It’s as old as a John Lennon song and as new as your next thought. Imagine.
The first step toward the world we want to build for our children is creating that world in our imaginations. These days, as the Bush Administration pushes hard to lock in a nuclear future with funding for a new bomb plant in Oak Ridge, a new nuclear warhead design, and a new bomb test at the Nevada Test Site, we who believe in peace must mount our own surge toward a better world, a world where security is defined by relationships of trust rather than bombs and guns.
Imagination and creativity are the central themes of the August 5-6 peace action commemorating the bombing of Hiroshima in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where the enriched uranium for the Little Boy bomb was created. You’re invited.

Calendar of Events by Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance and others

JULY 16 – AUGUST 6 • Buddhist Peace Walk
from Atlanta to Oak Ridge, TN
404 627 8948 or atlantadojo@yahoo.com [2]
www.peacepagoda.org/SmokyMountain [3]

JULY 31 – AUGUST 6 • Footprints for Peace Run
Native American Ceremonial Run from Uranium Enrichment Plant to Bomb Production Plant
Portsmouth, OH to Oak Ridge, TN
footprintsforpeace.org for more info

JULY 31 – AUGUST 4 • Puppet Workshop
for novices and experienced puppetistas alike; come make giant street theatre puppets for the Oak Ridge action! tent space and limited indoor space available
Knoxville, TN
865 609 2012 for more information

SATURDAY, AUGUST 5 • Rally and march
10:00am Peace Celebration, Alvin K. Bissell Park, Oak Ridge, TN
music, speakers, puppets, skits, sno cones!
1:00pm March to Y12 National Security Complex
almost 2 miles in blazing heat: bring water and sunscreen!
2:00pm Action at Y12

Additionally, there will be a bus trip from Michigan to this event organized by the Detroit Area Peace with Justice Network.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 6 • Remembrance and Names Ceremony
6:15 – 8:30am Y12 National Security Complex
East End Bear Creek Road entrance

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 9 • Peace Lantern Ceremony
8:15pm – Sequoyah Hills Park, Cherokee Blvd West End, Knoxville, TN

TBD • AUGUST 7 or 9 • Action at Bechtel, Oak Ridge
stay tuned for details here or at www.stopthebombs.org [4]

for more information, contact OREPA 865 483 8202

Some details:

This year’s format is slightly different from years past—DOE has fenced and bulldozed the nice green fields we usually gather in. So the peace rally on August 5 will take place in Bissell Park (where we usually start the march) beginning at 10:00am. We will enjoy the fruits of creativity—music, drama, giant puppets, community—as we celebrate life and say “No!” to the promise of death by nuclear weapons.
From Bissell Park we will march to the gates of Y12. If there are a thousand of us, the grounds won’t hold us all, but we are working with Oak Ridge officials (DOE seems delighted to be uncooperative!) to create a space for a physical presence to witness to life at the gates of the bomb plant. As plans are developed, we will post updates on the OREPA web site: www.stopthebombs.org [5].
On Sunday, August 6, we will gather at the gates to Y12 for our annual remembrance ceremony at 6:15am—we will read names of victims of Hiroshima, along with first-hand accounts of the devastation of the bomb—everyone is welcome to join in the reading and remembrance and the tying of peace cranes on the fence. The Remembrance concludes at 8:30am, after a moment of silence at 8:16 marking the bombing of Hiroshima.

Nagasaki, too
This year, OREPA will also mark the destruction of Nagasaki with a peace lantern ceremony in Knoxville, at Sequoyah Hills Park on the west end of Cherokee Boulevard. The ceremony, which includes music and a reading, begins at 8:15 and ends with the launching of peace lanterns in the Tennessee River. You can bring a peace lantern of your own, or launch one provided—we’ll have dozens. It’s a family-friendly event, as are all OREPA events.

Calling puppetistas!
OREPA will host a weeklong puppet workshop leading up to the action in South Knoxville. Experienced puppetistas and first-timers will gather to create giant street theater puppets and to develop a skit for Saturday’s peace rally. Overnight accommodations (a few indoor beds and plenty of tent space) are available, or you can just come for a day or two. The workshop is scheduled for July 31-August 4, with a rehearsal planned for the evening of August 4 and the morning of August 5.
We’ll be looking for puppet operators, too, to help with the skit on Saturday, so even if you can’t come for the week, you can come to a rehearsal and get a part!

Nonviolent in tone and action
OREPA’s events and actions strive to be nonviolent in tone as well as action. We prohibit drugs and alcohol, and we provide trained peacekeepers who help maintain an environment where everyone can express their desire for peace. If you are interested in serving as a peacekeeper, you should contact the OREPA office (865 483 8202).
OREPA will host a nonviolence workshop and a peacekeeper training on the evening of Friday, August 4 at a location to be announced (please check the website). If you are considering an act of civil disobedience or if you are willing to serve in a support role, you should plan to come to the nonviolence workshop on Friday evening.

What to bring
August tends to be hot in Tennessee, so we advise you to bring cool clothes, water, sunscreen, maybe an umbrella for shade—or rain. There are fast food restaurants near the peace rally site, or you can bring your own food. Wear comfortable shoes.

Motivation?
This year’s theme—Imagine a world without…racism, empire, hunger, poverty, bombs…Create—will explore the interconnectedness of all the aspects of violence, from social to economic to political to spiritual, and we will not only think about these things, but we will take action.
Joining with others around the country, we will be connecting the dots between bomb production, corporate profiteering, the exploitation of indigenous peoples, and us! We will take a look at a prime dot connector, the Bechtel Corporation, with offices around the world, including Oak Ridge, TN where Bechtel helps make bombs.
Long ago Douglas MacArthur (yes, the general) said “Many will tell you with mockery and ridicule that the abolition of war can only be a dream—that it is the vague imagining of a visionary. But we must go on, or we will go under. We must have new thoughts, new ideas, new concepts. We must break out of the straitjacket of the past. We must develop sufficient imagination and courage to translate the universal with for peace into actuality.”
It’s not often we are called to arms (and voices and feet) for peace by a General, but there you go. Come and gather with us in Oak Ridge in August—to imagine and to create a new world.