Monday, December 14, 2009

Sign your support to Disarm Now Plowshares

Sign direct on the Disarm Now Plowshares blog!
http://disarmnowplowshares.wordpress.com/support-us/

Support Letter for Disarm Now Plowshares

We support the nonviolent disarmament action that took place in the U.S. on November 2, 2009 at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor where Trident nuclear weapons are stored or deployed on Trident submarines. These weapons constitute the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons in the US.  Bill Bichsel, S.J., 81;  Steve Kelly, S.J.,60;  Anne Montgomery, RSCJ, 83; Lynne Greenwald, 60; and Susan Crane, 66, carried hammers into the secure nuclear bunker area  to symbolically carry out Isaiah's injunction to "hammer swords into plowshares." Plowshares actions call for conversion of weapons of war into what is necessary for human life. They also poured out their own blood from baby bottles to make clearly visible the violence the bunkers hide. They sowed sunflower seeds: seeds of hope and international symbols of nuclear disarmament. They walked in the nonviolence of Jesus whose message has often been obscured by the drumbeats of Empire.

During the civil rights and social change struggles in the US, South Africa, the Philippines, Poland, India and many other countries, nonviolent civil resistance has been recognized as a necessary and responsible method for people seeking real justice and peace. In the spirit of these international struggles, the Plowshares cut through the fences at the Strategic Weapons Facility-Pacific to draw attention to the presence and intended use of these weapons.

We join with these five to move away from the catastrophic path of self extinction and away from destroying all life on earth through the mining, production, research, testing, use and threat of use of nuclear weapons. Not only are these weapons killing people now through the funding that ought to be used for human needs, but the production, testing and use inflict indiscriminate slaughter, devastation of the environment, excruciating suffering, genetic damage for generations and wholesale destruction of cultural inheritance.

 Nuclear weapons preparation, planning, threat or use violates the most basic tenets of humanitarian law, human rights law and environmental law including the Nuremberg Principles, Hague regulations, Geneva Conventions and the UN Charter. In addition the International Court of Justice in 1996 declared that the threat or use of nuclear weapons stands in opposition to international law. Thus the threat of use of nuclear weapons, the cornerstone of US national security policy, is also a violation of international law.

Consequently, every person has a right and responsibility under the Nuremberg Principles to nonviolently oppose the existence of nuclear weapon systems and call for their abolition. All people can act responsibly in their local areas to eliminate nuclear weapons, as well as demand that the parties to the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty at the May 2010 Review Conference set a firm date for the global abolition of nuclear weapons. International bodies such as Mayors for Peace are calling for all nuclear weapons to be eliminated by the year 2020.  As nations turn their swords into plowshares, we become a human family that can eliminate war.

To sign this support letter
Fax Number if you want to put the letter on your letterhead and fax it:  253-272-6285
or mail to Disarm Now Plowshares, 1417 South G Street, Tacoma, Washington 98405
or, contact us (and sign the support letter) through http://disarmnowplowshares.wordpress.com



Tuesday, November 03, 2009

New plowshares disarmament: 60-83 year old activists - Disarm Now

(I was arrested with Anne Montgomery 1984 for hammering on Pershing II missiles in Florida. I was 22, she 57 then, and now 83! Sorry I missed your birthday! Here in Sweden, our three plowshares got released this summer. But we are just behind you guys in the US! Love Per)

