Resistance for a Nuclear Free Future
WORKSHOPS, July 3, 2010
WORKSHOP SESSION #1 3:15 p.m. – 4:15 p.m.
Rm. 202 – Supporting Activists in Prison
Rm. 214 – Songs to Sing at Actions and in Jail
Rm. 208 – Think Outside the Bomb
Rm. 215 – Doing Time – From the Inside Out
Rm. 210 – The Second Part of the Action: Representing Yourself in Court
Outside – Nonviolent Blockading
Rm. 201 – Obama’s Report Card – How the Move to Nuclear Zero Compares with Missile Defense, Precision Conventional Weapons, and Space Militarization
Rm. 216 – Nuclear Waste – two parts, 30 min. each
Why Is Nuclear Power Not the Answer? Reason #1: Radioactive Waste
The Volunteer State:
Tennessee’s Unique Roll in Radioactive Waste Disposal and Processing
WORKSHOP SESSION #2 4:30 – 5:30 p.m.
Rm. 216 – International Law, Resistance and Nuclear Weapons
Rm. 202 – 1040: Over and Out – Ways and Means of Defunding the War Machine
Rm. 214 – Get a Job
Rm. 215 – Plowshare Movement – Faithful and Active
Alumni Gym – Bombs Away!
Rm. 202 – Nuclear Power Relapse – the Southeast is Ground Zero
Rm. 201 – An Enduring Nuclear Stockpile: New Bomb Plants and New Bomb Plans
~ WORKSHOP SESSION #1 3:15 p.m. – 4:15 p.m. ~
Supporting Activists in Prison
They’re in there for us; we’re out here for them! Support for imprisoned activists is essential for a successful movement. Let’s talk about some of the cornerstones of doing prisoner support work. Bring your questions.
Felice and Jack Cohen-Joppa have edited and published the Nuclear Resister newsletter since 1980 to network groups involved in anti-nuclear and anti-war resistance and facilitate support for resisters in prison. They have visited imprisoned activists in more than a dozen jails and prisons across the country, and been involved in public and personal support for individual prisoners.
Songs to Sing at Actions and in Jail
Music has been described as the lifeblood of movements for social change and the resistance movement is no different; we link to the past, bond in the present and create a new future as we sing together. Steve Jacobs and Ralph Hutchison will teach/lead songs that can be used at direct action events and songs to sing in holding tanks and paddy wagons.
Steve Jacobs is a folk singer/songwriter and a Catholic Worker from Columbia, Missouri who has performed at the School of the Americas vigils and benefit concerts in Columbus, GA, and at national Catholic Worker events in the U.S. and Europe. He’s recorded two CD’s and knows lots of anti-war songs that he’d love to pass on before he gets too old and forgets all the words.
Ralph Hutchison is not a musician, but he likes music a lot. He is coordinator of the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance and has written some locally popular songs which he will not subject people to at the workshop. Unlike Steve, Ralph is already forgetting the words to a lot of great movement songs, if he ever knew them.
Think Outside the Bomb
Come participate in a conversation with Think Outside the Bomb (TOTB), the country’s largest anti-nuclear youth network. We will be discussing steps TOTB is taking to rebuild the anti-nuke movement, what we plan to accomplish this year as a group, and what we want to do to build a better future. We will also be talking about our cross cultural work with the Chicano and Indigenous groups in New Mexico and how we feel working together can help build a nuclear free world. We hope not only to inform participants about the work we do, but get feedback as well.
Mariah Klusmire is a member of Albuquerque, New Mexico’s Trinity House Catholic Worker, and is working to prepare for the August TOTB action camp near Los Alamos.
Doing Time – From the Inside Out
Activist prisoners lead the discussion on jail and prison witness as a movement strategy and offer suggestions on how to serve the sentence, maximize the message, subvert the system, handle the hardships, and recover and recharge.
Clare Hanrahan is an Asheville, N.C. based author, activist, gardener and grandmother. From her childhood in apartheid Memphis to serving six months in Alderson Federal Prison, she has experimented with nonviolent action on the ground in the southeast for more than 30 years in numerous movements and campaigns, including at Y-12.
John Heid is a Quaker/catholic worker with recidivist tendencies, who has experience with local, state and federal facilities. He is a strong believer in pro se defense and use of the courtroom/incarceration to carry on the witness.
Sr. Mary Dennis Lentsch, PBVM is a long time activist who says, “I seem to be addicted to resisting nuclear proliferation and have been treated for this condition in jails and prison — without success.” She has lived in east Tennessee since 1989 and served state and federal time for her protests at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge.
Fr. Jerry Zawada, OFM, who has been behind bars for protests at places like nuclear missile silos and U.S. army bases, feels that time in the joint is more challenging as he gets older, but continues to find the experience meaningful. Given the situation of the world today, he hopes to continue the risk.
The Second Part of the Action: Representing Yourself in Court
Why defend yourself? Know the law. Why plead Not Guilty? Jury or bench trial? Prepare your action. Study order of courtroom events. Roadblocks to prepare for. Courtroom resistance. Options to ease the process.
