The Nuclear Resister

photo by Leonard Eiger

by Leonard Eiger, Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action

Activists Make Statement at Nuke Base: Our Children Deserve Better!

Activists briefly blockaded the entrance to a West Coast nuclear weapons base in a statement against U.S. Nuclear modernization efforts on the eve of Mothers Day.

On Saturday, May 9, anti-nuclear weapons activists gathered at the main entrance gate to Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, Silverdale, Washington, home to eight of the nation’s fourteen OHIO Class (Trident) ballistic missile submarines. Carrying signs saying “Our children deserve better”, five protesters walked into the roadway and blocked traffic entering the base. Washington State Patrol officers moved in and escorted the protesters off the roadway.

Activists stop loggers clearing nuclear reactor site. Photo by Tiina Prittinen.

Before permits have been issued for the Pyhäjoki (Holy River) nuclear power plant in Finland, contractors newly hired for their willingness to proceed nevertheless rushed this month to resume clearing dense forest habitat at Hanhikivi, a remote headlands on the northern Gulf of Bothnia. Anti-nuclear activists from the Rising Tide network were arrested last fall blocking roadwork into the site as the work began, and since then the original contractor refused to continue until a challenge by conservationists and local opponents was resolved.

Activists were already planning a protest camp for the second week of June, but faced with the audacious assault on the environment, they put out the call for immediate help with site occupation, treesits and blockades.

Photo of John LaForge by Felton Davis

From CounterPunch

by John LaForge

NEW YORK, NY — At the United Nations here this month, talk is focused on the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT). At about 11 a.m. Apr. 28, I was handcuffed with 21 other nuclear realists after blocking an entrance to the US Mission. I say “realists” because US media won’t pay much attention to US nuclear weapons unless somebody is taken off to a jail.

Barrels of ink are used detailing Iran’s non-existent nuclear arsenal. The US has about 2,000 nuclear weapons ready to launch and used as ticking time bombs every day by presidents the way gunslingers can extort the loot without ever pulling the trigger. Deterrence it is not.

When we were ordered to leave or face arrest, we called ourselves crime-stoppers and asked the officers to arrest the real scofflaws. We were packed into vans and driven to the 17th Precinct. Our band of nuclear abolitionists concluded a long time ago that US nuclear banditry and pollutionism was worth dramatizing for a day, or a month, or a lifetime.

Fukui man arrested for landing drone on Abe’s office says he was protesting nuclear policy

Yasuo Yamamoto in custody. Photo © Noboru Tomura, asahi.com

from The Japan Times
KYODO
APR 25, 2015

A man was arrested Saturday in Fukui Prefecture for allegedly flying the drone found earlier this week on the roof of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s official residence, investigators said.
Yasuo Yamamoto, 40, of the city of Obama, presented himself to the Fukui Prefectural Police on Friday evening and said he landed the drone on the rooftop of the prime minister’s office to protest the government’s nuclear energy policy.

by Brian Terrell

On March 26, I was in Nevada in my role as event coordinator for Nevada Desert Experience, preparing for the annual Sacred Peace Walk, a 65-mile trek through the desert from Las Vegas to the nuclear Test Site at Mercury, Nevada, an event that NDE has sponsored each spring for about 30 years. Two days before the walk was to begin, a car load of us organizers traced the route.

The last stop but one on the traditional itinerary is the “Peace Camp,” a place in the desert where we usually stay the last night before crossing Highway 95 into what is now known as the Nevada National Security Site. When we got there we were surprised to find the entire camp and the way leading from it to the Test Site surrounded by bright orange plastic snow fencing.