The Nuclear Resister

Fr. Louie Vitale OFM at Livermore Labs, August 6. Photo by Jim Stevens/Bay Area News Group.

LOCKHEED MARTIN, PENNSYLVANIA

from Brandywine Peace Community

People gathered on the sidewalk in front of the main driveway to the King of Prussia, Pennsylvania complex of Lockheed Martin on August 6, where they held signs next to large banners held by stakes planted in the ground. The underlying message of the day centered around the killing and slaughter of children, from Hiroshima and Nagasaki to U.S. drones strikes in Pakistan and Yemen, and Israel’s slaughter of innocents in Gaza enabled by Lockheed Martin, the world’s #1 war profiteer and weapons supplier.

Next to large wooden sign with the Lockheed Martin logo and “we’re making a killing” which for years has accompanied demonstrations at Lockheed Martin, we put up A Memorial to the Innocents lined with a child’s stuffed animals and pictures of the Hiroshima Child.

by Ellen Barfield

With the two year anniversary of the Transform Now Plowshares action today, July 28, and with Megan, Greg, and Michael (MGM!) seeming to be stable at their prison assignments for now, it is a good time to review the action, the trial and sentencing, and the subsequent responsibility of all of us to support and move forward their work resisting nuclear weapons.

These hot, humid days of deep summer certainly bring back memories of being in hot, humid eastern Tennessee two years ago and beginning to travel Oak Ridge and Knoxville area roads which later became very familiar after so many visits for hearings, trial, and sentencing. When I took Megan’s first call from jail and heard her elation that they had gotten to exactly where they wanted and done all they had planned, it was clear the blessings of God or the universe had again supported the work of disarmament, as so often has happened with plowshares actions.

At six o’clock in the morning on July 25, a group of local people from Plymouth, Devon, Cornwall, Somerset and beyond blocked the main Camels Head entrance into Devonport Dockyard in Plymouth, England in order to stop the refitting of the Vanguard nuclear submarines which carry and launch the Trident nuclear weapon missiles.

People used their own bodies and banners, as well as a car, to block the entrance into the base.

Liz McAlister and Erica Brock

Order of Protection Delivered for the Children of the World

On July 23, eight Atlantic Life Community activists joined with Upstate Drone Action at the main gate of Hancock Air Base in Syracuse, New York. Hancock is the home of the 174th Attack Wing of the New York State Air National Guard. The 174th Attack Wing pilots weaponized MQ9 Reaper drones over Afghanistan – killing and terrorizing an uncountable number of civilians.

The eight delivered a People’s War Crimes Indictment to the Hancock chain of command by affixing it to the fence after it was refused by base personnel. Also delivered was an Order of Protection on behalf of the children of the world who are subject to U.S. drone surveillance and attack.