We are here at the DOE to remember Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We are here with survivors of that crime. The DOE traces its roots to the Manhattan Project which was responsible for the bombings. After the war, the build up of nuclear weapons was under the subsequent Atomic Energy Commission. The DOE came into being in 1977 to pull all that work into one.
We thought this octopus was an appropriate image to bring to the DOE. Maybe it learned something of its dazzling array of defensive and offensive weapons from the Octopus.
The Octopus is a Master of Disguise - it can change color faster than a chameleon. It can change the texture of its skin. The DOE is a name that disguises its very identity. Its purview includes the nation's nuclear weapons programs, nuclear reactor production, energy conservation, energy-related research, and radioactive waste disposal.
Venom in Octopus' salivary glands contains a chemical that helps the octopus disable prey and break down their muscle tissue. DOE sponsors more venom than an octopus can imagine; it names its work - basic and applied scientific research. But we know and want it known that DOE has responsibility for the design, testing and production of all nuclear weapons. All nuclear weapons deployed by the War Department are actually on loan to DOD from the DOE.
Tentacles . The octopus has eight strong arms capable of pushing, pulling, and grasping prey tightly. The DOE's tentacles include the labs to which it contracts its responsibilities: design of the nuclear components of the weapon - Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore Labs; engineering of weapon systems - Sandia Lab; manufacturing of key components - Los Alamos Lab; testing - the Nevada Test Site; and weapon/warhead assembling/dismantling at Pantex. In addition, it funds of the work of at least 17 other labs all over the country. Now there's tentacles for you...And these are the ones we know about
The octopus uses its suckers to rip prey apart and anchor itself to a surface . The DOE's sensors feed on the lowest common denominators of the human soul - fear and greed; it preys on them to ensure its own continued existence. Its suckers see everything outside itself as prey to rip apart. It has now launched its COMPLEX 2030 to develop whole new generations of nuclear weapons.
The octopus uses a powerful beak that can bite with the pressure of 1,000 pounds. The Hibakusha, with us today, can testify to the beak and pressure of the bombs dropped on their cities 62 years ago. The rest of us can only imagine the unimaginable - the thing this institution crafts day and night.
The octopus can disorient a pursuer by squirting a burst of black ink . It hides in the dark. The bulk of the DOE's programs are "in the dark." Concealed not from some enemy - real or imagined or created - but from the very people it purports to protect.
Should the octopus lose a tentacle, it can grow a new limb. And it is no problem for the DOE to regenerate a lab, a weapon, a new program to be funded, new weapons materiel, new justifications/rationalizations for its deadly work.
The octopus' brain is scattered about its head/body in discrete bits. So is the work of DOE scattered - each part discrete; no part knowing what the other part is doing - a way of organizing that marked the Manhattan Project.
The Octopus is an invertebrate , all squish and shape-change , and one of their greatest tricks is squeezing through something that's the dimension of their eye -- which makes them sound like worms. Its alien appearance and sliminess unnerve people, offering plenty of material for nightmares and legends. But our nightmares emerge from this institution. Open it up for inspection. Let the light into all its darkened corners. And then, let's shut it down.

August 7, 2007 Faith and Resistance Retreat,
Dorothy Day Catholic Worker and Jonah House