Podcaster’s After-Report: A Walk in a Nuclear Desert
I am a teacher and podcaster – amongst other things. It is my joy to talk with people who are a positive force for their immediate and wider communities. Many times, we talk in neighborhood bars – places where difference and diversity do not impede respectful conversations.
For the past three Passovers / Easters, I have gone to the Mojave Desert to walk and talk with participants of the Nevada Desert Experience’s [NDE] “Sacred Peace Walk” [SPW]. Last week my podcast partner and I posted a video at the end of each day of the 60 mile walk from Las Vegas, past Creech Air Force Base, ending at the entrance to the Nevada National Security Site [NNSS] where 928 nuclear bombs were detonated between 1951 and 1992 — 100 were atmospheric and 828 were underground. We asked them why they were walking in the desert this year. See “Why We Walk”
Answers were varied and personal, and I noted that none called for a specific change in the American military policy of nuclear deterrence – a policy that benefits arms manufacturers and could lead to human annihilation.
I spoke with Brian Terrell. As a young man, he joined the Catholic Worker and was inspired by Dorothy Day and Daniel Ellsberg and became an anti-nuclear activist. Brian has been imprisoned all over the world for his actions against American nuclear militarism. Sitting in the Temple of Goddess Spirituality – a woman-run sanctuary between Creech AFB and the NNSS – I asked Brian for a single word that expressed his reason for walking in the desert this year. He thought and chose “hope” and explained, “Not hope that I have, but hope as an aspiration and discipline.” A hope that was given and that he works for. “Some of it is a gift, and some of it is labor. I find myself more hopeful in events such as this. … At this point in my life – I don’t know how people survive who don’t have these kinds of communities — these kinds of actions.” Full video click here.
As they walked on the narrow shoulder of HWY 95, I asked the SPWers for their single word that explained why they walked this year. Their answers varied: justice/love / penitence/environment. CJ – a young man – told me that the “future” was why he walked and what he feared.
These amazing Americans walked, carrying placards calling for peace, led by the flag of the Western Shoshone Nation, held mile after mile by Jeremiah Jones, a strong, young leader of his people. One day they stopped the cars entering Creech AFB, the home of the Predator military drone; at the end of the week of walking, they stood at a broad white line on an arrow-straight, two-lane tar road that reached far into the desert belonging to the Shoshone – land taken over by the Department of Energy. They talked respectfully to the guards at the white line – they shook hands across the divide – a few stepped over and were arrested and soon released with a summons.
A negligible punishment when compared to a humanity-ending technology being developed in that desert.
After three years of covering the SPW, I question whether walking is enough. Is prayer and hope sufficient as both the technology of nuclear warfare advances and the American President fires staff at the National Nuclear Security Administration? In such an environment, peace activists must be consistently ferocious in their actions to dismantle nuclear bombs and military killer drones. As the cacophony of fun-seeking irrelevancies of social media abides, the demands to end the nuclear insanity must be louder. At the very least, we are required to warn our children of the dangers they face. And I propose that next year, the NDE work towards the goal of educating young Americans about the dangers of an environmental and nuclear winter.
Walking 60 miles in the desert is a trial of stamina that can engage deep wells of inner strengths, leading an individual to self-awareness – inner spiritual growth; over the years that the Nevada Desert Experience has sponsored the Sacred Peace Walk a supportive and loving community has flourished – lasting relationships established. But to engage effective social and political change and end the threat of annihilation by America’s super bombs, we must walk a more aggressive road. Alan Winson and Rebecca McKean Bar Crawl Radio Podcast www.barcrawlradio.com
