Category Archives: North America

United States: Who Is Clare Grady and Why Should We Care that She is in Federal Prison?

FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION

An article by Jeremy Kuzmarov from CovertAction Magazine

On April 4, 2018—a date symbolically chosen because it is the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination—Clare Grady and six other activists broke into the Kings Bay Submarine base in St. Mary’s, Georgia, the largest nuclear submarine base in the world. 

They carried hammers and baby bottles filled with their own blood. Their purpose? To symbolically “beat swords into plowshares,” as prophesied in Isaiah 2:4, by disarming one of the world’s deadliest swords—the Trident nuclear submarine. 


Plowshares 7 congregate outside courthouse during their trial for breaking into the Kings Bay Submarine Base in Georgia. Martha Hennessy, Kathleen Rumpf (co-defendent in another Plowshares case), Mark Colville, Clare Grady, Carmen Trotta, Patrick O’Neill, Liz McAlister. (July 12th, 2019)  [Source: beyondnuclearinternational.org]

It was no walk in the park

First, using a bolt cutter, this unlikely commando team of 60-, 70- and 80-year-old priests, grandmothers and grandfathers squeezed themselves through a remote gate on the base. Then they trekked, slopped, and splashed through two miles of notoriously inhospitable Southern Georgia swampland, swarming with ticks, fire ants, earwigs and mosquitoes—not to mention poisonous rattlesnakes—as well as venomous scorpions only an inch in length but whose sting can be fatal, and alligators, of which Georgia boasts a population of more than 200,000.

Finally, as reported by World Socialist Website, they reached a location “where they prayed, read from Scripture, splashed bottles of their own blood onto a wall, spray-painted messages against nuclear weapons onto a sidewalk, hammered on parts of a shrine to nuclear missiles and hung protest banners.”

As agreed in advance, all seven participants—Clare Grady, Father Stephen Kelly, Mark Colville, Martha Hennessy, Elizabeth McAlister, Patrick O’Neill, and Carmen Trotta—remained at the site, peacefully awaiting the police, so they could explain the reason for their actions. They were arrested, tried, and then convicted on October 24, 2019, in the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of Georgia for the crime of conspiracy, destruction of property on a naval installation, depredation of government property, and trespass.

Clare Grady was sentenced to a one-year prison term in Alderson Federal Prison in West Virginia, which began on February 10th, 2021. 

As for the other six activists: Carmen Trotta was sentenced to 14 months; Patrick O’Neill to 14 months followed by two years of supervised probation. (He has appealed the sentence.); Steve Kelly to 33-months less time served and three years of supervised probation; Martha Hennessy to 10 months; and Elizabeth McAlister to time served, which was the 17 months she had spent in prison awaiting trial. (She was also sentenced to three years of probation.). Mark Colville will be sentenced in April.

“Festival of Hope” in Celebration of Clare Grady and the Plowshares 7

Going to prison has not discouraged Clare Grady, nor will it deter her from continued opposition to the makers of war and mass death who control our national government. To celebrate Clare Grady’s resilience and determination, and that of her six companions, the antiwar group Code Pink  hosted a “Festival of Hope” webinar in honor of Clare and the Kings Bay Plowshares 7  on February 7, 2021, three days before the start of Clare’s prison term.

Try watching this video on www.youtube.com

Many who spoke at this virtual convocation are long-time activists who have spent their lives in the service of world peace and universal community. They include: 
* Agnes Williams, a Seneca leader working in western New York;
* Leona Morgan, a Diné leader from the Navajo Nation, working in New Mexico and Arizona to stop uranium production and dumping on their lands;
* Clare Daly, Irish Parliamentarian and a co-defendant in an Irish trial of civil resistance to U.S. warplanes refueling at Shannon Airport;
* Setsuko Thurlow, a Hiroshima survivor who has worked tirelessly to end nuclear weapons and has been instrumental in the enactment of the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons that went into force last week;
* Professor Russell Rickford, Cornell University historian of the Black Freedom Struggle and the Black Radical Tradition and an organizer with the Democratic Socialists of America;
* Emma O’Grady, writer, and actor from County Galway, Ireland;
* Rev. Bill Wylie-Kellermann, Detroit theologian, author, nonviolent community activist and civil resister to water shut-offs, who offered a closing prayer.

Setsuko Thurlow, a Hiroshima bomb survivor voiced her support for Grady and the Plowshares 7 in a pre-recorded statement that was played at the “Festival of Hope.”

In the statement, Setsuko described in vivid detail her experience in Hiroshima on the fateful day of August 6, 1945, when the atomic bomb was dropped.

At the time, Setsuko was on an excursion away from her school. Suddenly, she said, she was “blown into the air” and felt herself “floating” before she woke up to find herself in darkness under a collapsed building.

After hearing a male voice telling her “not to give up,” a soldier helped free Setsuko from the building, which was now on fire.

Outside, the air was filled with particles, and people moved on the streets as if they were ghosts, with their hair standing up to the sky, and their skin and flesh burned.

Some of the people had their intestines bulging out while others had their own eyeballs in their hands.

Setsuko escaped to a hill which was packed with dead bodies and people were begging for water.

Among the thousands of innocent people killed on that day were nine members of Setsuko’s family, including her aunt, uncle, sister and four-year-old nephew, whose small body became unrecognizable.

Setsuko stated that “this is what nuclear war does; it results in indescribable mass killing and suffering. Today, the weapons are even more destructive than in 1945, and could kill a million people in a quick moment.”

Standing up for Humanity

Setsuko’s warning was heeded by other speakers at the webinar who further emphasized the health hazards of nuclear energy and its contamination of the environment.

Clare Daly, a member of the European parliament who was jailed for protesting against U.S. military planes flying out of Shannon Airport in Ireland, stated that the “stance taken by Clare [Grady] was absolutely moral and courageous, she is a beacon to activists around the world. Clare joins people like Julian Assange in going to jail for standing up for humanity.”

