On March 4, 2013 twenty peace activists from around the United States were arrested as a result of their nonviolent protest against nuclear weapons at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor in Silverdale, Washington.  Members of the Pacific Life Community had gathered at the Bangor base’s Main Gate early that morning in resistance to the continued deployment of the Trident nuclear weapons system and the associated threat of use of nuclear weapons by the U.S. government.

While maintaining a peaceful vigil along the roadway, six of the resisters entered the roadway with a banner, which they stretched across the entrance lanes in symbolic closure of the base. The banner quoted Martin Luther King Jr.: “When scientific power outruns spiritual power, we end up with guided missiles and misguided men.”  The protesters also knelt in prayer.

March 4th action (Photo credit: Mike Wisniewski, LA Catholic Worker)

Washington State Patrol officers ordered the protesters to leave the roadway. All six protesters complied with the officers and were escorted to the median where they were briefly detained and issued citations for “Walking on roadway where prohibited.”

The other resisters were arrested by military personnel after crossing the blue line onto Federal property.  You can read more about the vigil and action in the March 4th news release.

(l to r) Tom Karlin, Leonard Eiger and Cliff Kirchmer
(photo: Laura Karlin)

Three of those cited – Leonard Eiger, Tom Karlin and Cliff Kirchmer – requested mitigation hearings before a judge in order to present individual statements on the reasons for their actions that day.  All three resisters appeared together in Kitsap District Court in Port Orchard before Judge Steven L. Olsen.  Each resister read his statement to the court.  In unified, yet individual, voices, the defendants spoke out against the immorality and illegality of the continuing threat of use of nuclear weapons, as well as the tremendous costs, both human and economic, of their continued development and deployment.

Click here to read Cliff Kirchmer’s statement.

Click here to read Tom Karlin’s statement.

Click here to read Leonard Eiger’s statement.

(Note: The statements are listed in the order presented to the judge.)

Judge Olsen showed interest and appreciation as he listened to the defendant’s statements.  Witnesses in the courtroom overheard the judge say, “I appreciate your activism” after Kirchmer finished his statement.  After the last statement Judge Olsen said, “Well done.”  He mitigated each resister’s fine down to the minimum amount of twenty-five dollars.

Defendants (in front) with supporters who witnessed the proceedings
(photo: Laura Karlin)

The other three resisters who were cited by the State Patrol were unable to appear in court due to geographical distance or work.  The other fourteen resisters were arrested on the Federal side by Naval authorities.  So far a few have received ban and bar letters (which prohibit them from coming back on the base) from the Navy, although none have yet been notified to appear in Federal court.

The Bangor Trident base is home port to eight of the nation’s 14 Ohio class nuclear ballistic missile submarines and also home to the Strategic Weapons Facility, Pacific, where the Navy stores thermonuclear warheads for deployment on its submarines.  Bangor represents the largest single operational concentration of nuclear weapons in the U.S. arsenal and possibly in the entire world.

The Navy is currently in the research and development phase of its plan to build 12 new ballistic missile submarines to replace the existing Trident fleet at an estimated (construction) cost of $100 Billion!

Finally – On a related note I want to mention that fellow resisters who engaged in the Good Friday witness at Lockheed Martin (which makes the Trident missiles) in Sunnyvale, California will have their day in court on May 13th.  Also, we hold our good friends Megan Rice, Greg Boertje-Obed and Michael Walli in our thoughts and prayers following their being found guilty by a jury of the charges stemming from their Transform Now Plowshares action. 

Jack Cohen-Joppa led off at this year’s Pacific Life Community Faith & Resitance Retreat with history and current state of resistance to nuclear weapons and war-making.  The Cohen-Joppas (Jack and Felice) have a pretty darn good handle on such things with their 32 years of publishing The Nuclear Resister and supporting resisters everywhere.  At one point Jack handed out cards on which were written entries spanning more than 65 years, and telling highlights from the history of nuclear weapons resistance.  One by one a different person read an entry, sort of litany of resistance.  It was a powerful and centering way to begin our weekend, which ended with a nonviolent direct action at the Bangor Trident nuclear submarine base.  Here are the individual event descriptions listed in chronological order.

Peace,

Leonard

###

August 1945

At a California prison camp, conscientious objector Bent Andresen, hearing the news about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, penned a leaflet decrying the new superbomb and calling for the abolition of war. Within days he had walked away from the prison, had 5,000 copies of his leaflet printed up, and took off hitchhiking across the country. He passed his leaflet as he travelled until federal marshals caught up with him. He began a hunger strike and did not voluntarily drink or eat for eight months. After the first month he was sentenced to two years in prison; for seven months before he was released, he was force fed by a tube in his nose at the medical center for federal prisoners in Missouri.

August 1945 

When the mushroom clouds over Japan revealed to Gordon Maham the purpose of his secret government engineering job, he resigned from the job at Oak Ridge in protest, thus losing his draft exemption. Refusing post-war conscription, Maham was arrested and jailed for three years as a conscientious objector.

June 15, 1955

28 people, including A.J. Muste, Dorothy Day and Ammon Hennacy, were arrested in New York City for refusing to take shelter during the Civil Defense drill.  Their statement said, “These drills create the illusion that the nation can devote its major resources to preparation for nuclear war and at the same time shield people from its catastrophic effects.”

August 6, 1957

Eleven pacifists were arrested after crossing over into a prohibited area in protest of a nuclear bomb test at the Nevada Test Site.

May 2, 1958

The crew of the Golden Rule were arrested while attempting to sail into the nuclear bomb test area in the South Pacific.

1958

Five pacifists served 104 day prison sentences for trying to halt construction of a missile base in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

November 22, 1960

Bill Henry and Don Martin swam out to the newly launched nuclear submarine Ethan Allen in Groton, Connecticut and climbed aboard.  They were arrested and sentenced to jail time.

1961 and 1962

Following Great Britain’s first H-bomb test, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament – CND – was founded in the spring of 1958, inaugurating an annual march for unilateral disarmament between London and the nuclear weapons plant at Aldermaston and giving the world a simple graphic for nuclear disarmament now known globally as the peace symbol. Mass sit-ins led by the Committee of 100, a direct action faction founded by Bertrand Russell, led to thousands of arrests.

1971

Greenpeace - known internationally for nonviolent direct action – began with a 1971 voyage to stop U.S. nuclear weapons testing in Alaska.

September 9, 1980

The first Plowshares action.  The Plowshares Eight – Sr. Anne Montgomery, Molly Rush, Elmer Maas, Phil Berrigan, Fr. Dan Berrigan, Dean Hammer, John Schuchardt and Fr. Carl Kabat – entered a General Electric assembly plant in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania.  They hammered on re-entry vehicle cones for nuclear missile warheads, and poured their blood on project blueprints.

November 17, 1980

160 women were arrested for “obstruction of an entrance” after blocking all the entrances of the Pentagon to protest the planning of nuclear annihilation going on inside the building.

December 13, 1980

Atlantic Life Community member Peter DeMott, protesting the christening and launch of a Trident nuclear submarine in Groton, Connecticut, happened upon an unlocked van with the keys inside.  He started it up and repeatedly rammed it into the rudder of a nearby Trident sub.

February 10, 1981

Six people, including Ladon Sheats and Larry Rosebaugh, climbed the fence of the Pantex nuclear warhead assembly factory in Texas, and sang and prayed until they were arrested.

Two years later, a minister who lost his pulpit after supporting the first witness at Pantex, was also arrested there as he entered the gate carrying a lit candle, knelt and prayed.

March 11, 1981

Larry Perlazzo, Larry Purcell, Dan Delaney and Chris Selvig walked into the Lockheed factory in Sunnyvale, California.  Passing into secure areas without clearance badges, they poured their blood over Trident missile parts and blueprints, and wrote “Choose Life Not Death” on the wall.

September 1981

One thousand nine hundred and fifty three arrests were made as anti-nuclear activists occupied the site of the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant in California.

September 7, 1982

Sr. Pat Mahoney and Sr. Marie Nord were arrested after entering the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant, labeling two of the plutonium buildings  ”Auschwitz” and “Dachau” and running a large black flag reading “Death Factory” up the plant’s flag pole.

June 14, 1982

In New York City, one thousand six hundred and ninety one people were arrested blockading the U.N. missions of the nuclear nations.

Ash Wednesday, 1983

Ground Zero members Mary Gronden, Shelley Douglass and Karol Schulkin were arrested while walking down the railroad tracks into the Bangor Trident base, hanging photos of Hiroshima victims and peace and international law quotes on railroad cars.

January 24, 1983

Two hundred and ten people were arrested at Vandenberg Air Force Base.  Some of the twenty eight who had entered the base in a backcountry action brought a coconut with them “to remind us of our brothers and sisters in the Marshall Islands who have been displaced from their homes because of missile testing from Vandenberg Air Force Base.”

June 20-22, 1983

One thousand and sixty eight protesters were arrested for blockading the entrance of Livermore Nuclear Labs in California.

October 1983

In an international day of protest of the Cruise and Pershing II Euromissiles, 1,423 people were arrested at 20 different nuclear weapons related sites in the U.S. alone.

Halloween, 1983

Women used bolt cutters to cut down five miles of the nine mile perimeter fence at Greenham Common, a nuclear cruise missile base in England.  Hundreds were arrested and charged with criminal damage.

February 24, 1984

Two hundred people blocked the railroad tracks in Portland, Oregon, causing the White Train – transporting nuclear weapons – to stop for several hours.  33 were arrested.

November 12, 1984

Carl Kabat, Paul Kabat, Helen Woodson and Larry Cloud Morgan – the Silo Pruning Hooks –  were arrested after beginning the disarmament of a nuclear missile silo in Missouri with a jackhammer and sledgehammer.

August 6, 1985

In over 300 communities around the world, people chalked, whitewashed and painted human and animal silhouettes on streets and buildings as a grim reminder of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  At least 200 people were arrested in 21 U.S. cities.  200 additional arrests were reported in Canada, England and Australia.

August 6, 1985

450 arrests took place at 29 sites around the U.S. and Canada to say Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Never Again.  One of those arrests took place when Richard Miller dismantled a portion of railroad tracks leading from the Pantex plant, and put up a banner that read “Pantex equals Auschwitz – Stop the Train.”

1986    

Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu was convicted of treason and espionage in a secret trial, for releasing photos and information about Israel’s secret Dimona nuclear facility.  He was imprisoned for 18 years, 12 in solitary confinement.  Restrictions after his release in 2004 keep him from leaving Israel to this day.  He wrote while in prison, “I have no choice, I’m a little man, a citizen, one of the people, but I’ll do what I have to.  I’ve heard the voice of my conscience and there’s nowhere to hide.”

March 1988

Over a week of protests to Reclaim the Nevada Test Site resulted in 2,065 arrests. The following year, over 1,500 people were arrested and Nye County gave up prosecuting trespass at the Test Site.

August 15, 1988

Fourteen people with the Missouri Peace Planters entered 10 Minuteman nuclear missile silos in western Missouri. Some sat silently and prayed, and some planted trees. Many returned to the silos on subsequent days before receiving jail time.

January 3, 1995

Vincent Eirene was arrested while praying inside the gate of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, where the Bomb was born.

June, 1999

As part of the Trident Plowshares 2000 campaign, three women boarded a barge at the Faslane Trident base in Scotland, where they damaged nuclear submarine test equipment and threw computers overboard.  A judge hearing a defense under international law ordered a jury to acquit the women.

October 6, 2002

Sister Ardeth Platte, Sister Carol Gilbert and Sister Jackie Hudson – the Sacred Earth & Space Plowshares II – were arrested after entering the N-8 missile silo in northern Colorado. Wearing white jumpsuits emblazoned with “Citizen Weapons Inspection Team, Disarmament Specialists”, they made the sign of the cross with their blood on the silo lid, and hammered on its rails.

Feast of the Holy Innocents, 2005

Frank Cordaro, Renee Espeland, Paul Gallagher and Fr. Jack McCaslin walked down the entry road of the U.S. Strategic Command at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, with a banner reading “Herod killed the infants, STRATCOM would kill the world.” The four were arrested and Cordaro later served his eighth six-month prison sentence, many for similar protests at STRATCOM.

All Souls Day, 2009

Susan Crane, Fr. Steve Kelly, Fr. Bill Bichsel, Sr. Anne Montgomery, and Lynn Greenwald – the Disarm Now Plowshares – entered the nuclear weapons storage area at the Bangor Trident nuclear submarine base in Washington state. They planted seeds, prayed, hammered on the fence and poured blood before being arrested.

April 15, 2010  

Richard Sauder, imprisoned following a series of prayerful protests in the early 1980s at missile silos in Arkansas and Missouri and Navy bases in Virginia and Georgia, was arrested again in 2010, inside a nuclear missile silo near Parshall, North Dakota. He spent another 100 days in jail.

July 2010

Fourteen protesters entered the construction site of the new Kansas City nuclear weapons parts plant. All were arrested after surprising construction workers and standing directly in front of earth moving equipment in the muddy soybean field, bringing construction to a halt.

April 1, 2012

800 Europeans from 10 counties converged at NATO headquarters in Brussels. Formed into nonviolent humanitarian intervention teams, 483 activists were arrested trying to occupy the site.

July 28, 2012

Greg Boertje-Obed, Sr. Megan Rice, and Michael Walli – the Transform Now Plowshares – hammered on the foundation and poured blood on the walls of the new storehouse for bomb-grade highly enriched uranium at the Y-12 nuclear weapons complex in Tennessee.

Members of the Pacific Life Community gathered at the Main Gate to Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor early Monday morning in resistance to the continued deployment of the Trident nuclear weapons system and the associated threat of use of nuclear weapons by the U.S. government.

The Bangor Trident base is home port to eight of the nation’s 14 Ohio class nuclear ballistic missile submarines and also home to the Strategic Weapons Facility, Pacific, where the Navy stores thermonuclear warheads for deployment on its submarines.  Bangor represents the largest operational concentration of nuclear weapons in the U.S. arsenal.

While maintaining a peaceful vigil along the roadway, six of the resisters entered the roadway with a banner, which they stretched across the entrance lanes in symbolic closure of the base. The banner quoted Martin Luther King Jr.: “When scientific power outruns spiritual power, we end up with guided missiles and misguided men.”  The protesters also knelt in prayer.

(Photo credit: Mike Wisniewski, LA Catholic Worker)

Washington State Patrol officers ordered the protesters to leave the roadway. All six protesters complied with the officers and were escorted to the median where they were briefly detained and issued citations for “Walking on roadway where prohibited.”

Meanwhile, another fourteen protesters walked onto the roadway carrying banners and signs calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons.  All crossed the blue line onto the base and knelt in prayer.  Naval security personnel arrested the protesters and drove them to a facility on the base for processing.  They were cited under Section 1382 of Title 18 prohibiting trespassing on military bases, and released a short time later.

The resisters carried a letter addressed to the Bangor base commander.  It stated that the “Trident II D-5 missiles with their W76 or W88 [thermonuclear] warheads are illegal under international law and hence are also illegal per the Constitution of the United States.” Naval security personnel declined to accept the letters. 

(Photo credit: Mike Wisniewski, LA Catholic Worker)

Those cited for Federal trespassing were Louis Vitale, OFM, Oakland, CA;  Rodney Herold, Seattle, WA; Ted Bracknan. Puyallup, WA; Tensie Hernandez, Santa Maria, CA; Betsy (Frances Elizabeth) Lamb, Bend, OR; Ann E. Havill, Bend, OR; Denny Moore, Bainbridge Island, WA; Bill Bichsel, SJ, Tacoma, WA; James G. Haber, San Francisco, CA; Ed Ehmke, Menlo Park, CA; Mary Jane Parrine, Menlo Park, CA; Jerry Zawada, OFM, Milwaukee, WI; Felice Cohen-Joppa, Tucson, AZ and Susan Crane, Redwood City, CA.

Cited by State Patrol were Tom Karlin, Tacoma, WA; Clancy Dunigan, Langley, WA; George Rodkey, Tacoma, WA; Marcus Page-Collonge, Albuquerque, NM; Leonard Eiger, North Bend, WA and Cliff Kirchmer, Tacoma, WA.

The vigil and nonviolent direct action brought to a close this year’s Pacific Life Community (PLC) Faith and Resistance Retreat held near Tacoma, Washington.  The PLC is dedicated to abolishing nuclear weapons and war-making through nonviolent direct action. The annual event is held each year on the weekend around the anniversary of Castle Bravo, the most powerful nuclear device ever detonated by the U.S. 

(Photo credit: Mike Wisniewski, LA Catholic Worker)

Fallout from Castle Bravo contaminated a large portion of the Marshall Islands, and poisoned island residents as well as the crew of the Daigo Fukuryu Maru, a Japanese fishing vessel.  It also generated international concern about atmospheric testing.  The U.S. still occupies part of the Marshall Islands in its continued testing of intercontinental ballistic missiles.

This year’s Faith and Resistance Retreat was hosted by the Tacoma Catholic Worker community.  The event brought together people from around the Western U.S. Catholic Workers came from San Jose, CA; Los Angeles, CA; Half Moon Bay, CA; Las Vegas, NV; Guadalupe, CA; Sheep Ranch, CA and Redwood City, CA. 

Fr. Bill Bichsel, of the Tacoma Catholic Worker community and 2012 Greater Tacoma Peace Prize laureate, commented on the significance of the Pacific Life Community’s work.  “We refuse to accept nuclear weapons as our security.  We owe it to our children and grandchildren to create a nonviolent world.  We are the future and the kingdom that we have been waiting for.”

Also represented at the retreat were Nevada Desert Experience, The Nuclear Resister and Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action. Ground Zero, a community in resistance to nuclear weapons, particularly Trident, hosted this morning’s vigil and action at Bangor.

(Photo credit: Mike Wisniewski, LA Catholic Worker)

The U.S. Navy is building a Second Explosives Handling Wharf at the Bangor Trident base, and is engaged in research and development to build twelve new ballistic missile submarines designed to replace the existing Trident submarines.  Estimated cost to build the twelve submarines is almost $100 billion. Rear Admiral Joseph Tofalo, commander, submarine Group 10, Kings Bay, Georgia has stated that “A single Trident submarine is the sixth nuclear nation in the world all by itself.” 

Full text of letter to base commander follows.

###

March 4, 2013

Dear Captain Pete Dawson, Commander, Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor:

We are members of the Pacific Life Community, a network of people from the western United States working for the abolition of nuclear weapons. We come today, near the anniversary of the March 1, 1954 Bravo hydrogen bomb test in the Bikini Atoll, in memory of the people of Rongelap who died from radiation poisoning as a result of fallout from that test. We stand with their survivors who do not trust the assurances of the United States government that it is safe for them to return there, even now. Any pressure on the former residents of Rongelap to return must stop now.

Trident II D-5 missiles with their W76 or W88 warheads are illegal under international law and hence are also illegal per the Constitution of the United States. It is a violation of the Nuremberg Principles to threaten destruction of a city, and it is a violation of the Geneva Conventions to threaten use of weapons of indiscriminate power. The July, 1996 International Court of Justice ruling was clear; nuclear weapons are not consistent with international humanitarian law.

It is obvious that nuclear weapons are stored at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor. Please inform us if we’re wrong. We have a responsibility as citizens to be informed enough to weigh in on military and foreign policy issues. Local governments and residents have a need to plan for public safety given the surety that one of the largest collections of nuclear weapons in the world is only 20 miles from Seattle and Tacoma and its 1 million residents.

We want to stop the continued pollution and radioactive contamination from the ongoing nuclear weapons stockpile. The problem of uranium leaks at Hanford cannot be divorced from the problem of nuclear weapons on Trident submarines that threaten nuclear war on every nation and person in the world. Nuclear weapons are killing people now.

We need and deserve a response. We’re waiting.

Sincerely,

cc: Commander-in-Chief Barack Obama, United States Armed Forces

cc: Rear Admiral Dietrich H. Kuhlmann III, Commander, Submarine Group 9

We will meet at 7:00 am sharp at Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action.

We will leave GZ for one of the Bangor gates at 7:15.

After the vigil and action everyone will return to GZ for breakfast and reflection.

Bring your nonviolent spirit.

Ground Zero is located at 16159 Clear Creek Road NW, Poulsbo WA  98370.

Directions available at http://www.gzcenter.org

The Pacific Life Community 2013 Faith & Resistance Retreat is just days away (two to be exact). People are still asking if they can still register to attend. The answer is a resounding YES!!! If you are still considering joining us on March 1st for a full weekend in resistance to nuclear weapons and war we welcome your participation.

Please contact Joe Power-Drutis (at jpdrutis@gmail.com) right away if you will attend as he is coordinating lodging, meals and transportation (and more).

If you are already registered, here are a few things to know.

If you are getting to the retreat center on your own, you are welcome to arrive from 3:00 PM or after on Friday afternoon (March 1st). A map of the All Saints Camp, the full weekend schedule, and more is all at the Pacific Life Community Blog: http://pacificlifecommunity.wordpress.com/.

For those of you arriving by other means of transport, our Master of Logistics, Joe Power-Drutis has already contacted you to confirm all your details and leave nary a stone unturned. We will get you to the Retreat on time (assuming you arrive somewhere in the Puget Sound area, and not Poughkeepsie).

If you are wondering about the weather here around Puget Sound, join the club. It will be the usual – sunny, cloudy, rainy, cool to cold. It will be up in the 50s during the day and as low as 40 at night. The “official” forecast calls for “partly sunny” on Monday morning (but don’t quote me on that); just don’t leave your rain gear at home. Welcome to Washington.

Here are a couple other details on the retreat center:

• There is cellular coverage at All Saints, although no wireless internet.  If you absolutely must get connected, you can drive less than a mile to the Rosedale Market and Deli, which has wireless.
• There is electricity in the cabins.  For those with CPAP machines, you might want to bring an extension cord.

I know Joe is getting everyone set up with specific drivers and providing every one’s contact info. That being said, here are two additional numbers to keep handy in case you experience and problems during your trip here. You can call me at 425-445-2190 or George Rodkey at 253-961-5822.

See you later agitators,

Leonard

Here is the final version of the schedule for the upcoming Pacific Life Community 2013 Faith & Resistance Retreat.

Looking forward,

Leonard

FRIDAY, MARCH 1st

• 3:00 pm onward – Arrive and settle in at All Saints Camp
• 6:00 pm – Dinner at All Saints (food will be available for those arriving later)
• 7:30 – Social Time and Introductions

SATURDAY, MARCH 2nd

• 6:30 am  – Optional morning prayer in Chapel
• 7:30 – 8:30 – Breakfast
• 9:00 – 10:00 – Welcome & finish introductions
• 10:00 – 11:00 – Opening speakers (Cohen-Joppas on the history and current state of resistance)
• 11:00 – 12:30 – Reflections on speakers & community reports
• 12:30 – 1:15 pm – Lunch
• 1:15 – 2:45 – Trident presentation, stories of resistance, history of Bangor base, recent actions at Bangor & legal consequences (with panel from Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action)
• 2:45 – 3:00- Break
• 3:00 – 4:45 – “Global Transformation;East and West” – Fr. Bichsel and others
• 5:00 – 6:00 – Dinner
• 6:15 – Travel to University of Puget Sound in Tacoma
• 7:00 – Free, public event at University of Puget Sound
• 9:00 – Public reception (at UPS) following the formal program
• 10:00 – Return to All Saints

SUNDAY, MARCH 3rd

• 7:30 am – Breakfast
• 9:00 – Liturgies, readings, spiritual exercises, free time
• 12:00 – 1:00 – “Solidarity” Lunch
• 1:00 – 2:00 pm – Tribute to Anne Montgomery
• 2:00 – Strategies and Big Picture Issues; What should we be organizing about? How can we work more in concert?  Planning for next year’s PLC.
• 3:00 – Strategizing/Planning for Monday morning vigil and action
• 5:00 – Social time
• 6:00 – Dinner
• 7:00 – Final planning for Monday morning vigil and action
• 7:30 – Social Time, Talent Sharing

MONDAY, MARCH 4th

• 5:00 am – Breakfast
• 6:00 - Leave for Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action
• 7:00 - Arrive Ground Zero Center
• 7:15  - Leave for Bangor gate
• 9:00 – Regroup at Ground Zero Center (Breakfast, Reflection)
• 10:00 – Begin return to All Saints for cleanup and preparation for departure

Note: Monday morning morning times are approximate and subject to change

In just less than a month people will gather for the Pacific Life Community 2013 Faith & Resistance Retreat – Friday, March 1st through Monday, March 4th.

Just what is the Pacific Life Community?  Briefly – It is an extended community of people in many different communities dedicated to “ending nuclear weapons and war-making through nonviolent direct action.”

The retreat is a full weekend of reflection, sharing and re-charging (and more) for the work ahead.

The retreat itself will be at the All Saints Camp in Gig Harbor, just north of Tacoma.  On Saturday evening there is a free public event at the University of Puget Sound.  On Monday morning people from the retreat will gather for a vigil and nonviolent direct action at the Bangor Trident submarine base.  All are welcome to join in any part of the weekend – on Monday morning, Saturday evening, as well as the rest of the weekend’s retreat.

The retreat begins at All Saints Camp on Friday evening with some informal activities.  The more “formal” program begins Saturday morning and runs through Sunday evening.  On Monday morning we will rise before the sun and prepare for the early morning action at Bangor, which is a relatively short drive North of the retreat center.

People need to register for the retreat itself so that we can plan to accommodate everyone. We are asking for $100 per attendee to help cover the costs of the retreat. No one will be turned down for lack of full fare. And we invite you who are able to subsidize to help.  Click here to download the Registration Form.

The Saturday evening program at University of Puget Sound is free and open to the public, and begins at 7:00PM (NO registration necessary).  The theme is A Nonviolent Future without Nuclear Weapons?  We have a rich offering of presenters, including:

• Felice Cohen-Joppa, Master of Ceremonies for the evening, who brings 30 years of work on The Nuclear Resister, dedicated to supporting imprisoned anti-nuclear and anti-war activists.
• Michael Honey, Professor of Labor and Ethnic Studies and American History at University of Washington, Tacoma.
• Tom Rogers, a retired US Navy Captain.  A career submariner, he commanded a nuclear attack submarine during the Cold War.
• Elizabeth Murray, an ex-CIA analyst and former Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East at the National Intelligence Council
• Father William “Bix” Bichsel, a Jesuit who lives and works at the Tacoma Catholic Worker.

Click here for more detailed bios and full information on Saturday evening’s program.  It will be a wonderful opportunity to learn how we can all engage the issue and help build a nonviolent future free of the scourge of nuclear weapons.   After the formal presentations and music, there will be an opportunity to meet and talk with presenters and members of the PLC to learn more.

Thanks to UPS Students for Justice & Service in Tacoma; and Office for Service, Spirituality & Social Justice at UPS for co-sponsoring the Saturday evening event.

Monday morning’s vigil and nonviolent direct action will happen at the Bangor base, and we are grateful to Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action (GZ) for hosting the action.  GZ is located next door to the Bangor base (the largest operational concentration of nuclear weapons!!!).  All are welcome to join the vigil in nonviolent spirit and intention.  We plan to arrive at Bangor and begin vigiling at approximately 7:00AM.  Following the vigil and action we will regroup at GZ for breakfast and reflection.  We will post more details as they are available. Please note: We don’t yet know the exact location of the action.

If you are considering joining us on Monday morning, but will not be with us on the retreat, please send me an email at gznonviolencenews@gmail.com and I will be sure to keep you updated on Monday morning – timing, directions, etc.  This is important as it is quite possible that we will not determine which gate we will be at until Sunday (March 3rd).

Finally – Please check the top of the right column at the PLC Blog for registration form, maps and more.  We will be adding the retreat schedule soon.

If you still have questions please contact either Leonard at subversivepeacemaking@gmail.com or George at georod01@msn.com and let us know what you need.

Looking forward to sharing a rich weekend of faith and resistance.

With Nonviolent Spirit,

Leonard

As we get closer to the Pacific Life Community 2013 Faith & Resistance Retreat, plans for the Saturday evening public event at University of Puget Sound are really coming together.  The theme – “ A Nonviolent Future without Nuclear Weapons?”

Why the question mark in the title???  As I looked at the poster the first time I asked myself that very question.  The abolition of nuclear weapons is such a huge struggle that requires committment on all levels.  Saturday’s event is (in my mind and heart) about changing that question mark to an exclamation point.

It will be an evening of sharing and learning, of celebration, and above all an evening of hope for the future embodied in people’s committment to a nonviolent world free of the scourge of nuclear weapons.

The formal program begins at University of Puget Sound’s Kilworth Chapel at 7:00 PM.  Felice Cohen-Joppa will be our Master of Ceremonies for the evening.  Felice, along with partner Jack, brings 30 years of work on The Nuclear Resister, dedicated to supporting imprisoned anti-nuclear and anti-war activists.

We have a wonderful line-up of presenters with diverse backgrounds.

Michael Honey is Professor of Labor and Ethnic Studies and American History at University of Washington, Tacoma.  Michael’s rich, personal history includes southern civil rights and civil liberties organizing from 1970-1976.  His most recent book is Going Down the Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King’s Last Campaign.

Tom Rogers is a retired US Navy Captain.  A career submariner, he commanded a nuclear attack submarine during the Cold War.  He currently works to abolish nuclear weapons with the Ground Zero Center for Non Violent Action.

Elizabeth Murray is an ex-CIA analyst and former Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East at the National Intelligence Council, and served for 27 years with the agency.

And of course Father William “Bix” Bichsel.  Bix recently travelled throughout Europe building strong connections in our common work to abolish nuclear weapons.  He will be sharing that story with us on Saturday.

There will be presentations, music and much more.  We will have refreshments and an informal time for people to meet and talk following the formal program.

Click here for a map showing the location of University of Puget Sound.  Kilworth Chapel is located along N. 18th Street.  Click here for a UPS campus map (the chapel is #21 on the map).

Click here to view and download the poster/flyer for Saturday’s event.

Questions on the Saturday event?  Contact either Leonard at subversivepeacemaking@gmail.com or George at georod01@msn.com.

Thanks to the UPS Student Committee for Spirituality, Service & Social Justice for generously co-sponsoring this event. 

In Peace,

Leonard

The sun is shining brilliantly here in the Cascade Mountains of Washington State as we enter the New Year.  I see a year of hope manifest in a vibrant community steeped in nonviolence and deeply committed to a nonviolent world free of the scourge of nuclear weapons.

As hosts for the Pacific Life Community 2013 Faith & Resistance Retreat we are gearing up to welcome everyone to Puget Sound (Where the Nukes Are!!!) for a meaningful weekend of fellowship, sharing, rejuvenation and ACTION!

This year’s retreat runs from Friday, March 1st to Monday, March 4th.

You are welcome to arrive any time on Friday.  There will be dinner on Friday evening at the retreat center.  Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action will host a vigil and nonviolent direct action at the Bangor base early Monday morning.  We will finish and leave Ground Zero by 10:00AM and return to the retreat center so everyone can prepare to head out.  It would be safe to plan flights for early afternoon.  The train schedule is a bit more problematic.

I will get the full weekend schedule posted shortly.

Cick here to download the registration form that you can print, fill out and return to help us prepare to accomodate everyone.  We’re asking everyone to get your registrations in by February 1st to give us enough time to plan accomodations, food and more.

If you have any general questions, feel free to contact either me at subversivepeacemaking@gmail.com or George Rodkey at georod01@msn.com.

Here’s to a New Year of continued resistance.

In Peace,

Leonard

###

Link to PLC 2013 Retreat Registration Form: https://docs.google.com/open?id=0BzRG1crlv8YMMzZpcU9BYmtZT2c