Revolutionary Communities or Bust by Cindy Sheehan

From August 19th to the 30th, Cindy Sheehan and three military veterans will be beginning a bus (runs on bio-fuels) tour from Eugene, Oregon to Fresno, California and back up.

The purpose of the tour is to re-energize the grass roots initiative, Re-Creating Revolutionary Communities, and we have many stops along the way with exciting events planned.

The following is a list of the dates and places the RevComs or Bust tour will be stopping; for more info on the events in each community, please email:

Gordon at: GS@Squadron13.com

Sat, Aug 20th:             Eugene, Oregon

Sun, Aug 21st:             Hood River, Oregon

Mon, Aug 22nd:          Newport, Oregon

Tue, Aug 23rd:            Free day

Wed, Aug 24:              Free day

Thu, Aug 25:               Arcata, Ca

Fri, Aug 26:                Garberville, Ca

Sat, Aug 27:               Fresno, Ca

Sun, Aug 28:              Free Day

Mon, Aug 29:            Free Day

Tue, Aug 30:             Sacramento, Ca

**************************

Recent events in the U.S., which amount to financial terrorism by the elite, have demonstrated that Democracy with a Capital D is officially DOA, and We the People can face a scary future assured that we will survive, because we can build communities that foster peace, health, the environment, and prosperity.

In 2009, I toured the nation with my book, Myth America, advocating for such communities--they were urgent then, and necessary, now.

Hope to see you out on the tour!

Please donate to help us with fuel, and other expenses!

Or send a check/money (made out to Peace of the Action) order to:

Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox

PO BOX 6264

Vacaville, Ca 95696

Thanks!

My Speech on the 66th Anniversary of the Bombing of Nagasaki by Cindy Sheehan

11:02 AM
August 9, 1945

Thank you for inviting me to this important meeting—it is a great honor for me to be here on the anniversary of a time when our countries were bitter enemies—even before most of us were
born.

In the time of the rise of the 3rd Reich in Europe, the people of my country were in an isolationist mood and not too excited about getting into another bloody and costly war in Europe.

When Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, that problem was solved for the war machine in our countries—I am certain, talking to elders in my country, that Japan was not even on the radar screen of ordinary Americans who were just struggling to make ends meet during the time of the first Great Depression—the US is in the 2nd now, with real unemployment at close to 20% and home foreclosures and evictions still at a record rate in some communities. The economy still hasn’t bottomed out in the US, and I am afraid we are all in store for worse times ahead.

Anyway, at the time of the War between the States in the US—there were almost no civilian casualties, but soon after, the US embarked on a period of great foreign expansion and began actually targeting civilians, most notably in the Philippines in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries.

We all know about the fire-bombings of Tokyo by the US and about the A- bombs dropped on first Hiroshima and then Nagasaki, but as profoundly horrible as those events were—they weren’t the first time, or, unfortunately the last time atrocities were committed during war.

A US sociologist, who studies why so-called normal people would commit crimes against humanity in war, named, Robert J. Lifton, has stated that, “war is an atrocity producing event—it will always produce atrocities.” War takes ordinary people and turns them into soldiers and people that commit unspeakable horrors—most of whom never would even hurt a dog, let alone fellow human beings.

On April 04, 1967, Martin Luther King, Jr. gave a famous speech at the Riverside Church in New York City where he linked the wars against people of color at home against the wars against people of color abroad—he stated then that the three greatest challenges facing humanity were: “Racism, militarism, and poverty.” Dr. King then went to organize a poor people’s campaign against the wars in a Socialist campaign for president of the US—exactly one year later, he was assassinated.

On April 04, 2004, my son was killed in the racist war for imperial profit in Iraq—and we, as a global family still fight against racism, poverty and militarism.

Racism was what allowed the crime against humanity here in Nagasaki 66 years ago—and racism allows the wars against Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen that my country is currently waging—in the US we say that Barack Obama has the record for a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate for bombing the most countries—it’s ironic, but it’s true.

Racism is what allows the police in the US (and other places) to kill young black men for very stupid reasons and get off with the crime with barely a hand slap.

Yes, 66 years ago our countries were bitter enemies, but now the Capitalist class has united in a disastrous friendship to impoverish, or kill, we here in the working class. The disaster at Fukushima and the British Petroleum disaster in the US are proof that the Capitalists don’t care about human, animal, or plant life on this planet—all they care about is profit.

In the US, when a tragedy strikes, we right away organize a “telethon” to help the victims—well that is a load of crap, because, first of all, BP and TEPCO should be held fully responsible and accountable for their disasters, and secondly, it’s also wrong because it’s easy for most people to donate 5-10 dollars to a cause, but the real work comes with revolution.

One of my heroes, Eugene V. Debs a Socialist and antiwar activist said that "The most heroic word in all languages is revolution." 

(huge applause). 

I had a dream last night that Fidel Castro served me vanilla ice cream and we had a wonderful chat about revolution.

Many people have said that revolution is not a dinner party—or a bowl of vanilla ice cream—it’s hard work, but we workers in all countries much reach our arms across borders and oceans and work together to end nuclear power and war. I cannot call myself an “anti-war” activist if I don’t recognize that the dots of poverty, neo-liberalism, environmentalism, and anti-nuclear power must be connected; we can’t separate one cause from the other.

I am proud to be here and proud to be in solidarity with you all—but we need to turn globalization around against the vile against the neo-liberal murdering bastards and have a global worker’s revolution where we meet at the barricades and never back down and never give up!  

Thank you, very much!

The only safe nuke is no nuke. Transcript of interview with Nuke Expert, Arnie Gunderson

Preserved building near ground zero in Hiroshima--and protesters!

Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox

July 31, 2011

Guest: Arnie Gunderson

CS: Cindy Sheehan

AG: Arnie Gunderson

CS: Welcome back to Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox. I am your host Cindy Sheehan and you are listening at CindySheehansSoapbox.com.

This is our last show for a couple of weeks because I will be heading to Japan—I have been invited by people who are anti-nuclear power and anti-nuclear weaponry. They are also pro-worker and they’ve been working really hard to hold the government of Japan and the power company TEPCO accountable for the Fukushima disaster.