Grady’s daughter, Leah, read a letter from Plowshares 7 activist Martha Hennessy, currently serving out her ten-month sentence at the Danbury Correctional Institution in Connecticut, who recalled how she and Clare had been imprisoned together for protest acts in the early 1980s and that Clare had taught her how to be a role model to other incarcerated women.

Patrick O’Neill, who is serving a 14-month sentence, sent a message from the Elkton Correctional Institution in Ohio that Clare will be a “light in the darkness” for women in her next stop, “a den of oppression and despair.”

At the trial, Plowshares 7 attorneys had tried to argue that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 protected the protest because the seven were motivated by their faith  and that nuclear weapons are illegal, as an indictment Hennessy taped to the door of the base alleged.

When Hennessy attempted to show the jury photos of bodies at Hiroshima, the judge objected.

At their sentencing, Plowshares activists invoked the Nuremberg principle, stating that it was their duty to try to stop another nuclear holocaust, and that those who “say nothing in the face of evil, are contributing to evil by their collective silence.”

Steve Kelley, who is a Jesuit priest said that he considered himself a “prisoner of conscience for Christ,” preaching against  “the sin that flourishes in weapons of mass destruction.”

Grady stated at her sentencing that the weapons she had tried to sabotage were “not private property, they belong to the people of the United States, they belong to me, to you, to us.”

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Question for this article:

How can we be sure to get news about peace demonstrations?

How can just one or a few persons contribute to peace and justice?

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These weapons kill and cause harm in our name, and with our money. This omnicidal weapon doesn’t just kill IF it is launched, it kills every day. Indigenous people are, and continue to be, some of the first victims of nuclear weapons—the mining, refining, testing, and dumping of radioactive material for nuclear weapons all happens on Native Land. The trillions of dollars spent on nuclear weapons are resources STOLEN from the planet and her people.”[1]

History

Most members of the Plowshares 7 are affiliated with the Catholic Worker movement which is committed to nonviolence, voluntary poverty, prayer, and hospitality for the homeless, exiled, hungry, and forsaken.

Art Laffin, co-editor of Swords into Plowshares—Nonviolent Direct Action for Disarmament explained  that “the main symbols used in plowshares actions are hammers and blood. Hammers are used to literally begin the process of disarmament that thousands of talks and numerous treaties have failed to accomplish. The hammer is used to take apart as well as create, and to point to the urgency for conversion of war and weapons production to products that enhance life.”

Liz McAlister has been an anti-war activist since she and her late husband, Philip Berrigan, destroyed draft cards during the Vietnam War, and Martha Hennessy is the granddaughter of Dorothy Day, the Catholic Worker Movement founder  who is on her way to being canonized as a saint by the Vatican.

The Plowshares group has carried out more than 100 civil disobedience acts to protest the U.S. warfare state since September 1980 when eight peace activists—including Daniel and Philip Berrigan, who had been known for their antiwar activism in the Vietnam era—entered the General Electric plant in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, where the nose cones for the Mark 12-A nuclear warheads were manufactured.

With hammers and blood, the eight enacted the biblical prophecies of Isaiah (2:4) and Micah (4:3) to “beat swords into plowshares” by hammering on two of the nose cones and pouring blood on documents. 

The Plowshares 8’s subsequent legal battle was recreated in Emile de Antonio’s 1982 film In the King of Prussia, which starred Martin Sheen  and featured appearances by the Plowshares 8 as themselves.



Since the Plowshares 8 action, others have entered military bases and weapons facilities and symbolically and actually disarmed components of U.S. first-strike nuclear weapons systems: the MX, Pershing II, Cruise, Minuteman ICBMs, Trident II missiles, Trident submarines, B-52 bombers, P-3 Orion anti-submarine aircraft, the Navstar system, the ELF communication system, the Milstar satellite system, a nuclear capable battleship and the Aegis destroyer.

Combat aircraft used for military intervention, such as the F-111 fighter bomber, the F-15A fighter, the F-18 bomber, the A-10 Warthog, the Hawk aircraft, as well as combat helicopters and other conventional weapons, including aircraft missile launchers, bazookas, grenade throwers, and AK-5 automatic rifles, have also been targeted.

One of the most successful actions took place at the Oak Ridge Y-12 nuclear facility in July 2012  when Mike Walli, Sr., Megan Rice, and Greg Boertje-Obed hammered on the cornerstone of the newly built Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility, poured blood and spray-painted antiwar messages on it. Because of so-called security issues, this action prompted authorities to close what has been called the “Ft. Knox of Uranium,” for an unprecedented three weeks.

According to William Hartung, the director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy, the limited mainstream media coverage of the Oak Ridge protest and Congressional reaction—as with the Kings Bay Plowshares 7 action—“were more about how to protect the weapons from protesters than to protect us from the weapons. This rhetoric about safety and security of the weapons complex, and protecting ‘special materials’—a euphemism for ingredients for bombs that can end life as we know it—distracts from the real issue: These are weapons of mass slaughter that must be eliminated before they eliminate us.”

Kings Bay Base

When the Plowshares 7 cut through a padlock and entered the 17,000 acre Kings Bay Base on April 4, 2018, they were equipped with crime-scene tape, banners reading “The Ultimate Logic of Trident is Omnicide” and “Nuclear Weapons: Illegal—Immoral,” and an indictment charging the U.S. government with crimes against peace, along with the hammers and blood.

One of their main challenges was to avoid detection from the guard towers as a loudspeaker overhead blared: “Deadly force is authorized!”

After splitting up, the activists went to three sites on the base: the SWFLANT administration building, the D5 Missile monument installation, and the nuclear weapons storage bunkers.

