PLOWSHARES UPDATE - Elmer Mass of the Plowshares 8 dies amongst his community *& resistance reports.

by 8 Tue May 10, 2005 00:19

http://www.plowsharesactions.org/webpages/plow8.htm

by 4 Tue May 10, 2005 00:21

http://www.plowsharesactions.org/webpages/PLOWSHARESNUMBERFOUR.htm

by Thames River Tue May 10, 2005 00:23

http://www.plowsharesactions.org/webpages/THAMESRIVERPLOWSHARES.htm

by Jonah Tue May 10, 2005 00:31

Sr. Carol Gilbert, one of the 3 Domincan nuns convicted of sabotage for their nonviolent disarmament action on a nuclear Minuteman III Missile silo in Colorado (2002) will be released from federal prison this weekend. The US federal government is not allowing her to return to her nonviolent resistance community, Jonah House Baltimore. (www.jonahhouse.org) Sr. Carol will return to her community this weekend, risking a further 3 years imprionment. Invitation to the welcome home party on the link below.

by theman Tue May 10, 2005 01:32

so, what actually did she do to the minuteman?

by Jonah Tue May 10, 2005 01:54

http://www.plowsharesactions.org/sacred_earth_and_space_plowshares%202.htm

by Pat Tue May 10, 2005 13:05 Ithaca, New York

Three of the St. Patrick's Day 4 attended the Pit Stop Ploughshares trial in March. Days before they departed by the U.S. they had been raided by the FBI and hit with 4 felonies arisng from an occupation at a military recruitment centre in Ithaca, NY, days before the U.S. war on Iraq. Their first trial on misdemeanours had ended in a hung jury.

The Feds decided to take up the baton and have escalated into felony charges which will probably result in years in jail (given two of the four are Plowshares activists who have served years on similar charges). When the three returned to Federal Court at the end of the first Pit Stop trial week, th prosecutor told the judge that the travel of the three should be restricted to the area of the district as "they had been involved in ongoing criminal activity in Ireland". Go fugure?

Link below recent article on the four.....




http://www.pressconnects.com/sunday/opinion/stories/op050805s164895.shtml

by Pat Tue May 10, 2005 13:06 Ithaca, New York

http://www.jonahhouse.org/actforlife.htm

by Steve & Lana - CW Tue May 10, 2005 13:15 Columbia, Mssouri

Steve and Lana Jacobs, members of the St. Francis Catholic Worker
community that shelters the homeless and runs a local soup kitchen were
arrested today by University of MIssouri police for digging graves on
the lawn of the university's ROTC (University military regiment) building. Steve Jacobs wearing a
black t-shirt that said, "Who would Jesus bomb?" was arrested at 9 AM
and Lana was arrested about an hour later after going home and bringing
another shovel back to the ROTC front lawn. Along with other members of
the St. Francis Catholic Worker Steve Jacobs unloaded two black
coffins covered with a U.S. and an Iraqi flag respectively and placed
them on the lawn. He also placed tombstones on the lawn commemorating
more than 1500 U.S. dead and more than 100,000 Iraqi dead in the
current war. He began digging the graves for the coffins until police
arrested him. He did not resist arrest. Flyers explaining Jacobs's
actions were distributed by supporters who also held anti-war signs on
the public sidewalk in front of ROTC's building located in Crowder
Hall.

"It is better to dig symbolic graves than make real ones"
Jacobs told reporters in front of ROTC. His flyer distributed to the
public encouraged ROTC students to "refuse to obey their
commander-in-chief, George Bush, whose authorization of torture makes
him a war criminal, unfit to make ethical decisions concerning life and
death".

After S. Jacobs was arrested and the coffins, tombstones and
shovel were confiscated by police his wife went home and got another
shovel and returned to the ROTC lawn and and began digging another
grave. She dug for another 10 minutes before police arrived and
arrested her.

They both were charged with Class B misdemeanor property
destruction and given Court dates in state court on June 2, 2005.

Mr. Jacobs stated after his arrest; "My only regret is that I
may have killed a worm with my shovel".

For more information call Steve or Lana Jacobs at (573) 875-7878

Text of ROTC Flyer below:

Forgive us friends for disrupting your daily routine but the times are
extraordinary in their capacity for violence and death. A malignant
"patriotism" smothers the voice of reason, kills tens of thousands of
civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan in order to protect us from weapons
that did not exist and justifies the torture of prisoners. The trail of
blood and death starts at various Pentagon branch offices and
particularly here at ROTC, which prepares more young soldiers to spill
more blood with more unholy violence. Killing is an abstract concept to
students now, but no training, however scientific or sophisticated can
prepare young students for the evil that is inherent in killing other
human beings and it's haunting aftermath. So, we bring these coffins
and dig these graves at the place that teaches killing in order to
speak to your consciences. We ask you to take your ability to make
moral decisions out of cold storage and refuse to obey your
commander-in-chief, George Bush, whose authorization for torture makes
him a war criminal, unfit to make ethical decisions concerning life and
death. For war violates the holiest of moral laws; the admonition to
"Love they neighbor as thyself" which cannot be done with bullets and
bombs.


We ask you to consider our "crime," of interupting the study of war
and digging up some dirt. Which is the greater crime: what we have done
here today or what young ROTC soldiers will be ordered to do when
occupying foreign lands that did not attack us, arresting, torturing
and killing someone overseas while the wealthy elites who orchestrate
and profit from these wars hide the killing behind the flag? For us the
answer is clear; it is better to dig symbolic graves than make real
ones.


