PLC 2024: Reflection on Why We Gather

[Our co-convener, SK offered this reflection during the course of our weekend. We often ruminate about our purpose as individuals, as activists, and as a spiritual community of activists. SK’s offering touched on a number of recurring questions in a way that allowed us to forgo “hand-wringing” or wallowing about effectiveness and results, or lack thereof. -Jim]

Why we R here

One of the awful things, among the mixed curses about the war in Ukraine is the increase of talk, threat,and God forbid use of nukes… for those who have argued in anyway private and/or public, courtroom testimony about the immanence of nuclear exchange have ironically had the case in point validated by the proxy war in Russian & Ukrainian eastern Europe… Let’s not fail to mention, Iran, North Korea,China, Pakistan, India and not least, Israel. These are echoes of the cold war not just retro but done in anew style with tweaks of higher tech fables of limitations in use or power or containment…It’s been almost 80 years of this demon, well, yes, actually, a correction, the Academy Award winner,Oppenheimer dates eighty plus years…

Those of us gathered have been on edge about this without slumbering. For many of the public the recent news is a wake up call and should bring everyone to alarmed concern. But we that have been decrying the bomb don’t even get the luxury to say “…we told you so…”.

Those who do have luxury, the weapons’ makers complex, are having a field day from the tension alone and of course the conventional and escalating arming of Ukraine and Israel is very profitable. The arms industry has never benefited from the absence of war, there is no interest in diplomatic solutions. This pattern of fear, kill or be killed, is the spectrum from handguns through nukes, the fable of deterrence is consistently profitable.

In the early days of the Nevada witness, the proposition that to stop testing was to halt the spiraling arms race. But while there are various takes on that moratorium as the first step towards ending development, leading to disarming, then disarmament treaties, we still have suffered from ever widening proliferation. In these recent years, we’ve had a raising of consciousness by the witness at Europe Air Bases to violations of cold war agreements that abound in the importation of nuclear weapons for NATO members.

Turning toward such a brand of PLC, et alia witness, we have had the lights of witnesses in season and out, let’s cite Louie Vitale and Janet & Bob Aldridge and Jackie Hudson, Ardeth Platte, Megan Rice, and those still remaining with us such as Shelley and Jim Douglass, Elizabeth McAlister & Frida and Carol Gilbert, Frank Cordaro. I will stop because I risk leaving too many out…

It doesn’t take a pessimist to say that it is worse now. We have always been accused of being idealistsas we propose a nuclear free Pacific and advocate for the Islanders despite the ongoing poisoning in aftermath of Bravo’s horrendous radiation. So we continue to analyze, so we take on the mantle of the prophetic, who are realists… kind of an empty consolation prize for holding out that everyone be safe from another Hiroshima, Nagasaki, another Bikini Island…

Yes, on the tallyboard it is good that nations have now delegitimized the bomb. But is it enough to be right? To be correct? That may not describe our attitude, but what does?

And is the presence of discouragement an exhaustion of hope?

While we cannot be content with the status quo of 21 st century pathological war-making, likewise we can’t wallow in the seemingly overwhelmed, the paralyzing ennui of waiting for the powers and principalities to come around. I will quote anonymously one of ours that spoke up when Dan Berrigan met with the reconstituted Pacific Life Community gathered here in 2007,

“…while many of us are people of prayer, mostly a faith based group, we are not a prayer meeting,going on, and secondly many are gifted with the insights and knowledge of how the economy and politics of nuclear weaponeering buys off congressional and world leaders. That analysis, although necessary, does not make us merely a think-tank, or study group. We come together to act together, for we are an action community.”

I would like to add, that pooling, rotating hosting, sharing our stories, gathering together to act does help us to retrieve the prayer and the study and then enhance the pro-activity of real concerted action.We seek each others’ company. We are and perhaps feel that we are resources for one another. But we are not merely a comfort station. Some come to get something done. Some show up to see how folks are and take a health check, but whatever the reason, person-oriented or task-oriented let us boldly ask if we give each other any strength, an equivalent of hope.

Then if it isn’t enough to be right and we want to delve into what PLC these years amounts to, then spiritually speaking apparently God invites and or advocates for us to see, engage, reach-out, reconcile with all words for – love our opponents – before they or anyone declare who are enemies are…

God doesn’t want us to arrive saintly alone, bemedalled, that is, just being correct, occupying the moral high ground and all, but to somehow, creatively, to get in company w/ the hawks, of this world, How are we engaging? Would you hang out with Cain? Is it a matter of finding yourself attending a barbeque with a MAGA proponent?

