End of the Trial

Mark Colville

HERE’S WHAT I THINK:

[Closing summation by Mark Colville at the trial of the Kings Bay Plowshares Seven, October 24, 2019]

I think the evidence has shown that you are being asked to sit in judgement over seven people who are clearly caught between a rock and a hard place. The rock is our faith in Jesus Christ, His command to love our enemies and to lay down our own lives rather than take the life of another. The hard place is Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base, where, as we have come to understand, the government is hiding the most poisonous and murderous weapons ever known to human civilization, and requiring us to live under their protection. In other words, in light of our faith, we are being forced to live a lie.

I think the evidence has shown that we were motivated, not by malice, but by a sincere belief that those weapons are blasphemous, idolatrous and mortally sinful. As such, we felt compelled to unmask them, to take our names off them, and to remove them from our lives.

The evidence has further shown that we brought with us an indictment, which it is our legal right as U.S. citizens to do, an indictment charging the government with criminal behavior. That indictment has been ignored, both by the government and by this court. Instead, we’ve been charged with multiple crimes, charged to a degree that can only be described as “over the top”. But make no mistake: the indictment we brought to Kings Bay is evidence. It need not be ignored by you.

In fact, when you go into that jury room in a few minutes, if you truly commit yourselves to practicing real discernment- which, of course, is your duty as jurors- I think what you’ve heard and seen during the past few days might lead you to an uncomfortable conclusion. You might conclude that the reason we stand accused under the law today is because the government has willfully, and even criminally, placed nuclear weapons beyond the reach of the law.

Despite our clear and honest testimony, the government has tried hard to portray us as people who don’t respect the law. They even went so far as to use the ridiculous analogy of running red lights. [Note: In cross examination, the government had tried to advance the notion that, by our logic, obedience to traffic laws should be optional.] You should remember that interaction yesterday, and consider it. In fact, maybe that analogy is a perfect illustration of the point we’ve been trying to make: when the law is obeyed without conscience; when the law is applied without common sense; when the law is administered without respect for human life- that is when the law itself becomes an idol. That is when the law becomes something that we are enslaved to, rather than the instrument of freedom and liberation it is meant to be. And I think the evidence has shown that this is the unfortunate place we have arrived at when it comes to nuclear weapons and the law. 

But the beautiful and hopeful thing about our legal system is that it gives you, a jury, as representatives of the human community- which does not consent to the existence of nuclear weapons- the power to change that. 

And so, when you go into that deliberation room and take up the evidence that you’ve been presented, maybe you should think about what was considered legal and illegal in this country fifty years ago. Maybe you should think about what was not even allowed to be questioned in a courtroom one hundred years ago. Maybe you should think about what was legal, in this very state of Georgia, a hundred and fifty years ago. And then, maybe you should consider what your decision here today might look like fifty years from now- if, in fact, we have that much time left. Thank you.

[Photo above is of the Plowshares Seven. It came from an email from Voices for Creative Nonviolence. No indication of who took the photo. - dancewater]

Indigenous People's Day

Keep Space For Peace Week

Photo of Ken Jones with his sign. He will be on the streets of Asheville this week.

Birmingham Bombings

I remember this day. I was 8 years old and appalled that little girls were killed by bombs in CHURCH! What a horrible loss this was. And what a sad reflection on the evil that lives in some people's heart. May they Rest in Peace.

Remembrance of 9/11

Fear and anger.

I remember that many of us said do not treat our cries of grief as a cry for war.

Seek justice. Treat it as a criminal act.

Use it to build peace, not war.

I remember the words of Phyllis and Orlando Rodriguez, whose son died at the World Trade Center: “We see our hurt and anger reflected among everybody we meet. We fear that many want our country to head in the direction of violent revenge.  It is not the way to go. It will not avenge our son’s death.”

I remember the gay rugby player who was among several who jumped to fight for the control of the plane in Pennsylvania.

I remember all the first responders, the firemen and police officers who rushed in to help. And died.

But our politicians and the media rushed to war.

They launched a war on terror.

Mission Accomplished.

I remember.

It is time to declare the War on Terror over. To seek peace.

I remember all who died in the Middle East due to our invasion of Iraq, a bad actor – like many tyrants we have supported and still support – but which had nothing to do with 9/11.

I remember that our national leaders lied to us and the world.

They used their lies to suppress civil liberties at home and abroad.

I remember that Afghanistan is our longest war – and counting. People still die. Especially innocent civilians.

I remember far too many acts of terrorism since 9/11.

So many lives lost and harmed.

The War on Terror has not brought us peace. Or Justice.

I don’t remember a time when the US was not at war with someone. War is the wrong path.

I remember the 4,000 who died a year ago in Puerto Rico. Of Houston and Florida.

The millions fleeing war in Syria that was stoked by climate change and massive drought.

The wildfires in California, everywhere, floods, extreme rain, people drowning in the ocean to escape from being burnt to death in Greece. 

Hurricanes Sandy and Irene, Katrina – with more coming. The arctic circle on fire.

The hundreds of thousands who already die annually from climate impact.

The sixth great extinction of species.

I remember.

I certainly cannot remember peace in the Middle East. We need peace and justice for Palestinians and Israelis, starting with ending the inhumane conditions in the occupied territories.

I remember that it is the poor of the world who suffer for the greed and sins of the rich.

It is long past time to slash our military budget and imperial world power – and divert the vast majority of those resources to solving climate change before it is too late.

We know how to transition from fossil fuels to clean renewable energy. To make a better world. To live sustainably.

