Monthly Archive for April, 2011

By Deanne Reed Hollinger, libertariansavvy.com

Still awaiting trial, accused whistleblower PFC Bradley Manning has been moved from solitary confinement at the U.S. Marine base at Quantico, Virginia to medium-security status in the military brig at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.  The government denied that growing concern over the conditions of his confinement led to the move, which came days after nearly 300 of the top law scholars in the U.S. called on the Obama administration to end the torturous treatment of Bradley Manning.

Mark Kenney, before crossing the line on August 9, 2010

April 27, 2011
National Catholic Reporter

By Joshua J. McElwee

A young sailor walks through his nuclear submarine, headed for the engine room. As he winds through the tight, crowded corridors he suddenly finds himself standing next to a nuclear missile launch hatch.

He reaches out an outstretched hand. Tentatively, he places it on one of the warheads.

Click. Something changes. The destructive power of a thermonuclear detonation is no longer an abstraction. It’s real. His hand is touching it.

Over the next few days, the sailor heads to his chaplain. He asks the same questions, over and over: What are we doing? How can we justify this?

Fast-forward thirty years. That ex-sailor, Mark Kenney, reports today to Duluth Federal Prison Camp for a six-month stint for an act of civil disobedience at Offutt Air Force Base. He walked about ten steps onto the property of the complex with three others after a vigil there August 6.

Photo by Marcia Gagliardi

Eleven women from Vermont, Massachusetts and New Hampshire chained and locked the main gate of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon, Vermont on Friday afternoon, April 22.  Police arrested the women and charged them with trespass.

The demonstrators carried two banners reading “No More Leaks / No More Lies / Shut It Down Now” and “No More Accidents / Shut it Down Now.” They also stretched yellow caution tape across the Entergy driveway and noticed that spray-painted warnings they applied several months ago are still visible.

After the arrests, state and local police transported the women to the Vernon police station, where they were cited and released pending a June 20 appearance in Brattleboro’s Windham District Court.

The day after the killing, villagers clash with the police in Ratnagiri. Photo by Deepak Salvi, tehelka.com

Opposition to the proposed six-reactor Jaitapur nuclear power complex at Maharashtra on India’s west coast reached new heights April 18 when police opened fire on more than 100 protesters, killing one – Tabrez Sohekar – and wounding eight others.  The protesters, including many members of Shiv Sena, the opposition political party in Maharashtra state, tried to halt early construction at the site when the conflict turned deadly. Two days before, more than 50,000 people had rallied in opposition.  Sohekar’s family continued the protest, refusing to claim his remains until the Maharashtra government dumps the nuke project.

About fifty local opponents have been jailed in previous weeks, prosecuted for their role in demonstrations last October and December. Some were released April 26, while most remain in custody. Police are regularly tapping organizers’ cell phones to disrupt the organized opposition.

by Ed Kinane

“Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is the numbers of people all over the world who have obeyed the dictates of the leaders of their government and have gone to war, and millions have been killed because of this obedience…Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves…[and] the grand thieves are running the country. That’s our problem.”

— Howard Zinn

Over the years I’ve been jailed numerous times.  Each such event arose from what is loosely called “civil disobedience.”

The tactical value of arrest and ensuing “court witness” and “prison witness” is that they can generate news helping to bring vital, often neglected, issues to public notice. These mindful acts can boost solidarity and the grassroots campaigns in which they are embedded.