Author Archive for Jack & Felice

October 2, 2015

from the Granny Peace Brigade

by Joan Pleune

I’ve been lucky. Every time I’ve been in a cage by myself, I’ve known that people are watching out for me, people on the outside and on the inside. I also know that my time in solitary won’t last very long.

Now, I need to convince my AUTONOMIC nervous system of that – you know, the part of the brain over which you have little control, the one responsible for fear, anxiety, and terror. The one where the best you can say to yourself is, “Breathe in, breathe out. Don’t start screaming or rattling the cage.”

from Popular Resistance

Dr. Flowers Calls For Independent Investigation Into Hospital Bombing in Kunduz, Afghanistan

by Alli McCracken, www.CODEPINK.org

Washington, D.C. –– Before the start of a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing about Afghanistan, Dr. Margaret Flowers was arrested on October 6 for speaking out against the recent U.S. bombing of a Doctors Without Border hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan. Dr. Flowers was holding a sign which read “BOMBING HOSPITALS = WAR CRIME”. In the attack on Kunduz, twelve staff members and at least seven patients, including three children, were killed; 37 people were injured, including 19 staff members.

photo by Chris Nelson

from Occupy Beale Air Force Base

Nine anti-drone protesters from throughout Northern California – Redding to Stockton, Bay Area to Nevada City – were arrested in a nonviolent action at Beale Air Force Base on the morning of September 29. The group acted in solidarity with the refugees around the world who are fleeing their homes because of wars.

The peace and justice activists connected the tragic stories of the migrant crisis to U.S. policies that destabilize countries with ongoing bombing and violence and force the mass displacement and fleeing of millions of human beings. With their action, they wanted to draw attention to the serious global crisis, and demand that the U.S. government use peace and diplomacy to solve conflict. While at Beale, they publicly read some of the most recent horrifying migrant and refugee stories, detailing some of the thousands of lives lost while fleeing wars.

Campaign Nonviolence photo

from the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance

Just prior to the historic visit of Pope Francis to the U.S. on September 22, fifteen activists were arrested at the White House. They were part of a group participating in a National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance (NCNR) action entitled “Sowing the Seeds of Hope: From Congress to the White House”.

Photo by Ellen Grady

On the morning of Monday, September 21, members of the grassroots human rights coalition, Upstate Drone Action to Ground the Drones and End the Wars, were arrested for closing the main gate of Hancock Airfield to call a halt to the U.S. weaponized drone program operated out of Hancock by the 174th Attack Wing of the New York Air National Guard. Hancock, in Dewitt, New York, is home to the “hunter/killer” (the Pentagon’s phrase) MQ9 Reaper drone. The theme of today’s event was: Drones Kill Children.

Those arrested include Dan Bergavin and James Ricks of Ithaca and Ed Kinane, Bonny Mahoney and Julienne Oldfield of Syracuse, who held signs reading “Drones Kill Children” behind wooden figures of drone victims, including dead and dying children.