December 27, 2007 at 16:28:17

California's Nuke Weapons Laboratory Creates Anxiety

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By Cathy Garger (about the author) Page 1 of 3 page(s)

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For OpEdNews: Cathy Garger - Writer

The recent article at InsideBayArea.com, "Lab's Changes Cause Staff Anxiety," discusses the downgrading of the managerial role - and alleged lessened involvement - of the University of California at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory outside San Francisco.

The slant of this piece tries to make us feel sorry for academia at the University of California who no longer get to boast about being Big Nuke Scientists on Campus and hog all the limelight for their role in genocidal weapons-making at the Lab!

The federal Department of Energy, as obedient handmaidens for the DoD, along with the University of California, are designing - and exploding - radioactive weapons into the open air, about 40 miles outside San Francisco.

Have you heard of "Depleted” Uranium before, the munitions made from nuclear processing that the US military fires in Iraq and Afghanistan from our aircraft, tanks, and guns? If not, simply do a search for “Depleted Uranium” plus “Doug Rokke” or “Leuren Moret” or “Rosalie Bertell” and you will get the education of a lifetime.

Uh, yeah, there's certainly anxiety in California alright - at least among those who know what goes on at that nuclear weapons Laboratory - and it sure doesn't have much of anything to do with UC professors losin' academic notoriety or esteem.

But first let's discuss the UC scientists who like to play with nuke bombs technology for a living. It now appears that UC is playing a more subdued role and is at least not as publicly showcased as manager of California's weapons lab any longer.

The tone of this piece is such that we are almost moved to get out the violins and Kleenex for the poor, poor UC academics who now have to share some of the credit and glory for blowing up radioactively *hot* Uranium in our faces for a living.

So while we are being made to feel sympathy for an institution of higher learning that does not get to star in a leading role for its diabolical work in genocidal orchestration? Let us not be taken as fools and believe for even a minute that the University's part in Livermore Lab's deeds has ended.

Clearly, the skilled expertise of UC’s top scientists is very much needed and desired. Most assuredly, UC will go right on assisting the private firm running the weapons laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC and its partners, Bechtel National, BWX Technologies, Texas A & M University, Washington Group International, and national weapons laboratory manager, Battelle, as they perform their nuclear dirty work ensemble both at Livermore’s indoor laboratory and outdoor explosion areas.

Putting a corporation in charge of the Lab - at least on paper - is obviously a much better "business" strategy for a federal government interested in maximizing profits and minimizing federal liabilities, health, disability, and death claims benefits. Privatization of US-manufactured casualties is, after all, what this administration is all about.

With regard to UC scientists being played in this piece as "demoted," one surmises this is truly how it might feel to some academics there. Certainly one can understand why UC employees would find the twisted sense of glory and "perks" that radioactive weapons design and implementation has afforded them in the past to be immensely lucrative, desirable, and ego-swelling to boot.

Getting a rise out of designing and using instruments of mass destruction, regardless of the number of higher degrees one may posses in disciplines like physics and nuclear science, does not, however, indicate the presence of normal psyche functioning. One does not need an advanced shrink degree, after all, to know that these guys are frickin' nuts! I mean, who in their right mind goes off to work in the morning with coffee and donut in hand, thinking, Hmm... after I help design an even more lethal nuclear bomb today and explode deadly radioactive materials outside in an open area where 7,000,000 babies, children, women, and men live, work, and play within 50 miles of San Francisco... I think I'll rent a movie and get a veggie lovers’ pizza tonight?

Regardless of who receives - and who loses - all the credit and glory and prestige [sic] for playing the Lead Role in US poison gas weapons design and delivery? This supremely critical fact still remains: No matter who’s running the show, we are still nuking our own, in the open air, right here at home.

As we speak, the greater San Francisco Bay Area nuclear weapons laboratory is still dispersing - via open air explosions - 1,000 lbs. annually (perhaps soon to be 8,000 lbs.) of lethal, chemically toxic, radioactive aerosols such as Uranium oxide into the air that 10 million people in the densely populated greater San Francisco Bay/San Jose area are trying to breathe.

And while blasting one thousand pounds of “Depleted” Uranium into the air every year for 46 years straight may not seem like very much compared to the tons of it we are using on the Muslim world in the Middle East? Still, consider that just one invisible sub-micron size nano-particle we inhale that becomes lodged in our lung can stay there for decades, wrecking havoc on our bodies, causing cell death, mutation, and disease in the years to follow.

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www.mytown.ca/garger

Cathy Garger is a freelance writer, public speaker, activist, and a certified personal coach who specializes in Uranium weapons. Living in the shadow of the national District of Crime, Cathy is constantly nauseated by the stench emanating from (more...)

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