Seven activists arrested while praying for peace at Lockheed Martin on Good Friday

Posted on April 19, 2017

photo of Good Friday, 2014 action at Lockheed Martin

from the Brandywine Peace Community

At noon on April 14, the Brandywine Peace Community held their annual Good Friday Stations of Justice, Peace and Nonviolent Resistance at Lockheed Martin in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania.  Crosses laid between banners and signs, while a bell of peace tolled. Each station had a reading not of today, but for these times (for all times) ranging from Chief Sitting Bull to Sojourner Truth, Howard Zinn, Dr. King, Bonhoeffer, Dorothy Day, Daniel Berrigan, Bob Marley, Jimi Hendrix, William Penn, Gandhi, Jesus.  The backdrop was war, forever more war: U.S. cruise missiles attacking Syria, a near-nuclear bomb (the mother of all bombs) dropped on Afghanistan, the threat of nuclear war with North Korea.  Lockheed Martin, the U.S.#1 war profiteer, the world’s largest arms producer, was the obvious place for us to be on Good Friday.  Understood?

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Seven Catholic Workers arrested on Good Friday at Nevada nuclear test site

Posted on April 16, 2017

On Good Friday, April 14, Catholic Workers and other anti-nuclear activists went to the Nevada National Security Site (formerly known as the Nevada nuclear Test Site) for a nuclear stations of the cross organized by the Las Vegas Catholic Worker. A nonviolent action at the boundary line of the site led to the arrests of four women and three men. They were processed and released on site.

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Four arrests at Good Friday witness at Pentagon

Posted on April 15, 2017

Photo by Lin Romano

by Art Laffin

From Holy Thursday afternoon to Good Friday afternoon, some 20 friends gathered in Washington, D.C. for a Faith and Resistance retreat and public witness that was organized by the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker and held at St. Stephen and the Incarnation Church. Those who participated in the retreat/witness included members of Jonah House, the Atlantic Life Community and students from Loras College from Iowa. The theme of the retreat was: “Standing With the Crucified–Stop Crucifixion Today.” Holy Thursday was a day of reflection, sharing, action planning and Liturgy. Good Friday was a day of public witness.

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Good Friday nuclear weapons protest at Livermore Lab, 29 arrests

Posted on April 14, 2017

Photo by Mark Coplan

Early in the morning on Good Friday, April 14, more than 100 peace activists gathered at Livermore nuclear weapons Lab in California.  They walked in a Stations of the Cross procession to the Lab’s west gate.  Twenty-nine participants of various ages and faith traditions were arrested after crossing onto Lab property.  They were given a court date of May 15 to appear in  county court in Fremont.

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Sixteen arrested at Nevada nuclear test site, five at Creech drone base

Posted on April 14, 2017

Nevada nuclear test site, Photo by Wendy Doetkott Rogan

from the Nevada Desert Experience

The Nevada Desert Experience held its 23rd annual Sacred Peace Walk (SPW), which happens every year during Holy Week. On Saturday, April 8, the SPW began at the Atomic Testing Museum, and continued through the Las Vegas Strip and Fremont Street.  The Maundy Thursday finale for the interfaith group on April 13 was a foot washing ceremony at the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS), followed by a prayer-action at the white line on the public road leading into the nuclear test site.  Sixteen people were arrested by Nye County sheriffs. The NNSS continues to receive shipments of so-called low-level nuclear waste.  Since the site is on Western Shoshone land, the prayer-activists carried Shoshone permits granting them the right to be present at the NNSS.

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Nine activists arrested on Good Friday at NY drone base

Posted on April 14, 2017

Photo by Ellen Grady

Nine peace activists were arrested on April 14 during a Good Friday witness against drone warfare at Hancock Air Base in New York.  While blocking the entrance into the base, some of them stood with arms outstretched against replicas of cross-shaped drones, while others held cut-outs of drones topped with signs, some of which read “Drones Crucify Love”, “Drones Crucify Families”, “Drones Crucify Due Process”, “Drones Crucify Diplomacy” and “Drones Crucify Peace”. 

When they arrived around 10 a.m., two of the activists delivered a “War Crimes Indictment” to the guards at the guard shack. Supporters stood nearby holding a banner that read, “Whatsoever You Do To The Least, You Do To Me”.

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Nine activists arrested during a snow storm after blocking gate to “christening” of warship

Posted on April 1, 2017

from the Aegis 9

Nine activists were arrested during a snow storm on Saturday morning, April 1 at Bath Iron Works (BIW) in Maine during a “christening” of a destroyer outfitted with so-called “missile defense” systems.

The group blocked the ceremony entry gate and were charged with trespass on BIW property – which ironically is ultimately paid for by taxpayer $$$. BIW is owned by General Dynamics.

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Awareness and Action: Nuclear Resistance as a Millennial

Posted on March 28, 2017

Photo by Clancy Dunigan

from Truthout

March 28, 2017

by Allison McGillivray

It was March 7, and I wasn’t expecting the snow. I tucked my fingers into my sleeves, wishing I hadn’t left my gloves in California. I had traveled to the Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor to demonstrate at the site of the largest stockpile of deployed nuclear weapons in the United States, likely the world. With a dozen protesters, I occupied lanes of traffic. Down this road, past the gate on Trigger Avenue, on the Hood Canal just 20 miles from Seattle, sits a deadly fleet of nuclear submarines. Each vessel has the capacity for 24 Trident II D5 missiles, eight warheads apiece, with a 4,000-mile target radius. The US has 14 Trident submarines, eight to 10 of which are at sea at any given time.

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Thirteen nuclear resisters arrested at Bangor Trident base

Posted on March 10, 2017

Photo by Fumi Tosu

The Pacific Life Community returned to Washington state for their annual gathering, concluding with a blockade of the main gate into the Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor. The base is the Pacific homeport of the Trident nuclear ballistic missile submarine fleet.

A two-day program at a nearby retreat center built on the legacy of now-retired Raymond Hunthausen. As Archbishop of Seattle in 1984, he declared that “Trident is the Auschwitz of Puget Sound.” Hunthausen’s wages were garnished when he publicly refused to pay the war tax percentage in protest.

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Australian activists remove metal sword from large crucifix at war memorial in historic cemetery on Ash Wednesday

Posted on March 4, 2017

Brisbane-area Catholic Workers and friends visited the Australian city’s historic Toowong Cemetery on Ash Wednesday afternoon, March 1. At the gate stands a large stone crucifix, adorned by a metal sword that marks it as a war memorial.

“From the moment I saw that sword on the cross… I knew I could not not remove it,” said Jim Dowling. From a ladder leaned on the crosspiece, he used a crowbar to remove the sword. He handed it down to Tim Webb, who placed the sword on an anvil and reshaped it into a garden hoe, echoing the Biblical prophecies of Micah and Isaiah that, “They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.”

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