to get up to speed on the process. We have updated the page this week to include new information on the Venezuelan opposition, as well as statements from International Observers.
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NOTE: The Venezuela Information Office is dedicated to informing the American public about contemporary Venezuela, and receives its funding from the government of Venezuela. More information is available from the FARA office of the Department of Justice in Washington, DC

Topinka’s Budget Plan Leaves Rich Whitney as Only Candidate Who Opposes Legalized Gambling... the Only Candidate Who Stands for Fiscal Responsibility

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: August 24th, 2006

Contact: Jennifer Rose, Whitney for Governor, 618-528-VOTE, campaignmanager@whitneyforgov.org

Topinka’s Budget Plan Leaves Rich Whitney as Only Candidate Who Opposes Legalized Gambling – and the Only Candidate Who Stands for Fiscal Responsibility

Gambling Is A Hidden Tax on the Poor and Desperate, says Green Party Candidate Rich Whitney. Replacing Regressive Property Taxes With Regressive Gambling Revenue Is Not a Good Bet to Solve State’s Budget Woes.

by Rich Whitney, Illinois Green Party Candidate for Governor

With the release of Judy Baar Topinka’s Budget Plan today, it now looks like I am the only candidate in the Governor’s race who opposes gambling. I have always opposed legalized gambling as a matter of principle. I thought Judy Baar Topinka did as well. But now she herself is gambling that her dramatic shift in position will help her get elected.

It shouldn’t. Not only is her budget plan a bad idea because it relies on gambling to fund our schools. Her budget projections also rely on an awful lot of guesswork, unsubstantiated projections and generalities (e.g., eliminating $400 million in unidentified "pork") on the revenue side, while making some grandiose promises on the spending side (e.g., "Record Education Funding and School Construction.") In this regard, she very closely resembles her Democratic opponent.

Last January, I criticized Governor Rod Blagojevich for his ill-conceived proposal to finance school construction by bringing Keno to Illinois – breaking his promise not to expand gambling in the State. Now Judy Baar Topinka is following suit. Just like Blagojevich, she is claiming, "No tax increases" – and just like Blagojevich, she is instead looking to meet the budget deficit by getting into the back pockets of working taxpayers in other ways.

The fact is, gambling is a hidden tax on the poor. It preys on the poor by taking advantage of the desperate and the ignorant, who often fail to recognize that "the house always wins." Those who can least afford it – people with household incomes under $10,000 – bet nearly three times as much on lotteries as those with incomes over $50,000, according to a recent report from the National Gambling Impact Study Commission. The rates are undoubtedly similar for casino gambling.

When Judy Baar Topinka assesses the benefits of state-sanctioned gambling, is she also taking into account the economic and social costs of higher suicide and divorce rates, more bankruptcies and homelessness, more broken homes, more abuse and neglect cases? Do any of the advocates of gambling ever consider that if working people hung on to more of their disposable income and expended it on real goods and services instead of giving it away to casino owners, there would be a positive, healthier economic impact?

Our State government needs to be placed on a sound fiscal footing, by enacting badly needed tax reforms to raise new revenue, while at the same time making our tax system more fair to lower- and middle-income taxpayers. And I am the only candidate in this race who is being up-front in pledging to do just that. No more gimmicks. No more hidden costs and fees. No more placing the burden of unpaid pensions on future taxpayers.

I am campaigning explicitly for House Bill 750. The product of a genuine people’s advocacy group, the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, the bill would couple a general increase in the State income tax and a broadening of the sales tax with tax credits for lower- and middle-income taxpayers, to make our tax system more progressive. Under this plan, the bottom 60 percent of wage earners would actually pay the same or lower taxes. Overall, the plan would raise enough funds to eliminate the structural deficit, adequately fund our schools, begin solving the pension mess, getting our social service agencies back on track and allowing us to fund projects that represent genuine progress – like my proposed job-creating "New Deal" to promote sustainable energy production and sustainable transportation in Illinois.

Judy Baar Topinka’s budget plan proposes a property tax freeze for four years – but at the cost of increasing even more regressive gambling revenues. Under House Bill 750, property tax owners would experience real relief, with a dedicated fund providing mandatory property tax abatements of 20-25 percent per school district.

House Bill 750 has been supported by a number of citizens’ groups, like Voices for Illinois Children, the Better Funding for Better Schools Coalition and A+ Illinois, a broad-based coalition supported by such diverse groups as the Illinois Farm Bureau, the Chicago Urban League, Lutheran Child and Family Services of Illinois and a number of labor unions.