Susan Crane is a mother and a former public school teacher who now lives at Jonah House in Baltimore MD. She is on a journey to nonviolence, and tries to resist this deathdealing Empire we live in.
John LaForge has been on the Nukewatch staff for 18 years and edits its Quarterly. His articles on nuclear power and weapons have appeared in the Capital Times, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, St. Paul Pioneer Press, Minneapolis StarTribune, Miami Herald, the Progressive, Earth Island Journal, Z magazine, the New Internationalist and elsewhere.
Nonviolent Blockading
The science and joy of using our bodies to get in the way of things that someone should have gotten in the way of long ago. Long pants and closed toe shoes are recommended (held outdoors, weather permitting).
Butch Turk is an ER, RN and activist who first helped block the entrance to an Air Force ICBM base in Montana in 1976. He co-authored the Greenpeace nonviolent direct action training program, and has also taught blockades for the Ruckus Society, the National Forest Protection Alliance, and Mountain Justice (anti-mountain top removal for coal in Appalachia).
Obama’s Report Card –
How the Move to Nuclear Zero Compares with Missile Defense, Precision Conventional Weapons, and Space Militarization
Is the Obama administration simply fooling the public with the Prague “move to zero”, START, and Nuclear Posture Review? Or is the administration well-meaning, but painting itself in a corner by supporting prompt global strike, widened use of drones, missile defense, and expanded special operations force? This workshop will give an honest assessment of where the White House deserves flunking grades, and where it might be given partial points for trying.
Loring Wirbel is active in peace and civil-liberties campaigns, and is a member of Citizens for Peace in Space. He is author of “Star Wars: US Tools of Space Supremacy.”
Bill Sulzman has been director of Citizens for Peace in Space since 1986, and has been active in opposition to Fort Carson Pinon Canyon training expansion and Fort Carson Helicopter Brigades.
Nuclear Waste
Why Is Nuclear Power Not the Answer? Reason #1: Radioactive Waste
There are many reasons that atomic energy is not the answer to the climate crisis and energy independence: the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation, accidents or attacks causing catastrophic radioactivity releases, “routine” radiation releases at each stage of the uranium fuel chain, as well as the astronomical price tag and long time required to deploy. But perhaps the topmost argument against it, in the public’s mind, is the forever deadly radioactive waste generated, for which we still have no solution after nearly 70 years of splitting atoms.
Kevin Kamps has served as Radioactive Waste Watchdog at Beyond Nuclear since 2007. From 1999 to 2007, he was Nuclear Waste Specialist at the Nuclear Information and Resource Service. Kevin is as board member of Don’t Waste Michigan, and on the Great Lakes United Nuclear-Free/Green Energy Task Force.
The Volunteer State:
Tennessee’s Unique Role in Radioactive Waste Disposal and Processing
Tennessee is the only state in the nation that allows routine release of previously controlled radioactive materials into municipal landfills (5 million pounds in 2007); we are home to 6 radioactive waste incinerators and currently approving a 7th (there is only one other operating in the U. S.); 41 million pounds of radioactive waste materials comes into Tennessee processors a year; application has been made to bring 20,000 tons of decommissioned Italian nuclear plants to Oak Ridge for processing; there are two competing corporate schemes to bring currently orphaned Class B and C waste to Tennessee from the reactors in 36 states for either blending or cooking (no other plans exist).
Don Safer is Chairman of the Board of the Tennessee Environmental Council. He has a B.A. from Vanderbilt University. He has followed energy policy and nuclear issues in the Tennessee Valley for over 30 years.
~ WORKSHOP SESSION #2 4:30 – 5:30 p.m. ~
International Law, Resistance and Nuclear Weapons
Meeting our common obligation to implement complete nuclear disarmament in good-faith by
using the law to do justice, and defending civil resisters under the Constitution and International Law when they seek to prevent crimes against peace, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
Kary Love is a civil rights attorney, licensed in Michigan and Illinois, with experience in civil resistance defense matters. He is a former professor of Constitutional Law.
Anabel Dwyer, a Michigan attorney and board member of Lawyers’ Committee on Nuclear Policy, has defended nonviolent, symbolic civil resisters to nuclear weapons and written on and taught humanitarian and human rights law.
1040: Over and Out –
Ways and Means of Defunding the War Machine
Presentation by members of National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee (NWTRCC) and organizers with War Resisters League/Asheville, NC on the state of the war tax resistance movement, with a brief history and current campaigns followed with discussions of: Goals and strategies, risks and penalties, national & regional war tax resistance gatherings, alternative revenue funds, sharing the hardships (penalty fund), facing the fears, sustaining for the long haul, practical war tax resistance handbooks. Open to all, including seasoned and certain resisters and curious and cautious newcomers.
Clare Hanrahan is an Asheville, N.C. based author, activist, gardener and grandmother. From her childhood in apartheid Memphis to serving six months in Alderson Federal Prison, she has experimented with nonviolent action on the ground in the southeast for more than 30 years in numerous movements and campaigns, including at Y-12.
Coleman Smith, a native Carolinian and an architectural designer and builder, has over 30 years activist experience on the ground in the Southeast applying his organizing, writing, and design skills to initiate and support collaborative work in a wide range of issues. He is a nonviolent direct action trainer, puppetista and radical environmentalist currently focused on the Southeast Nuclear Complex.
