No More Nuclear weapons Big event in Kansas City compoment for nuclear bomb factory

[huti]

I am going ..Anyone else want to go?? Jean

[huti]

Peace people from KC & around the country will gather Aug. 13-16

for the KC Nuclear Weapons Plant Conference


“Close It! Clean It! Don’t Repeat It!”


What’s that all about?

Well, the city of Kansas City, Missouri has sold $687 million dollars
of municipal bonds, backed by the feds, and groundbreaking has begun
for a new mind-boggling $4.8 billion dollar KC Plant, the first new
U.S. nuclear weapons plant to be built in over 30 years! It is a
complex public-private scheme that uses "urban blight" funds to
develop a soy bean field on the southern border of the city.

The current KC Plant is the primary producer of non-fissile nuclear
bomb parts - mechanical, electronic- and engineered materials.
KC makes the Bomb work! The Plant is contaminated 50 feet
underground with hundreds of hazardous chemicals and radioactive
materials, as well as the underlying water aquifer and rivers that run
nearby. Hundreds of workers have cancers and other serious illnesses,
and many have already died.

The new plant, to be built north of the former Richards Gebaur base,
is the first of three new U.S. nuclear weapons plants. The other two
are proposed for New Mexico (plutonium pits) and Tennessee (uranium
secondaries). This would expand our nuclear bomb production
capability and increase spending for nuclear weapons to the tune of
$80 billion dollars over the next 10 years!

The four-day gathering begins Fri, Aug. 13, at 6:45 pm with the KC premiere of
"Countdown to Zero" at the Tivoli, 4050 Pennsylvania, followed by a
panel discussion on the costs and consequences of nuclear weapons
production and the new START treaty.

Saturday, Aug. 14 at 10 a.m. we'll meet at Linwood United Church, 3151
Olive, for a conference featuring nuke-related nonviolence training,
science and spirituality.

At 7 p.m. Aug. 14, come to All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church at
4501 Walnut, KC, Mo., for peace-related scientific and spiritual
reflections/discussions, and at 9 p.m. enjoy entertainers

The Recipe and

Sahj Kaya!

On Sun., Aug. 15, we'll visit the current and future sites of the KC Plant!

On Mon., Aug. 16, at 10 a.m., the gathering shifts to civil resistance!

Please R.S.V.P if you plan to attend, and let us know if you will need

[huti]

Huti is going to Kansas City also..So ,we leave Friday for long journey to unknown territory(Missouri)..We may not be able to attend TPF meeting /class on Thurs(8/12)......Jean

[Tony Nuspl]

KC police arrest nuclear protesters at Honeywell construction site
By Donald Bradley
The Kansas City Star

Kansas City police arrested 14 protesters today at the construction site of a manufacturing plant that will produce parts for nuclear weapons.

The 14 were part of about 75 protesters who locked arms and walked onto the excavation site for the new $685 million Honeywell plant near Missouri 150 and Botts Road in south Kansas City. The marchers forced large earth-moving equipment to stop.

The group planted seeds and sang until police moved in. A police loudspeaker told the protesters they would be arrested if they did not disperse.

All but 14 walked back to the road. Those who refused were charged with trespassing and taken to jail.

“They made their point and we showed great patience, but when push comes to shove, we have to do what we have to do,” said Kansas City police Sgt. Kurt Schmidt

The total protesters numbered about 100. Young and old, all colors, they came from 12 states to protest what they view as America’s continued proliferation of nuclear weapons.

One sign read: “Nuclear Winter, our most promising solution to Global Warming”

The group also protested what they view as a lack of action into the health problems of workers and the environmental cleanup at the current Honeywell plant on Bannister Road.

“The federal government has fallen well short of its responsibility,” said Maurice Copeland, who identified himself as a 32-yar employee at the plant.

To reach Donald Bradley, call 816-234-4182 or send e-mail to [e-mail]

Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2010/08/16/2153596/kc-police-arrest-nucle...

[Tony Nuspl]

Jean writes from KC:

"Priests were there who were jailed w Father Berrigan... I gathered my courage and spoke with the priest who spent 14 YEARS in prison for his Plowshares actions.There were full time, big time anti nuclear weapons activists there..."