I will be in Hiroshima on the day the US bombed Hiroshima with an atomic weapon. I will be in Nagasaki on that day a few days later on the anniversary of the day when the US dropped and A-bomb on Nagasaki. I will be going to Okinawa because the US has a lot of military bases there and the people of Japan are opposed to that and I always stand with the people. Then I will be going to Tokyo to do some mass actions against nuclear power and to hold the government of Japan accountable for the disaster that they have been very slow and ineffective in responding to.

So before I head to Japan I wanted to have an expert on the nuclear power and nuclear disaster issue on. Our guest today is Arnie Gunderson. Arnie is an energy advisor with 39 years of nuclear power engineering experience. He is a former nuclear energy Vice President and he earned his bachelors and masters degrees in nuclear engineering.

Arnie Gunderson, welcome to Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox.

AG: Thanks for having me.

CS: It’s great to have you on. You do quite a bit of media concerning the nuclear power issue. The reason I am having you on is because next week I’m heading for Japan. I am going there with people who have invited me that are against nuclear power, against nuclear bombs and things like that. I am going to Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Okinawa and Tokyo.

First of all I wanted you to give us an update what’s happening in Fukushima and about the dangers of the emissions and things that are still happening in Japan.

AG: Okay, again, thank you for having me. The Fukushima reactors continue to emit radiation every day. The Japanese estimate that they are emitting 24 billion disintegrations per second every day—in addition to what they have spewed out over the last 100 days. So it is a significant number in and of itself. But more importantly there is an awful lot of contamination on the ground.

All throughout Japan we are finding concentrations higher than they were at in Chernobyl as far away as 50-60 miles from the Fukushima reactor. A lot of that has fallen onto grass and straw, which is being fed to cattle, and now the cattle are becoming contaminated.

So the Japanese haven’t got a handle on the problem yet. Their government has been really slow to recognize the problem and the press has been complacent in warning people of the problem. There is a lot of contamination throughout all of Northern Japan including Tokyo.

CS: So, I am not so sure, I work with the activists there from the Doro Chiba, I not sure if you know who they are? They are a pretty radical labor union, but they’re also trying to hold the Japanese government accountable and TEPCO accountable for the disaster. I not so sure they were slow to recognize the problem, but it seems they have very slow to react to the problem.

AG: I think what’s happening is a bunch of finger pointing. The Japanese government wants TEPCO to step up to the plate and be responsible for everything. TEPCO is focused on site and is really leaving the offsite work to the Japanese.

There’s billions and billions of dollars here. I estimate to clean this thing up it’s going to be about 200 billion dollars. That’s just not the site but the contaminated lands that are inland. If TEPCO were the one to do all that they would go bankrupt. So I think there is a real hesitancy by the Japanese government to bankrupt TEPCO so therefore they are not pushing them as hard as they should. But at the same time the Japanese government is not stepping up and saying if TEPCO is not doing these things we need to.

So what you’ve got is a bunch of prefectures, some of which are active and some of which don’t know very much because this is not a science that every prefecture has in its bag of tricks. So each prefecture is doing it’s own thing. We had an example of this in an area near Tokyo a citizen went out on the street and found a radioactive hotspot, had it analyzed, paid his own money for a laboratory to analyze this spot and it was 50 thousand disintegrations per second in the area of this hotspot. Well he brought the lab report that he paid for to the mayor of the town, the mayor said, “I don’t care”!

CS: Wow.

AG: Yes, it’s a real concern.

CS: Do you have any advice for me going right into, I live on the West Coast? I live very close to San Francisco and I feel like we have had a little bit of the fallout in California from Fukushima. But do you have any advice for me traveling to Japan at this time?

AG: Let’s talk to you about my advice for you in Japan verses my advice for people on the west coast. My advice for you going to Japan is don’t buy the local food. I would stay away from pretty much everything grown in Northern Japan. Even in Southern Japan Tea is contaminated. But in general most of the Northern Japan products are contaminated. They already leave their shoes at the door so the issue of taking outside contamination in is not as significant.

I am telling all my friends in Japan that they should damp dust. Don’t dry dust because all that does is through the radiation back up. But damp dust all the surfaces in your house frequently and change the filters in your air conditioner frequently, your cabin filter in your car frequently. We’ve gotten air filter for cars that are just littered with radioactive particles.

It’s important so you have to go and you have to be there but you can take some precautions to make sure you are avoiding as much of the radiation as you can.

CS: I was born in 1957. I was born in Los Angeles and there’s proof, well we know that they were doing above ground nuclear testing during that time in Nevada. There were studies that show that the fallout blew over Southern California--do these types of things contaminate us all at this point? Is it a natural, well it’s not natural but is it normal that at this point human on this planet have been contaminated by some kind of radiation?

AG: In LA in the late 50’s there was a nuclear meltdown in a research lab that was covered up for about 30 years. The residents near LA experienced more than your average fallout as far as a result of a test reactor and the meltdown of it—there are small amounts of radioactive cesium in the water and strontium—in the water from bomb testing and from Chernobyl. But what Fukushima has done is dramatically increased those numbers worldwide.

So, yes there is already some radioactivity. It decays away with time. So the bomb testing, the radiation, one, has spread out globally now, and two it’s almost decayed away now to about a quarter of what it was at the peak in the 60’s.  Where as Fukushima has not spread out globally yet and it hasn’t decayed away. So there’s a lot more of these radioactive particles in the air from Fukushima than there was before Fukushima--especially on the West Coast.

Our website a website, Fairewinds, and we actually had a piece on radioactive contamination detected in Seattle and that was back in April. And I think there were someone washouts, rainouts in British Columbia just last weekend. So the source of the radiation hasn’t been capped and of course the first piece of land it hits when it comes across the pacific is the West Coast. So I don’t think you are out of the woods yet.

CS: I also noticed on your website you had suggestions for people on the West Coast. Is it basically the same as suggestions you had for the people of Japan?

AG: It’s pretty similar but we don’t have contaminated beef yet, and I don’t think we will. So the issue of eating the beef is not a problem on the West Coast.

