[Organize] Aug 6 - 9 ; draft of call to action

[ralph hutchison]

Friends,

I am attaching comments (revising using track changes) with only a few 
changes, the most significant being a paragraph at the end asking 
people to join in the call. I don' t know if we have the web capability 
to add signers on-line, but I suspect David can do this; if so, I think 
we should ask people to sign on and keep it open.

I have a couple questions:

First, I wonder if we need paragraph 2 under the Why Bechtel—this is 
about Bechtel and Iran's nuclear program. It will sound good to the 
choir, but a little speculative to those outside the fold, and I don't 
know that it strengthens our call. Letting it go would streamline it 
and maintain a clearer focus.

Second, do we have documentation of Bechtel's role in the Hiroshima and 
Nagasaki bombs? (This is likely on a fact sheet I have failed to read 
somewhere) I don' t know of a role in Oak Ridge.

Third, I don't know that I would single out sites in the call—I would 
rather refer people to the growing on-line list at August6.org.

That's all. Sorry this is so last minute.

Peace,
Ralph


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On Jun 19, 2006, at 4:55 AM, Jackie Cabasso wrote:

Dear all -- I want to thank David Meiran for his TREMENDOUS job 
drafting a
national "call to action" for Aug. 6 & 9!  I would, however, very much 
like
to see this coming out of UFPJ as a national call.  I think this would 
only
require very minor changes.  My slightly revised version is below.  The
Word verision, showing changes, using the "track changes" feature is
attached.  Talk to you all on the conference all. -- Jackide

DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT

CALL TO ACTION: August 6-9, 2006
> From Hiroshima to the Middle East: Stop Bechtel!
No Nukes, No Wars, No Profiteers!

This August, as we remember the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, we call on local and regional groups  to protestat Bechtel?s
corporate offices and nuclear facilities. Our aim is to expose the
hypocrisy of U.S. threats against
Iran and to directly confront the U.S. corporations who are perpetuating
and profiting from a worldwide nuclear crisis and the war in Iraq.

Why Bechtel?

Bechtel is the world?s #1 nuclear profiteer. It is also a leading
beneficiary of the Iraq war and corporate globalization policies in
general.

Bechtel ?connects the dots? for the anti-war, anti-nuke and global 
justice
movements. Through its sordid corporate history and 100 years of
revolving-door relationships with government, Bechtel illustrates the
connections between profiteering and war, between nuclear power and
nuclear weapons proliferation, between ?free trade? and the 
exploitation of
indigenous peoples, and between corporate power-brokers and 
decision-makers
at the highest levels of government. Here are just a few examples:

1. Bechtel built the petrochemical plants that allowed Iraq to make the
chemical weapons used against Iran. When Saddam Hussein dashed Bechtel?s
hopes to build an oil pipeline through Iraq,  Bechtel lobbied for war
(through the auspices of such figures as George Shultz, former 
president of
Bechtel, Reagan?s Secretary of State and co-founder of the Committee for
the Liberation of Iraq). Now  Bechtel is receiving $2.5 billion to 
rebuild
Iraq?s infrastructure that it helped to destroy, and it is laying the
groundwork for more lucrative deals through Iraq?s water privatization.

2. Bechtel was originally contracted to build Iran?s first nuclear power
plant, before the fall of the Shah?s regime, under U.S. President Jimmy
Carter. As was the case with Hussein, Iran?s government is still 
standing
in the way of unfettered investment by U.S. corporations. Iran, the only
remaining Middle Eastern oil-rich country that isn?t likely to 
capitulate
to the Bush Administration?s plans for a Middle East FreeTrade Area, is 
now
being threatened by the U.S., just as Iraq was three years ago.

3. Bechtel had a hand in developing the atomic bombs dropped on 
Hiroshima
and Nagasaki. Now  it?s receiving over $20 (?) billion to help manage
National Nuclear Security Administration facilities, including the 
Nevada
Test Site, the Y-12 National Security Complex and Oak Ridge National
Laboratory in Tennessee, the Pantex Plant in Texas, the Savannah
River Site in South Carolina, the Kwajalein missile range off the 
Marshal
Islands, the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, and the 
Bettis
Atomic Power Laboratory in Pittsburgh.