More info on Father Berrigan and the Plowshares Movement:

On September 9, 1980, Berrigan, his brother Daniel, and six others (the "Plowshares Eight") began the Plowshares Movement when they entered the General Electric Nuclear Missile Re-entry Division in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania where nose cones for the Mark 12A warheads were made. They hammered on two nose cones, poured blood on documents and offered prayers for peace. They were arrested and initially charged with over ten different felony and misdemeanor counts. On April 10, 1990, after nearly ten years of trials and appeals, the Plowshares Eight were re-sentenced and paroled for up to 23 and 1/2 months in consideration of time already served in prison. A documentary was made about this action called "In the King of Prussia" by Emile d'Antonio.

Since this action over seventy Plowshares actions have taken place around the world against weapons of war, several involving Berrigan himself.

Berrigan's final Plowshares action was in December 1999, when he and others banged on A-10 Warthog warplanes in an anti-war protest at the Middle River Air National Guard base. He was convicted of malicious destruction of property and sentenced to 30 months. He was released December 14, 2001. In his lifetime he had spent about 11 years in jails and prisons for civil disobedience.

Phil's wife, Elizabeth McAlister, and others, maintain Jonah House in Baltimore- and a web site that details all Plowshares and other actions can be googled.

Howard Zinn, professor emeritus at Boston University, has said, "Mr. Berrigan was one of the great Americans of our time. He believed war didn't solve anything. He went to prison again and again and again for his beliefs. I admired him for the sacrifices he made. He was an inspiration to a large number of people."

In one of his last public statements, Berrigan said,

"The American people are, more and more, making their voices heard against Bush and his warrior clones. Bush and his minions slip out of control, determined to go to war, determined to go it alone, determined to endanger the Palestinians further, determined to control Iraqi oil, determined to ravage further a suffering people and their shattered society. The American people can stop Bush, can yank his feet closer to the fire, can banish the war makers from Washington D.C., can turn this society around and restore it to faith and sanity."

Philip Berrigan died of cancer at the age of 79 in Baltimore, Maryland, in 2001. He is buried at Jonah House. He was survived by his wife, Elizabeth McAlister, and their three children, Frida Berrigan, Jerry Berrigan, and Kate Berrigan.

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Berrigan

[Tony Nuspl]

Ex-Catholic priest, Frank Cordaro of the Phil Berrigan Catholic Worker House in DM IA, remarked:

"It's an honor to be here and get busted! We risk arrest to awaken people from a kind of psychic numbing about the plant. We stand for an alternative to the war economy; we try to temper the U.S. death wish as an empire. Catholic Workers see people hungry; we feed them. We see violence perpetrated by governments; we resist. It's just that simple. It is not an accident that nine of the fourteen arrested come from Midwest Catholic Worker communities. The Catholic Worker movement is a radical lay movement in the USA Catholic Church. Pacifist and nonviolent peace activist, we are best known for our houses of hospitality were we do the Works of Mercy; feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, sheltering the homeless and give drink to the thirsty. We live and work daily with the poor who suffer directly from the miss use of our national resources, directed towards making nuclear bombs, keeping the rich rich and the poor poor. We know first hand, that even if these god awful bombs are never used, they kill the poor daily by denying them the resources needed to meet their most basic needs."

http://www.arabisto.com/article/Blogs/Eileen_Fleming/The_Fire_of_Re...

The Arrested:

Josh Armfield, Cherith Brook CW, KC MO
Eric Garbison, Cherith Brook CW, KC MO
Frank Cordaro, DMCW IA
Ed Bloomer, DMCW IA
Rachael Hoffman, Holy Family CW KC MO
Gina Cook, Holy Family CW KC MO
Steve Jacobs , Columbia MO CW
Robby Jones, Columbia MO CW
Brian Terrell , Maloy IA CW
Beth Seberger, KC MO
Donna Constantinean, KC MO
Felice Cohen-Joppa, Nulcear Resister , Tucson AZ
Fr Jerry Zawada,
Steve Clemens, Mipls MN

Those arrested were released without having to post bail after agreeing to appear in court in October. Frank Cordaro, who traveled from a Catholic Worker House in Iowa, showed no remorse.

“It is a shame for Kansas City’s civic and corporate leaders to allow this death plant,” he said after his release.

Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2010/08/16/2154374/police-arrest-proteste...

The cost the new manufacturing plant in south Kansas City that will produce parts for nuclear bombs is estimated at $685 million. Not including cost of clean up of the old plant, used for similar purposes, also in KCMO.

Fourteen private bondholders will reap a government guarantee that their $687 million 2010 investment will yield at minimum $1.2 billion in rent, a solid 5% annual return. We can label them war profiteers.

