About

The Presentation:

- Presentation on TOTB’s Disarmament Summer Campaign & Permaculture Encampment
- Information on nuclear weapons & energy industry & political climate
- Reports on the Human & Environmental costs of the nuclear bombplex & legacy
- Puppet Show
- Music Performance by Bad Heart Bull
- Special guests: local & traveling musicians, performance artists, spoken word artists; varies due to location

In More Detail: The line up will include:

(A) Musical Performance by Bad Heart Bull

Bad Heart Bull is Joseph Letke and Rebecca Riley. Our work is
dedicated to, and highly influenced by, the insurrectionary vision of
folks like Sarah Bad Heart Bull who struggle against the powers of
oppression and colonization for the dignity, humanity, and autonomy of
all peoples. Our songs deal with radical political content, ranging
from self-empowerment to dismantling oppressive power structures.

“And, lyrically speaking, Bad Heart Bull draws as much influence from
Minor Threat as they do from Pete Seeger. Call it riot country or riot
gospel, this is folk music that might actually kill fascists. Radical
in every sense.”
Review from Phoning It In: http://phoningitin.net/shows/454-Bad-Heart-Bull

(B) Spoken Word by artists Brando & Otter

Brando and Otter write and perform incendiary spoken word. Passionate,
articulate, riotous, these artists currently live and work in Chicago.
They are coming on tour to help with the very important project of
cultural change through artistic expression, as well as to travel and
learn more about nuclear weapons and power.

“I like walking around, night, strange people, doing things that don’t
happen very often, deprivation, writing, yelling poetry, political
frustration, conflict, the idea of escape, dedication, writing,
cranes, rice and work boots. But it’s not that simple.”

(C) A Puppet Show “Dr Lab’s Nuclear Adventure:”

This original puppet theatre is about the human and environmental
costs of nuclear weapons and power. Dr. Lab, a nuclear scientist, goes
on a transformative journey through “The Nature” where he meets
creatures affected by the front and back ends of the nuclear industry.

Video from our performance in Austin, TX.

(D) Speakers:

Rhianna Bahee
19 year old Dine woman from Flagstaff, Arizona. Recently went on a
1,000 mile peace walk with Footprints for Peace from Oak Ridge, TN to
New York City. Shares stories of her experience on the walk, and the
mental, spiritual and emotional effects of the mining and tourism
industries in her community and in Appalachia.

Rebecca Riley
25 year old organizer with Think Outside the Bomb from Chicago,
Illinois. Talks about the current expansion of the nuclear weapons
industry and the work TOTB is doing in its Disarmament Summer campaign
to stop complex modernization and create cultural change in this
country.

How You Can Help:

Asks for our Hosts: Sponsoring groups are asked to publicize for our event on any group calendars & newsletters, as well as to help with outreach with local media. Other asks of our hosts include:

- Arranging housing for 5 tour members
- Providing dinner for tour members
- Taking video & pictures of our presentation (we provide camera)
- Making a fundraising pitch for us during our presentation
- Helping us get 2-3 youth volunteers to assist with our event
- Assuring an honorarium of $50-300 dollars

Honorarium & Financial Sponsorship: We are trying to raise money for the tour at each stop. We are completely volunteer run, and as we have committed to going on a tour for 3 months, tour members do not have another source of income. Minimum fundraising goals per each stop are between $50 and $300. Funding for the tour helps to fund gas, as well as food for tour members. Any additional money that is raised for the tour will go toward providing free transportation for youth from across the country to attend our Permaculture Encampment near Los Alamos July 30th through August 9th. For hosts that can’t fiscally sponsor us, we must be assured that they can work on the ground to turn out enough people to raise $50-150 by “passing the hat” and other in-kind donation. Please contact us for a number of creative fundraising ideas!

Event Support & Participation: As one of our main goals for the tour is to dialogue with other anti-nuke groups, the biggest way that we can get support from other orgs is by them sending representatives to talk about the work they are doing, bring literature, news, histories, etc. The tour is an active part of a Think Outside the Bomb listening project that is in its beginning stages. We are trying to get a feel for where the anti-nuke movement is, and how we can work to reinforce and build it. Having multiple groups present can help us gain a fuller picture of what is happening in various parts of the country, and also helps to inform folks who attend our presentations about what is going on in their hometowns. Hearing current events and histories of local struggles helps us put the movement into a context that we can share as we tour the country, as well as to formalize into some sort of working people’s history project.