These are not necessarily proposed questions. Several of us have carried water for a long time. We have risked we have reached out. We have stayed faithful to non-violence. But what do we have to show?That may not be the question. In and out of court, before juries and judges… yes, preaching to the choir,but also open to those who grudgingly look on. But we take inventory that we have been gathering, and no one could be blamed for suggesting some kind of efficiency plank. But if we were to judge by what we have changed, we could only say we haven’t allowed the violence to change us.

Could we be creative? Yes of course but not for results only. We can trust the process, we can’t be outcome oriented, that is my opinion. But always let our means match our ends.

-SK, PLC 2024

PLC 2024 Day of Action!

Two nuclear abolition activists arrested at Nevada nuclear test site

from the Nuclear Resister

Photos: http://www.nukeresister.org/2024/03/20/two-nuclear-abolition-activists-arrested-at-nevada-nuclear-test-site/

March 18 action video by John Amidon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPnpRTJvgtw

Members of the Pacific Life Community converged outside of Las Vegas from March 16 – 18 for their annual gathering to protest nuclear weapons. Two of them were arrested on Monday morning, March 18 during a nonviolent action at the Nevada nuclear test site.  

Before Rush Rehm and Jim Haber crossed the line onto the site, 40 people gathered for a ceremony in the desert outside of the boundary fence of the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS). They placed a plaque honoring the life of Fr. Louis Vitale, OFM under a creosote bush. Vitale was a co-founder of the Nevada Desert Experience in the early 1980s, who often protested and was arrested at the Nevada test site over the years. The activists then joined hands in a circle to take part in the Elm Dance, which “celebrates commitment to life and solidarity with activists the world over”. Following the dance, the group, carrying colorful and handmade signs and banners, processed the short distance to the road leading into the test site. They stopped at the boundary line, where Rehm shared words from Pope Francis with all gathered, including the test site/National Nuclear Security Administration employees and Nye County sheriff’sdeputies waiting on the other side of the line: “The courageous vision of the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons appears ever more timely. Nuclear weapons are a costly and dangerous liability. A world free from nuclear weapons is both necessary and possible. We must all be responsible for the well being of our brothers and sisters.”

Once the two men crossed the line, they were escorted to the nearby pen, and briefly held before being processed, charged with trespass and released.

Haber later said, “I have opposed U.S. militarism as hypocritical and offensive for several decades now. Nuclear weapons undergird our illegal and immoral state violence, including the U.S./Israeli genocide against anything Palestinian. Despite any rhetoric to the contrary, our government supports more nuclear weapons not their elimination and makes horizontal proliferation seem reasonable or necessary for other states parties. Martin Luther King, Jr. told us not to be ‘mesmerized by uncertainty,’ so I crossed the line at the Nevada National Security Site in the hope that my little action will be like a grain of sand that helps grind the wheels of injustice to a halt.”

One hundred atmospheric nuclear tests took place at the 1,300+ square mile site between 1951 and 1962, followed by more than 800 underground nuclear tests through 1992, when the U.S. put a hold on full scale nuclear weapons testing. Since then, sub-critical tests have been conducted there in underground tunnels.  Today, working one thousand feet below the ground at the site and skirting U.S. obligations under the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, three national nuclear weapons laboratories are pursuing a new nuclear arms race by building Scorpius — “a machine as long as a football field, to create images of plutonium as it is compressed with high explosives, creating conditions that exist just prior to a nuclear explosion,” to quote the Sandia National Laboratories website. 

More than 15,000 activists have been arrested at the Nevada test site over the past six decades in protest of nuclear weapons testing. The nuclear test site occupies Western Shoshone land, in violation of the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley. The Western Shoshone National Council has declared their nation a Nuclear Free Zone. 

Bill Bichsel Proclaiming the Good News!