The KC plant will be America's first new major nuclear weapons production facility in 32 years and America is also building new sites at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee,which produces uranium components for WMDs and Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico which is home to plutonium pits.

The current Kansas City facility produces 85% of the non-nuclear components for the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2010/08/16/2154374/police-arrest-proteste...

[Tony Nuspl]

Statement of Resistance to Nuclear Weapons Production in Kansas City, Mo., Aug. 16
--posted online by kcnukeswatch, August 16, 2010

FOR RELEASE 10 a.m. Aug. 16, 2010

Contacts: Ann Suellentrop, 913-271-7925 and Henry Stoever, 913-375-0045

PeaceWorks, Kansas City

Physicians for Social Responsibility, Kansas City Chapter

East Meets West of Troost


Peace Activists from KC and Many States to Commit Civil Resistance at KC Site for New Nuclear Weapons Production Plant

“No new nuke plant! Clean up the current plant!” say peace activists from 12 states and local Kansas Citians who will join in or support civil resistance at 10 a.m. Monday, Aug. 16, at Mo. Hwy. 150 and Botts Road. Caterpillars and backhoes are being used to clear the ground and prepare it for building the new Kansas City Plant there, replacing the current contaminated plant at Bannister Federal Complex. The KC Plant makes or procures non-nuclear components for the nation’s nukes, including firing systems, guidance systems and reservoirs for tritium.

These groups are sending representatives to the civil resistance: the three main sponsors, PeaceWorks-KC, Physicians for Social Responsibility-KC, and East Meets West of Troost; as well as Alliant Action of Missouri; Cherith Brook Catholic Worker of Kansas City; Dallas Peace Center; Des Moines Catholic Worker; Holy Family Catholic Worker of Kansas City; Iraq Veterans Against the War of Manhattan, Kan.; Just Peace (Dallas); Native American Solidarity Group of Columbia, Mo.; Nuclear Resister of Tucson, Ariz.; NukeWatch, New Mexico; Oak Ridge (Tenn.) Environmental Peace Alliance; Peace Economy Project of St. Louis; St. Francis Catholic Worker of Columbia, Mo.; Strangers and Guests Catholic Worker from Maloy, Iowa; St. Louis Catholic Worker; Tulsa Peace Fellowship; We Are Wide Awake of Clermont, Fla.; and other groups.

The resisters will deliver this statement to workers and officials at the site for the new KC Plant.

Statement of Resistance to Nuclear Weapons Production in Kansas City, Mo., Aug. 16

We are gathered today, August 16, 2010, at the site of the future nuclear weapons production plant in Kansas City, Missouri, to protest the continued manufacture of U.S. nuclear weapons.

We also denounce the existence of the current Kansas City facility, where 85% of the non-nuclear components for the U.S. nuclear arsenal are produced, and demand its closure and clean-up.

The current plant and the future plant threaten the health and well-being of workers, our environment and the Kansas City community. The new plant is the recipient of funding by the city government through the explicit misdirection of funds intended for the improvement of urban blight.

The 1970 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty requires an end to all planning, preparation, production, threat, or use of nuclear weapons and adherence to the fundamental rules and principles of Humanitarian Law. Further, ratified treaties are enshrined by the U.S. Constitution as supreme laws of the land. Building the first new U.S. nuclear weapons production facility in 32 years is in obvious violation of these laws.

The cardinal rules and principles of humanitarian law require that civilians never be the object of attack and prohibit weapons that are incapable of distinguishing between civilians and military targets.

The International Court of Justice found that the destructive power of nuclear weapons cannot be contained in either space or time, and nuclear weapons have the potential to destroy all civilization and the entire ecosystem of the planet, and thus are illegal. In keeping with the Nuremburg Principles, we choose to act nonviolently rather than be complicit.

The intended use of the new Kansas City Plant is to improve and extend the life of nuclear weapons. Any complicity in planning, preparation, threatening to use or use of these weapons is a crime against peace, war crime and crime against humanity.

Under principles of democracy we exercise the right of every citizen of this republic and this planet to peacefully resist the nuclear threat that attacks every core concept of human rights.

We act to exercise our basic rights to life and freedom from violence and we exercise our duty to protect children and future generations.

We act to ensure that our government fulfills its promise and responsibilities to unequivocally pursue and achieve nuclear disarmament in good faith.

We call on national, state and local Kansas City government to end the use of our tax dollars for the waging of permanent war and to demand the clean-up of all chemical and radioactive contamination.

