Monthly Archive for June, 2011

A PORTRAIT OF CREATIVITY AND NONVIOLENCE:  RESISTANCE IN KANSAS CITY

by Marcy Haugh

I’ve always wanted to learn the Thriller dance.  Coordinated dances with others always seem like such a fun concept!  However, I never imagined in a million years that the first time I danced to this Michael Jackson song as part of a coordinated group would be at an action protesting the building of a plant for nuclear weapons parts.  But there I was – fully decked out in a zombie mask and costume – counting down the song’s measures for my cue to creep out zombie-style from behind the “church” where “the bomb” was worshipped.  As the cue came, we began our performance – dancing and acting for a world that chose transformation over annihilation.  This particular action was our way of responding with creative nonviolence to the threat of destruction embodied by the plant’s existence.

June 6, 2011

Dear friends,

From our perspective editing and publishing the Nuclear Resister for more than 30 years now, we take heart in the fact that today there are more people in prison for anti-nuclear actions than there have been for more than a decade.

Of course, we’d rather there be no reason to risk arrest and endure imprisonment. But that’s not the case.

Those of us who are paying attention are not lulled by Obama’s nuclear arms rhetoric.  We’re fully aware of the $100 billion pledged to renew the U.S. nuclear weapons production and delivery capability.  And we heard him loud and clear, under the plume of the greatest nuclear power catastrophe in history at Fukushima, when he assured the American people (and the nuclear industry) that his administration will move forward with a new generation of U.S. nuclear power plants.

But in the face of this reality, we see signs of hope.

Sr. Jackie Hudson. Photo by Leonard Eiger, Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action

A 76-year-old nun and peace activist was hospitalized after being denied medical care at a federally contracted private detention facility.

Sister Jackie Hudson, OP, age 76, who has been in prison since her conviction on federal trespassing charges resulting from her peaceful protest at the Y-12 nuclear weapons facility last July, was hospitalized for serious medical complications resulting from being denied care while at the Irwin County Detention Center, a federally contracted private detention facility in Ocilla, Georgia.

Hudson was one of eight people in federal custody awaiting sentencing for an anti-nuclear demonstration at the Y-12 nuclear weapon site at Oak Ridge Tennessee.

A weak and thin Yang Yoon-Mo (right) released from jail after 60 day hunger strike

by Bruce Gagnon, Coordinator
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space

Professor Yang was released from jail today. He was sentenced to one and one-half years in jail with a suspended sentence but with two years probation. There can be no doubt that the international outcry on his behalf has helped spring him from the jailhouse.

Regina Pyon, staff person at SPARK in South Korea, reports, “Yang didn’t mention yet about his hunger strike. The first word he spoke was ‘Is Gangjeong peaceful?’ and ‘My struggle will be continued to the end. Gangjeong villagers are the teacher who led me to the road of justice.’