Archive for the 'Inside Line' Category

Easter Greetings from Susan Crane
from the Disarm Now Plowshares blog

Dear Friends,

Thanks for your prayers, letters, books and encouragement. Your support means so much to me. And thanks for your work that brings us all closer to the Beloved Community.

I was walking back to the housing unit from dinner the other day, talking to a friend. She was reflecting on how contagious yawns are.  Yes, I said, and violence is just as contagious as yawns! Here, in prison, it’s a matter of honor and respect; if someone hits you, you hit them back. And in our national dealings, the same is true. The exchange of violence is expected, accepted, and considered virtuous and reasonable. At least I can introduce the idea that there are people who think there are better solutions to problems than the use of violence and revenge.

A Lenten Call:  Give Up Our Violence!

Note from Leonard Eiger, Disarm Now Plowshares: This is a reflection written over the course of two days by William “Bix” Bichsel, SJ during his 30-day stay in solitary confinement at the SeaTac Federal Detention Center. Bix began this reflection on Friday, February 3, 2012, the third day of his second (four day) fast, which was in solidarity with U.S. political prisoner Leonard Peltier.

As I rubbed my hand down the surface of my bony body, a thought came to me that I was sanding down my dry, itchy skin to be a parchment for things I would like to write down about proclaiming the Gospel – the Good News.

The things I want to relate come out of living in a 24 hour lock-down, single cell in a federal prison for 30 days. During 19 of those days I fasted from solid food and drank only water and 2 small cartons of milk a day. During 29 of those days I did not sleep a wink at night and lay awake scratching and itching and tensing my muscles and stretching to get a position to sleep. No sleep came.

Reprinted from the Catholic Agitator, newsletter of the Los Angeles  Catholic Worker. Steve Baggarly will be sentenced September 20 in  federal court in Knoxville, Tennessee, for trespass July 5, 2010 at the Y-12 nuclear weapons complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

Last night as I prepared to turn in, at the foot of my upper bunk, a  young Aryan Nation member began to pummel my neighbor’s face.  All I  could do was lean over the edge of my bunk, shout, “Hey, hey, hey!”  and stick my hand between them momentarily as David punched Everett  on past my bunk towards the next.  Somehow the guards burst in and, yelling, stopped the beating almost as quickly as it began. It seems Everett had just been outed as a pimp of under-aged girls and David, who was abused as a child, fashioned himself an avenging angel.

The blood splattered on the floor around my bunk reminded me how easily dismissed is Jesus’ nonviolent way in favor of the seeming efficacy of violence. A deeply held faith in violence as necessity pervades not only jail culture, but the nation as well. Indeed, the Y-12 nuclear weapons complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee is an icon of our national commitment to use brute force – heat, blast and radiation – against human flesh. Part of the World War II Manhattan Project, Oak Ridge enriched the uranium used in the first atomic bomb, dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, August 6, 1945.

Jackie, joyfully subversive, at 3/1/09 Pacific Life Community action at Bangor, photo by Leonard Eiger

TRIBUTE TO JACKIE HUDSON, OP from her sisters in prison

Sister Jackie Hudson, OP – Dominican Sister of Grand Rapids, Michigan, missioned to Ground Zero near Bangor Trident Naval Base, faith-filled and faithful peacemaker and organizer, strong preacher of truth, gentle and nonviolent woman, teacher, musician, plowshare activist and resister, was called before her unconditionally loving Judge on August 3, 2011.

PRESENTE!

Jackie crossed the fine line from life through death to life in the midst of her last action of many preceding it.  With twelve others, she entered Y-12, Oak Ridge, Tennessee Uranium Processing and Production Plant on July 5, 2010.  She was at trial from May 9-11 and incarcerated.  During her time in two jails she found herself in solidarity with so many prisoners who lack health care.  She suffered extreme pain and was placed in a medical confinement cell where she developed serious pneumonia and kidney failure.  Her sentencing was scheduled for September 19.  She will not appear before another earthly judge.

Photo by jpKERNODLE PHOTOGRAPHY

A JOKE AND A LETTER

The U.S. and Russia are supposedly allies in fighting Islamic terrorism.  But they do not trust one another – they spy upon one another.  The U.S. Navy Seals used trained porpoises to spy upon the Russian Navy in their naval warfare activities.  But the Russian sailors kidnapped the porpoises.  This leave the U.S. Navy in the position of trying to defeat their own porpoises.

June 16, 2011

Greetings.  My name is Michael Walli, a prisoner at Ocilla, Georgia awaiting my scheduled September 19 sentencing for protest activities at the illegal state terrorism Y-12 nuclear weapons of mass destruction site operated by the U.S. military failed state government.

I will not be able to attend the scheduled August dedication of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial near the western end of the Mall in Washington, D.C.  As Dr. King said in his life, “The U.S. is the chief purveyor of violence in the world… we have guided missiles and misguided men.”  He also said, “It seems that I can hear God say to America:  You are too arrogant.  If you do not change your ways I will destroy the backbone of your power.”