Monthly Archive for March, 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.

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.

Photo by Jessica Stewart

from Upstate Drone Action

Four drone resisters who had been arrested in 2015 at Hancock drone base – James Ricks, Daniel Burns, Brian Hynes and Ed Kinane – were found innocent of all charges at 11 p.m. at the Dewitt Town Court in New York. After deliberating for only about a half hour, the jury returned with a verdict of not guilty on all charges. Applause erupted in the courtroom upon the jurors’ announcement of the verdict. The four were charged with obstruction of government administration, disorderly conduct and trespass, and faced a year in jail. Following the rendering of the verdict, a juror approached Brian Hynes and said, “I really support what you are doing. Keep doing it.”