EDITOR’S NOTES: I discovered a total of six (6) pages of text handwritten by William “Bix” Bichsel, SJ in pen on February 3^rd and 4^th, 2012 (while he was on a liquids-only fast in support of U.S. political prisoner Leonard Peltier) in solitary confinement at the Federal Detention Center (FDC) SeaTac. These pages – written with pen on yellow, lined, legal paper – were in one of my unlabelled folders in my general documents storage for Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action. They were written in Bix’s own hand over two days during his time in solitary confinement at the Tacoma FDC in February 2012. I have endeavored to preserve his words as written, and have only inserted a comma here and there or other minor edit where it seemed indicated. I have honored Bix’s intentions and have not abridged his writing or changed it in any way that would change context.

Bix entered the FDC SeaTac on January 11, 2012, and was released on February 9, 2012. Click here to read a blog post from the day of his release.

BEGIN TRANSCRIPTION:

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 came 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 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 cam. After the first sleepless nights, I spent time thinking of projects to get involved in when I was released. Projects like helping Peter Rodrick make Tacoma Ave. into a peace-pole avenue; and helping Jose Mercado make the walls and sides of buildings on Tac [Tacoma] Ave into a mural walk of peace and resistance. Planning a family reunion took up most of one night. Then there was the thinking of how to enlist youth to help abolish nuclear weapons.

Within days it was apparent to me that I was not going to sleep at night at all. No matter how much anti-itch cortisone and anti-fungal cream I rubbed on my legs and body – nothing stopped the itch. After some days I realized that my world had been turned upside down. No sleep at night; very little during the day; liquid only nourishment; and yet I felt very sustained in the fasting and prayer time. I felt the presence of God and the companionship of Bro Jesus.

My decision not to cooperate with the BOP system was a also a decision to enter more deeply into the resistance to the U.S. forces of death. This decision brought God’s joyful gift of freedom in which I hope to walk.

The freedom I felt, and the long itchy, sleepless nights conspired to lead me to consider how best in this age to proclaim GOD’S gift of joyful freedom, which comes in the following of Jesus. What I was asking myself was how do I preach or proclaim the Gospel – the Good News – in this post-Christian, self-indulgent, nuclear age? What is the message of the Gospel today?

I chose to use the Gospel of Mark as the framework of the Gospel that I would proclaim today. This is because Mark’s Gospel is short and strongly oriented to discipleship in the following of Jesus. Not that the other Gospels don’t point to discipleship – it’s just that Mark stresses it as the main underlying theme. What we are in dire need of is the following of Jesus in today’s world. I’ve been influenced in choosing Mark’s Gospel by the social and political commentary on Mark’s Gospel as appears in the great work of Ched Meyers in his book “Binding the Strong Man.”

Mark’s Gospel begins with John the Baptist in the wilderness preaching repentance and proclaiming that one mightier will come. Jesus shows up there and is baptized by John, and then is led by the spirit into the desert. After this, John is arrested and Jesus goes to Galilee to begin his ministry. He preaches, “The Kingdom of God is at hand!” “Repent” and believe in the Gospel – the Good News.

Jesus’ first and constant teaching is that the Kingdom of God is at hand. It is near – not down the road. It can happen now. “Believe the Gospel – the Good News.” 

Believe that every human being is precious and will receive from the Earth’s bounty what is necessary for a full human life. Believe that human beings can live together and work out differences without weapons or violence.

Believe that differences of people with varying religious faith traditions and nationalities and ethnicities are not meant to be threatening, but meant to be invitations to harmonious living. Believe that the bounty of the Earth is to be shared by all people – and that any system of exchange must be based on human need and not profit. Believe we can hammer swords into plowshares. Believe we can forgive one another and be forgiven. Believe we can love one another and that we are sons and daughters of a loving creator.

These are, in my words, some of the elements of the Kingdom at hand, which Jesus was proclaiming. Following his proclamation that the Kingdom is at hand, Jesus admonishes, “Repent.” What is there opposing the “breaking in of the Kingdom of God” of which his listeners were call to repent?

The Kingdom preached by Jesus could not come into existence through violence or any reliance on “might making it right.” The ingrained notion of human beings that retaliation is natural and justified leads to an ever recycling of violence. When the end is a great good – like freedom of some people – but the action to achieve the end is violent force – then the result is redemptive violence – by which violence is concealed in lamb’s clothing.

The call to repent is to confront and do away with violence within us. It is a call to change our learned response of violence to responses that call for our consciences, our intellect, and our imagination to work together for a peaceful solution. Repent and learn the way of non-violence.

