Deconstructing the Doomsday Machine
Denuclearization Now
By James Heddle, Mary Beth Brangan - EON Crossposted on NoNukesCA
Protests at California’s Thermonuclear Bomb Factory
Every year now for more than a decade advocates of peace and denuclearization have converged on the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California to commemorate Hiroshima Day, the anniversery of the droping of America’s first atomic bomb on Japan on August 6, 1945.
Livermore Lab, which has billed itself on its website as “The Smartest Place on Earth,” is a key node in the U.S. network of nuclear weapons research, development and production - a perpetually on-going process consuming billions of dollars each year.
The yearly non-violent Livermore demonstrations, organized by Tri-Valley Cares and a coallition of sister organizations, has historically involved a rally and a march and ritualized ‘die-in’ at the Laboratory Gates.
Each year a regular keynote speaker at the ralleys has been the late, legendary Pentagton Papers whistlebolwer Daniel Ellsberg who died this June 16. Along with other video producers, EON has documented many of the past years’ events.
This year, Ed Ellworth of Enlightened Films has been commissioned to produce a video compendium of Ellsberg’s rally talks from past years. We’re glad to have been able to contribute footage to the project. Here is the result.
A Review of Ellesberg’s book Doomeday Machine
We also want to honor Ellsberg by sharing this 2018 Counterpunch article.
Rational Insanity: the Mad Logic of America’s Nuclear ‘Doomsday Machine’
by James Heddle
James Heddle Co-Directs EON, the Ecological Options Network with Mary Beth Brangan. The EON feature documentary S.O.S. - The San Onofre Syndrome - Nuclear Power’s Legacy will be released later this year.