Sharpening Our Resolution – From Trident to Tuskegee

Every New Years Eve, for 33 years, there has been a uniquely Southern  peace, social justice, and anti-war gathering at one of the Gates of Hell--the Kings Bay Trident Nuclear Submarine Base--in St. Mary's, Georgia, about 30 minutes north of Jacksonville, Florida, and arguably the third most powerful nuclear state on the planet (if it were to secede and go it alone). Kings Bay is the Atlantic home port for these nuclear submarines - a Cold War relic and still functional First Strike Thermo-Nuclear Weapons Platform.

In the days before our hair turned silver. 

 
Each submarine, if fully locked and loaded, has the capacity to deliver 24 Trident II missiles;each missile launched can independently target 8 hydrogen bombs; each bomb powerful enough to incinerate a city of 100,000. That’s 192 cities if you’re counting.

Still at it after all these years!

The Alternative New Year gathering is the longest continual annual anti-war/ disarmament event in the South. 


This year a group of early arrivals held signs and handed out literature at the two main gates as workers left for the holiday. John Linnehan, of the Metanoia Peace Community, and one of the founders

John Linnehan nabs an infiltrator

of the gathering, composed an excellent one-page flyer. He assured the Sailors, Marines, and other base workers that we respected them and their right to gainful employment and that we did not come in judgment of them personally.

“It’s not about you, it’s the weapons,” became our refrain as we stood at the traffic median and had brief encounters with workers waiting for the light to turn. Our messaging was clear:  “…we do condemn a system of weaponry that has the very real potential to so affect the ecological systems of the Earth as to make human life and, perhaps, all life on this planet, unlivable."

Submarine surfaces behind Geri at Trident Gates

 The general  response from the base employees was accepting and polite – as if they already knew the risk of operating this thermo-nuclear nightmare– that Trident “… is not a fail-safe system, and the intentional or accidental use of nuclear weapons has ultimate consequences for us all. One failure could be the last one.”  
   
As is always the case in this kind of direct action, we were occasionally reminded by a handful of passing motorists where to stick our flyers, with whom to have sex, and how easy it is for some to ignore others from barely three feet away. 

Wendy, Ann & Robert Feasting in the New Year!

During the rest of our time at the Crooked River State Park, we filled our Celebration of Life with food, spirits, social networking and community building. We shared workshops and reports from the year of Peace Work, and plans for the next.

Our late night New Years' Eve Vigil back at the main gate is held next to a full-scale concrete replica of a submarine surfacing from underground. The vigil is a time of expressing the many reasons that bring us together year after year, with reverence and contemplation, among a community of long-haul activists, faith-based and dissidents, and all fierce peace warriors  juxtaposed against the heavily-guarded base of operations for a fleet of continually deployed, lethally armed, hidden and hair-triggered killing machines--evidence of humanity's inhumanity to itself and to the Earth.

Our eclectic literature at Auburn UU Congregation

As the New South Network of War Resisters, we helped to coordinate the gathering, working with others with decades of presence at the gates.

In our ongoing communications with friends, other war resisters and community activists across the Deep South, many have offered to host our power point presentation: War On Earth! Atomic Appalachia & the Militarized  Southeast US: Environmental  Impact!

Judy Collins & Jim Allen of Vine & Fig Tree with Clare & Coleman

Thanks to our friends at the Vine and Fig Tree Community in Fredonia, Alabama, we were able to speak of our Southern Organizing initiatives and present War On Earth! in several Alabama venues in January, including the Auburn Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship, and in Tuskegee where we presented to a group of Tuskegee University students, faculty, and community members on Martin Luther King Day. We also visited Montgomery with anti-death penalty activist Esther Brown who was speaking before the legislature to object to a fast-tracking of state killing by shortening the appeal process.