Over time I am going to be very concerned about tuna and salmon. But it takes a while for Tuna to swim across the pacific and the Salmon also. So you get at the top of the food chain, the radioaction will what they call, bio-accumulate. So the large fish that ate the smaller fish that ate the smaller fish will over time accumulate large quantities of cesium. But for the next year or so I think it is okay to eat the tuna and salmon from the west coast. What we need is the FDA to analyze it and they have refused to analyze the fish coming into market in the United States.

CS: We see a similar thing happening here in the United States after the after the oil well exploded in the Gulf of Mexico with them refusing to test the shrimp and other seafood from that area.

AG: You’re absolutely right. One of the researchers I am working with on the Fukushima data is also involved in measuring what’s in the shrimp. The government is making it extremely hard for good scientist to take good data. Basically they’re allowing BP to control the field and control the information coming out of the oil fields. You know I think our government; basically lobbyists have so fundamentally altered the way government should work that I don’t think it is working in our best interest right now.

CS: I talked to my colleagues in Japan and their problems with handling Fukushima and TEPCO sounds almost exactly the same as the problems we are having in the US trying to deal with BP and the Gulf disaster. It seems like it is the same kind of forces at work here.

AG: And it started on day one. If you remember Fukushima the Japanese said it isn’t as bad as Three Mile Island. And then about 3 weeks later they said, well it might be as bad as Three Mile Island. Then about a month later they said, on my God it is as bad as Chernobyl. So they underestimated the amount of radiation getting into the environment. That happened with BP too. They underestimated the size of the leak for weeks. Independent scientist was saying it was bad and BP was underestimating. So it started on day one in both cases. I absolutely agree with you.

CS: I wonder if the underestimation is intentional or what because we just had a small microcosm of this happen just a few miles away from me yesterday. A plastic company that makes plastic crates caught on fire and it was this horrible fire--this dark black smoke pouring out of this fire. The wind blew it over my house. So I have this black cloud of toxic chemicals over my house and the news was just saying, if you live within a mile of the plant you should, I think they were calling it shelter and something where you close all the windows and turn off your air conditioning. However, it was 3 o’clock in the afternoon and it looked like 9 o’clock at night at my house. But the news was saying it was safe if you’re past one mile. Is it intentional or are these people just stupid?

AG: I’ve studied Three Mile Island, I’ve studied Chernobyl and I’ve studied this one. I think human nature is too, I think our gut reaction is to think it is really not as bad as it is. So all of these people in authority down play it because they don’t want to create a panic or look like they are overreacting. When you have a bunch of bureaucrats their first reaction is to protect the autocracy and then they will protect the public as opposed to the other way around. But I think none of them want to go out on a limb and say, “my God this is really bad,” like they should have at Three Mile Island, like the should have at Chernobyl and now they should have at Fukushima. It’s the way bureaucrats work in an emergency.

CS: So you have also said that it is very possible that a disaster like Fukushima could happen here in the United States. Can you explain that and also tell my listeners anything we can do avert that kind of disaster that we can do. Not the companies that build the nuclear power plants, not the companies that profit off of them and not the government that keeps on telling us the it is safe.

AG: There are 23 reactors in the United States that are exactly like Fukushima. Those are on the east coast and the middle of the country. None are in California. But the ones that are exactly like Fukushima have a containment unit called the Mark 1 containment and now we are up to the Mark 4 so we’re four generations better on the containments. The Mark 1 when they built it the NRC knew it was a bad design and there are actually letters in the NRC saying we never should have licensed this.

So for the last 40 years it has been one band-aid fix after another on this Mark 1 design. And at Fukushima even with these Band-Aid fixes all three containment units blew up. The containments don’t work. I think that we need to insist that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission do its job and unfortunately that’s not enough. We need to get a hold of our congress people individually and say; I don’t care how much a lobbyist is paying you for campaign contributions. I need you to pay attention to the NRC and get them to protect the public.

The other part of it is the nuclear spent fuel is stored indoors in spent fuel pools right now. It should be stored in what is called dry cast storage. Fukushima had both and the dry cast worked just fine but the fuel pools were very precarious. So we need to move into dry cast storage to protect the public.

Now on the west coast you have Diablo Canyon, which is right near a fault. And actually the public near Diablo Canyon pushed very hard to get the NRC to pay attention and they didn’t for years the NRC said it’s not a problem. But after Fukushima the NRC turned and now said. “oh my God this might be a problem.” We need four more years to analyze it. So unfortunately it takes an accident to get their attention.

A little further south down at San Onofre they only have a 25 ft tsunami wall. Obviously Fukushima told us we need a higher tsunami wall than that.

But individually with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission the deck is stacked with major industry affecting policy and the public basically not affecting policy. So next time you see your congressperson in a mall or something like that shaking hands tell them, “I need you to pay attention to this and I don’t care what the industry is saying. You’re not looking out for our best interests.”

CS: Then you look at Japan and it seems to me that everybody is affected. Even the children and grandchildren of the people that work for TEPCO or the people that are in the government in Japan who are not responding affectively or appropriately to this disaster. You know this disaster affects everybody it doesn’t matter how rich you are or how much protection you think you have. Or of you are a congressperson or a senator or if you own a nuclear power plant. The ultimate failure is going to affect you; it’s going to affect our planet and the future of life on the planet.

AG: Yeah, you’re absolutely right.

You know there are about five thousand people who work in that plant who are really every day putting their life on the line. They’re picking up radiation exposures that you can be sure will cause additional cancers. It is likely that whatever their cancer rate was it is going to go up by 10-20 percent because of what they are going to receive because of this accident. Which means because of that accident of that five thousand perhaps as many as five hundred people will pick up a cancer in their lifetime because they are out there trying to save the nation of Japan. So there’s five thousand very brave people, or very foolish, I am not sure which, who our hats should be off to. The bureaucrats seem to stay back in Tokyo where the exposures are a lot less. And they really don’t understand the sacrifice that is being made by the workers in a very precarious situation.

CS: You are an expert on this subject. Is there any safe nuclear power?

AG: What I’ve said all along is that we should never build another coal or oil plant because of global warming. We should push like crazy renewables and conservation.