The Tour

Think Outside the Bomb (TOTB) will be heading out on a tour of the United States in the summer of 2010. Starting at the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review in New York City on May 1st through 3rd, we will snake our way through the country, hitting over 50 cities, before ending at the birthplace of the atomic bomb — Los Alamos, New Mexico — at the beginning of August.

TOTB is a national network of youth activists and organizers for nuclear abolition who wish to create a world free of nuclear weapons and nuclear power. We seek to build community and working knowledge through our national tour, by offering critical information on the state of the US Nuclear Industrial Bombplex, as well as a critical look at how we engage in resistance. As we travel the country this summer, we will engage in dialogue with local activists and organizing groups. We will focus on the issue of nuclear abolition and stress its intersections with other global movements, including: movements for sustainable energy, environmental movements, labor movements, and movements that oppose the state of global capitalism, among others. We will also speak of creating a positive and affirming culture of resistance, speaking of the sustainable and reciprocal infrastructures of Permaculture, as well as focusing our messaging through artistic creative expression.

2010 is an important year for raising awareness around the issues of nuclearism in our country. In May 2010, we have seen the renegotiation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). This is the year following President Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize; a prize awarded for his stated dedication to achieve a “world free of nuclear weapons,” meanwhile presiding over a country with thousands of nuclear weapons. This is a year in which a nuclear renaissance is ongoing in our country: plans to “modernize” the US’s nuclear weapons arsenal, to build a new plutonium pit production CMRR facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory, expansions of the Kansas City Bomb Plant and the Y-12 Uranium Enrichment facility in Oak Ridge, TN, as well as ongoing requests for licensing of new uranium mines and nuclear power plants throughout the country. Nuclear power is being green-washed as “clean” and “safe” by the corporations invested in its perpetuation; meanwhile, there is a considerable lack of attention being paid to clean-up, nuclear waste, and accountability for the environmental and human costs of this technology.

Through the Think Outside the Bomb National Tour, we hope to build alliances to create new infrastructures and relationships to challenge nuclear proliferation in 2010 and into the future. This year is vital for making concrete changes that will accomplish nuclear abolition in our lifetimes. Through our participation at a youth organized conference in Boise, ID, as well as an Organizational Training Convergence in New Mexico in February, a three-month national speaking tour, and a Disarmament Convergence & Action at Los Alamos in August, we will mobilize and empower hundreds of young people from communities across the country to raise their voices in the global call for nuclear abolition.

Think Outside the Bomb will also be making appearances at the NPT & International Peace Conference in NYC at the start of May, resisting a Uranium Industry Conference in Denver at the end of May, the Juneteenth Celebration of the abolition of slavery and nuclear weapons in Kansas City June 16-19, the USSF in Detroit starting June 22nd, the Y-12 convergence on July 4th weekend, and other actions across the country throughout the summer.

Think Outside the Bomb Network: http://www.thinkoutsidethebomb.org

Press Contact: Rebecca Riley
Tour Organizer and Great Lakes Regional Coordinator

More on Think Outside the Bomb

Think Outside the Bomb is a network of youth activists that organize on a grassroots level for nuclear abolition. We see our work as integrally related to many other movements, including peace and anti-war movements, indigenous struggles, environmental conservation and justice movements, anti-oppression movements (such as equality for people of color, women, and LGBTQI folks, and resistance to authoritarian and hierarchical power structures), among others. We are youth oriented, and we work to build and sustain a network of student and youth activists and organizers. In addition, we seek to build relationships with older generations of activists and organizers with whom we can share experience, knowledge, and energy.

TOTB was founded in 2005 and has held a number of national conferences, including in Santa Barbara, CA, New York City, Washington, DC, Boston, MA, and this past year in Albuquerque, NM. In this capacity, TOTB has served the function of educating attendees about the hazards and injustices linked to nuclear weapons and power, connecting activists and groups working toward a common goal around the nation and world, and spreading and preserving radical peoples’ histories of resistance to nuclearism and oppression. Through this we seek to build a knowledge and understanding of the systemic purpose for nuclear weapons and energy, its relationship to systems of power, and to create solutions and alternatives to these systems of power. In 2010, we will also be embarking on a national tour that will help us meet this last goal. In building a strong social and organizing network of resistance, and in hearing the histories and concerns of our partners in struggle, we can better organize to materially support each other.

TOTB is an autonomous project that is funded completely by private donation. Staff and organizers are solely volunteer based. Trinity Catholic Worker House in Albuquerque, New Mexico is our 501(c)(3) Fiscal Sponsor.