The Nuclear Resister

Photo by Mary Gleysteen

Sue Ablao, Mack Johnson, Gilberto Perez, Michael Firefly Siptroth and Caroline Wildflower appeared before Judge Pro Tem Kyle A. Joyce in Kitsap Country Traffic Court August 13, 2024, seeking mitigation of “pedestrian in the roadway” citations and fines for blocking traffic to the Trident Submarine Base on Mother’s Day, May 12. (Carolee Flaten was out of town and sought mitigation by mail.)

Eight nuclear weapons abolition activists were removed from the roadway on the morning of August 5 by the Washington State Patrol after blocking the entrance to Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, site of the world’s largest concentration of deployed nuclear weapons. The action was part of the annual demonstration organized by the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action to commemorate the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan in August 1945.

Tri-Valley CAREs photo of Karen Topakian

from Tri-Valley CAREs

Activists Solemnly Gather for “Back to the Brink” Event Commemorating the Bombing of Hiroshima

by Scott Yundt 

Around 100 people gathered at the Westgate entrance to Livermore Lab on the morning of Tuesday, August 6, 2024 to commemorate the 79th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. The theme of the event was Back from the Brink: the imperative of nuclear abolition. A wonderful slate of speakers provided compelling insights and actions for the engaged audience. These speakers included Maylene Hughes – Back from the Brink Campaign and Physicians for Social Responsibility, Scott Yundt – Tri-Valley CAREs, Norman Solomon – journalist and author, Patricia Ellsberg – social activist and wife of Daniel Ellsberg, Hideaki Ito – director of the documentary film Silent Fallout, and Reverend Monica Cross – CA Poor Peoples Campaign. Participants were then led in a Japanese Tradition of Bon, performing symbolic dance steps in the road to remember the nearly quarter million dead of 79 years ago. Lastly 23 people took part in nonviolent civil disobedience by blocking the gate to the Lab after the Police issued the call to disperse. These protestors were cited and released.

Swedish nonviolence educator and Plowshares activist Per Herngren

by Per Herngren

When civil disobedience spread across Europe and the United States, the biggest mistake was perhaps the fixation on blockades. In the rich part of the world, the blockade has been made the dominant method of civil disobedience. In this text, various reasons are analyzed as to why Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King and Mohandas Gandhi did not use blockades.

Gandhi used proactive and performative resistance, and the goal became the means of the struggle, “means and ends are convertible terms”. (Mohandas Gandhi, 1939.) The desired solution to the problem was turned into the method of civil disobedience. When local salt extraction and cotton production were monopolized by the colonial power, Gandhi, together with others, mined salt and spun cotton, breaking the colonial monopoly. This is called performative in queer feminist theory and is similar to Gandhi’s concept of nonviolence, where means and ends are the same. A performative is an action that realizes its vision.