4. Bechtel has built the majority of nuclear power plants in the U.S. 
and
around the world (sometimes violating safdty guidelines while doing so).
Now it is  ?double-dipping? by earning billions of dollars to clean up 
the
radioactive waste itsplants are generating. One example is Bechtel?s 
$1.9
billion contract to build the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste depository on
lands belonging to the Western Shoshone Nation, which rightfully worries
that the waste will contaminate their groundwater (which, incidentally,
Bechtel earlier polluted through its gold-mining operations
). Now Bechtel is poised to rake in even more money as the Bush
administration paves the way for the construction of more nuclear power
plants, at the further expense of the environment and indiginous 
peoples.

Where to protest?

Bechtel has many facilities and offices scattered across the country: 
See
www.August6.org for a list. Plans are underway for protests at most of 
the
major nuclear facilities, so one option your group might want to 
consider
is organizing a bus trip to one of the larger convergences, such as in 
the
Bay Area or Pittsburgh. Others options might be to organize a protest 
at a
nuclear power plant that Bechtel built, or simply at another nuclear
profiteer?s facility or office, such as BWX Technlogies, Lockheed 
Martin or
Raytheon.

Please do whatever is appropritate for your group, be it marches, civil
disobedience, citizen?s inspections, Shadow Projects, events that 
promote
the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Commitments Act (H. Res. 373),
teach-ins, or direct education and outreach. We especially encourage 
civil
disobedience and nonviolent direct action because now is the time to
escalate and use our people power to confront  key pillars of war and
empire -- including corporations like Bechtel.

At the 2004 World Social Forum, Arundahati Roy called on people to 
identify
and locate the offices of Iraq war profiteers ?in every city and every
country across the world? and ?go after them.? She continued, ?We could
shut them down. It?s a question of bringing our collective wisdom and
experience of past struggles to bear on a single target. It?s a 
question of
the desire to win.?

Can we win?

Yes! Indigenous resistance in Cochabamba forced the government of 
Bolivia
to cancel Bechtel?s contract after the company privatized Cochabamba?s
water systems and sent prices skyrocketing. In San Francisco, activists
helped to defeat Bechtel?s plans to privatize water in their hometown.
Recently, the Western Shoshone Nation and its supporters helped to 
postpone
indefinitely the ?Divine Strake? simulated nuclear test explosion at the
Nevada Test Site, that could have exposed people who live downwind from 
a
dust cloud of radioactive particulates.

Who are we?

This call was initiated by  an ad hoc coalition of local and regional
groups organizing actions on August 6-9th. We have come together to 
support
each others?actions through organizational outreach, natiional media
coordination, shared research and resources, and a website that serves 
as a
clearinghouse of information and materials for the August actions.

Our efforts are intended to compliment the United Nations?s call for an
Indigenous Peoples Day (Aug. 9), Global Call Iraq?s call for civil
resistance to end the Iraq occupation (Aug. 6-9), the War Resister?s 
League
?Stop the Merchants of Death? campaign and its forthcoming
conference on war profiteering (Sept. 29-Oct. 2), United for Peace and
Justice?s Nuclear Disarmament Campaign, and growing efforts to link
together the anti-nuclear, anti-war, anti-corporate globalization and
indigenous rights movements around common themes. We also hope to build
momentum for the September 21-28 week of resistance to end the 
occupation
of Iraq (www.declarationofpeace.org, www.globalcalliraq.org).

The United States is the ONLY country that has used nuclear weapons in 
war.
As war and occupation continue in Iraq and Afghanistan, and as the Bush
Administration foments a nuclear crisis in Iran at the same time it 
pushes
for more nuclear power plants and nuclear weapons here at home, we say 
NO
to nukes, NO to wars, no to profiteers, and YES to the sovereignty of
indigenous people around the world.

Visit www.August6.org to find more information about Bechtel, our 
various
actions, ideas or tools to organize your own events during August 6-9th.

Signed,

[list of groups]



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