What Fukushima has done is it has dramatically raised the cost of nuclear power. Now new nuclear power actually costs more than renewables. So it’s been the economics of the issue have actually pushed nuclear to be more expensive than wind and solar. Now new nuclear units, Wall St won’t touch them—so that we’ve got a situation now after Fukushima where it doesn’t have to be the pro or anti argument anymore. It’s not a religious argument you know of Christ/Anti-Christ, it’s an issue about money. New nuclear unit have become so expensive that the renewable sources of energy can take the field. So I think that what will happen in the future is the new power that will be coming on line will not be nuclear it is just so expensive.

CS: Like you said, the coal plants are horrible for our environment also. And we have a President now who is a big advocate of the myth of clean coal.

AG: Obama’s key advisors and key financial backers early on came from a company called Exelon. Exelon owns seventeen nuclear plants. They are the largest nuclear company in the country and they also own a lot of coal plants. So if we’re expecting new thought out of the Obama administration I don’ think we’re going to get it--because the advisors of the administration are predominantly people of the old system.

You know the term Maginot Line? After WWI the French built a line of defenses and it was designed to primarily to prevent a WWI from happening again. But of course the German technology improved and they flew over it and they ran around it. I’m afraid by focusing on this old expensive central nuclear power plant paradigm that we’re building another Maginot line.

We’re spending hundreds of billions of public resources. A hundred billion will get you about eight nuclear plants. So if we are going to spend 100 billion on these eight nuclear plants, effectively a Maginot line, when that money could be much better spent on a smart grid and new technology. What we’ve got is the old concept of the big power plant was needed in the 20^th century. That’s the way we had to make power in the 20^th century. But now in the 21^st century we’ve got smart grids, we’ve got distributed generation and computers that can handle all that. So that rather than build a Maginot Line with eight or ten nukes and hundreds of billions of dollars in the process. I think we would be better looking towards smart grids and renewables.

CS: And I agree. Thank you Arnie so much for being on Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox today. Unfortunately we are out of time but give your website again so my listeners can get more information. Because there’s way more information on your website than we were able to cover in this short show.

AG: Sure. Thank you, it’s Fairewinds.com

CS: Thank you Arnie Gunderson for your work and thank you for taking the time to be a guest on Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox! 

Good Question by Cindy Sheehan

I am not the only international guest speaking at the rallies against nukes and for world peace here in Hiroshima, Japan—a pediatrician from Basrah, Iraq was also invited—Dr. Hussam.

Dr. Hussam has seen and is treating numerous cancers and other problems in children stemming from the US invasion and occupation and the use of conventional weapons coated with depleted uranium, or DU.

U-238 (DU) has civilian uses, but is also used to strengthen shields or as armor piercing coating on bombs and bullets. The US Army estimates that U-238 emits 60% of the radiation of pure uranium. DU is a byproduct of nuclear fission.

It has never been difficult for me to extrapolate the sorrow over my son’s death in Iraq to the horror experienced on a daily basis by the people of Iraq. My tragedy has been replayed millions of times over in that country. It’s not difficult for me to imagine the horribleness of being a pediatrician who sees so many of his patients terribly ill with a lack of medicine, electricity and supplies to help them. I have a deep loathing of the government and war profiteers of the US, but how much more would that feeling be increased if I lived in Iraq (or Afghanistan, or Pakistan, or Libya, or fill-in-the-blank).

Dr. Hussam wanted to meet with me after last night’s rally at which we both spoke. His hostility and hatred of me was palpable and painful, but he asked me a very simple question prefaced by this statement:

“After two gulf wars and a dozen years of economic sanctions, your country has devastated my country.”

“Yes,” I agreed with him.

“Why do American mothers send their children to kill others?”

I can’t be mad at Dr. Hussam for hating me because I totally agree with him and I have lain awake night after night asking myself the same question and beating myself up for not being as aggressive as I should have been in stopping Casey. I can’t ask Dr. Hussam to forgive me when I cannot ever forgive myself.

Why?

Why do we do it?

I could tell Dr. Hussam that I didn’t want my son, Casey, to go, or even join the Army. I could tell him that Casey didn’t want to go and told everyone that he couldn’t kill anyone before he left—and as a mechanic was hoping he would never have to. I explained to Dr. Hussam that I was very proud of Casey for being a conscientious objector at the end and was literally dragged to the mission that killed him.

But, none of these explanations or rationalizations even comes close to answering the Doctor’s question.

Why?

Why did Iraqi mothers send their sons to kill Iranians and vice-versa? Why did British mothers send their sons to kill Afghans? Why did Japanese mothers allow their sons to kill Americans, and vice versa?

Why?

Why did mothers of the North allow their sons to kill sons from the South—and, again, vice versa?

The examples of brokenhearted mothers watching their children march off to insane wars began by the war profiteers and their toady politicians fill countless of bookshelves.

Why?

Why do any of us do it?

We can say, “propaganda,” “Patriotism,” “fear,” “racism,” “conscription,” “poverty;” or a myriad of other lame excuses, but the bottom line is, not that our sons and daughters are killed or maimed, but that they do the dirty work of others—and become something that we mothers rarely train them to be: killers.

War will only stop when we mothers stop it.

"Just look at the strong, fine, young body--because only the BEST boys are chosen for war. Look at this splendid young creature who's part of yourself. You brought him into the world. You cared for him. That boy relies on you. You taught him to do that, didn't you? Now I ask you: Are you going to run out on him? Are you going to let someone beat a drum or blow a bugle and make him chase after it and be killed or crippled in a foreign land? Are the Mothers of America ashamed to make this fight to stay out of this European War on the ground of their love for their sons--for what better ground could there be?"

from "Now, you Mothers;" Maj. General Smedley Butler at the advent of WWII. 

Today, let's say, "yes,"  to peace and a big, "hell, no" to war--for the love of our sons and daughters, but also for the love of all the sons and daughters of this world.

August 6th, 1945: A Day that will live in Infamy by Cindy Sheehan

A Day that will live in Infamy

August 6th 1945

Cindy Sheehan

This will be a short piece, since I am getting ready to go to the anti-nuke/peace rally here in Hiroshima in a few hours (it’s the 6^th here), but I will give my impressions of that when I get back to my hotel.