Patrick O’Neill attached a poster of Martin Luther King, Jr., to a mock-up of a Trident II D5 ballistic missile at the welcome area, commenting afterwards: “I mean, my God, you’re gonna build a statue for something that if it’s used would blow up a whole city full of people. This is your idea of welcoming people? I mean, it’s sick.”

Home to more than 1,000 enlisted and civilian government workers and their families, Kings Bay houses at least six nuclear submarines, each armed with 20 Trident submarine-launched ballistic missiles of the multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) variety. Each missile contains numerous nuclear warheads, providing a thermonuclear force multiplier and overwhelming first-strike capability as part of the U.S. nuclear triad.

According to the Navy, the ballistic missile submarines serve as a launch platform for intercontinental missiles that are designed specifically for stealth and the precise delivery of nuclear warheads.

If the Trident were ever launched, it would cause 100 times more damage than the atomic bomb dropped over Hiroshima.

Patrick O’Neill called it “the most insidious and evil weapon of mass destruction ever constructed.”

The Kings Bay site was opened in 1979 during the presidency of Jimmy Carter, the former Governor of Georgia and a Navy veteran and submarine officer who promoted a naval buildup.

The decision to base the Trident submarines at Kings Bay started the largest peacetime construction program ever undertaken by the U.S. Navy. It took nine years to build at a cost of $1.3 billion.

In preparation for the arrival of new submarines mandated under a trillion dollar nuclear weapon modernization program, a major renovation is coming to the Kings Bay waterfront.

The project, estimated to cost more than $840 million, will include $500 million in upgrades to the dry dock and other infrastructure, as well as a $138.6 million nuclear regional maintenance facility, which makes the Plowshares work ever the more urgent.  

In the Shadow of the Berrigan Brothers and Oscar Romero

Reverend Bill Wylie-Kellerman situated Clare Grady and the Plowshares 7 at the “Festival of Hope” in the tradition of Daniel and Philip Berrigan, and Oscar Romero, El Salvador’s archbishop who was murdered by death squads in 1980 after he spoke out against the ruling oligarchy and for the poor and oppressed.

Cornell University historian Russell Rickford compared Grady to Mae Mallory, an antiwar and Black Power militant who was close with Malcolm X.

Flattered by such comparisons, Grady reiterated at the “Festival of Hope” that she had been motivated by “religious principle and the desire to oppose violence and the normalization of killing; the unrepentant killing that hardly raises eyebrows anymore.”

Grady noted that “the U.S. government plans to spend $100,000 per minute for the next ten years on nuclear weapons and has 800 military bases.

The cost to keep one soldier in Afghanistan for one year is one million dollars, and the cost to keep a prisoner in prison for one year is up to $70,000 while the cost to keep a student in college for a year is far less.”

While dreading going back to prison—or what she calls the belly of the beast—Grady said she has encountered some of her best teachers of resistance in prison, and was inspired by inmates in St. Louis who broke out of their cells and broke windows and threw furniture but did not engage in violence in pressing for more humane conditions.

Grady’s sister Mary Ann, as the last speaker at the webinar, compared the present moment to 1979 when the anti-nuclear movement was just getting off the ground. By the end of the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev had worked together to reduce the nuclear stockpiles of the U.S. and Russia, which is urgently needed today.

With the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Doomsday Clock sitting at 100 seconds to midnight, Grady said that the peace movement should continue pushing for divestment from nuclear-weapons’ producing companies—which New York’s City Council has recently proposed—while supporting acts of civil disobedience along the model of the Plowshares 7 who will have left their mark on history.

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION, North America

Biden asks Congress to ban ‘weapons of war on our streets’ as he uses 3rd anniversary of Parkland shooting to demand gun control

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

An article from RT (see note below)

President Joe Biden has released a statement allowing a closer look at what his “commonsense” policy on gun laws will be, demanding, among other things, that Congress pass universal background checks and ban “assault weapons.” [CPNN readers will recall that students throughout the United States have rallied to demand such action.]


Photo © REUTERS / Brian Snyder

“Today, I am calling on Congress to enact commonsense gun law reforms,” Biden said in his Sunday statement. The timing matched the third anniversary of the Parkland shooting, which saw a gunman open fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, killing 17 and wounding another 17.

Biden has long promised to put his weight behind stricter gun laws if he were elected president and his ideas run down the list of common demands gun-control advocates often push for. The president is calling for universal background checks on all gun sales, banning high-capacity magazines, an “assault weapons” ban, and “eliminating immunity for gun manufacturers who knowingly put weapons of war on our streets.”

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(Click here for an article on this subject in French.)

Question related to this article:

Do you think handguns should be banned?, Why or why not?

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“We owe it to all those we’ve lost and to all those left behind to grieve to make a change. The time to act is now,” Biden said.

Though he is calling on Congress to act, Biden promised his administration will “not wait for the next mass shooting” to take action.

With Democrats holding a majority in the House and an even split in the Senate leaving Vice President Kamala Harris as the tie-breaking vote, Democrats find themselves in a slightly favorable position when it comes to potential new gun laws.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said last week that Biden is “personally committed” to pushing new “gun safety measures” while in office.

Leaders of gun-control advocacy groups also recently met with Susan Rice, who leads the White House Domestic Policy Council, and Cedric Richmond, director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, and walked away confident new gun laws will be pushed through, not only via Congress but by executive action as well.

“President Biden is committed to taking executive action and working with Congress to put in place reforms that will keep this country’s kids and communities safe,” Peter Ambler, head of the gun-control group Giffords, said after the meeting.

(Editor’s note: Readers may note that we often use Russian news sources to obtain information about events in the West, although almost identical information is available in Western news sources. News sources in the West generally prohibit the reprinting of their reports, while websites like RT welcome the publicity they receive when their articles are reprinted. For example, RT says in its usage statement: “The information on the website is considered public (unless otherwise indicated) and may be distributed or copied for non-commercial purposes (for personal, educational, scientific, etc.), always referring to the link of actualidad.rt.com.” )

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, North America

United States: Flathead Indian Reservation Expanded to Include National Bison Range

. . SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT . .

An article from Native News Online

The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (CSKT) of Montana’s Flathead Indian Reservation will include the National Bison Range when a transfer of property facilitated by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) becomes complete.


National Bison Range – U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service photograph

The transfer was announced by outgoing U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary David L. Bernhardt on Friday, Jan. 15. He signed Secretary’s Order 3390  that transfers the land to the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). The BIA will formally take the land into trust for the and restore the land to the Flathead Indian Reservation.

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Question for this article

Indigenous peoples, Are they the true guardians of nature?

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“The restoration of this land is a great historic event and we worked hard to reach this point. This comes after a century of being separated from the buffalo and the Bison Range, and after a quarter-century-long effort to co-manage the refuge with the FWS,” CSKT Chairwoman Shelly R. Fyant said. “And who better to do it than the original inhabitants of the land who depended on the buffalo for centuries?  That was our mainstay.”

The transfer was made possible through Public Law No. 116-260, signed into law December 27, 2020. In December 2020, Congress repealed the statute that created the National Bison Range, and Congress restored the land of the National Bison Range so it is once again held in trust by the United States for the benefit of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (Tribes).

The legislation also created a two-year transition period during which Congress directed the Interior Secretary, through the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), to cooperate with the Tribes in transition activities as the tribes assume full management of the Bison Range.

Both the Service and the tribes will work toward a smooth transition for the bison, wildlife, staff, and the public.

North America, SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Committee for a SANE U.S.-China Policy

. .DISARMAMENT & SECURITY. .

Excerpts from the website of the Sane U.S.-China Policy

The Committee for a SANE U.S.-China Policy will be formally launched on January 27 with the release of its signature statement, co-authored by Joseph Gerson and Michael Klare, “Averting a New Cold War Between the United States and China,” and a webinar on the challenges and opportunities in U.S.-China relations facing the incoming Biden administration.


The webinar, which is open to the public, will feature presentations by Committee co-founder Prof. Michael Klare, Rachel Esplin Odell of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, and Prof. of Bucknell University, and Prof. Zhiqun Zhu of Bucknell University. 

With information and advocacy, the Committee for a SANE U.S. China Policy works to prevent U.S.-Chinese military conflict, reduce the militarization of U.S.-Chinese tensions, and encourage mutually beneficial diplomacy. We intend to show how forces in both China and the United States are contributing to a dynamic of ever-increasing mutual suspicion and hostility; likewise, we will emphasize the need for cooperative efforts by both countries to overcome outstanding differences, such as over Taiwan and the South China Sea. We further aim to show that U.S.-China cooperation is essential to overcome such global challenges as climate change and lethal pandemics.

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Question for this article:

The peace movement in the United States, What are its strengths and weaknesses?

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Our initial goal is to circulate our Statement widely and solicit additional signatures to it, from as broad a cross-section of the population as possible. With funds collected from those who sign, we plan to place the Statement in major journals and newspapers. 

We also seek to inform debate and discussion on divisive issues in U.S.-China relations by commissioning position papers on mutually beneficial, non-military solutions to outstanding problems such as Taiwan, technology, arms control, and the South China Sea, and publicize these as widely as possible – including via webinars, public lectures and panels. In addition, we will urge members of Congress to hold public hearings on these issues and encourage them to include participation by those who advocate constructive, peaceful solutions. Wherever possible, we hope to join with organizations in pursuing these activities.

We will also encourage transnational dialogue on problem issues in U.S.-China relations involving non-governmental experts from China, the United States, and other nations in the Indo-Pacific region. In time, such “Track-2” diplomacy could be supplemented by “Track 1.5” diplomacy, involving retired government officials and others with links to those in power.

(Click here to add your name to the signatures on the Statement).

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, global, North America,

Nuclear deterrence gives ‘false sense of security,’ Vatican official says

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

An article from Catholic Philly

The goal of a nuclear-free world can only be achieved through a renewed sense of unity and solidarity among nations that breaks the dynamic of mistrust, said Archbishop Paul Gallagher, Vatican foreign minister.

Addressing a webinar Dec. 16 on nuclear disarmament, Archbishop Gallagher highlighted the Vatican’s support of political dialogue that goes “beyond the theory of fear” and of the need to “emphasize how nuclear deterrence represents a false sense of security and of stability.”


A Russian Yars RS-24 intercontinental ballistic missile system drives during the Victory Day parade marking the 71st anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany in World War II, at Red Square in Moscow May 9, 2016. (CNS photo/Grigory Dukor, Reuters)

“The Holy See reaffirms its unwavering commitment in this direction as demonstrated by its ratification of all the main nuclear treaties and its continuous efforts to promote a concrete culture of peace based on the dignity of the human person and on the primacy of law, fostering responsible honest and consistent cooperation with all members of the family of nations,” he said.

The webinar, titled “A world free from nuclear weapons,” was co-sponsored by the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, Georgetown University, Notre Dame University and the Catholic Peacebuilding Network.

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Question related to this article:
 
Can we abolish all nuclear weapons?

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The event coincided with the launch of a new book that features Pope Francis’ address in November 2017 in which he spoke out against nuclear weapons, as well as “testimony from Nobel Peace Prize laureates, religious leaders, diplomats, and civil society activists,” according to Georgetown University Press.

In a Dec. 14 statement, the dicastery said the goal of the event was to stress the link between peace, disarmament and health security during a time of pandemic.

In his talk, Archbishop Gallagher cited the pope’s video message to the U.N. General Assembly in late September. In his message, the pope said the current pandemic can lead to two paths: one that shifts toward a “renewed sense of global co-responsibility” or one of “self-sufficiency, nationalism, protectionism, individualism and isolation” that “excludes the poor, the vulnerable and those dwelling on the peripheries of life.”

