end of year letters

Below you will find links to Dan’s annual “Letter to Help the Year End,” which accompany the annual newsletter.

End Of Year Letter

2024

"I am alive today – indeed have existed at all – because my grandparents believed that Hitler
would do what he said he would do..."

2023

"The last two years have been very difficult for Committee to Bridge the Gap. Victories that took years to accomplish ... were eviscerated..."

2021

"...a couple of months ago the base of the world’s largest tree...had to be wrapped in what looked like tin foil in an attempt to protect it from
massive climate-driven fires...."

2020

"Helping prepare this commemoration of fifty years of struggle for social change has been for me a profoundly emotional experience..."

2019

"...the world is filled with...injustice, with the environment threatened as never before in human history. Any sensate human being would ask: has it been worth it?"

2018

"...Santa Susana Field Lab erupted in flames in Southern California, the “Camp Fire” to the north was on its way to becoming the most destructive fire in state history..."

2016

"With Diablo Canyon now to be replaced with renewables by 2025, hard work that we began 37 years ago...has now largely come to fruition...."

2010

"Thirty-one years ago, Bridge the Gap brought to public attention a partial nuclear meltdown that had occurred in 1959...and covered up for two decades thereafter."

2009

"Next year, Bridge the Gap will turn forty and I will turn sixty. My entire adult life has been spent associated with this organization and its work for peace..."

2007

"Nuclear Resurgence! The headlines blare the same news, over and over. After decades blocked from expanding...the nuclear dragon is rising again."

2006

"When the history of this period is written, it may be said of those of us in this country alive at this time that, on our watch, the world went over the tipping point."

2005

"Bridge the Gap was founded thirty-five years ago, in the midst of an unpopular war. Our country had intervened militarily in a far-away land..."

2004

"Today, three years after the events of 9/11, commercial reactors still have NO protection against air attacks..."

2003

"'I am in pain and can’t stay in the woods anymore,' he said over a
borrowed phone on campus...'Let’s get you down to Urgent Care, now,' I replied."

2002

“'...Nuclear weapons are the scourge of the earth; to ... manufacture them, deploy them, use them, is a curse against God ... and the earth itself.'”

1999

"We normally write our friends and supporters about this time of year, updating them on Bridge the Gap's activities. Because of an emergency..."

1997

"Now, this kind of invitation is not my normal cup of tea. I don’t generally hobnob with heads of firms like Lockheed Martin..."

1996

"The joke at Bridge the Gap is that our storage locker is filled with boxes marked in big letters 'High Priority to Do,' with the date...going back to the 1970s."

1995

"For twenty-five years, since we were founded in the midst of the Indochina War, friends have asked, 'Why don't you give it up?'"

1994

"Over my desk at Bridge the Gap hangs an oil portrait painted last year by Dr. Betty Bradow, the wife of Dr. Bennett Ramberg, Bridge the Gap's research director..."

1989

"You have been generous in your support of Committee to Bridge the Gap in the past, and I write you now to ask for your assistance again."

1976

"There is a book by Hannah Arendt called Men in Dark Times. If you overlook the sexism in the title you may find the book in a small way enlightening."