Last night, I dreamed about my grandmother (Mamaw). I haven’t dreamed of her for years. I dreamed she came home to my house and I was going to get to take care of her. My Mamaw was my favorite person in the world until she died in 1969 and her loss hit me, a 12 year-old 7^th grader, very hard. My Mamaw was a Rosie the Riveter for the war effort and a survivor of the Great Depression—and while she was so amazingly loving, I thought she must have also been incredibly strong.

I arrived in Japan on Wednesday the 4^th and arrived here in Hiroshima on the 5^th (by a four hour bullet train ride from Tokyo). Since I arrived here, I have been thinking about the people from “The Greatest Generation” that I have known—because I am here to help the peace community commemorate two of the “Greatest” crimes against humanity perpetrated by the US Government.

I have been thinking how, before I left California for Japan, I got into an argument with a sweet octogenarian that takes water aerobic classes with me at my gym—how she claims that Truman had to slaughter hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians to “save the lives of US soldiers.” (Same justification used for the demented use of UAVs--Unmanned Aerial Vehicles--in the US's current wars of choice). 

I have been thinking of my now deceased mother, Shirley, who was 10 on the day that Japan attacked a military facility on Pearl Harbor, (an attack that my mother told me FDR knew about and allowed to happen to lift the US out of the “Great” Depression). My mother Shirley had a best-friend named, Shirley (Shirley was a popular name back then due to Shirley Temple)—Shirley Number Two was Nisei a second generation Japanese immigrant to the US. My mother, Shirley, grew up in Hawthorne, California where Japanese immigration was large and my mother picked strawberries on the Japanese farms to earn extra money.

Anyway, one day, after the declaration of war against Japan, my mother’s best friend, Shirley, was gone: sent to an internment camp with her family. My mother never saw her again.

I met an elder last night at a rally against nuclear power that I gave a short speech to who was a fisherman around the Bikini Atolls and who was exposed to radiation—that made me think of my former father-in-law, Frank Sheehan, who was in the Navy during WWII in the Pacific and who worked as a ship fitter on the ships that were part of the Bikini Atoll atomic tests and is still alive, with healthy Sheehan generations of children, grand-children, and great grand-children scattered around him.

Here in Hiroshima, I have been thinking of the Americans and that’s why I dreamt about my grandmother, but I am also thinking of today and our children and grand children.

Shiniki's tricycle

Yesterday, I toured the Peace Museum close to the hypocenter of the bomb, “Little Boy,” and the story, among all the tragic stories, that struck me the most, was the one of  a little boy, Shiniki, a little three year-old who was riding his tricycle 66 years ago today—in an hour and a half, he would be horribly burned by “Little Boy” and die later that night—Shiniki’s heartbroken father buried him and his tricycle in the family’s backyard and that trike is in the Peace Museum: a rusted memorial to man’s profound cruelty to man and the tragic day that my government decided to use a vibrant, living and bustling, town as an experiment of its barbarism.

Then, I can’t help thinking of my own three year-old grandson, Jonah, a happy, healthy cherub and the affect that the Robber Class’s dependence and lust for power and greed is having on his little life.

Sixty-six years ago right now—Hiroshima, indeed the world, had no idea what was about to hit it.

Peace out, for now.


(August 6th, is also the day, six years ago, that I and about 75 other peace activists descended on Crawford, Tx for the first time to confront George Bush so I could ask him, "What Noble Cause." Six years later, and one administration change, the wars continue, with new ones thrown in. Our leaders will never "Give Peace a Chance.")

EXPLOSIVE SOAPBOX!

A (radioactively) HOT show.  Click here to listen or download, beginning at 2:00 PM San Francisco time.  This Sunday (July 31st), Cindy welcomes Arnie Gunderson, an eminent U.S. nuclear expert and Nuclear power whistleblower, who is chief engineer of energy consulting company Fairewinds Associates and a former Nuclear power industry executive.  He has questioned the safety of the Westinghouse AP1000, a proposed third-generation nuclear reactor.  Gundersen has also expressed concerns about the operation of the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant and served as an expert witness in the investigation of the Three Mile Island accident.  He also is a knowledgeable energy advisor commenting Nuclear power issues.  He discusses the flood threatened Nuclear power plant in Fort Calhoon, Nebraska with Pacifica Radio's Robert Knight right here.  Listen up!

What I will be doing this year on August 6th

The Soapbox: Transcript 24 July, 2011 with Eva Golinger

President Chavez is pretty adamant about the fact that Venezuela is no longer a colony of the US.

President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela

CS: Cindy Sheehan

EG: Eva Golinger

CS: Welcome back to Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox. I am your host Cindy Sheehan and as always you are listening at Cindy SheehansSoapBox.com. 

A lot of my friends and contacts and fans of the show have been asking me how President Chavez of Venezuela has been since he had a recent battle with cancer. So we’re going to bring on the expert of all things Venezuelan, our good friend, Eva Golinger. 

Eva welcome back to Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox.

EG: Thank you so much, Cindy.

CS: Well we always want to have you on whenever there is a lot of concern or things happening in Venezuela. I have so many fans of the show, supporters and contacts who have been very concerned about the health of Chavez. Can you give us an update on that?

EG: Well President Chavez is currently undergoing chemotherapy treatment. 

He is in Cuba where his initial cancer was detected in a very unexpected way. 

I guess nobody ever expects it and he of course certainly didn’t. I mean Chavez is very young. He is almost 57 years old and he’s never had any major health problems. There’s not cancer in his family that is known so it wasn’t an issue that was of concern in terms of his health.

However he is someone who works incredibly hard. He’s been in office 12 years, elected twice and works nonstop. Has never taken a vacation, doesn’t take sick days and is incredibly dedicated and committed to his work. I mean you know that has sort of been his rhythm for the past decade or so now it has caught up with him. It’s taken a toll on his ability to continue that level of work that he has been doing as President of Venezuela.

When the cancer was detected initially which was in June, about mid-June, what was found was a pelvic abscess, which was immediately drained, and after the infection subsided they found a mass of malignant cancer cells and that was immediately removed. It was a very intense operation that took six and a half hours. You can imagine that level of surgery, you know the cutting through all of his muscles, just the type of wound he had after that and so since that time which was the 20^th of June was that operation he’s been recovering from that and waiting to be able to have another revision done, a thorough revision of his body and to start the chemo.