It is in our nonviolence that we begin to resist those forces of death which hinder the Kingdom of God from happening. Our call to nonviolence in following Jesus is to engage and resist those forces of death that are like rivers of molten lava pouring down the mountain side. What are those forces today?

These forces today in the U.S.A. Are the theories and practices of domination through military control of other nations and peoples for the economic, political, social, and military advantage of the U.S.A., and these forces include war making and a national budget that feeds the war making machine and starves its people. As the military and war making budget increases, the culture of war perpetuates itself. The production of weapon systems are part of the sources of death, which destroy the possibility of the Kingdom. Through its nuclear weapon superiority, the U.S., as the superpower, pushes around and threatens other nations. These weapons are the sign of the ultimate hopelessness of human beings to be able to live together and help each other thrive. In such a system of violence, drone warfare, weapons production, military and defense budgets, border fences, the death penalty, abortion, torture, rendition, etc. – all of these thrive.

In this system of death there are those persons and institutions that rise to the top of the influence and wealth and power grid and control the flow of death down the mountainside. These controlling agents are the corporations, their Congressional puppets, and highly influential people. It is the few who own and control the wealth and production of the U.S.A..

The aforementioned have control of the legislative, administrative, and judicial branches of our government. The possibility of “seeking redress of grievances,” as guaranteed by the First Amendment, is closed. Only the power of non-violent resistance can change this denial of peoples’ rights.

But to repent of our violence is also to call for our human efforts to live together as a global community. It is up to us to explore and support efforts of people of different religious and faith traditions and ethnicities how to live and thrive together. The call of the Kingdom would encourage and support a national and global concentration on food and agricultural production that would place basic human need as the priority and profit to be used only to insure food and agricultural production for every global citizen. Work and farm cooperation would be encouraged.

Education would be open and available to all. The possibility of growth and reaching the highest human potential in learning would be open to all seeking higher education. In such an age, or time of cooperation, the gifts and talents of every human being could shine out in global splendor.

Employment would be constant and growing, which the Kingdom of Go would call for in healing and caring for every acre of God’s creation. Just the need to develop energy from s0lar, wind, tide, geothermal sources, other than oil, coal, and gas can mean and bring about countless numbers of jobs. The need for environmental healing and repair of lands and water and atmosphere in our globe and nation is tremendous and needs employment. 

Unions would be encouraged to bring workers closer together to form relationships and to insure the right of collective bargaining and to strike – in nonviolent mode – if that is ever necessary.

Military training would phase out and be replaced by service corps volunteers who serve their nation in combating national storms, earthquakes, fires, flooding, and other acts of nature that arise.

I think in this age the call of the Gospel is a deep call to conscience to resist the forces of death and violence, which are melting away the foundation of the Kingdom. To preach the Good News that the Kingdom is at hand means a venture in faith that God will do what God said he would do. “Thy Kingdom come on Earth – as in heaven” if we on our part resist by word and deed the forces of violence. The forces are legion, but we must also name and identify them: e.g. war, drone attacks, torture, nuclear weapons,corporation take-over of the 3 branches of government, weapon production, military and defense budget, lack of health care, employment and education et., while resisting the violent forces we must remember to encourage and cultivate these signs of human life and cooperation.

In following Mark’s Gospel it is important to see how Jesus first calls his disciples to follow him, and after being with them he says to pick up the cross and follow me. As we know, it led Jesus to the grave.

At the graveside, at the conclusion of Mark’s Gospel (Mk 16:1-8) the women are fearful and unable to speak. The angel in the tomb tells them to tell Peter and disciples that Jesus has gone before them into Galilee, and that’s where they ‘ll find him. 

If we want to continue the story and preach the Gospel in our time we must take over from Jesus in Galilee and take on his Spirit so that the Good News is proclaimed out of our voices in this violent age.

END TRANSCRIPTION

Editor’s Note: Please direct questions regarding the transcription to Leonard Eiger at outreach@gzcenter.org.

2021 Pacific Life Community Gathers and Resists online

Members of the Pacific Life Community are sad not to meet in person this year in Las Vegas as planned for our 14th annual Bravo Test Nuclear Memorial Weekend of Action. So much is going on, it was hard planning a pivot until February was upon us. If you are a part of the PLC but might not be receiving messages on the listserve, please contact Jim Haber (See below) for information about additional meeting times for the group’s internal reflection.