The Vatican foreign minister said the pope’s perspective also applies to the issue of nuclear weapons as a means of deterrence.

He also expressed concern that “nuclear powers often seem to continue turning inward away from multilateralism,” such as the uncertainty regarding the renewal of the New START treaty, a bilateral agreement between the United States and the Russian Federation that seeks to reduce and limit the use of nuclear warheads, ballistic missiles and other strategic offensive arms.

However, he also cited the U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which bans the possession and use of nuclear weapons, as a step toward a “nuclear weapons-free world.”

To achieve a lasting peace, Archbishop Gallagher said the international community must look beyond nuclear deterrence.

“International peace and security cannot be founded on the threat of mutual destruction or total annihilation or maintaining a balance of power or regulating relations by substituting the rights of the power to power of right,” the archbishop said.

“Peace and security must be built on justice, integral human development, respect for fundamental human rights, the protection of creation, the building of trust among peoples, the promotion of educational and health structures, dialogue and solidarity,” he said.

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, global, North America,

In bipartisan vote: US House approves record $741 billion military spending bill

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

An article from the World Socialist Web Site

The overwhelming bipartisan vote by the House of Representatives Tuesday evening [December 8] to approve the largest military budget in American history demonstrates the reality of capitalist politics. Democrats and Republicans are supposedly at each other’s throats over an array of social and political issues, but they are entirely in agreement on funding the world’s largest and most lethal military machine.


The Pentagon in Washington. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)

The House vote for the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) was by a massive margin, 335–78. Democrats supported passage by 195–37. Republicans supported passage by 140–40. Every leader of the House Democrats backed passage: Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, Majority Whip James Clyburn. They were joined by the top Republicans: Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Minority Whip Steve Scalise and the ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, the co-sponsor of the massive bill, Mac Thornberry of Texas.

The margin was far more than the two-thirds required to override a threatened Trump veto, although it is not clear that Trump will actually follow up on his tweets demanding two changes in the bill, neither relevant to its basic purposes. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has already said the Senate will pass the NDAA in the next few days. The margin is likely to be even more decisive than in the House.

While rubber-stamping the largest-ever Pentagon budget, the House and Senate remain locked in a protracted stalemate which has blocked the payment of a single dollar of federal supplemental unemployment insurance since the benefit expired last July 31.

The $741 billion for the Pentagon is approximately six times as much as the $121 billion in unemployment benefits paid out to 60 million workers since the coronavirus pandemic struck.

The goal of the NDAA, according to its preamble, is to achieve “irreversible momentum in the implementation of the National Defense Strategy” spelled out by the Pentagon in 2018, which identified “strategic competition” with Russia and China, not terrorism, as the “preeminent challenge” of US military policy. This includes, according to the various subdivisions of the massive bill, achieving “Superiority in the Air”, “Superiority on the Seas,” “Superiority on the Land,” and, in keeping with the demands of Trump, “Superiority in Space.”

It is not hard to imagine what the rest of the world is to think of this all-out US drive for military power “uber alles”: China, Russia and imperialist powers like Germany, Britain, France and Japan are all engaged in military build-ups to match that in America, bringing ever closer the danger of an uncontrolled military clash between great powers, most of them nuclear armed.

Well short of such an apocalypse, the arms race involves an unforgivable squandering of economic resources needed to meet social concerns such as education, health care, alleviating poverty and retirement security.

One of the largest single components of the Pentagon budget is Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO), funded to the tune of $69 billion. This is the spending for ongoing military operations where US forces are deployed: primarily Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, as well as the Persian Gulf, where vast naval and air assets are arrayed against Iran. The OCO also covers active drone missile warfare operations across Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa.

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Question for this article:

Does military spending lead to economic decline and collapse?

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The bill puts billions into preparations to confront Russia and China, including fully funding the European Deterrence Initiative, the NATO build-up on Russia’s western borders, and the Pacific Deterrence Initiative, providing $2.2 billion for similar activity by US naval and air forces directed against China. The label “deterrence” is entirely deceptive: the Pentagon is not seeking to ward off Russian and Chinese aggression, but to prepare for US aggression against one or both countries, regarded as the main obstacles to maintaining US world domination. Another $250 million goes for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, while $500 million (and likely much more) is earmarked for Israel.

Some other major provisions of the bill include:

– Requiring the Air Force to maintain 386 operational squadrons comprising at least 3,850 combat aircraft. This includes $9.1 billion to buy an additional 93 F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft, 14 more than the Trump administration requested.

– Adding $108 million to the procurement of MQ-9 drones equipped to fire missiles.

– Purchasing another seven C-130J transport aircraft, used to rapidly deploy troops, tanks and artillery to new war zones.

– Procurement of additional major warships for the US Navy, including one additional Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarine, cost roughly $3 billion, and additional smaller submarines, amphibious ships and P-8 anti-submarine aircraft.

– Funding to support redesign and improvement of land-based combat systems like artillery, tanks and armored vehicles for the “future of warfare against near-peer competitors” (war with Russia, China or another major power).

– Equipping the Army with an additional 116 helicopters, including 60 UH-60 Blackhawks, 50 AH-64E Apaches, and six of the giant MH-47G Chinooks.

– Continued funding for a systematic, across-the-board modernization of US nuclear weaponry, begun under Obama and continued under Trump, including submarine-fired missiles, land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles and heavy bombers capable of intercontinental flight.

The legislation incorporates a number of provisions to block military moves announced by Trump in recent months, delaying reduction of US troops stationed in Germany and South Korea, for example, until the next administration. Trump did not threaten a veto over these items, demonstrating that his threats of withdrawal were only for electoral purposes, or to extract more money from the countries being “protected” by US forces.

