The Militant - April 1, 2002 -- Letters

Vol.66/No.13 April 1, 2002

Letters

Yucca Mountain site
I noted in a recent Associated Press article that the Energy Department has spent $7 billion studying the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste respository--and is now limping toward a conclusion, of sorts, that President Bush claims is based on "intense scientific scrutiny." Regardless, the issuance of a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for any facility may still be light years away, as the waste from our commercial reactors continues to grow by 2,000 tons annually.

This prompted me to look in my files for a 1984 article about the Energy Depart–ment's steps to put up "symbols or monuments so that future generations will understand they can't drill wells or otherwise intrude on these repositories," as one official said.

Among the options explored were creating a "modern Stonehenge" to ring the sites; establishing an "atomic priesthood" to produce "accumulated superstition to shun a certain area permanently"; and genetically encoding a warning in human genes through "microsurgical intervention with the human molecular blueprint."

These folks can be downright scary.

Frank Johnson
Tenants Harbor, Maine

Interested in your party
I would like to find out more about your party and organization. Do you have supporters in Israel? Is there any chance I can get your newspaper? What do you think about the conflict in Israel/Palestine and its solution? The revolution in Cuba. I am a Trotskyist, 21 years old, would like to know more about the positions of the Socialist Workers Party. Revolutionary greetings.

D.M.
Israel

Antiwar protests
In terms of concrete protests against the U.S. "war on terrorism," Militant articles like the March 18 headline article, "End imperialist assault on Afghanistan! U.S. out!" have called for "Joining marches for black lung benefits, picket lines against police brutality, strikes of nurses and meat packers, and rallies against government austerity measures."

This glaringly omits protests against the war itself. Socialists and all opponents of U.S. military aggression need to work to organize the largest possible protests against the brutal war on Afghanistan and other U.S. military interventions, as well as "joining" protests against police brutality and union struggles. I have not seen any mention of it in the Militant, but there is a national march on Washington against the war and against racist attacks on Saturday, April 20.

Joe Callahan
Minneapolis, Minnesota

The letters column is an open forum for all viewpoints on subjects of interest to working people.

Please keep your letters brief. Where necessary they will be abridged. Please indicate if you prefer that your initials be used rather than your full name.

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