In 2021, the PLC is hosting a conversation with two illustrious representatives of sister antinuclear organizations on Saturday, February 27, and we have initiated a call for actions (safe and non-arrest oriented) on Monday, March 1.

At the conclusion of PLC nuclear test memorial weekends, we always vigil at a nearby nuclear weapons facility like a Trident submarine base, a missile plant, or the Nevada Test Site. Several members usually take federal or state charges for impeding in some way the ongoing crimes there that are unavoidable with nuclear weapons arsenals, even leading to legal proceedings and even jail time.

This year, we are encouraging people to act, but not with potential arrest actions. Three ways to join us on March 1:

• Socially distance vigil at a local site connected to the nuclear weapons complex with visuals to be uploaded and shared together on social media, starting with the PLC Facebook page
• Sign our March 1 petition to President Biden so he knows people want nuclear weapons abolished, not upgraded. [Link to follow soon. -Jim]
• Use #nuclearban as much as you possibly can on March 1 (…and then some!)

But first, on Saturday, please join us for a vitally thought- and action- provoking conversation:

Introduced and Moderated by PLC member, Jim Haber

• How is the disarmament movement working to build momentum and halt nuclear proliferation?
• How is the change in national leadership affecting nuclear weapons policy?
• How are linkages being made with climate justice and racial justice movements here and abroad?
• As old anti-nuclear campaigners age out, what is inspiring younger activists to confront the nuclear legacy?

These, your questions, and more will be explored in this stimulating zoom presentation.

The Pacific Life Community (PLC) is a network of spiritually motivated advocates for nuclear abolition and human rights in general. We are committed to ending nuclear weapons and war-making through nonviolent direct action along the Pacific Rim in collaboration with the global peace movement.

The PLC has gathered every year near one of several nuclear weapons related facilities in the western United States around March 1 to commemorate the largest and first hydrogen bomb test by the United States that day in 1954 in the Bikini atoll of the Marshall Islands.  The winds were knowingly (according to evidence) blowing towards the neighboring island of Rongelap (as well as The Japanese fishing vessel the Lucky Dragon 5, also caught in the radioactive fallout). Radiation sickness and being treated as dehumanized guinea pigs has dogged the people of Rongelap ever since. The Japanese antinuclear movement erupted in light of the re-triggered trauma caused by the irradiating of the crew of the Lucky Dragon 5.

For 14 years, the creed and annual practice of the PLC is to cry out against the immoral and illegal madness of nuclear weapons and the decades long, nuclear racism of the United States. This year, as the struggle for Black Lives Matter continues to resonate and internationalize, we are duty bound to draw attention to the fact that this struggle is yet another case of deadly, violent, white supremacy and settler colonialism. Another urgent backdrop for this year’s Bravo Nuclear Memorial Weekend is the acceleration of climate crises worldwide. The carbon footprint of making a nuclear weapon might not be especially remarkable. But if used, the climate devastation will be vastly multiplied. Whose radar screens are these connections on, and what is to be done?

If you have any questions, contact Jim Haber at haber.jim@gmail.com

Thank you for taking a moment to like and share the Bravo Test Nuclear Memorial program on Facebook. And remember to use #nuclearban

Letter from Clare Grady to PLC

Clare Grady, of the Kings Bay Plowshares, recently wrote a note to the PLC. It reads as follows:

6/26/20

All dear ones in the Pacific Life Community who came together this past February to continue to conspire to Resist Trident – I have been meaning to thank you all for the action at the Naval Base Kitsap/Bangor. It was, and still is, heartening news…such ongoing faithful resistance. Deep gratitude for all who made the trip to Georgia for the KBPS trial. I know that travel is not easy, especially as we get older (and jail is not easy as we get older) Hugs and love especially to Betsy, Sue, Jim.
Love, Clare

201 Elm St
Ithaca, NY 14850

PLC 2020 To Highlight GZ Roots, Solidarity With Climate Activists

The 2020 Pacific Life Community (PLC) retreat is coming up this weekend. Even if you are not attending the gathering,  our Sunday morning screening of “The Arms Race Within” — the story of Ground Zero and its roots within the Pacific Life Community — is open to the public, so please join us and bring some friends!  The film starts at 10:30 AM and is approximately one hour long. The film will be shown at Pilgrim Firs Camp & Conference Center, 3318 Lake Flora Rd, Port Orchard, WA 98367.