Five People Arrested for Plowshares action on Naval Base Kitsap- Bangor

The Disarm Now Trident Plowshares Action

Bill Bix Bischel, S.J., 81, of Tacoma, Washington; Susan Crane, 65, of Baltimore MD; Lynne Greenwald, 60, of Bremerton, Washington; Steve Kelly, S.J., 60, of Oakland, CA.; Anne Montgomery RSCJ, 83, of New York, New York, were arrested on Naval Base Kitsap- Bangor November 2, 2009. They entered the Base in the early morning hours of November 2, 2009, All Souls Day, with the intention of calling attention to the illegality and immorality of the existence of the Trident weapons system. They entered thru the perimeter fence, made their way to the Strategic Weapons Facility - Pacific ( SWFPAC) where they were able to cut through the first chainlink fence surrounding SWFPAC, walked to and cut the next double layered fence, which was both chain link and barbed wire, onto the grounds of SWFPAC. As they walked onto the grounds, they held a banner saying ”Disarm Now Plowshares : Trident: Illegal + Immoral”, left a trail of blood and hammered on the roadway (Trigger Ave. and Sturgeon) that are essential to the working of the Trident weapons system, hammered on the fences around SWFPAC and scattered sunflower seeds throughout the base. They were then thrown to the ground face down, handcuffed and hooded and held there for 4 hours on the wet, cold ground. They were taken, hooded, and carried out through the very holes in the fence that they had made, for questioning by Base security, FBI and NCIS. They refused to give any information except their names, and were cited as of now, for trespass and destruction of government property, given a ban and bar letter and released.

There have been approximately 100 Plowshares Nuclear Resistance Actions worldwide since 1980. Plowshares actions are taken from Isaiah 2:4 in Old Testament (Hebrew) scripture of the Christian Bible, ”God will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many people. And they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. And nations will not take up swords against nations, nor will they train for war anymore.”

Disarm Now Plowshares Bios

Steve Kelly, S.J. During his religious formation in our inner cities, in Sudan, Africa, as well as refugee work in Central America following ordination, he encountered the messiah, Jesus incarnate in the poor. At the same time, the relevance of Jesus as a real shepherd inserting himself between the danger of wolf or thief and the flock in his care inspired this Jesuit to try to imitate Jesus. His current collaboration with Catholic Workers and the Pacific Life Community confirms the analysis that the nukes represent, just in their making, a contemporary larceny from the poor, while the wolf, the imminent danger of their use, demands the embodiment of Isaiah 2:4. Will that hammering wake us, those professing faith in a loving God, from our idolatrous slumbers?

Lynne Greenwald is the mother of three children and has worked professionally as a Registered Nurse, Family Therapist and Social Worker for nearly 40 years. She has also been actively involved in the Nonviolent Peace Movement since the mid-1970s. Lynne moved to Kitsap County in Washington State 26 years ago to join Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action and to become a neighbor to families involved with the Trident Base and other facilities in this predominately military community. ³While the existence of Trident is obvious, the truth of Trident's nuclear threats and illegality remains hidden. My action of conversion today is one committed out of love for all life.³

Anne Montgomery is an eighty-three year old Religious of the Sacred Heart and former teacher in high schools and programs for dropouts and learning disabled children. As a member of the Gulf Peace Team in 1991 and of Christian Peacemaker Teams from 1995 to 2009 she served in Iraq and Palestine. Since 1980 she has been active in the Plowshares movement and other forms of civil resistance to U.S. militarism, especially nuclear weapons. Since 2005 she has also participated in Witness Against Torture and the Free Gaza boat trip to open the port of Gaza. She acts now to support all efforts to convert weapons of death into resources for human life, especially for the most neglected and oppressed of the threatened earth.

Susan Crane is the mother of two sons, and has taught at a school for marginalized youth in California. More recently she has lived at Jonah House, a nonviolent community in Baltimore, which speaks out against all warmaking, and specifically nuclear weapons. Aware that we take better care of nuclear weapons than of our nation's children, and that we spend more than half of every federal tax dollar on warmaking rather than human needs, she acts to transform these weapons of mass destruction to life- giving materials.

Bill Bichsel, a Tacoma native, entered the Jesuit Order in 1946 and after studies and teaching was ordained a Jesuit in 1959. He has served in parishes, taught in high schools, and was Dean of Students at Gonzaga from 1963-1966. In 1969 he returned to Tacoma where he served at St. Leo's Parish for over 7 years and then co-founded the Tacoma Catholic Worker (Guadalupe House) which offers hospitality and transitional housing to the homeless. The Guadalupe Community lives in the nonviolent tradition of Dorothy Day, the Catholic Worker foundress. Bichsel still resides and serves at the Tacoma Catholic Worker-one mile from where he was born and raised. He has served jail and prison terms many times for his resistance to the violence of the Trident nuclear weapon system and the violence of the S.O.A. training at Ft. Benning, GA. He believes that unless we, the American people, actively work to abolish nuclear weapons we as a people will continue to threaten destruction to the global community and continue to deprive the poor of the world of resources necessary for life.