We just lack the political will. To say no to fossil fuel companies and their campaign contributions.

Climate change poses the threat of a near-term social collapse and species extinction. The NY Times Magazine recently reported that we have waited too long; we are paralyzed with partisan gridlock. We’re doomed.

We need to prove the NY Times wrong.

That requires full-scale mobilization of all of society. Top priority for everyone.

The future of life on our planet depends on it.

Trump must go. As does most of the other so-called elected leaders.

I want future generations to remember us as those who said enough is enough, save humanity, save the planet.

Cooperate for the common good.

I remember.

Written by Mark Dunlea. He is author of Madame President: The Unauthorized Biography of the First Green Party President, which may have been the first novel on 9/11. 

Here is a link to the original. 

Keep Space For Peace - say NO TO NATO!

Canton Labor Day Parade 2019

Veterans for Peace, Chapter 099, walked in the Labor Day Parade today. It was a lot of fun.

Photos by Susan Oehler

"Summer's End" by John Prine

Happy July 4th!

“Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses

yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless,

tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

- Emma Lazarus’ sonnet "New Colossus"

inscribed on a plaque at The Statue of Liberty

Above came from an ACLU email. 

Global Day of Listening June 21, 2019

Relationships and Peace

At a time when there are deteriorating political relations across the world, and weak or non-existent relationships among ordinary people, the Afghan Peace Volunteers are dedicated to building bridges among different cultures, and across the world.

Some APVs are reaching out to their University friends  in India, the different Provinces of Afghanistan, Spain, and other countries.  Relational Learning Circles, where three to ten persons converse online, provide the APVs another opportunity to be "Borderfree."  Each of these groups, like Global Days of Listening calls,  address climate change, inequality and violence with its nuclear-risk wars, under the three general themes of ‘Green, Equal and Nonviolent’ (#Earth! #GEN).
Over the years, the APVs and their global friends have found that when they connect personally with others from different parts of the world, it energizes them. The conversations in the Relational Learning Circles, during the monthly Global Days of Listening calls, and through expanding APV circles throughout Afghanistan and other countries, we can learn more than we do from books, ‘un-learn’ manufactured media narratives and move one another to positive actions.

Relationships can change our lives, and help us all to move ever closer to Peace, together!
We hope you will join the Afghan Peace Volunteers for this vital and timely conversation. 

Lady of the Harbor

May Day

A 9/11 Conspiracy Theory

The Day Collusion Died

Obama's Legacy

Pity the Sad Legacy of Barack Obama
by Cornel West

(This was published over two years ago, but it is still a very good reminder of what happened during Obama’s term in office. - dancewater)

Instead, most well-paid pundits on TV and radio celebrated the Obama brand. And most black spokespeople shamelessly defended Obama’s silences and crimes in the name of racial symbolism and their own careerism. How hypocritical to see them now speak truth to white power when most went mute in the face of black power. Their moral authority is weak and their newfound militancy is shallow. 

The gross killing of US citizens with no due process after direct orders from Obama was cast aside by neoliberal supporters of all colors. And Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, Jeffrey Sterling and other truth-tellers were demonized just as the crimes they exposed were hardly mentioned.

The president’s greatest legislative achievement was to provide healthcare for over 25 million citizens, even as another 20 million are still uncovered. But it remained a market-based policy, created by the conservative Heritage Foundation and first pioneered by Mitt Romney in Massachusetts.

Obama’s lack of courage to confront Wall Street criminals and his lapse of character in ordering drone strikes unintentionally led to rightwing populist revolts at home and ugly Islamic fascist rebellions in the Middle East. And as deporter-in-chief – nearly 2.5 million immigrants were deported under his watch – Obama policies prefigure Trump’s barbaric plans.

The rest of the article is here.

Lee Camp sums up what WikiLeaks revealed

Honest Government Ad

Wars and Climate Chaos

Whitewater falls in NC

STOPPING WARS IS ESSENTIAL FOR STOPPING CLIMATE CHANGE 

By Elaine Graham-Leigh

The US military admits to getting through 395,000 barrels of oil every day, including jet fuel consumption which makes it the single largest consumer in the world. This is an astonishing figure which is nevertheless likely to be a considerable underestimate. Once all the oil use from military contractors, weapons manufacturing and all those secret bases and operations that get missed out of the official figures are factored in, the real daily usage is likely to be closer to a million barrels. As even supporters of the military admit, ‘vast swathes of our military are big carbon emitters – tanks, jeeps, Humvees, jet planes’, as Steven Groves from the Heritage Foundation put it in 2015. To put the figures into perspective, US military personnel on active service make up around 0.0002% of the world’s population, but are part of a military system which generates around 5% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Much of these emissions are from the military infrastructure that the US maintains around the world. The environmental cost of war itself is considerably higher. It has been estimated that the Iraq war between 2003 and 2007 accounted for 141 million metric tonnes of CO2, more than 60% of all the countries in the world.

The environmental damage caused by war is not limited, of course, to climate change. The effects of nuclear bombing and nuclear testing, the use of Agent Orange, depleted uranium and other toxic chemicals, as well as land mines and unexploded ordinance lingering in conflict zones long after the war has moved on, have earned the US military a deserved reputation as ‘the greatest single assault on the environment.’ It has been estimated that 20% of all environmental degradation around the world is due to military and related activities, much of which of course has involved the US and the UK.

The rest of the article is here.

Russia gate in three minutes

A Global Security System from World Beyond War