###

[Tony Nuspl]

Breaking News: Plutonium Stored at KC Plant

 

Jean writes on SGC local discussion board, in Green Country (Northeast Oklahoma):

 

Our friends in Kansas City who have been trying to stop an brand new, expensive Nuclear Bomb component plant are shocked to learn that all these years Plutonium was stored at the old Honeywell Bomb factory. They were lied to...  Imagine that. Now they have further info to explain worker deaths.......

--- On Wed, 3/30/11, KC nuke plant watch wrote:

Plutonium is stored at Kansas City Plant, according to Department of Energy report

By Nadia Pflaum, Wed., Mar. 30 2011 @ 10:00AM

Thanks, inter-library loan!

​

According to a 1994 Department of Energy report, 10 "packages" of plutonium totaling 1.2 grams of the highly radioactive element are stored at the Kansas City Plant.

The report contradicts longtime assurances from the plant's owner, Honeywell, and government agencies including the National Nuclear Security Administration, the General Services Administration and EPA Region 7 that the Kansas City Plant manufactures only non-nuclear parts for nuclear weapons.

The report, Plutonium Working Group Report on Environmental, Safety and Health Vulnerabilities Associated With the Department's Plutonium Storage, Volume 1, was obtained by the University of Missouri-Kansas City's Miller Nichols Library via inter-library loan.

The Bannister Federal Complex is under scrutiny due to reports of workers both in the nuke factory and in the neighboring GSA buildings, past and present, who became sick or died from exposure to beryllium and other toxic chemicals used in the plant's manufacturing.

Maurice Copeland, a retired Kansas City Plant worker who has led whistle-blowing efforts seeking compensation for sick workers, wants answers about the plutonium on-site. "Where was it? How many times did it move? Was it in my department?" Copeland asks. "I want to know that. This has to do with my health and my family's health. I should be able to know that."

The Pitch has directed questions to media spokespeople with the plant, its owners at Honeywell, the NNSA, the DOE and EPA Region 7. The plant's NNSA representatives issued this response this morning:

The Kansas City Plant does not process or store special nuclear material.  As is common in manufacturing industries, sealed radioactive sources are utilized in analytical devices for quality control and calibration of components. At the KCP, a very small amount of sealed plutonium (less than 2 grams) is used in these types of commercially available tools which are routinely inspected.

David Bryan, the public-affairs specialist for EPA Region 7, tells The Pitch: "Unless the plutonium becomes a waste product, there is no reason for it to be reported to EPA."

Check out this table from the report, titled, Facility materials/packaging information, Sites with small plutonium holdings: [go to original article for the tables]

 

tags; Bannister Federal Complex, Honeywell, Kansas City Plant, Maurice Copeland, plutonium

[Tony Nuspl]

update 24 July 2011

Anti-nuclear protesters fill a Kansas City courtroom

No jail time for Kansas City nuclear bomb plant protesters

By Frank Cordaro , Des Moines Catholic Worker
[e-mail]

Something happened in the Kansas City Municipal Court that doesn’t happen very often.  A judge revealed her true self to the court. The judge shared that she too had concerns about nuclear weapons and the new parts plant being built.

As more and more protesters came before Judge Franco, it became clear that she was not going to send anyone to jail.

http://www.nukeresister.org/2011/07/24/anti-nuclear-protesters-fill...

 

[Tony Nuspl]

Update on the peace and disarmament community in Kansas City, Missouri

By Lawrence S. Wittner

Sept 5th, 2011

 

Should the U.S. government be building more nuclear weapons?  Residents of Kansas City, Missouri don’t appear to think so, for they are engaged in a bitter fight against the construction of a new nuclear weapons plant in their community.

The massive plant, 1.5 million square feet in size, is designed to replace an earlier version, also located in the city and run by the same contractor:  Honeywell.  The cost of building the new plant—which, like its predecessor, will provide 85 percent of the components of America’s nuclear weapons—is estimated to run $673 million. 

From the standpoint of the developer, Centerpoint Zimmer (CPZ), that’s a very sweet deal.  In payment for the plant site, a soybean field it owned, CPZ received $5 million.  The federal government will lease the property and plant from a city entity for twenty years, after which, for $10, CPZ will purchase it, thus establishing the world’s first privately-owned nuclear weapons plant.  In addition, as the journal Mother Jones has revealed, “the Kansas City Council, enticed by direct payments and a promise of ‘quality jobs,’ . . . agreed to exempt CPZ from property taxes on the plant and surrounding land for twenty-five years.”  The Council also agreed to issue $815 million in bond subsidies from urban blight funds to build the plant and its infrastructure.  In this lucrative context, how could a profit-driven corporation resist?

