Monthly Archive for August, 2010

Four of the eight people who blocked the entrance to the current plutonium processing facility at the Los Alamos Nuclear Weapons Lab, New Mexico, August 6. Photo by Felice Cohen-Joppa

The 65th anniversaries of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were observed around the world on August 6 and August 9.  A handful of the memorial events across the United States included acts of civil resistance calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons.

Arrests were reported at nuclear weapons laboratories in Livermore, California (31) and Los Alamos, New Mexico (8); at the nuclear war merchant Lockheed-Martin’s facility in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania (7); at the missile launch test site at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California (7); outside the Pentagon (8) and the strategic nuclear command center at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska (4); and blocking the entrance to the Trident nuclear missile launching submarine base in Bangor, Washington (9).  The full report on these memorial actions and more will be in the next print edition of the Nuclear Resister.  Please subscribe, or to receive a free sample copy of the next issue by first class mail, hot off the press, e-mail your postal mailing address to nukeresister@igc.org.

For links to action reports,

Photos by Joshua McElwee, Staff Writer for the National Catholic Reporter

Construction on the first of three new nuclear weapons production facilities was brought to a halt on Monday, August 16, when demonstrators occupied the Kansas City, Missouri site.

Among those arrested was Nuclear Resister co-editor Felice Cohen-Joppa.

Writing for the National Catholic Reporter, Joshua McElwee reports:

“The acts of civil disobedience came at the end of a three-day conference which drew peace activists here from around the nation. The efforts were aimed at building awareness of and resistance to the construction of the weapons plant, which will replace an existing plant here.

“The new plant, which will make non-nuclear parts for nuclear weapons, is set to be the nation’s first new major nuclear weapons production facility in 32 years.

“Before their arrest the protestors walked onto a soybean field being plowed by several earth moving vehicles as part of the plant building preparation effort. The group, walking in a single file, held hands; some carried large signs. They approached and surrounded one of the vehicles, forcing the driver to stop her work, and eventually leading 20 other vehicles to halt theirs as well.

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Celebrating Nuclear Resistance from the Nuclear Resister on Vimeo.

A slide show with music prepared for the Resistance for a Nuclear Free Future gathering, July 3-5, 2010, at Maryville College, Tennessee, and the Y-12 Nuclear Weapons Complex. Celebrating 30 years of the Nuclear Resister, Nukewatch, and the Plowshares Movement.

Report from George & Maureen Kehoe Ostensen

On July 22, 2010, we packed up our 1982 VW camper van and drove to Lubec with the intention of crossing the Canadian border to explore the coast for wildlife, to experience the incredible tides and to do some bicycling. However, the Canadian Border Patrol people decided that George was “inadmissible”, meaning that we had to return to the United States because of his long record of acts of nonviolent resistance to militarism.