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Resistance manuals for net-activism

Some net-activist friends (filesharing, hacking, free software etc) have developed different activist-manuals on internet-tools which can be used for resistance on-line. Please, feel free to use, add, rewrite and share back:

Saturday, September 05, 2009

Homeless people who connect via internet

Here's an interesting photo reportage on homeless people in San Francisco that connect via the Internet. Key problems seems to be how to get power and wireless connection. Some solutions are shown in the photo reportage: Homeless and Online in San Francisco.

Monday, August 10, 2009

Send letter to Carl Kabat in prison for plowshares action at Hiroshima day at Missile Silo

Fr. Carl Kabat OMI has spent 17 years in jail for nonviolent resistance to nuclear weapons. Carl was arrested last Friday on Hiroshima Day cutting into a Minuteman 3 nuclear weapon silo in Colorado/USA and beginning a plowshares action. The first strike missile is on hair trigger alert.

Please send solidarity letters and postcards to

Fr. Carl Kabat OMI
Weld County Jail
2110 O Street
Greeley, CO 80631
USA


Full plowshares action report .
Photos of Fr. Carl Kabat cutting into the silo.
News
articles on the action .

Sunday, April 26, 2009

Carl-Gustaf granade launchers & Haubitz cannons disarmed

October 16, 2008, saw two coordinated disarmament actions at leading weapon factories in two different cities in central Sweden. Equipped with hammers and bolt cutter the disarmers gained access to the manufacturing halls where they found and disarmed fourteen Carl-Gustaf bazookas, granade launchers, used in the American led war on Iraq and one Haubitz cannons destined for India.

Read the story of the disarmament actions
Videos and
pictures from the disarmament

Friday, February 20, 2009

Plowshares trial in Sweden - Hope & Resistance Festival

You are invited to
the SAAB Microwave '
Becoming2 Ploughshares' trial
and the Hope & Resistance festival
31 March to 1st April, 2009, in Gothenburg, Sweden

On April 1st, 2009, Ulla Røder and Per Herngren will be standing trial for disarming parts of the test range and a military radar. The ploughshares disarmament happened on June 24 and 26 in 2008, at Saab Microwave factories in Gothenburg, Sweden.

The ploughshares group calling themselves SAAB Microwave Becoming2 Ploughshares did their action together with Deleuze philosophy seminars in Gothenburg. The philosophers additionally took part in the intervention. Becoming resistance, becoming justice, and the becoming of becoming, are important parts of the philosophy of Deleuze.

Hope & Resistance Festival

A ploughshares trial is to create a resistance community - there are no spectators. Lizzie and Les from the British ploughshares will bring art tools to make the trial into an art workshop. The day before the trial we start with a party! So you are invited and welcome to participate in the Hope & Resistance Festival from March 31 - April 1st 2009 in Gothenburg, Sweden. Please contact Per Herngren at the following email address: Contact: herngrenper(at)gmail.com.

Potluck and resistance techniques in biology

In the potluck supper on March 31st, the evening before the trail starts, the biologist Adam Brenthel will be reflecting with us on "What can ploughshares learn from resistance in biology and in the body". (this is regarding seed ideas like; cascades, creating niche spaces, implanting, singularities, non-linear dynamics, rhizome, etc.)

Organizers

The organisers of the disarmament intervention and the trial support come from the Fig-Tree Jona House Resistance Community in Gothenburg and also the local Fellowship of Reconciliation, Sweden.

Web page with pictures from the disarmament action

See pictures and read more about the ploughshares disarmament at Microwave: http://ickevald.net/plowshares/