Kansas City residents, however, had greater misgivings.  They wondered why the U.S. government, already possessing 8,500 nuclear weapons, needed more of them.  They wondered what had happened to the U.S. government’s commitment to engage in treaties for nuclear disarmament.  They wondered how the new weapons plant fit in with the Obama administration’s pledge to build a world free of nuclear weapons.  And they wondered why they should be subsidizing the U.S. military-industrial complex with their tax dollars.

Taking the lead, the city’s peace and disarmament community began protests and demonstrations against the proposed nuclear weapons plant several years ago.  Gradually, Kansas City PeaceWorks (a branch of Peace Action) pulled together the local chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility, religious groups, and others into a coalition of a dozen organizations, Kansas City Peace Planters.  The coalition’s major project was a petition campaign to place a proposition on the November 8, 2011 election ballot that would reject building a plant for weapons and utilize the facility instead for “green energy” technologies.

The significance of the Kansas City nuclear weapons buildup was also highlighted by outside forces.  In June 2011, against the backdrop of the Obama administration’s plan to spend $185 billion for modernization of the U.S. nuclear weapons complex over the next ten years, the U.S. Council of Mayors voted unanimously for a resolution instructing the president to join leaders of the other nuclear weapons states in implementing U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s five-point plan for the elimination of all nuclear weapons by the year 2020.  It also called on Congress to terminate funding for modernization of the U.S. nuclear weapons complex and nuclear weapons systems.  Addressing the gathering, the U.N. leader declared that “the road to peace and progress runs through the world’s cities and towns,” a statement that drew a standing ovation.

Even more pointedly, Archbishop Francis Chullikatt, the Vatican’s ambassador to the United Nations, appeared in Kansas City in July 2011.  According to the National Catholic Reporter, Chullikat “came to this Midwestern diocese because it is the site of a major new nuclear weapons manufacturing facility, the first to be built in the country in thirty-three years.”  In his address, the prelate remarked:  “Viewed from a legal, political, security and most of all—moral—perspective, there is no justification today for the continued maintenance of nuclear weapons.”  This was the moment, he declared, to address “the legal, political and technical requisites for a nuclear-weapons-free world.”  Highlighting Chullikatt’s speech, the National Catholic Reporter declared, cuttingly:  “The U.S. trudges unheedingly down the nuclear path.  Now more than ever we need to attend to the messages of the often marginalized peacemakers in our midst.”

Actually, peace activists in Kansas City looked less and less marginalized.  Nearly 5,000 Kansas City residents signed the petition to place the proposition rejecting the nuclear weapons plant on the ballot, giving it considerably more signatures than necessary to appear before the voters. 

Naturally, this popular uprising came as a blow to the Kansas City Council, which put forward a measure that would block the disarmament initiative from appearing on the ballot. 

At an August 17 hearing on the Council measure, local residents were irate.  “You cannot divorce yourselves from the hideously immoral purpose of these weapons,” one declared, comparing the city’s subsidy for the weapons plant to financing Nazi gas chambers “for the sake of ‘jobs.’”  Referring to the Council’s charter, which provided for the appearance of propositions on the ballot when they secured the requisite number of signatures, the chair of PeaceWorks asked:  “Are we a government of laws or of . . . corporations and special interests?”

Since then, the situation has evolved rapidly.  On August 25, the City Council voted 12 to 1 to bar the proposition from the ballot.  The next day, the petitioners went to court to block Council interference.  Honeywell, CPZ, and their friends dispatched a large legal team to Kansas City to fight against the citizens’ initiative, securing a court decision that might delay redress for years.  In response, Peace Planters seems likely to speed up the process by crafting a new petition—one that would cut off city funding for the plant.

Whatever the outcome, the very fact that such a struggle has emerged indicates that many Americans are appalled by plans to throw their local and national resources into building more nuclear weapons.

Byline:Dr. Wittner is Professor of History at the State University of New York/Albany. His latest book is Confronting the Bomb: A Short History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement (Stanford University Press).

http://hnn.us/articles/9-5-11/kansas-city-here-it-comes-a-new-nucle...