The veto threat came over one provision included in the bill, and one provision that the drafters left out despite Trump’s incessant demands to the contrary.

The provision Trump objects to establishes a procedure through which all US military bases named after Confederate commanders will be renamed in the course of the next three years. These include Ft. Bragg, North Carolina, and Ft. Hood, Texas, two of the largest centers of the US military, as well as Ft. Benning, Georgia, and Camp A. P. Hill in Virginia.

The provision Trump has demanded as an addition to the NDAA would repeal Section 230 of the Communications Act of 1995, which frees social media companies of liability for anything posted by their users. Because of this provision, Trump has been unable to sue Facebook and Twitter when they have placed warning messages on his tweets and postings of brazen falsehoods or incitements to violence. Both Senate and House leaders rejected Trump’s demand as extraneous to the Pentagon budget and likely to derail the legislation if included.

What is most remarkable, however, and almost unreported in the media, is the lockstep agreement between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party on this legislation. Under conditions where Trump is defying the outcome of the November election and seeking to overturn its results through unconstitutional actions, the Democrats nonetheless vote to provide the “commander in chief” with virtually a blank check.

Democratic and Republican leaders on the committees overseeing Pentagon policies and military budgets gave unanimous support to the NDAA, boasting that the military budget has passed Congress by huge majorities for 59 straight years, and the Fiscal 2021 budget will be number 60.

When it comes to the most critical institution of the capitalist state, there is not even a two-party system in America, there is only one party: the party of the military-intelligence apparatus, which is required both to assert US imperialist interests around the world and to defend the financial aristocracy against the looming threat of social disorder and class conflict at home.

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, North America

Amnesty International : US State Department’s attack on the BDS movement violates freedom of expression and endangers human rights protection

… . HUMAN RIGHTS … .

An article from Amnesty International

Responding to the United States Department of State announcement designating the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement as antisemitic and planning to identify organizations supporting BDS with a view to reviewing and halting their funding, Bob Goodfellow, the Interim Executive Director of Amnesty International USA, issued the below statement:

“The Department of State’s targeting of groups advocating for using peaceful means, such as boycotts, to end human rights violations against Palestinians as antisemitic violates freedom of expression and is a gift to those who seek to silence, harass, intimidate and oppress those standing up for human rights around the world. This is simply the latest attack from a US government determined to undermine the universality of human rights and the global fight against racism and discrimination, including antisemitism.

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Question related to this article:

Presenting the Palestinian side of the Middle East, Is it important for a culture of peace?

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“Advocating for boycotts, divestment and sanctions is a form of non-violent advocacy and of free expression that must be protected. Advocates of boycotts should be allowed to express their views freely and take forward their campaigns without harassment, threats of prosecution or criminalization, or other measures that violate the right to freedom of expression. Instead of attacking and restricting BDS activities the US should end such measures and instead ensure that BDS advocates are free to express their views and take forward their campaigns without harassment or threats of prosecution.”

“The US administration is following Israeli government’s approach in using false and politically motivated accusations of antisemitism to harm peaceful activists, including human rights defenders, and shield from accountability those responsible for illegal actions that harm people in Israel, in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and here at home. The process comes across as particularly hypocritical and deceitful coming from an administration that has emboldened neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other groups who advocate violence and discrimination, shown a callous disregard for international law, and favored Israeli policies that result in institutionalized discrimination and systematic human rights violations against millions of Palestinians.

“This process also hurts Jewish people by equating Israel with Judaism and likening criticism of Israeli government policies and practices to antisemitism. It undermines our work in the Middle East and other regions to protect the rights of religious and other minorities.

“We will continue to support our Israeli and Palestinian colleagues, including BDS activists, who like human rights defenders around the world, speak up when justice, freedom, truth, and dignity are denied.”

HUMAN RIGHTS, North America, TOLERANCE & SOLIDARITY

Why I Work for a U.S. Department of Peacebuilding With Its Rich History

. . DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION . .

Special to CPNN from Anne Creter (originally presented to U.S. Peace Alliance Virtual Advocacy Days Program)

I have been an earnest proponent of the “Spiritual-Politics” movement ever since attending a workshop in 1995 with the inspiring authors of their transformational book Spiritual-Politics: Changing the World from the Inside Out.” By Corrine McLaughlin and Gordon Davidson, that book continues to influence my life even to this day.


Photo from The Peace Alliance. Anne Creter is second from right in second row.

Most particularly during the 2000 Bush-Gore presidential election when they convened a unique “Spiritual-Politics” conference in Washington DC featuring renowned spiritual leaders together with popular politicians, I felt called to be there! Among the exciting speakers was Marianne Williamson (see CPNN Sept 8, 2019). And unknown Rep Dennis Kucinich who talked of a draft bill he was planning to introduce in Congress to create a Department of Peace (See CPNN August 2, 2004.

Instantly upon reading that draft he handed out I was captivated because it spoke to my Quakerism. I had become a “convinced” Quaker after the Viet Nam war because of its Peace Testimony, which emphasizes putting one’s faith into practice. Plus, as a social worker by profession I ascribe to the Social Work Code of Ethics in which working for peace is clearly stated. I knew then my calling was to do what I could to promote that bill. Advocating for it at the Peace Alliance with the compelling Dot Maver became the perfect spiritual-political way for me to put my faith into practice. Plus, as a social worker it was my ethical responsibility to do so. And I’ve been trying to do that work ever since.

I cannot believe 20 years later I’m here at a Peace Alliance program about it with Marianne Williamson, Dennis Kucinich and Dot Maver. We have come full circle in affirming the basic value of peace and government’s basic duty to foster it, per Article 5 of the norm-setting UN Programme of Action on the Culture of Peace which states that “governments have an essential role in promoting & strengthening a culture of peace.” Especially now, grappling with the greatest planetary challenges we have ever faced.