So the latest update which was Chavez made public himself that no further cancer cells have been detected in his body so the tumor was taken out in it’s entirety and nothing seems to have been left behind. Of course the chemotherapy treatments are a precaution to prevent the cancer from coming back. So that’s what he’s doing. 

He delegated some of his administrative functions to the Executive Vice President and the (?), and to the Minister of Finance and Planning Jorge Giordani. But it is really administrative in nature and Chavez remains at the head of government.

They activated an electronic signature when he left for Cuba so he can himself still sign documents and he’s regularly involved, in Venezuela.

Cindy, Twitter is a real big deal, Chavez is one of the leading Tweeters and everyday since he has been in Cuba he has been tweeting several times a day starting in the early morning hours cause now he is getting up at five in the morning so he is sending out Tweets from that time on and throughout the day. And you know it makes people feel and believe that of course he is following everything that is going on and he is still fully capacitated to remain as President.

CS: Well, there is always, well not always but for quite a while there’s been a very active opposition to the revolution and the administration of President Chavez. How is the opposition trying to take advantage of this illness?

EG: Well it’s really grotesque, I mean from the beginning first they were really doubting that he was diagnosed with cancer, was sick, thought it was a ploy, a strategy for his reelection. 

Venezuela has Presidential elections in 2012 so the campaigns, some of them have already been started. President Chavez’ candidacy has already been launched by his party the PSUV and so you know the opposition were trying to make up stories, myths and rumors speculation about his health. One saying that it was false and then the other side saying he was terminally ill and going to be out of the picture soon, which isn’t true either.

And on top of that there has been external aid to try to urge opposition figures, groups and organizations to try and promote a climate of chaos and destabilization in order to permit another coup d'tat to be executed against President Chavez and in fact just this week the Miami Herald Spanish language version, the Nuevo Herald, published a front page article basically calling on the opposition to organize conditions for a coup and also asking for help from the US government to assure that it happens and is successful, saying that this is the time to take advantage of the situation, take advantage of Chavez’s weakness and execute the coup before it is too late.

You know, making up all kinds of stories about session, that Chavez is preparing a double, I mean they are really fantasizing about things that are not happening and that have never happened. This has been an ongoing situation in Venezuela with an unfortunate opposition that has not been willing to work within the framework of democracy.

So that’s what has been going on and at the same time there is another sector of the opposition saying, “well since Chavez is sick and undergoing treatment that he should just be inhabilitated from being President and should delegate all his power and authority to the Vice President who should temporarily take over." Which is ridiculous because Chavez is not incapacitated mentally and he is fully in front of government affairs and involved in everything as he always has been and will continue to be. They have also been trying to say his absence from the country which has been authorized by the Parliament, the National Assembly, is something illegal, even thought it is not since it’s been authorized in a legal way. But the opposition says, "well he is out of the country so he’s not governing so therefore there’s a power vacuum." Which isn’t true either.

It’s not the first time. I would remind our listeners for example that US President Reagan had three cancers during his Presidency. He underwent major surgery for colon cancer right before he was reelected in 1985. There’s some evidence to show that his treatments and surgeries were conducted in Germany. So they didn’t even take place in the United States. So it’s not unusual. 

There have been several times when Presidents in Latin America for example, recently the President of Paraguay, Fernando Lugo, had lymphatic cancer and he’s been cured and that was recently while he was in the Presidency, he still is. Then Brazil's President, Dilma Rousseff, also had the same type of cancer. Before she was elected President she underwent treatment and was successfully elected President. So the treatments are out there as long as you catch it before it is too late which is what appears to be the case with President Chavez. He should fully recover and there is no reason why the opposition should try to convince public opinion internationally that Chavez isn’t governing and that there is a power vacuum.

CS: Has there been any response from the US about his illness or the calls about helping to overthrow his government?

EG: Well, the United States government is being incredibly cautious in this scenario. Chavez is considered a foe by the State Department particularly, but by of course all of the US government. So they’re playing this one pretty slowly, patiently looking at the scenario, seeing what’s going on and besides that’s in the public light. 

In terms of what is going on behind the scenes I would say certainly there are efforts and negotiations going on with the opposition groups the US has been funding now for years with US tax payer dollars. Trying to promote Chavez’s overthrow. So yeah, I mean certainly there is a sort of unspoken encouragement of anything that could remove Chavez from power. 

The fact that the Miami Herald was citing Roger Noriega who is a known figure very closely linked to the US government now for decades and was part of the Bush administration, a part of the Reagan administration. Unfortunately, even though he has incredibly ridiculous concepts of what is happening in Latin America he tends to have influence over those in power. So he is one of the ones who have been calling directly for Chavez’s overthrow now that Chavez has been diagnosed with cancer in saying that the US government should immediately send support, not just financially but militarily to insure that that happens.

CS: What would be the difference between that and the US involvement in Libya right now?

EG: Well there’s really not much difference, I mean the case in Libya is outrageous. The fact that not only did a bombing campaign begin against a country that wasn’t a threat to anybody else. I mean in terms to being a threat to a foreign nation. Those nations that have been attacking it and bombing it now for months. But on top of that, when the US government and NATO allies were unable to kill Gadhaffi basically assassinate Gadhaffi, which was the overall objective, or invoke regime change. Now they’re installing an illegitimate parallel government. So those are the types of scenarios that are incredibly dangerous precedents being set today that can be used or applied to other countries like Venezuela. I would just remind listeners again that Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world and it has just been recertified again by OPEC, the Organization of Oil Producing Countries, that Venezuela is number one in terms of oil reserves so this of course makes it a huge target of the world's most powerful interests.

CS: There are similar cases and parallels between Libya and Venezuela in that both of the countries use their wealth, their natural resources and oil wealth to improve the lives of their citizens and that means that the US oil companies and British companies can’t reap most of the profits like they did before Chavez was elected in Venezuela in 1998.

EG: That’s absolutely correct. 