[Tony Nuspl]

update 18 Apr 2012, from Kathy Kelly:

There were other actions this weekend. Many people came together in Kansas City, Mo., for a well-organized session of community building and planning. Lu Mountenay, Mark Kenney, Henry Stoever, and Midge Potts were arrested for crossing the line at a Kansas City factory that manufactures “non-nuclear parts for nuclear weapons” and is the size of 13 football fields! The momentum here ensures that there are more actions to come. We all felt very proud of and moved by the people who committed civil resistance, and we were grateful for all the many people who helped the weekend activity happen (who are honestly too numerous to name).

(just a paragraph from a longer article)

http://original.antiwar.com/kathy-kelly/2012/04/17/for-you-a-thousa...

[Tony Nuspl]

Kansas City Activists: City Shouldn’t Finance Nukes

by Rachel MacNair 07-25-2012

Kansas City, Mo., is in a unique position — it's the only city in the country where, this November, local voters will have a say over U.S. nuclear weapons policy.

That’s because the city council arranged a deal to finance a new nuclear weapons parts plant there; local bonds were issued and a local agency (the Planned Industrial Expansion Authority, PIEA) owns the plant. This is entirely unprecedented; nowhere else in the world has any entity other than a national government had direct financial involvement in nuclear weapons production.

Several years ago, the federal government decided to close and replace an earlier plant in Kansas City which made nuclear weapons parts — to “modernize” nuclear weapons rather than phasing them out. The old plant, like the new one, makes non-nuclear components, such as fuses and casings, which constitute about 85 percent of the weapons. The city council, anxious about losing jobs if the new plant were to be built elsewhere, arranged the local financing.

This unique set-up offers a unique opportunity. Unlike anywhere else in the U.S., the arrangements enable voters to influence national nuclear weapons policy. A first attempt was made by a local coalition called Kansas City Peace Planters to give city voters a say over the plant, and that hit a roadblock. A second attempt was to give city voters a say over the financing, but the law had placed the bureaucracy which was in charge (PIEA) out of reach of the voters. 

One attempt was successful — a proposal that the city make conversion plans for a new product or products to safeguard the jobs in the event that the federal government did decide to abandon the plant. Once the signatures were verified, that one didn’t even have to go to ballot — the City Council passed it unanimously. This could be a good strategy for other cities of the nuclear weapons complex as well. 

But while previous contracts can’t be undone, the third round of petition signatures collected enough to put on an initiative on the November 6 ballot. It would prevent Kansas City from doing local financing in the future for any proposed expansions or improvements at the plant. More importantly, a winning vote would also send a powerful message to decision-makers in Washington, D.C.

Plant opponents can anticipate being badly outspent, of course. Being a grassroots group with little money is one of their greatest weaknesses — and one of their greatest strengths. The no-vote government agencies and corporations have one kind of power, but plant opponents have another: person-to-person contact, a chance to frame the issue first, and to put the focus where it belongs — before the barrage of ads with distractions. Local churches are among the most vocal supporters of the measure, and the signature-gathering couldn’t have succeeded without them. Along with colleges, libraries, and civic organizations, there are many gathered groups for the face-to-face contact.      

There is also one other major opportunity: the final election before November, the state-wide primary for state-wide offices comes on August 7. This should have high turnout, and offers the last chance to reach and persuade a concentration of people we know vote at a time when they’re interested in information on the next election. This coincides nicely with the annual Hiroshima-Nagasaki anniversaries, a high point for nuclear weapons protest.

http://sojo.net/blogs/2012/07/25/kansas-city-activists-city-shouldn...

[Tony Nuspl]

July 13th 2013

Two dozen arrested in nuclear-plant protest

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Two dozen people were arrested Saturday morning for trespassing at the entrance to the National Nuclear Security Administration’s new south Kansas City complex in a peaceful protest against the nuclear weapons that will soon be built there.

Scheduled for completion sometime next year, the plant at 150 Hwy and Botts Road will replace the current nuclear-bomb-parts plant at the Bannister Federal Complex at Bannister and Holmes, now operated by Honeywell Federal Manufacturing and Technologies. The plant does not work with fissile material, although it does make up to 85 percent of the non-nuclear parts of some of the nation’s nuclear weapons.

The protestors were organized by the local chapter of PeaceWorks to coincide with Nuclear Abolition Week, July 6-13. About 100 people gathered at the site, praying, singing songs and speaking against nuclear weapons, before 23 of them crossed the property line and refused to leave, inviting arrest.

http://www.kshb.com/dpp/news/local_news/nearly-two-dozen-arrested-i...