When I first heard the idea of a Peace Department at that conference it struck me as a brilliant pipe dream never before contemplated. Thus, I was surprised to learn the depth of its actual history. For it goes back to before the founding of our country to the Native American Iroquois Great League of Peace Confederacy in the northeast territory which functioned like a Department of Peace. And throughout our history it has been seriously considered many times both in Congress and civil society. For example:

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Question related to this article:

Is a U.S. Department of Peace a realistic political goal?

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In 1793 Dr Benjamin Rush, signer of the Declaration of Independence advocated for an Office of Peace when the constitution was being drafted – saying it was needed to balance their newly created Office of War. He believed not having a Peace Office was a fundamental flaw of our constitution, which we still suffer the consequences of today.

In 1925 Carrie Chapman Catt, founder of the League of Women Voters at a “Cause and Cure for War” Conference first publicly suggested a cabinet-level Department and Secretary of Peace be established.

In 1927 Kirby Page published a Christian pamphlet entitled “A National Peace Department Proposal for Study” articulating the same issues we grapple with today.

In 1935, Senator Matthew Neely introduced the first official legislation. Since then bills proposing a Department of Peace has been introduced many times in Congress.

In 1936, the Biosophical Institute published a piece on “The Need for a Secretary of Peace” stating “All lovers of peace and workers for human welfare are urged to cooperate in the Secretary of Peace Movement by organizing clubs in their localities.”

In 1937 The ROTARIAN magazine devoted a whole issue to the pros and cons of a “department of peace” – not much different from today’s pros and cons.

In 1947 the House Committee on Expenditures in the Executive Departments held hearings on a bill to create a Department of Peace.

In 1953 Congresswoman Ruth Thompson proposed a Department of Peace saying “All the guns, tanks and bombs we are building during this hectic time are not going to save us from our enemies at home or abroad.” Sadly, her political career ended abruptly following a contentious fight over development of a jet fighter base in her district.

In 1969 Frederick Schuman, a Woodrow Wilson Professor of Government, published a persuasive scholarly booklet entitled “Why a Department of Peace?”

Also, in 1969 the most significant Peace Act to establish a cabinet-level new department was introduced by Senator Vance Hartke to “develop plans, policies and programs designed to foster peace and coordinate all US government activities affecting the promotion of peace.” It got much bi-partisan support because of the Viet Nam War.

July 11, 2001 (two months before 911) Rep Kucinich introduced the first iteration of the bill in recent times. It has been revised and reintroduced in each congressional session since then. Rep Barbara Lee became its sponsor when Rep Kucinich left Congress. Bernie Sanders was one of the few original cosponsors of that bill, which is what motivated me to become a Bernie delegate at the 2016 Democratic Convention.

I believe this remarkable history shows that the concept of a Peace Department has seasoned and matured over time, thus is ready now for activation. Our current all-systems breakdown is crying out for new common sense, evidence-based all-systems responses to transform from our culture of violence to the culture of peace. Let us correct our Founding Father’s fundamental flaw in the constitution by finally balancing the Department of Defense with a Department of Peacebuilding. It is long overdue time now to awaken to the necessity of establishing a Department of Peacebuilding to bring lasting sustainable peace to our NEW NORMAL POST COVID WORLD.

DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION, North America

UN Member States Make Recommendations to U.S. to Protect Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights

… . HUMAN RIGHTS … .

An article from the Center for Reproductive Rights

United Nations Member States from around the world yesterday [November 9] strongly recommended to the United States that it act to protect sexual and reproductive rights and ensure access to sexual and reproductive health care and services.

The recommendations came during the U.S.’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR), which takes place for each country before the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) every four years. At the interactive review in Geneva, all UN Member States can ask questions and make recommendations to the nation under review.

Recommendations given to the U.S. ranged from improving equitable access to reproductive health care and services and addressing maternal mortality, to ending restrictions on international aid for sexual and reproductive health services and improving access to basic health services for migrants and refugees in detention.

“The Trump administration has curtailed access to reproductive health care globally and systematically undermined affordable access to reproductive health care within the U.S.,” said Risa Kaufman, the Center’s Director, U.S. Human Rights. “Its policies have caused extraordinary harm to people of color, people with disabilities, LGBTQI people, immigrants, people who are low-income or living in poverty, and people who are incarcerated.”

Kaufman added, “These UPR recommendations offer a clear roadmap for the incoming Biden administration to reverse course and ensure access to reproductive health care for all, including access to safe and respectful maternal health care and abortion care. The Biden administration has an immediate opportunity to make clear its commitment to advancing reproductive rights as human rights, in the United States and around the world.”

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Question related to this article:

Can the United Nations protect human rights in its Member States?

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In preparation for the November 9 UPR, the Center for Reproductive Rights and its partners submitted a stakeholder report  requesting Member States to urge the U.S. to improve its human rights record in the area of reproductive rights and health.

At the UPR, Member States urged the U.S. to:
* Ensure and improve equitable access to sexual and reproductive health care and services, with particular focus on people experiencing multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination.
* Ensure that laws allowing for refusals of care (such as for religious objections) do not restrict access to health care.
* End restrictions that prevent U.S. international aid from going toward sexual and reproductive health—for example, by ending the Global Gag Rule and stripping the Helms Amendment from upcoming spending bills.
* Address maternal mortality. The U.S. has one of the highest rates among wealthy nations, and it disproportionately affects Black and Indigenous women.
* Ensure universal maternal health care.
* Rescind Title X regulations that forbid publicly funded clinics from providing information about abortion services.
* Improve access to basic services for migrants and guarantee human rights for migrants and refugees in detention.
* Ensure accessible health care and enjoyment of the right to health for all.

The official report memorializing the review and resulting recommendations will shortly be available to the public on the UN’s website. 