A lot of people don’t actually know that Libya has the highest standard of living of all the African nations. Without passing judgment on his government there have been policies that have invested in social well being over decades now. 

In the case of Venezuela, it is new under the Chavez administration over the past decade--these policies of using oil profits to invest back into the people, invest back into the infrastructure and development of the country. And as of right now a normal expected rate of income from oil sales Venezuela invests, the government because obviously the oil is nationalized, the government invests 60 percent of all profits directly into social programs relating to health care, education, housing initiatives, job training programs and then there was a new windfall tax law enacted last year which because of increasing oil prices says that basically if oil is over 90 dollars a barrel, which it is right now, then 90 percent of oil profits coming into Venezuela are going to be invested into social programs. So I mean it really is a majority of the money coming in is being used to invest back into the people and it has had a tremendous effect. Poverty has been reduced in Venezuela by over 50 percent in the past decade. I mean that’s an immense change right there.

We have universal free accessible health care for everybody. No one is asked for insurance cards, or turned away or left to die if they can’t afford to pay for health care because there are free quality clinics everywhere that have just been built in the last few years. 

Education at all levels is accessible and it’s free, you know public education. The same goes for a whole wide variety of programs including super markets that have subsidized products to combat inflation speculation that the private markets which is a big problem in Venezuela. I mean obviously that is something that is not seen in anyway as favorable to multinationals and foreign interests. Especially because in the case of Venezuela there have been strict controls implemented on multinationals in Venezuela over the past decade that existed before but were never really implemented--such as making foreign corporations that are involved in the oil industry pay taxes and royalties on their profits. I mean things that are normal anywhere else, in Venezuela which operated as a US colony, those types of initiatives were never implemented before, now they are. 

Now companies operating in Venezuela have to abide by the law. It’s pretty straight forward as long as they are willing to do it. But when they were used to acting above the law, you know, of course then they reacted to these types of policies and it is not convenient to powerful interests that try to exploit and basically take as much as they can get out of resource wealthy nations like Venezuela.

CS: Well was that one of the reasons for the first coup attempt in April of 2002? I hope it was the first and only coup attempt. I don’t want to seem like there is another one coming. But didn’t right before it happened didn’t the national assembly pass laws to nationalize more of the oil production and profits from it under the national oil company in Venezuela?

EG: Yeah, that is correct. I mean oil was nationalized in Venezuela in 1976 so way before Chavez became president. After he was in office and there was a whole initiative for constitutional reform under a new constitution that was drafted and ratified under the national referendum by everyone in Venezuela eligible to vote. 

New laws were implemented and one of those related to hydrocarbons, the oil industry, was dealing with what I was just talking about in terms of making sure that foreign companies operating in Venezuela are paying their royalties, are paying their taxes, cannot have more than a 49 percent share in any kind of joint venture with Venezuela’s state oil companies. Otherwise it wouldn’t be a nationalized product if foreign nationals can have higher stakes than the national company. So, yeah, there was a restructuring of the industry that affected foreign interests as well as those nationally of the Venezuelan elite. 

The economic elite that was running the industry like a private company pocketing most of the products and embezzling them outside of the country to buy their big homes throughout Miami and New York and the Caribbean Islands. So actually right before the coup took place in April 2002 President Chavez had changed the entire board of Directors of PDVSA which is the state oil company. That was sort of the straw that broke the camels back. I mean that set things finally into motion that had been building up anyway, you know, with support from the US of course and other interested parties in terms of trying to get Chavez out of power. 

What Chavez did in fact was, once he was back in office after the coup was defeated by the people of Venezuela and he was rescued and returned to power to his legitimate office, was that he reinstated the Board of Directors in an attempt to reconcile and extend an olive branch to the opposition. Which was a giant mistake because they weren’t looking to reconcile or work with them. They were looking to get him out of office no matter what. 

Months after the coup and after he reinstated the board back to PDVSA they initiated a very extensive and very damaging economically strike on the oil industry; where they basically shut it down and sabotaged the entire industry. 

Venezuela lost over 20 billion dollars in just a little over 2 months. Then after that happened, it was an illegal strike anyway, but they also sabotaged all the equipment. The industry had to be rescued manually. It was functioning originally in an automated way but since everything had been sabotaged, codes had been switched. There had been control remotely that was basically running the system from the United States and so everything had to be restructured entirely. All those that were involved, because they violated their contracts were out of the industry forever basically.

So, yeah, it played an immense role in the beginning years of the Chavez administration in terms of all the destabilization that was going on. Now of course the industry is pretty firmly under the control, as it should be, of the state. But there are still pockets that exist within it a very extensive company that sabotage and you know it is Venezuela’s lifeblood. Of course the most vulnerable part of the government is the oil industry. The fact that even more so today, those funds are used for social programs in the country so it’s always a target. 

That’s why in May, May 24^th the state department imposed sanctions against Venezuela’s oil company PDVSA. The sanctions really have no teeth at all. They’re just sending a message to the world that it’s dangerous to do business with Venezuela which is what the state department actually declared with the sanctions.

CS: Except the US is still buying oil from Venezuela.

EG: That’s correct!

CS: So the US is (?) in Venezuela. But the sanctions were put on because of some sanctions with Iran, I guess. I think, "how rude of Venezuela to put Venezuela’s interests over the interests of the United States."

EG: (Laughing) Well actually that is precisely the mentality of those running the US government. In fact beyond that, imposing internal US legislation on other countries, which is not even legitimate under international law. US law has no jurisdiction or bearing on another country. 

Yet the US, because they have the capacity to impose pressure via economic means or political means, tend to use their legislation to influence other countries and other countries often abide by what the US is requesting. In the case of Venezuela, Venezuela is a sovereign state and has declared itself so and remains so and will remain so. President Chavez is pretty adamant about the fact that Venezuela is no longer a colony of the US. Venezuela has the right not have relations with any country in the world just like the United States does. Those sanctions as far as Venezuela is concerned have absolutely no legality whatsoever.

CS: Well absolutely. That brings up a couple of questions and I think that there are challenges to the continued viability of the Bolivarian Revolution and what’s happening in Venezuela.

The first one is, many supporters of Chavez and the revolution, their question is, if something does happened to him is the revolution strong enough to continue without the leadership that he’s provided?