Tuskegee Students, Faculty and Community members gather for presentation and  discussion on Military Environmental impact in Southeast

Tuskegee's Historic Campus

These experiences in Alabama have opened new doors for future, ongoing collaboration in what can only be termed the New South. The richness of the conversations and dialogue coming out of this bridge- building exchange can be partially summed by the comments of Tuskegee Alumna Norma Jackson, our new friend and contact with the Alabama NewSouth Coalition and the Black Belt Deliberative Dialogue Group -

“The work that you are doing is truly sacred work and I am grateful for it. The young people were profoundly changed by (your) presentation. I look forward to a long and fruitful collaboration with you…”     

Stay connected with our travels and story as we write more about our Tuskegee experience in our next ACTION South post.

Report by Coleman Smith; Photos: Clare Hanrahan & Coleman Smith

From A Georgia Jail to a Tennessee Courtroom: One Truthteller's Story

Catholic sister Mary Dennis Lentsch is persistent and unrepentant in her resistance to the crime of nuclear weapons production at the Y-12 Nuclear Weapons Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn.

She stood before judge Bruce Guyton in Federal court . on September 21 to be sentenced for her nonviolent civil resistance at the Y12 bomb plant in July of 2010. According to Ralph Hutchinson of the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, the courtroom was full of supporters as Mary Dennis was brought in in shackles; she had been in custody since mid-June in a private jail in Ocilla, Georgia. She was surprised to hear the Judge's sentence of "Time Served," after enduring nearly four months in jail  for peacefully stepping through a three-strand barbed wire fence and joining a circle of 12 others  in a prayer for an end to nuclear weapons.
At her sentencing, over one year later, she stood in shackles as she addressed the courtroom:

 “...I bow to the sacred in everyone. I bow to the sacred in the plants and animals. I bow to the sacred in all creation....In order to protect all the sacred gifts of creation, I feel called to do whatever is necessary to abolish nuclear weapons."

From a letter to friends, September 28, 2011:

My travel from the Ocilla jail [in Georgia] to Knoxville for the sentencing was quite an experience.   On September 20, at 12:30 am I was told to pack up for transport.   It took me about 20 minutes to pack and then I waited until 2:30 until they came to get me from my cell and take me down for the exit processing.   During the processing we were given a bag lunch breakfast and finally at 4:30 we were loaded into the van.    Doris and I were the only women and there were 7 men.  I had heard stories that there were no bathroom stops during the 7 hour drive so I had curtailed my liquid intake.  It was true there were no bathroom stops.   I had also heard that it was freezing and wore two long sleeve thermal shirts—this was also true.   I was skeptical when I heard they drove 80-90 miles per hour.   Well, I sat right behind the driver and kept looking over his shoulder and sure enough this was true.    I could not believe when we maintained this speed in a construction zone that said 55-60.   I’m hoping this is a “once in a lifetime” trip for me.

Of course, we were completely shackled for this trip.

When we arrived in Knoxville Doris and I were placed in a federal holding cell in the Federal Court House.  The Ocilla chains were removed and we put on the court house chains and sat in freezing temperature from 11:00 am-3:00 pm.    Then they came and transported us to the Knox County Jail where they removed the court house chains and put on the KCJ chains.  Then we were transported in a paddy wagon to the Knox County Penal Farm where we would be booked.

We arrived at the Penal Farm at 4:15 pm and sat, chained, in a variety of holding pens until our processing was completed at 3:30 am.   I was in my cell and slept from 3:30 am to 6:30 am when

I was awaked to eat my sack lunch breakfast.     Eventually a guard came to me and said, “The U.S. Marshals couldn’t find you.   It is late now so a special car will rush you to court.”    Again,

chains needed to be put on.   I was relieved to arrive at the court room about 5 minutes before the  9:30 court session...

 

   Mary Dennis Lentsch  

1936 Liberty Hill Road     Washburn  TN  37888

            865-497-3982          dennispbvm@aol.com

We Must Abolish Nuclear Weapons!!

To learn about the other 12 who served and are still serving jail time, click here.

                       

"The Law is in the Service of Death": Nuclear Weapons Resisters Jailed in Tennessee

"The no trespass law at Y12 is one of a web of laws used to protect Weapons of Mass Destruction...The laws and the courts defend weapons for doomsday. The law is in the service of death. My action at Y12 was to willfully do good in the service of life." 

