Nationally touring Think Outside the Bomb presents at Boxcar Books

Uranium. Plutonium. Puppets.

Nuclear disarmament has been an international issue for decades. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev made global headlines in April when they signed a treaty to reduce the number of both countries’ nuclear weapons by a third.

But groups like the Think Outside the Bomb campaign, who presented an event Tuesday at Boxcar Books, say that’s not enough.

The group brings up issues like permaculture, soil nutrient depletion and worker health issues, as well as the billions of taxpayer dollars that go into nuclear bomb production in the United States.

“We’re also working on the transformation of the military economy,” organizer Rebecca Riley said. “The reality of the nuclear complex is very much removed from our everyday life.”

In addition to a puppet show, Riley, one half of a band known as Bad Heart Bull, performed a few songs, singing and playing her guitar.

“I seen the land stolen out from under our feet,” she sang about living near a uranium power plant. “One more form of forced sterility ... Bring life to the soil so that precious things may live again.”

The first song certainly fit the overall theme, though later songs discussed other topics, such as white settlers’ genocide of Native Americans.

“If coal is the blood of the city, and I think it is, then that rain must be its artery,” Riley sang about Chicago after commenting that the city is dirty, largely because of Major Richard Daley.

Riley also encouraged attendees to purchase her $10 CDs, saying the money would go toward gas on the group’s tour and that $10 would get them about 40 miles.

“We don’t buy gas from BP, so that’s good,” she said.

TOTB member Rihanna Bahee hosted “What is permaculture?” a question-and-answer session about renewing nutrient-stripped and heavy metal-rich soil to make it farmable and reducing people’s carbon footprints.

For example, sunflowers and dandelions can draw heavy metals out of soil in bio-remediation, while examples of “permaculture technology” included composting and rain barrels.

The group also promoted its Disarmament Summer Encampment next month in Chimayo, N.M., about educating people about permaculture.

Bahee, a Dine (Navajo) from Flagstaff, Ariz., also spoke about her experience of walking from Oakridge, Tenn., to New York City over three months, using the story to raise awareness about mountaintop removal. During this process, the peaks of mountains — particularly in Appalachia — are blown off to access coal inside. The “overburden,” formerly known as the top of that mountain, is then pushed into a nearby valley, destroying ecosystems and polluting the air, land and water for miles.

Riley calls Obama a liar because he’s funded by Exelon, the country’s largest provider of nuclear energy, and cites his proposed budget that would give the National Nuclear Security Administration a several-billion-dollar increase in funding over the next 10 years.

With about two dozen attendees, the Bloomington event was relatively small. IU senior Tara Johnson, an events coordinator for the volunteer-run bookstore, said it plays host to many events, such as film showings, book and poetry readings and workshops, many of which have a message of social activism behind them.

“We do a real variety of events,” she said. “(TOTB) contacted us, so there must have been something about Boxcar that attracted them.”

She said this event centered on “the idea that bombs aren’t good for anyone.”

Riley said the group tries to use creative alternatives like her music to reach people by counterbalancing dry numbers, facts and statistics.

“These issues are most easily understandable through the heart space,” she said. “At the root of it, it’s a moral and ethical issue.”