We’re keeping an eye on the case of more than a dozen anti-war and international solidarity activists whose mid-west homes were raided in late September, documents and computers seized, and were subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury about alleged material support for terrorism. A newly expanded and court-endorsed definition now says that even explicitly nonviolent assistance to organizations alleged by the government to support terrorism constitutes material support.
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by Anabel Dwyer
http://disarmnowplowshares.wordpress.com/2010/12/18/dwyer/
Pray! Mourn! Organize!
“Woo???!!!”
This we still refuse to learn:
Our legal system “protects”
with useless fences
non-existent, classified “property”
belonging to US
“missioned” for genocide
from a Sister, two Fathers and
two Grandmas
who walk with and in love and beauty.
Disarm Now Plowshares and their banner “Trident: Illegal and Immoral” say it all. Stunning whistleblowers: Sr. Anne Montgomery, 84; Fr. William Bischel, 81; Susan S. Crane, 65; Lynne Greenwald, 60 and Fr. Steven Kelly, 60, pointed out, with boundless kindly courage, the grotesque Trident plans and preparations for nuclear extermination
that clearly violate peremptory rules and principles of humanitarian law, U.S war crimes (18 USC 2441) and Genocide (18 USC 1091) statutes and military law.
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by Chris Hedges
We may feel, in the face of the ruthless corporate destruction of our nation, our culture, and our ecosystem, powerless and weak. But we are not. We have a power that terrifies the corporate state. Any act of rebellion, no matter how few people show up or how heavily it is censored by a media that caters to the needs and profits of corporations, chips away at corporate power. Any act of rebellion keeps alive the embers for larger movements that follow us. It passes on another narrative. It will, as the rot of the state consumes itself, attract wider and wider numbers. Perhaps this will not happen in our lifetimes. But if we persist, we will keep this possibility alive. If we do not, it will die.
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photo by Cindy Callahan
December 8, 2010
HERE WE ARE AGAIN
by Fr. Louis Vitale
Two weeks have passed since David Omondi and I began our sojourn here at Irwin County Detention Center in southern Georgia. Some may say, “Vitale has protested himself back into the pokey below the Mason-Dixon line” and “He has been jailed again in an effort to bring peace and social justice.” SF Chronicle 11/28
Many ask, “Why do you keep doing this?” We try to respond: “Because the oppression goes on and our nation is a major participant in that oppression of the poor and of all creation.” Specifically this manifestation of mourning focuses on the School of the Americas (WHINSEC) at Ft. Benning, Georgia, where U.S. military have taught counter-insurgency techniques, including torture and disappearance, to Latin American military. It still goes on, as recently observed with the outrageous coup in Honduras carried out by graduates of the School of the Americas. In fact, our involvement in oppressive militarism extends throughout the world!
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Veterans for Peace and others took a stand against war on Thursday, December 16, in the largest veterans-led civil resistance action to date against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Veterans at the White House, December 16, 2010. Photo by Ellen Davidson.
After a 10 am rally in Lafeyette Park featuring Marine Corps veteran and Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, Veterans For Peace National President Mike Ferner and VFP Vice-President and retired Navy Commander Leah Bolger, Iraq vet and March Forward! co-founder Mike Prysner, and others, activists formed a solemn single-file procession to the White House, silent except for a drum beat. There, they encountered police barricades. Some veterans began climbing over the barricades, until the police opened them up, allowing people to approach the fence in front of the White House with their banners and signs.
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Tacoma, Washington, Monday, December 13, 2010: The federal criminal trial of five veteran peace activists that began December 7 ended today after the jury found them guilty on all counts. The five defendants, called the Disarm Now Plowshares, challenged the legality and morality of the US storage and use of thermonuclear missiles by Trident nuclear submarines at the Kitsap-Bangor Naval Base outside Bremerton Washington.
In their defense the peace activists argued three points: the nuclear missiles at Bangor are weapons of mass destruction; those weapons are both illegal and immoral; and that all citizens have the right and duty to try to stop international war crimes from being committed by these weapons of mass destruction.
The five were charged with trespass, felony damage to federal property, felony injury to property and felony conspiracy to damage property. Each defendant faces possible sentences of up to ten years in prison.
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Outside the courtroom: Fr. Bill Bichsel, Susan Crane, Fr. Steve Kelly, Sr. Anne Montgomery, and Lynne Greenwald. Photo by Leonard Eiger.
December 10, Tacoma, Washington – The federal criminal trial of five veteran peace activists facing several charges was recessed until Monday, December 13, after their jury announced late Friday they were unable to reach a unanimous verdict on one of the counts. The Tacoma Washington trial has been going on since Tuesday. The five defendants, called the Disarm Now Plowshares, challenged the legality and morality of the US storage and use of thermonuclear missiles by Trident nuclear submarines at the Kitsap-Bangor Naval Base outside Bremerton Washington.
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April 26, 2011, 25th Chernobyl anniversary
It’s time for groups and activists all over the world to plan protests and actions to mark the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl catastrophe.
Each year, the French anti-nuclear network Sortir du nucleaire has issued a call to action on Chernobyl Day. In support of this call, U.S. organizations Nukewatch and the Nuclear Resister invite you to organize public protest and/or nonviolent direct action/civil resistance in your area, or participate in other events or actions being planned on or around April 26. It will be a day to declare, together with millions of others around the world, NO to nuclear power, nuclear weapons, nuclear testing, uranium mining and radioactive waste and YES to a nuclear-free future!
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Four protesters arrested and charged with federal trespass at Ft. Benning, Georgia on November 20 and 21 were in court on Tuesday, November 23. Arraigned before U.S. Magistrate Judge Stephen Hyles, Nancy Smith and Christopher Spicer pled not guilty. Their trial is set for January 5. 
Fr. Louis Vitale, OFM and Michael David Omondi pled no contest and were sentenced to the maximum 6 months in jail (no fine). Both men were moved from a Georgia county jail on December 14 and 15. Omondi is in Atlanta, likely waiting transport. Vitale was moved to Victorville, California on December 16.
Until we know that both men are at their final destination, cards and letters to David may be sent to his community for forwarding: The Los Angeles Catholic Worker, 632 N. Brittania St., Los Angeles, CA 90033. Louie’s mail may be send to the Nuclear Resister for forwarding at P.O. Box 43383, Tucson, AZ 85733.
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Near Caen, the train stops while French police clear resisters from the tracks. Photos by Stern.de
The periodic shipment of nuclear waste from a reprocessing facility in France to the burial dump at Gorleben, Germany, has long inspired mass nonviolent direct actions, and the scale and intensity of this year’s resistance eclipsed any previous mobilization.
German anti-nuclear sentiment has been stoked by the government’s recent decision to extend the lifetime of current nuclear power plants, guaranteeing even more waste production.
The latest special train bearing the massive “castor” storage casks left from France on Friday, November 5, for the 900 mile trip. The train was soon stopped for three hours near Caen, Normandy, where police arrested five activists who had chained themselves to the tracks and detained about 30 others. A banner in German displayed among hundreds of supporters nearby declared “Our resistance knows no borders.”
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