--Steve Baggarly testifying at Knoxville trial

 The scales of justice were tipped against the defendants long before the trial began," according to a report by the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance. Eight of the twelve Y-12 nuclear resisters convicted of federal trespass at the Y-12 nuclear bomb plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, are being held in the Blount County Adult Detention Center in Maryville after a three-day trial ending May 11 in Knoxville. The Y-12 facility processes uranium for new hydrogen bombs being built to replace W76 warheads on Trident submarine ballistic missiles

Nuclear Resisters gather prior to Federal trial in Knoxville

Asheville organizers Coleman Smith and Judith Hallock of New South Network of War Resisters, joined with the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance and other regional activists in support of defendants who traveled from throughout the U.S.

Judith Hallock, a founding member of the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, was one of 23 arrested in July and convicted on state charges for blocking the road into the Y12 facility.

According to a report by John LaForge in Nukewatch, U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Guyton prohibited the defendants from relying on justification defenses, specifically declared irrelevant  their moral, political or religious beliefs, and declared, "Whether the production of nuclear weapons at the Y-12 National Security Complex violates international law is irrelevant to the present case."

Sr. Mary Dennis Lentsch of Washburn, Tenn. at the gates of Y-12 bomb plant.

Conviction on federal charges carries a potential prison sentence of up to one year for those resisters who crossed the barbed wire fence onto federal property at the bomb plant. Prison and jail time is not a new experience for these valiant activists, each with exemplary records of civil resistance to the crime of nuclear weapons production. 

Sr. Jackie Hudson, 76, of Poulsbo, Washington; Sr. Carol Gilbert, 63, and Sr. Ardeth Platte, 75, both of Baltimore, Maryland; Jean Gump, 83, of Bloomingdale, Michigan; Steve Baggarly, 46, of Norfolk, Virginia;  Bonnie Urfer, 59, of Luck, Wisconsin; and Michael Walli, 62, of Duluth, Minnesota.are all being held at the Blount County Adult Detention Center.  The men are reported to be together in one small unit, while the women have been split between two separate units. 

Fr. Bill Bichsel, 82, of Tacoma, Washington who was already serving a three month prison sentence for the Disarm Now Plowshares action, remains at the Knox County Sheriff's Detention Facility, where federal marshals had delivered him in shackles from a prison in Washington state to stand trial in Knoxville.

The other defendents are Beth Rosdatter, 50, of Lexington, Kentucky.; Sr. Mary Dennis Lentsch, 74, of Washburn, Tennessee; Bradford Lyttle, 83, of Chicago, Illinois; and Dennis DuVall, 69, of Prescott, Arizona. (Ill health prevented a 13th defendant, David Corcoran of Chicago, from participating and the court scheduled an August 22 trial.).

Members of the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance and other supporters have begun visiting the prisoners during the one hour per week they are permitted to have visitors, according to a report by the Nuclear Resister, and commissary accounts have been established for all of the defendants. Contributions for that purpose should be sent by check payable to Sue Ablao and note it is for the Y-12 Resisters. Sue¹s address is: Ground Zero Center For
Nonviolent Action, 16159 Clear Creek Road NW, Poulsbo, WA 98370.

The complete postal addresses for the peace prisoners are listed below and can also be found at http://www.nukeresister.org/inside-out/. Individually addressed letters to the activists held in Blount County
may not contain photos, cards, or any enclosures in addition to your letter.  Your letter should be written on standard 8.5 x 11 paper.

To write individually to Bonnie Urfer, Jackie Hudson, Carol Gilbert, Ardeth Platte, Jean Gump, Michael Walli and Steve Baggarly:

(Inmate's Name)
Blount County Adult Detention Center
920 E. Lamar Alexander Parkway
Maryville, TN 37804-5002

To write to Bill (Bix) Bichsel:
William Bichsel, IDN 1155703
Unit 2B
Knox County Sheriff's Detention Facility
5001 Maloneyville Rd
Knoxville, TN 37918



Report by Clare Hanrahan of New South Network of War Resisters