The Center led a strong coalition effort  to ensure that reproductive health, rights, and justice issues were on the agenda for the UPR, including through the stakeholder report, a briefing for UN diplomats, and additional advocacy. This advocacy centered on the disproportionate harms experienced by marginalized communities.

Although the Trump administration represented the U.S. in this review, it is the Biden administration that will be responsible for returning to the Human Rights Council when the Council formally adopts the report in March 2021. At that time, the Biden administration will formally recognize and respond to each of the recommendations.

HUMAN RIGHTS, North America, United Nations,

Abortion Without Borders: Standing with Polish Women

TOLERANCE & SOLIDARITY .

An article by: Merle Hoffman in We-news

Have you seen those extraordinary photos? The women of Poland, thousands and thousands of them, pouring into the streets, disrupting business as usual and denouncing the government’s new ban on abortion. They carried symbols of red thunderbolts, umbrellas and wire coal hangers – hangers! A universal symbol of dangerous, illegal abortions which they refused to accept.

I immediately flashed back to the action I had led decades earlier in front of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in NYC in 1989, surging across Fifth Avenue with hundreds more to the Cathedral steps. I held high a six-foot replica of a wire hanger, chanting with the many others, “Not the Church, not the State, Women will Decide our Fate!” Two of our crew stood before the massive bronze doors and held up a huge Proclamation which began, “On behalf of the women of New York City and their sisters throughout the country and out of love for the truth and the desire to bring it to light, we stand here today…”

This action was inspired by then Cardinal O’Connor’s active support for anti-abortion blockades of clinics. It was the first pro-choice civil disobedience action, an historic event that could not be ignored by the media. The New York Times quoted me as saying, “Women’s rights are in a state of emergency,” and the Philadelphia Enquirer stated the action marked “an important strategic change in the movement.” Oh, how I want to be there in Poland with these fearless and inspiring women, storming into the streets and challenging government and religious institutions. Marching and chanting, full of revolutionary rectitude!

Unfortunately, it wasn’t possible to travel to Poland directly due to the Coronavirus, but I needed to do something. I contacted a feminist academic and writer in Warsaw involved in the protests. I was asked to write a letter of support from American Feminists that could be widely disseminated and published in a major newspaper. So I did, and Phyllis Chesler, Gloria Steinem, Frances Kissling, Naomi Wolf and others soon signed on. (See the letter, below.) It was published earlier this week in both Polish and English in the women’s extra to Poland’s largest daily news outlet, GAZETA WYBORCZA and was shared widely on social media by The Women’s Strike (the leading organization behind the demonstrations) as well as by local women’s groups. (Read article here.)

[Editor’s note. Another letter of support for the struggle of Polish women was written by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Center for Reproductive Rights.]

Just as I am now inspired by the courage of the Polish women, so was I inspired to travel to Russia and assist in developing women’s health services there when I heard the story of one woman who came to Choices Women’s Medical Center for her 36th abortion. I was also inspired by attacks on women’s clinics to organize the St. Patrick’s action, and I have been inspired to carry on this work at Choices – with my wonderful staff – by the memory of holding the hand of the first patient who stepped through our doors nearly 50 years ago. It’s always the women’s stories, the women’s needs and women’s bravery.

The good news from Poland today is that the courage and persistence of Polish women have forced the government to pause and step back from implementing its all but total, viciously cruel ban, even forbidding abortions where the fetus has severe abnormalities. The fight is not over, but we are confident the women of Poland will continue to inspire the rest of us.

Question related to this article:

Solidarity across national borders, What are some good examples?>

Abortion: is it a human right?

Letter of Support: November 4th, 2020

To the Great Women of Poland,

The world is in awe of your principled activism and is filled with admiration for your courage and commitment. American Feminists stand with you. We salute and support you with love and pride.

You have marched by the thousands in response to the October 22nd Tribunal ruling which denied abortion even in cases of fetal abnormality in what has been called the largest demonstration in the country since the fall of communism.

Ignoring threats of prosecution, violence from the Right, and the dangers posed by a surging Coronavirus, while displaying symbols of Red Thunderbolts, Hangers and Umbrellas, your resistance intensifies daily. You have challenged formerly “untouchable” institutions and are a stellar example of what people everywhere need to do in the fight against oppression and for women’s freedom.

Julia Przylebska, President of the Tribunal, has stated that allowing abortions in cases of fetal abnormality legalizes “eugenics” and because the Polish Constitution guarantees a right to life, terminating a pregnancy based on the health of the fetus amounts to “a directly forbidden form of discrimination.” This latest ruling imposes a near total ban in Poland that already has some of the strictest abortion laws in Europe.

You have had the courage to say no to this egregious diminishment of women’s humanity and moral agency.

Legal abortion is an integral core of women’s health and is the necessary condition for women’s freedom. We all know that nothing stops abortion – no law, no government, no religious authority. Making abortion illegal only makes it dangerous and deadly.

You demand legalization of abortion in the name of all your daughters, mothers, sisters, and grandmothers who alone and in pain lost their lives in back alleys or on dirty kitchen tables for their right to choose.

Women of Poland-We stand with you and attest that Women’s Rights are Human Rights.

Women are full moral agents with the right and ability to choose when and whether or not they will be mothers.

Abortion is a choice made by each individual for profound personal reasons that no man nor state should judge or control.

The right to make reproductive choices is women’s legacy throughout history and belongs to every woman regardless of age, class, race, religion, ethnicity, or sexual preference.

Abortion is a life-affirming act chosen within the context of women’s realities, women’s lives, and women’s sexuality.
Abortion is often the most moral choice in a world that frequently denies healthcare, housing, education, and economic survival to women.

Women’s rights remain in a state of emergency. If not now, when? If not you–then who?

We stand with you in solidarity

(click here for list of signatories)

Europe, HUMAN RIGHTS, North America, TOLERANCE & SOLIDARITY,