Author Archive for Jack & Felice

Pontiac Correctional Center. Photo by Rachel Allshiny

by Rachel Allshiny

From Suicide Girls Blog

Working on prisoner support is one of the most exhausting, transformative, frustrating, vital, tedious, rewarding, messy, wonderful things I have ever done.

When someone is in prison, every moment is a crisis. Even when a specific problem or situation is resolved, there remains an overwhelming survival mentality, which affects those inside and their supporters alike. I move from crisis to crisis every day; meanwhile the prisoners I am not actively engaged in supporting at any given minute hover in my peripheral vision, imploring they not be forgotten. None are ever forgotten, of course, but the need to prioritize presents me with difficult decisions about how to use my time and resources daily.

by Jack Cohen-Joppa

More than three years after the arrest and torturous imprisonment of PFC Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning for revealing thousands of classified State Department cables and war incident reports from Iraq and Afghanistan via WikiLeaks, the 25-year-old army enlistee was convicted of 20 separate offenses at court martial this summer. On August 21, the military judge, Col. Denise Lind, sentenced the former intelligence analyst to serve 35 years in a military prison. Manning’s pay and allowances were forfeited, rank was reduced to Private E-1 and the whistleblower is to be dishonorably discharged.

In the first major break from quiet decorum in the compact military courtroom, supporters called out, “We’ll keep fighting for you, Bradley!” as Manning was hustled out by guards.

LOCKHEED MARTIN, PENNSYLVANIA

August 6, 2011 photo by Rich Conti

Peace and anti-nuclear activists demonstrated at Lockheed Martin in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania on August 6, the date in 1945 that the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan.  After a commemoration which included music, litany, bell-tolling and a ceremony of memory and hope with incense, water and ashes, six people attempted to deliver photos of the aftermath of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to Lockheed Martin management.

from The Morning Bulletin

Four peace activists were arrested on July 19 blockading the Caroona Street gate of Western Street Barracks, Rockhampton (Queensland, Australia).

Their intention was to disrupt the Talisman Saber war rehearsals by putting their bodies on the road in front of military supply vehicles, activist Graeme Dunstan said.

He said those arrested are Andy Paine, Jim Dowling, David Sprigg  and Robin Taubenfeld, all of Brisbane.

photo by Bee Lloyd

Protesters at new Kansas City facility seek to open a door to a nuclear-weapons-free world

from Jane Stoever

On July 13, about 80 people sang and prayed at the entry road to a new facility in the U.S. nuclear weapons complex. By 10:15 a.m., two dozen protesters had crossed the property line and were soon arrested.

The five-building facility, the Kansas City Plant, at 14510 Botts Road in Kansas City, Missouri, will by next year house the operations of the current Kansas City Plant (at Bannister and Troost in KC), where 85 percent of the non-nuclear parts for U.S. nuclear weapons are made or procured.