The Nuclear Resister

Poulsbo, Washington, Saturday, January 15, 2011 – The Seattle Raging Grannies set the mood for honoring Martin Luther King, Jr’s birthday Saturday at the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action in Poulsbo, Washington.

Blockade at Sub Base Bangor/Kitsap. Photo by Leonard Eiger.

Eighty three people from the Center participated in a vigil at the Kitsap Mall in Silverdale with the help of a full scale, 44 foot long, inflatable Trident D-5 missile. Each D-5 missile, deployed on Trident nuclear submarines, carries up to 8 warheads, each with an explosive yield of up to 475 kilotons. Each D-5 missile costs approximately $60 million.

Participants carried signs and banners calling for an end to war and nuclear weapons. Notable was a quote by Dr. King: “When scientific power outruns moral power, we end up with guided missiles and misguided men.”

Leonard Peltier. AP photo.

UPDATE January 12, from the LPDOC:

Greetings, Supporters.
Thank you so much for taking immediate action on Leonard’s behalf.  The prison authorities have received the message.  Please stop contacting the prison at Lewisburg now.  Instead, redirect all efforts with regard to Leonard’s health concerns to the White House.  Call the White House comment line at 202-456-1111.

(Note from the editors:  we have removed the prison contact details originally posted below)

From the Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee:

The Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee urgently calls upon all supporters to consistently and constantly contact USP Lewisburg to demand Leonard Peltier be immediately transferred to the Mayo Clinic for a full medical evaluation and appropriate treatment. As many of you know, Leonard has exhibited symptoms of prostate cancer for over a year.  After months of pressure by attorneys, Leonard underwent blood tests in June of 2010. Those results were not made available until early November 2010. A biopsy was indicated which was ordered by a physician and approved by the prison.  However, the biopsy has not been performed.  The delay in testing, diagnosis, and treatment is unacceptable and constitutes medical neglect.

Published on Wednesday, December 29, 2010 by CommonDreams.org

by Leah Bolger

Imagine you are taking a walk in a park and you witness a mugging.  What would you do?  Would you look the other way or would you try to stop it?   If you are one who would try to stop it, then what would you do when it is your government that is committing the crime?  As citizens we are told that we should call our Congressman or write a letter to the editor when we are dissatisfied with our government.  But writing a letter to the editor is no more effective at stopping the crimes of our government than it is at stopping a mugging.

On December 16th, 2010, I participated in an act of civil resistance in an attempt to stop my government from continuing to commit crimes—namely the ongoing wars of aggression in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.  In the middle of a heavy snowstorm, I was arrested along with 130 other people in front of the White House who refused to move off the sidewalk when ordered to by the police.  We were not violent, we carried no weapons, and we damaged no property.  We were, however, willing to disobey the police as an act of resistance to our government; as a way of saying “No” to the senseless slaughter of innocent people; “No” to outrageous war profiteering, “No” to our government’s flagrant disregard of international law, ”No” to the squandering of hundreds of billions of dollars.  

Reflection by Sue Frankel-Streit in collaboration with Bill Frankel-Streit

New Year’s Day 2011,

Little Flower Catholic Worker Farm, Virginia, USA

I don’t know what effect hammering on a B-52 bomber actually had on the first Gulf War (other than that particular bomber not bombing). But I know that the effect that action had on me was immense; likely immeasureable. I don’t think about the ANZUS Plowshares action that often. I don’t speak about it unless someone asks. It was 20 years ago, after all. There have been so many creative, risky, beautiful acts of resistance before and since,  that I don’t dwell often on that one.

Still, though, those few solid thwacks of my hammer on that huge plane in the early hours of the New Year 1991, and all the preparation leading up to them, and all the court time and, most especially, all the jail time that followed, have pretty much informed every aspect of my life since.