Get a Job
Using simulations, role play and other interactive methods, workshop participants will explore the connections between people looking for an economic stake in their communities, people facing destitution, and people burdened by wars of choice that the U.S. has waged in recent years.
Kathy Kelly, a war tax refuser since 1980, co-coordinates Voices for Creative Nonviolence, (www.vcnv.org) a campaign to end U.S. military and economic warfare. She and her companions lived in Baghdad throughout the 2003 Shock and Awe bombing, believing that where you stand determines what you see. She visited Gaza during Israel’s “Operation Cast Lead” assault (2009), traveled with Voices members to Pakistan in May-June 2009, and recently spent a month in Pakistan and Afghanistan, writing eyewitness accounts of war’s impact on civilians.
Plowshare Movement – Faithful and Active
We give gratitude for the Plowshares Eight of 1980, who hammered swords into plowshares that resounded loudly and clearly. Many faithful people have been inspired to continue it as a Plowshare Movement, unmasking nuclear weapons and their carriers at numerous military and corporate sites for the past thirty years. We look at these actions, share in the experiences and look to future responsibility/commitment to plowshare actions until all nuclear weapons are abolished and war is ended forever.
Jackie Hudson, O.P., living at Ground Zero Center for Nonviolence in Poulsbo, WA, Carol Gilbert, O.P. and Ardeth Platte, O.P., living at Jonah House in Baltimore, MD are Dominican Sisters of Grand Rapids, MI. In Colorado Springs, naming themselves Sacred Earth and Space Plowshares, 2000 they poured their own blood and hammered together with others on a Milstar Receiver and F18 fighter attack plane to unmask the relationship of the use of outer space communications and targeting with war waged on the ground in Iraq. Also, Jackie, Carol and Ardeth, Sacred Earth and Space Plowshares II, 2002 entered an N8 Minuteman III Missile Silo in northeastern Weld County, Colorado to inspect, expose, and symbolically and nonviolently hammer on and disarm the site. It was at the time that President Bush was threatening to use nuclear weapons on Iraq, defying International Law, the Constitution, World Court decision, UN Charter and Nuremberg Principles. They are convinced it is essential to speak truth to power as their fidelity to their Dominican Sister charism.
Bombs Away!
Be part of a puppet show!! On Sunday evening, as part of the community celebration, we will be performing a piece that we have written and performed several times about what happens when some green teen amphibians tamper with the nuclear bomb-building apparatus. The tale has puppets, actors, singing, dancing and generally lots of fun. We will need at least 10 people to help us put this show on — we can use more than 10 certainly. If you’ve ever wanted to be part of a puppet show (or puppet opera!) or if you have an interest in how art and fun can create an opening for discussion and movement-building, come join us for the workshop. Most of our time will be spent exploring puppets and rehearsing this piece for the performance on Sunday.
Uncle Sam’s Little Global Circus is a collection of folks who have taken issues of social justice and created puppet shows around them. This current configuration of Uncle Sam’s Little Global Circus is based in Knoxville with Kevin and Cindy Collins, Lissa McLeod, and Jake Weinstein. Kayce and Will Collins are usually near by and in the action too. We have been working together for at least five years, creating shows around nuclear weapons — a staple at the OREPA actions, the School of the Americas, and most recently, a show about mountaintop removal.
Nuclear Power Relapse – the Southeast is Ground Zero
Tracking down the proposed new government / utility nuclear waste production sites (new nuclear reactors) and unfolding what forces are bringing these first new nuke proposals in more than 30 years onto the stage. Plenty of time for discussion, networking and thinking together about the best times and places to make visible these “dirty power” threats to greater sustainability.
Mary Olson is southeast regional coordinator for Nuclear Information and Resource Service, a national organization founded in 1978 by grassroots activists to serve as clearing house for information and networking. Olson founded the Southeast Office in 1999 (now in Asheville, NC) to serve the region most impacted by the current relapse into nuclear development.
Glenn Carroll is coordinator for Nuclear Watch South (originally GANE, Georgians Against Nuclear Energy) and developer of the www.nonukesyall.org website. The organization has served as a watch dog and intervener on nuclear licensing issues including Southern Company’s Vogtle Reactor, the closure of the Georgia Tech research reactor and now the proposed Mixed Oxide Plutonium Fuel Factory at Savannah River Site.
An Enduring Nuclear Stockpile:
New Bomb Plants and New Bomb Plans
Far from all the talk about nuclear policy in Washington, DC and New York City, the National Nuclear Security Administration is moving forward with plans for new bomb plants in New Mexico, Kansas City, and Oak Ridge – it’s the nuclear weapons complex of the future and its goal is to expand US weapon production capacity and to maintain an enduring nuclear stockpile, modifying and “life extending” old warheads.
Workshops leaders are experienced and knowledgeable community activists from New Mexico, Missouri and Tennessee. Jay Coghlan directs Nuclear Watch of New Mexico; Ann Suellentrop works with Physicians for Social Responsibility and Kansas City Peaceworks; Ralph Hutchison is coordinator of the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance.