The Nuclear Resister

The Kings Bay Plowshares – Clare Grady, Patrick O’Neill, Liz McAlister, Steve Kelly SJ, Martha Hennessy, Mark Colville and Carmen Trotta (L-R)

(Updates at the Kings Bay Plowshares Facebook page here, and website here)

Seven Catholic plowshares activists were detained early Thursday morning, April 5 at the Kings Bay Naval Base in St. Mary’s, Georgia. 

They entered on Wednesday night, April 4.  Calling themselves Kings Bay Plowshares, they went to make real the prophet Isaiah’s command: “beat swords into plowshares”. 

The seven chose to act on the 50th anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,  who devoted his life to addressing the triplets of militarism, racism and materialism. In a statement they carried with them the group quoted King, who said: “The greatest purveyor of violence in the world (today) is my own government.”

Carrying hammers and baby bottles of their own blood, the seven attempted to convert weapons of mass destruction.  

U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal Agree: Facts about Nuclear Weapons Can be Kept from Juries in Protest Cases

Judicial Protection Racket Keeps the Bomb Behind a Wall of Silence

by John LaForge, Nukewatch

(Originally published in the Nuclear Resister #187, March 14, 2018. This version has been corrected by the author.)

If you were thinking that protest and resistance against the Bomb will be easier in the United States now that the United Nations General Assembly, on July 7, 2017, overwhelmingly approved a treaty outlawing the possession and threatened use of nuclear weapons (voting 122 to 1), think again.

Between 1980 and 2005, seven U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal have ruled that federal district courts may (in one case must) prevent juries from hearing a defense of necessity or any expert testimony about international treaty law, etc. in nuclear weapons protest cases.[i]

Photo by Paul Sheldon

LOCKHEED MARTIN, PENNSYLVANIA

Thanks to Paul Sheldon for this report:

The Brandywine Peace Community held its annual Good Friday action at Lockheed Martin in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania on March 30. Seven of the activists attempted to carry a message of peace and understanding onto Lockheed Martin property, in order to speak with those building world-destroying weapons. They were arrested, cited for disorderly conduct (praying in the driveway), and released. Paul Sheldon writes, “I view these actions as faithfulness to a continuing campaign at Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest war profiteer and nuclear weapons’ contractor.”

Christian Nonviolence: Theory and Practice

by Tom Cornell

[Tom Cornell is a longtime editor of The Catholic Worker and former co-founder of the Catholic Peace Fellowship. In a slightly different form his essay was published in the December 2017 issue of The Catholic Worker. With Jim Forest and Robert Ellsberg, he co-edited A Penny a Copy, an anthology of writings from The Catholic Worker.]

“To me nonviolence is the all-important problem or virtue to be nourished and studied and cultivated” (Dorothy Day, Diaries, Oct. 1968). And Thomas Merton agreed: “You are right going along the lines of satyagraha [Gandhi’s term for nonviolent action; literally the power of truth]. I see no other way….”  Merton held nonviolence to be essential. Nonviolent action embodies a moral truth in response to a serious moral crisis by way of protest and acts of resistance, including civil disobedience, that do no harm, conducted in openness and truth with willingness to pay the legal penalties. Nonviolent action may be acts of witness only, but they may also lead to mass mobilization and real change.