Here are some highlights of what’s coming to this major gathering of peacemakers:

A panel of those who attended the Kings Bay Plowshares 7 trial earlier this year will convene to share their witness of the court proceedings and discuss the implications for activists inherent in these developments.

In order to help chart the way forward for nuclear activism while applying the lessons of Gandhian satyagraha (Truth-force) philosophy that helped form the basis of the early Pacific Life/Ground Zero Communities (and which eventually made possible the revival of a Peace Pagoda now being constructed on the GZ grounds!) PLC 2020 will screen the “The Arms Race Within,” a film that explores the foundational beginnings of these enduring communities built by Robert and Janet Aldridge as well as James and Shelley Douglass.  PLC organizers anticipate the film will spark meaningful discussion ahead of the planned Monday morning action at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor.

Steve Dear of Eugene, Oregon will be our keynote speaker.  Steve will discuss the struggle against nuclear weapons, militarism and climate change, as well as important linkages that can strengthen and unite these resistance movements.

To help broaden PLC solidarity networks with fellow Earth Protectors, Abby Brockway (of the ‘Delta 5’ — see https://www.pcusa.org/news/2016/2/8/pcusa-ruling-elder-abby-brockway-continue-battle-a/) and Larry Morrell, executive director of the Sound Defense Alliance on Whidbey Island (https://sounddefensealliance.org/] will form a panel to educate participants on the environmental threats posed by Growler jets and oil trains.

The Irthlingz Duo of Orcas Island will be providing musical accompaniment to our PLC weekend with their uplifting, inspiring and environmentally-socially aware music.  Please see their website at https://www.irthlingz.com/

   PLC 2020 PROGRAM AGENDA

Friday, February 28th

 3:30-5:30 PM WELCOME & REGISTRATION, CABIN ASSIGNMENTS 

6:00- 7:00 PM – DINNER 

7:30 PM – Greetings and welcome to PLC 2020 (George R.) 

7:45- 8:45 PM – Icebreaker exercise (moderated by  Clancy): Participants pair off (preferably with someone they don’t know well); each shares a favorite quote .  Take turns explaining (briefly) why the quote is meaningful.  All regroup; individuals volunteer to share highlights of activity parter’s quotes.   

8:45-9 PM – Break

9 – 9:45 pm  Reception, informal social mingling; getting RE-acquainted with your PLC brothers and sisters!  Storytelling – and telling the PLC story 

10 PM – LIGHTS OUT – Goodnight all! 

Saturday, February 29th 

7:00 AM – Informal gathering for prayer circle/quiet meditation (optional)  

8:00 AM – Breakfast 

8:45 AM – Morning musical interlude:  introducing The Irthlingz Duo of Orcas Island (Sharon Abreu and Michael Hurwicz)

9:15 AM –  PLC Regional Reports (Each PLC region selects representative to deliver 5-10 min. report on past year’s highlights)  

10:15 AM – Reflections on the Kings Bay Plowshares trial — by PLCers who attended:  (Steve Dear, Dennis A., Felice & Jack, Betsy & Ann, Sue A., etc) 

11:30 AM-11:45 AM – Q & A / discussion

11:45 AM – Noon – Break 

Noon-1 PM – Lunch 

1 PM-2:00 – “Broadening Our Circle of Solidarity” — Panel with fellow Earth protectors: Abby Brockway from the Delta 5; Larry Morrell from Sound Defense Alliance, Coupeville ( https://sounddefensealliance.org) ; moderated by Steve Dear, Extinction Rebellion-Eugene OR activist and PLC keynoter

2:00-2:30 – Q&A, discussion of solidarity links and networking between nuclear resisters and climate/environmental activists 

2:30 – 2:45 – break

2:45 – 3:25 PM – Afternoon music break: The Irthlingz Duo 

 3:30-4:30 PM – Video presentation by Susan Crane on Anti-Nuclear Peace Actions in Germany (per her recent experience there this summer)

4:30-4:45 PM – Q & A:  Are there examples of “best practices” strategies and tactics from Susan’s experiences that can be applied to future PLC actions/activities?