This plan is not only fiscally responsible, it is what the majority of Illinoisans want. A recent survey of Illinois voters found that 66 percent would favor a comprehensive plan to cut the portion of property taxes that fund education, broaden the sales tax and increase the income tax in order to provide more money to the poorest school districts.

Yet Rod Blagojevich and Judy Baar Topinka have both rejected this plan. Being "corporate sponsored" candidates, they are too fearful of offending their big-moneyed benefactors to do what the majority of people want. In contrast, as a candidate of the Green Party – a party that refuses corporate campaign money – I am running to serve the public interest. That’s why I alone am standing up for fiscal responsibility in the race for governor.

Contact: Jennifer Rose, Whitney for Governor, 618-528-VOTE, campaignmanager@whitneyforgov.org

Whitney: For Real Clean and Cheaper Energy, Look to the Green Party Plan

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: August 23rd, 2006

Contact: Jennifer Rose, Whitney for Governor, 618-528-VOTE
campaignmanager@whitneyforgov.org

WHITNEY: FOR REAL CLEAN AND CHEAPER ENERGY, LOOK TO THE GREEN PARTY PLAN

Rich Whitney, Green Party candidate for Illinois Governor, expressed approval of some components of the renewable energy plan recently released by Governor Rod Blagojevich. However, he added, tongue in cheek, that some aspects of the plan sounded "familiar":

"Back on December 22 of last year, when I announced my candidacy for Governor, I stated: 'Illinois has the agricultural and other resources and ability to turn a negative into a positive – to get out on the cutting edge of new, clean energy technologies that the times demand. I will get us on the right track, so that we meet and exceed the goal of 20 percent renewable energy by the year 2020 – a target that will create tens of thousands of new, quality jobs.'"

Both Rod Blagojevich and Judy Baar Topinka have recently come out with energy proposals that frequently refer to "clean" and "renewable energy," with a lot of emphasis on biofuels and "clean coal" technologies. Some of Blagojevich's rhetoric sounds like it came straight from the Whitney playbook. But why should voters support the pale imitations when they can elect the genuine article? Rich Whitney and the Green Party -- a party based on ecological principles -- offer a comprehensive, job-creating "New Deal" on sustainable energy and sustainable transportation, that includes promotion of wind, solar, bio-fuel, geothermal and clean coal energy, as well as energy efficiency in building codes and consumer products, and efficient mass transit, such as high-speed rail.

Whitney does favor clean-coal production through gasification and has previously pointed out that an existing technology -- "Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle," which can burn coal about as cleanly as natural gas -- should be promoted as one part of a comprehensive energy plan. And he applauded the Blagojevich plan for including promotion of coal gasification and sequestering carbon dioxide emissions.

However, according to Whitney, the plan puts too much emphasis on coal gasification and ethanol production alone. "Our experience with petroleum should teach us that it isn't wise to put too many of our energy eggs in one basket. I do support ethanol production, but we need to be much more cautious than the 'full-bore' approach of the Blagojevich administration. There are genuine concerns over ethanol production. For instance, many analysts have concluded that it takes almost as much -- or even more --petroleum-based energy to create the ethanol as the amount of energy contained in it. There are also genuine concerns over both water consumption and water pollution from existing plants."

"Frankly, I have to wonder whether the incumbent Governor's enthusiasm for ethanol might just reflect the $50,000 campaign contribution he received from Archer Daniels Midland on May 24th, rather than him suddenly 'getting religion' about renewable energy."

Blagojevich does not have a good record on keeping his environmental promises, Whitney observed. "Rod Blagojevich promised in 2002 that he would push sustainable energy sources like bio-diesel and wind power - and yet only two-tenths of one percent of our State's energy needs are now being provided by such sources. In fact, he raided the Renewable Energy Resources Trust Fund for $9.5 million and the Energy Efficiency Trust Fund for $3 million, to put into the general fund, so that he can continue to brag that he (supposedly) balanced the budget without raising taxes. So I think Illinois voters are justified in being a bit skeptical over the latest round of grandiose promises."
Whitney's full plan can be found at: http://whitneyforgov.org/articles/EnergyPolicy.htm

Contact: Jennifer Rose, Whitney for Governor, 618-528-VOTE,
campaignmanager@whitneyforgov.org

Whitney Promise to Fight for Full Employment

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – August 21, 2006

Contact: Jennifer Rose, Whitney for Governor, 618-528-VOTE,
campaignmanager@whitneyforgov.org

WHITNEY PROMISES TO FIGHT FOR FULL EMPLOYMENT AND BRING GOOD JOBS TO ILLINOIS

Green Party gubernatorial candidate Rich Whitney has announced that it will be the goal of his administration to create “genuine full employment” at wages that will “allow every working person to be able to support a family.”

Whitney says that to attain this goal the state cannot continue to rely upon the failed strategies of past governors: offering tax incentives, subsidies, enterprise zones and other forms of “corporate welfare” designed to attract big business to Illinois. “Forty nine other states -- not to mention low-wage competitors like China, Mexico and India – are always striving to outdo us in this kind of ‘race to the bottom’. The only winners in that game are the multinational corporations.”

“I don’t know where politicians got the idea that all businesses care about are tax breaks and giveaways.” Said Whitney. “We need strategies to attract solid, socially responsible businesses to Illinois, but we shouldn’t be giving away the store to do it. We also need strategies that will help us grow our own businesses.”

Whitney is promoting a ten-point plan to help create a beneficial business climate that would create quality jobs in Illinois. His plan includes:

1. Renovating our infrastructure.
2. Building new, high-speed rail systems.
3. Improving energy conservation.
4. Supporting the development of clean, renewable energy.(including clean coal technology)
5. Supporting small businesses — for real.
6. Promoting capital improvement and public works.
7. Creating more, better-paying social service jobs.
8. Raising the minimum wage.
9. Passing a living wage law.
10. Making corporations accountable and encouraging other forms of business ownership

Other proposals, like universal health care and overhauling the outmoded tax system, will save employers enormous amounts over time. While these proposals will cost taxpayer money they will be more than offset by decreases in costs like crime, unemployment insurance and welfare. Whitney claims making prudent investments in the public sector will make Illinois more attractive to businesses. “Businesses will be attracted by having a well-educated and well-trained workforce, higher productivity and a high quality infrastructure.”

Please click to see the entire Whitney Jobs position.

With Labor Day around the corner, the Whitney Campaign encourages you to draw distinctions between the gubernatorial candidates and each candidates' proposals to improve employment and bring better jobs to Illinois workers.

End

Lise Meitner: A Battle for Ultimate Truth

I am a man. I like being a man. Courage is most often associated with men wearing armor and wielding shock and awe weapons. Those men with the biggest and best weapons are invariably proclaimed, by history’s victorious historians, the most courageous.

"All of you lost your standards of justice and fairness. ... All of you also worked for Nazi Germany, and never even attempted passive resistance. Of course, to save your troubled conscience, you occasionally helped an oppressed person; still, you let millions of innocent people be murdered, and there was never a sound of protest. You had no sleepless nights... you suppressed the injustice of war.

Some will call me a bleeding-heart girly-man for my views. I smile and say, “it’s okay... one has a right to his or her opinion.” Opinions are not necessarily fact, whether my own or anyone else’s.

I believe courage is generally an unheralded virtue... unless in the history-writing hands of victorious warriors. In their hands, bombs dropping relatively safely from 30,000 feet hoping to find targets called enemies is a symbol of courage. As the victorious redefine moral courage, mistakes are sanitized as collateral damage. Innocent victims are called “casualties.” Friends, I find nothing “casual” about the killing of innocent civilians, intended or not.

The truly courageous face down many discomforts... including their own death in lieu of killing another.

This is pacifism. Few are truly pacifists. Most self-proclaimed pacifists make this claim as a matter of faith, having never had their faith tested. Self-preservation is, clearly, a strong and natural instinct. I claim to be a pacifist. I believe I would rather die than take another’s life. I hope the strength of my conviction is never tested. If tested and I, in human weakness, fail my conviction this should not negate the conviction of pacifism but, merely, the strength of my faith. As long as human failures are used to justify subsequent human failures, humans will wallow in their animal past. Why would any spiritual being or humanist want to justify human failure with human failure? Instinct is an animal manifestation in humanity.

As a spiritual person I share with other spiritualist and humanists a belief that while part animal, humanity is called to a higher plane of behavior. I find odd, the religious (anti-Darwinian) resistance to this call. Most humans think and proclaim themselves higher than the beasts. Yet we kill, not only in immediate instances of self-defense but in the highly abstract and foggy contexts of war. We humans will kill viciously, and with a clear conscious for a mere mortal leader, who repeats often enough, loud enough, and successfully enough that we should. It takes little evidence of threat to incite great reactions of fear.

A nation of citizens is quick to outsource or subcontract war. Corporate America has learned the efficient ease of shunting the guilt of injustice. Wealthy corporations often subcontract (farm out) the exploitation of legal and/or illegal immigrants. They outsource child labor. Their human heads sleep well at night convincing themselves their hands are clean... for they have not touched, seen, or smelled the stench of injustice. They use as “human shields“ other humans called subcontractors to absorb any sense of guilt that may arise in connection with unfair labor practices. Their sophisticated form of injustice is sterile... like the bombardiers who never see their victims.

Citizens back in the “Heartland,” like Corporate CEOs sleep well at night, convincing themselves war is maybe not a pleasant thing but it is acceptable. “My hands are clean, the cause is just, is their mantra.” Beneath the mantra is the man or woman. Their comfort is derived from much the same mental gymnastics used by the Corporate CEO. Never will the business, science, and sin of denial stop inventing ways to rationalize away injustice and outright murder.

The pacifist questions proclaimed threats and resists the fear these claims are intended to incite. The pacifist’s reward is social rejection... perhaps the greatest fear of all for many. Those who denounce war as a facade for mass killing often become the killed... if not literally, socially, professionally, politically, religiously, and in ways yet to be invented.

For the truly courageous, courage is its own reward. Courage faces down prejudice, political correctness, personal loss, fear, lies and violence. Courage faces down discomfort and lauds truth in spite of consequences, not in anticipation of them.

The courageous life of Lise Meitner sends chills of appreciation up and down my spine. Fear of dying in personal, professional, scientific, political, religious, and other forms of obscurity is a universal fear. One as accomplished as Lise Meitner naturally has much to lose if credit due is credit never awarded. Yet, she resisted the temptation to sell out her personal convictions to gain social acceptance, professional notoriety and certain fame.

I present you, Lise Meitner, a beacon of hope in a time of peril. Each of us, irrespective of social, economic, professional status are living a life not that far distant from the German citizens of the early 1900’s when Germany was becoming a world power. Busy busy busy, too busy to think, German citizens enjoyed the seemingly “entitled” luxury of simply being German. Amidst the mind-boggling business of the day an ideology of supremacy began to sprout from a fertile landscape of science, technology, and a citizenry saturated with contented apathy. Raining over Germany’s social landscape was an air of denial. Accepting an ever-intensifying nationalistic government as a political whim that would run its course eased minds too busy and too satisfied to think about the inevitable consequences of their apathy.

Lise Meitner was born in Vienna, Austria and later worked closely with German scientists to better understand the physics of atomic nuclei.

I call Meitner “a Beacon of Hope” because, in spite of globally powerful and prejudiced forces determined to dissolve her life’s work and her protests against war into total obscurity she lives on (beyond the grave).

The courageous peacemonger might die in obscurity... but so what? They often, resurrect. Although the victorious write the history of their choosing... truth is true history and true history is truth. White paint covers blood... but eventually the blood bleeds through. White washing a tree’s bark does not silence the bark of the tree. The truth of a tree is in its entirety. Beneath, above, and beyond the white-wash is the bark, a trunk, roots, branches, leaves, and perhaps most important of all, seeds that preserve the legacy of the tree.

In my mind, Lise Meitner was a mighty oak. Her seed lives on. Her courage produces new oaks even today, even though she was cut down years ago.

Lise Meitner: Her Crimes?

1) She was a Woman
2) She was a Jew
3) She became a scientist
4) She protested violence and war

Lise Meitner: Her Professional Plight
A Prejudiced Conspiracy of Lies and Obscurity

Lise Meitner: Her Legacy?
A Testament of Hope for Peace and Humanity

Meitner excoriates her old friend and research partner: "All of you lost your standards of justice and fairness. ... All of you also worked for Nazi Germany, and never even attempted passive resistance. Of course, to save your troubled conscience, you occasionally helped an oppressed person; still, you let millions of innocent people be murdered, and there was never a sound of protest."(p.249). “You had no sleepless nights... you suppressed the injustice of war.” Later she singles out Heisenberg, "They should force a man like Heisenberg, and millions of others with him, to see these camps and the tortured people."(p.250). Heisenberg had come to Bohr’s institute in Copenhagen in 1941 and had delivered a lecture full of propaganda for the regime that had infuriated Meitner.

Friends, these United States of America represent to the world the very threat Nazi Germany represented to the world of that day. Friends, will you wait for that knock on your front door from Homeland Security? I suggest you not wait to speak out loud and clear against this present assault on our civil liberties and our “inalienable rights.”

Do you know the next U.S. census will involve more than completing a mailed honorary/voluntary form to be returned to the U.S. Census Bureau? An new army of Census Bureau officials (armed with global positioning devices) will visit your home, inspect for hidden living quarters, investigate each room for evidence of unclaimed inhabitants and map rooms they consider candidates to have their own addresses.

