Author Archive for jack

Sung-Hee Choi (r) holding a banner at navy base construction site, Jeju Island, Korea.

The next court date in the continuing trial of imprisoned Korean peace activist Sung-Hee Choi has been twice-postponed, and is now set for July 15.
Sung-Hee has been jailed since May 19, and has twice engaged in week-long prison fasts to highlight opposition to the construction of a naval base at Gangjeong village on Jeju Island. She is also demanding that police dismiss her fabricated charges and apologize for her illegal arrest: she was simply holding a protest banner at the time, which read “Do not touch any stone or any flower”, while others have repeatedly engaged in direct nonviolent resistance against construction crews and equipment.

graphic by Keith McHenry, FoodnotBombs.net

During the month of June, police in Orlando, Florida arrested 21 members and supporters of the local Food Not Bombs group as they fed hungry people in a city park.  All were handcuffed and taken to jail for violating a city ordinance strictly limiting and requiring permits for such charity.
Orlando Food Not Bombs challenged the ordinance in court for five years, but the city prevailed in the federal appeals court last April. 

A PORTRAIT OF CREATIVITY AND NONVIOLENCE:  RESISTANCE IN KANSAS CITY

by Marcy Haugh

I’ve always wanted to learn the Thriller dance.  Coordinated dances with others always seem like such a fun concept!  However, I never imagined in a million years that the first time I danced to this Michael Jackson song as part of a coordinated group would be at an action protesting the building of a plant for nuclear weapons parts.  But there I was – fully decked out in a zombie mask and costume – counting down the song’s measures for my cue to creep out zombie-style from behind the “church” where “the bomb” was worshipped.  As the cue came, we began our performance – dancing and acting for a world that chose transformation over annihilation.  This particular action was our way of responding with creative nonviolence to the threat of destruction embodied by the plant’s existence.

June 6, 2011

Dear friends,

From our perspective editing and publishing the Nuclear Resister for more than 30 years now, we take heart in the fact that today there are more people in prison for anti-nuclear actions than there have been for more than a decade.

Of course, we’d rather there be no reason to risk arrest and endure imprisonment. But that’s not the case.

Those of us who are paying attention are not lulled by Obama’s nuclear arms rhetoric.  We’re fully aware of the $100 billion pledged to renew the U.S. nuclear weapons production and delivery capability.  And we heard him loud and clear, under the plume of the greatest nuclear power catastrophe in history at Fukushima, when he assured the American people (and the nuclear industry) that his administration will move forward with a new generation of U.S. nuclear power plants.

But in the face of this reality, we see signs of hope.