4:45-5 PM – Break

5-5:45 PM – Workshop with Larry Morrell of Sound Defense Alliance, Coupeville ( https://sounddefensealliance.org)

5:45-6 PM – break

6 – 6:55 PM dinner

7-7:25 PM– Music set with “The Irthlingz Duo”

7:30 – 8:20 PM — PLC Keynote Speech with peace & justice activist Steve Dear:  “Love Transcends the Abyss: Building Communities of Resistance and Resilience at 100 Seconds to Midnight”

8:20 – 8:40 PM — Q & A; post-speech discussion suggested topic:  How can we leverage our solidarity links with other pro-Earth movements to bring new people fully on board for the next generation of nuclear disarmament activism?

8:r0-8:45 PM — quick break

8:45-9 PM — Concluding evening thoughts – inspiring readings from Jim and Shelley Douglass (Elizabeth Murray)  

9:00 – Remembering our Cloud of Witnesses; thoughts, prayers and meditations (Larry Purcell)

10 PM – LIGHTS OUT!

Sunday, March 1st 

7 AM – morning prayer or meditation for peace (optional)

8-9:00 AM – Breakfast 

9:15-9:30   Morning Musical Interlude  – The Irthlingz Duo

9:30-10:20 Trident/Bangor presentation on nuclear weapons (presented by Ground Zero Stewardship Council member Mack Johnson; created by WPSR/GZ Stewardship Council member Dave Hall; ) 

10:20-10:30 Q & A (or break as needed)    

10:30-11:30  film screening:  “The Arms Race Within” ​on the early days of the Pacific Life Community, the predecessor to the Ground Zero Center; and the ground-breaking resistance work of Robert Aldridge, Jim and Shelley Douglass and other early Pacific Northwest nuclear resisters (presented by Elizabeth Murray)

11:30 – 12:30 Lunch

1:00-2:00 Tacoma Plowshares attorney Blake Kremer – legal advice for activists

2:15 – 4:15 Planning and discernment exercise for Monday morning base action

4:15 – 5:00 Preparation for nuclear resistance action (sign-making, etc)  Fill out contact information and legal forms for those prepared to risk arrest.  Arrange jail support, select banners, videographers, photographers for action.  Also:  opportunity for writing postcards to Kings Bay Plowshares prisoner-activist Steve Kelly;  or postcards to Congressman Derek Kilmer and others on urgency of nuclear disarmament. 

5:00 – 6:00 Dinner

6:30-7:30 —  Reading of Steve Kelly epistle for PLC 

Evening sharing and discussion:  “What has called each of us to resist nuclear weapons?”  “How does the legacy of nuclear resistance and the PLC history relate to our current situation facing deployment of W-76 “low-yield” nuclear weapons?”  “How are we inspired by Bob Aldridge, Steve Kelly, Jim & Shelley Douglass, and others today?”

7:30-8:30 – Free time

8:30-9:30  Screening of film about Bix by Lucas Dambergs (introduced by George Rodkey; optional activity)

10:00 LIGHTS OUT!

Monday, March 2nd

7:00 – Morning prayer/meditation (optional)

7:30 – 8:30 Breakfast

8:30-9:00 AM — Packout; ALL LUGGAGE MUST BE OUT OF CABINS BEFORE DEPARTING FOR GROUND ZERO CENTER; ALL THOSE NEEDING CARPOOL RIDES WILL BE RETURNING TO PILGRIM FIRS AFTER THE BASE ACTION.  LUGGAGE CAN BE BROUGHT TO THE MAIN LODGE AND WILL BE STORED SECURELY THERE UNTIL YOUR RETURN.

9:00 – 9:45 Carpools depart for Ground Zero Center (16159 Clear Creek Rd NW, Poulsbo WA 98370)

10:00 –  Arrive at GZ; quick coffee / restroom break

10: 15 –  Safety briefing for Peacekeepers;  Gathering circle; recitation of GZ’s Pledge of Nonviolence;  sendoff blessing by Father Matt Holland, St. Leo’s Parish, Tacoma

10:30 – 12 noon Walk or drive to Main Gate for nonviolent nuclear weapons resistance action at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor; musical accompaniment by The Irthlingz Duo

Noon – Gather back at GZ for closing circle; reflections on the action at the base. 

12:30 PM – Carpools return to Pilgrim Firs to collect luggage

THANK YOU AND GOODBYE — SEE YOU NEXT YEAR AT PLC 2021!!!