The world has demonized Nazi Germany (including its citizens who like you and me are just taking care of our personal business). I have to ask... are we really justified in “minding our own business” as we, too, “accept an ever-intensifying nationalistic government as a political whim that will run its course and ease minds too busy and too satisfied to think about the inevitable consequences of our own apathy.”

One man claiming to be God directed led a nation of pathetic followers into one of the worst episodes of human tragedy in recorded history. Friends, we are under the leadership of one such man. Different day. Different man. Same basic premise. Only the methodology has changed. I call it, “The Inevitable Result of the Sophistication of Sin.”

To me, there is no greater sin than to claim, “God is on my (our) side.”

Stand up friends. Risk something. Comfort is a fleeting illusion of well-being. Discomfort is the price of true progress... personal, professional, scientific, social, cultural, spiritual, and universal progress.

Duane Short
August 21, 2006
----------------------

So, who was Lise Meitner?

Biography

A Battle for Ultimate Truth
Lise Meitner
Born: Vienna, Austria, November 7, 1878
Died: Cambridge, England, October 27, 1968

Meitner refused an offer to work on the project at Los Alamos, declaring "I will have nothing to do with a bomb!" (Sime, 305)

Lise Meitner
A Life in Physics
By Ruth Lewin Sime

Chapter One: Girlhood in Vienna

The Woman Behind the Bomb

A Review Essay on "Lise Meitner and the Dawn of the Nuclear Age" by Patricia Rife
Gary R. Goldstein
Department of Physics
Tufts University
Medford, MA 02155 USA
July 13, 2000

Published in Peace and Change: a Journal of Peace Research, vol.26, 95 (2001).
Abstract

The book "Lise Meitner and the Dawn of the Nuclear Age" by Patricia Rife (Boston: Birkhäuser, 1999) is reviewed in this essay for the lay audience. Meitner was a leading nuclear physicist at the time that the nucleus was the most exciting frontier of science. To establish her career, she had to overcome daunting prejudices against women in science and academia. Being of Jewish origin in Germany in the 1930's, she narrowly escaped certain disaster. Meitner was a crucial participant in the discovery of nuclear fission, yet did not share in the Nobel Prize that her collaborator, Otto Hahn, received in 1945. How these events came about, how they were intertwined with contemporary history and how they fit into the evolution of Meitner's social conscience and her abhorrence of war are some of the fascinating subjects discussed in the book and reviewed in this essay.

The war years were difficult for Meitner for many reasons. The news of horrendous destruction and turmoil was depressing. She helped friends fleeing Nazi persecution. She kept in touch with family and was able to communicate with some of her Berlin colleagues, but must have felt quite helpless in the sweep of events. Her nephew Frisch got a position in Birmingham, England and continued to experiment with fission. In collaboration with another German-Jewish émigré, Rudolph Peierls, he figured out how the fission of a rare isotope of uranium (U235) could be used to initiate a "chain reaction" and create a "super bomb" of enormous power. The secret Frisch-Peierls memorandum(5) became the impetus for the start of the Manhattan Project.

Unbeknownst to Lise, her nephew, Peierls and other physicists working in Britain (including Klaus Fuchs) were sent off to Los Alamos, New Mexico to contribute to the making of the bomb. Had she been given the opportunity to participate in that war work, there is little doubt that Meitner would have declined, as her previous history suggests. In a separate discussion, Rife makes the interesting point that the scale of scientific research would never be the same after the "big science" projects became the rule with the infusion of large government budgets into scientifically innovative weapons development. Siegbahn’s institute in Stockholm had become an example of big science that left Meitner out in the cold although it was not directed toward weapons work.

When the war in Europe ended, Meitner was horrified to learn about the deaths and deprivations of the millions of victims of the Nazi concentration camps. She could not forgive her German colleagues for their lack of active opposition to the regime. Rife quotes a remarkable letter to Hahn (that he never received) in which Meitner excoriates her old friend and research partner:

"All of you lost your standards of justice and fairness. ... All of you also worked for Nazi Germany, and never even attempted passive resistance. Of course, to save your troubled conscience, you occasionally helped an oppressed person; still, you let millions of innocent people be murdered, and there was never a sound of protest."(p.249).

Later she singles out Heisenberg:

"They should force a man like Heisenberg, and millions of others with him, to see these camps and the tortured people."(p.250).

Heisenberg had come to Bohr’s institute in Copenhagen in 1941 and had delivered a lecture full of propaganda for the regime that had infuriated Meitner.