My name is Steve Jacobs. As a Navy hospital corpsman I took care
of combat vets from 1973-76 working with amputees and those with
post-traumatic stress disorders. I worked in Columbia's Veterans
Hospital 12 years as a psychiatric RN. I saw vets turn to drugs and
alcohol to try and escape the intrusive nightmares and memories of
combat. My patients suffered crippling survivor guilt, anxiety,
depression and divorce. Several committed suicide. They went to jails
and prisons because they were unable to control their aggression and
hostility to their families and society. Many drank themselves to death
on America's city streets. Most of the combat vets asked the same
existential question. It's the same question that concentration camp
survivors from WWII asked. "Why did I survive when so many didn't?"
After several years I realized the answer to that question was so they
could tell the stories of the ones who didn't survive. So others would
learn from them the futility and brutality of war. They told of being
swept up in the hysteria of war and the kind of "patriotism" that
refuses to question the motives of our wealthy leaders who orchestrate
and profit from the killiing.


They told me their stories. Now I am telling them to you. Some killed
civilians by mistake and see them every night in their dreams. Some
killed civilians on purpose and though they were never legally
punished, the memories of those they killed judge them in their dreams.
They are haunted men. Some killed their buddies by mistake in the chaos
of combat. Some froze in fear for their lives and were unable to assist
dying comrades. Some did all they could do and still couldn't save
their buddies. As Pope John Paul II said prior to the invasion of Iraq;
"War is not always inevitable. It is always a defeat for humanity."
There are no winners in war. Everybody loses except maybe the wealthy
elites who avoided combat, but who profit from their investments in
defense corporations.


After 9-11, Dick Cheney said to a Time reporter, "We also have to
work, though, sort of the dark side. A lot of what needs to be done
here will have to be done quietly, without any discussion, using
sources and methods that are available to our intelligence agencies, if
we're going to be successful. That's the world we operate in, and so
it's going to be vital for us to use any means at our disposal,
basically, to achieve our objective." He was talking about using
torture. U.S. intelligence agencies used it in Vietnam and few survived
it (see Operation Phoenix). It was taught at Ft. Benning's combat
training school for Latin American officers at the School of the
Americas (see declassified training manuals from 1996 Intelligence
Oversight Board). These are the tactics of authoritarian regimes
practiced by history's most notorious villains in the Gestapo and KGB.
They are war crimes. So is attacking countries that did not attack you.
Participation in invasions of Iraq, occupying their country, stealing
their resources (oil), killing civilians are war crimes. You may not be
punished in a world court for war crimes but the memories of any
killing you might do will remain and if you have a working conscience,
you will judge yourself. I don't want that to happen to you. You have a
choice to serve humanity in a capacity that nurtures life or you can
choose to be a destroyer of life.

by Molly Rush - Thomas Merton Center Fri May 13, 2005 06:28 m.rush at earthlink dot net 412-343-3027

“In my mind it was necessary to do what we did together on September 9, 1980, within the context of the biblical imperative to beat swords into plowshares, to act in some small way to do what is possible to avert the greater harm of nuclear holocaust,by committing this act in witness to the perils of nuclear annihilation.”

Elmer Maas was attempting to testify in the criminal trial of the Plowshares 8 for had hammering on two Mark 12A nuclear warheads at a GE plant in King of Prussia, PA. This was the first of over eighty acts of resistance at military installations to symbolically and concretely transform weapons of mass destruction — beating swords into plowshares, spears into pruning hooks.

He was interrupted by incessant objections that were sustained over and over again by Judge Samuel Salus. “The Mark 12A isn’t on trial. He is on trial...”

Denied the opportunity to say why he did what he did, Elmer, a mild mannered former professor at Juniata College, finally had to leave the witness stand in mid-testimony.

“I don’t intend to return to the stand until there is an opportunity for a fair hearing of the issues of this case, that are based on the kind of defense that is legitimate and available to us under the laws of this state and country,” he said firmly. Mention of Nuremberg was a no no.

“In teaching the history of this century, it became very difficult to talk about the genocide of the Nazi government, the gas chambers, the horros and atrocities and the racism without being able to open my eyes to what was in the society around us.”

For Elmer, understanding and witness are one. Belief become flesh.

At a March reunion of Juniata students and faculty who went to Selma in 1965 he commented, “...we can’t just read about it, we can’t just watch on television, we have to become a part of putting an end to it, in whatever small way [we can.]”

For Elmer this meant jail and faithful witness with Kairos and the Atlantic Life resistance communities and with the Peoples’ Voice Cafe in New York City and the Executive Committee of War Resisters League for many years.

"He was devoted to our principled belief that war is a crime against humanity," WRL Chair David McReynolds noted, "We have lost one of the self-effacing heroes of the movement."

Sister Anne Montgomery, one of the Plowshares Eight wrote, “The ‘Little Professor’ was a remarkable combination of humanist scholar and jailbird with the awesome ability to clarify the historical relationships of religion, philosophy, art, music, and, of course, PLOWSHARES.

He could return from deadly court scenes to regale us with his musical compositions like "The Jailhouse Blues" or more classical offerings flowing from his mother's treasured piano.”

Elmer died among friends while on retreat on May 8, 2005. Farewell good friend.

by Ciaron Sat May 14, 2005 16:59

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/05/13/1437208