EG: Well, President Chavez of course is a very charismatic and powerful leader--there’s no denying that whatsoever. Of course his leadership has been crucial in uniting different sectors and organizations of Venezuelan society to build this revolution. But at the same time the revolution was in motion before Hugo Chavez came to power. 

The Revolution in Venezuela is really something that is being built and being maintained and advanced by the people of Venezuela. So while yes his leadership is important it would be very difficult to imagine Venezuela taking a step backward instead of continuing to advance forward. Of course if Chavez were no longer President at some point, which he won’t be President forever, that’s not the objective or a possibility. So someone else will be in power in Venezuela some day. Certainly things will change in terms of that particular aspect of the revolution and that level of leadership.

One of the main objectives of the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela has been transferring power to the people. That entire concept is based on the notion that the people of Venezuela are going to be those that are basically running their own country and that are implementing all of the different policies and initiatives. While, yes again Chavez’s leadership is very important, there’s a whole new generation of Venezuelans that have been growing up in a different model over the past decade that have a different vision of their country, that have a stronger identity. You know their identity has been recovered, has been dignified as being Venezuelan because of this particular revolution. So, therefore, I think that there is an entire generation of leaders that are growing up in Venezuela and that are going to be the ones running the show. 

While everyone would love Chavez to be around, those that support him, as long as he can be, I don’t think it is a question of, "well if he is no longer there, there is no revolution." Then that would mean there never has been a revolution. So I think that absolutely things will continue, they will change obviously in terms of the dynamic, but there’s no question. I mean, this is a revolution of the people and the people will continue to be the ones that are changing and transforming their country.

CS: I just really want to thank you for your time and all the information that you always bring to the show. The last question would be, an economy based on oil, you know, is always very unstable. I mean it is good right now but there’s been many years where it hasn’t been good so that means that the economy fluctuates based on oil. What steps is Venezuela taking to transition itself off of an economy based on fossil fuel?

EG: The Venezuelan government has been trying to diversify industry now in the country and that’s sort of the next phase of this transformation of the revolution. You know building new industry, focusing on, Venezuela is not just oil wealthy it has a wide variety of minerals and metals in the country that are now being produced and the idea is not just to produce raw materials but also to build factories in Venezuela so that Venezuela can produce products like automobiles and a whole slew of other industries and products. So there’s a diversification in that sense of industry. And then there’s also a focus again on agriculture, which was abandoned in the early 20^th century because of the focus on oil. So Venezuela is rebuilding its agricultural industry in order to reduce its dependence on imports. But also to become a power in terms of agricultural production. 

So to have a wide variety of exports as well as to supply the people of Venezuela. At the same time though Venezuela has the largest reserves and though someday they will dry up they will at least be around for another hundred years. When they are drying up throughout the Middle East they will still be in Venezuela. Venezuela also has a large amount of water reserves. Which of course many say is the next target of powerful interests around the world. So, yeah, there are a lot of initiatives going on to decrease the dependence on oil as the only product that Venezuela produces. Absolutely.

CS: Well and I think we as a people have to decrease our dependence on oil and oil based products also. Just one last thing, I would like you to talk about the housing project in Venezuela. I think that is a very exciting thing that the government and the people are getting involved in right now.

EG: Absolutely, it is a wonderful initiative called Gran Mission Housing Venezuela. It is a government program that is involving millions of people as well as in terms of creating the program itself--training those as part of the mission. 

Housing Venezuela is a mission work social program in terms of creating jobs and the idea is to provide job training to people so they can take part and build cooperatives, to create cooperatives, to be involved in the construction of the more than 2 million homes that are being built in Venezuela presently and are expected to be completed in their totality within the next 6 years. 

The idea of course is to address the housing crisis, the long-term housing crisis that exists in Venezuela. There’s a big difference for example in the way the housing crisis has been handled in the United States and in the case of Venezuela. In the case of the United States the government bailed out banks, bailed out financial institutions, insurance companies, mortgage institutions and let all the people who lost their homes, just left them on the streets--no help to them. But in the case of Venezuela it’s been the exact opposite. 

We’ve also had scandals with companies that have committed fraud, that have scammed people, real estate companies scamming people, Banks that have also committed fraud and have been mismanaging funds. Most of the banks involved in any kind of illicit activity were actually liquidated in Venezuela--were intervened by the state--were either liquidated or nationalized. Customer savings were all protected. 

In the case of the housing industry, those companies involved in any kind of fraud have been mainly nationalized or somehow taken over or expropriated. The housing programs are all continuing in order to ensure that no one loses their home, or their future home in the case of construction projects. 

There’s also been a problem last year we had heavy rains, left over 130 thousand people homeless because of the flooding. So those have been the first priority in terms of providing homes. What the state is doing is insuring homes are available so many are being built because the housing doesn’t exist. So apartments, homes all throughout the country are being built by state,  joint private and public enterprises and then the homes will be distributed on a need basis--dealing first with those displaced by the rain. It’s not something that is just a gift. They’re examining every person, every family individually. What’s their income capacity so do they have the capacity to put down a 5 percent deposit, a ten percent deposit, a 30 percent deposit, no deposit? You know, so then no down payment, I mean. So no down payment is necessary if the person or family can’t afford it and then they are given a low interest loan, a very low interest loan, under 5 percent. You know it’s to be able to pay off the cost of the housing. The housing depending also on the income if the person is basically below the poverty line or at the poverty line then the government will subsidize 70 percent of the loan will only be 30 percent which the person or family has to pay. So it’s on an individual basis. 

There are brigades going throughout the country going door-to-door visiting people that signed up for the program and are evaluating each case. It’s also applying to those who currently have homes but need renovations that have problems with the internal structure. The government will provide a subsidy to be able to do that. The idea overall is that the government of Venezuela wants it’s people to be healthy and happy and stable. Every one knows having your own home is a huge part of feeling safe in your residence and your country. So Venezuela puts people before profits. This is another sign of that.

CS: Eva thank you so much for being on Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox. We really appreciate your work and your time in coming on and sharing all of this information with us.

EG: Well thank you Cindy. Any time.