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NO NUKES Y'ALL!
NUCLEAR WATCH SOUTH | TRIDENT
U.N. Treaty on the
Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons
Treaty's 3rd Anniversary Celebrated in Sautee, Georgia
Rebecca Obermeier and John Gagnon participate in the celebration of the 3rd anniversary of the entry into force of the U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons on January 22, 2023 at the Sautee-Nacoochee Cultural Center. The vigil was held by the Tree of Peace, an oak planted 35 years ago, and the Peace Pole dedicated to Joan O. King and the Treaty in 2021. The flags represent the 70 nations who have ratified the historic treaty making nuclear weapons illegal. Photo by Joanne Sweeney
SAUTEE, GA 1/22/23: Nuclear Watch South board president Joanne Sweeney invited folks to stand for peace and nuclear disarmament on the third anniversary of the U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Following an info and action session at the Sweetwater Coffee House a vigil was held at the Sautee-Nacoochee Cultural Center by the Tree of Peace which was planted in 1988 and the Peace Pole planted in 2021.
The banner declares: STOP THE ARMS RACE / INVEST IN THE HUMAN RACE. At the coffee house folks were invited to send an action postcard to Senator Bernie Sanders, chair of the Senate Budget Committee, urging him to convert the nuclear weapons budget to fund a Green New Deal to avert climate catastrophe.
DEFUND NUCLEAR WEAPONS
There is NO PLANET B if we blow up Planet Earth with nuclear weapons.
The U.S. led the world by spending $44.2 billion, that’s $84,091 per minute, on nuclear weapons last year — nuclear weapons that we dare not use lest we destroy our home planet! The U.S. is launching a new nuclear arms race, budgeting nearly $2 TRILLION for new nuclear weapons over the next 30 years. Nuclear weapons are outmoded dinosaurs and a colossal waste of our tax money. In fact, nuclear weapons were outlawed by the U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in 2021. It is time to stop spending trillions on nuclear weapons and start funding human needs!
The time is NOW to HARVEST THE SUN AND THE WIND
FUND THE GREEN NEW DEAL
There is NO PLANET B if we cook Planet Earth with greenhouse gases.
The money the U.S. currently squanders on diabolical nuclear weapons is more than enough to fund the GREEN NEW DEAL. Climate catastrophe is a certainty unless bold action is taken immediately to avert disaster. Progressive leaders such as Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Eleanor Holmes Norton and Senators Bernie Sanders and Edward Markey are promoting the GREEN NEW DEAL to meet human needs, establish social equity, and to create millions of good, green jobs by deploying green, new technology throughout the U.S.
TAKE ACTION!
Call the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121 to reach these, and other, leaders. Encourage them to defund nuclear weapons and start the GREEN NEW DEAL. Invest our money in renewable energy and save our future!
BETTER ACTIVE TODAY THAN RADIOACTIVE TOMORROW!
Welcome the GOLDEN RULE to the Golden Isles
Historic sailboat to visit Brunswick February 14-19, 2023
GEORGIA COAST, February 2023: In 1958, four Quaker peace activists sailed the Golden Rule towards the Marshall Islands with the intent to halt nuclear weapons testing. The US Coast Guard boarded her in Honolulu and arrested her crew, inspiring a global outcry.
The peaceful mission raised awareness of the dangers of radiation, prompting worldwide demands to stop nuclear testing. In 1963, the US, USSR and UK signed a Limited Test Ban Treaty banning all atmospheric nuclear testing. The last underground nuclear explosion was in 1992, and in 2021, nuclear weapons were outlawed internationally by the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
Currently, the US spends $84,000 per minute on nuclear weapons, more than all other nuclear-armed nations combined. Our great country lavishes billions of our tax dollars on contracts with corporations like Lockheed, Boeing and Northrop Grummen while her citizens cry for housing and sufficient food, quality education, affordable medical care and a healthy environment.
Golden Rule crew members would change history in other ways as well. Jim Peckwas a conscientious objector in WWII, member of Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and trade union organizer. Albert Bigelow, captain of the Golden Rule, was Navy lieutenant commander in WWII. Both men participated in the 1961 Freedom Rides, Bigelow being seatmates and assaulted alongside John Lewis in Rock Hill, SC. In 1965, the Voting Rights Act became US law.
The Golden Rule sank in 2010, but in 2015, Veterans for Peace volunteers restored and launched her to her original mission of nuclear disarmament and peace. For the first time, she will visit the Georgia Coast in a 11,000-mile voyage of the “Great Loop.” Come out to meet the Golden Rule crew and take a tour of this historic wooden boat!
GOLDEN RULE Brunswick Events Calendar
Wednesday, February 15, 2023
Brunswick Landing Marina, 1 Torras Pkwy
11:30 a.m. - Mayor Cosby Johnson Greeting
11 a.m. - 3 p.m. Golden Rule open house
Friday, February 17, 2023
Brunswick Landing Marina, 1 Torras Landing
11 a.m. - 3 p.m. Golden Rule open house
Saturday, February 18, 2023
2 p.m. - Bike ride with the Gullah Geechee BRAG Dream Team
starts at St. Athanasius Church, 1321 Albany Street
6 p.m. - DINNER AND A MOVIE | CRIMSON TIDE
Historic Ritz Theatre, 1530 Newcastle Street
Please join Nuclear Watch South, Beyond Trident and the crew of the Golden Rule in a special screening of blockbuster thriller Crimson Tide starring Gene Hackman and Denzel Washington. Roger Ebert praised the 1995 film, set on a Trident submarine, for “an uncommonly intelligent dramatization about the choices, dangers and duties of nuclear warfare.” Rated “R” for strong language
OPEN TO THE PUBLIC | FREE donations welcomed
A light supper will be served
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NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARE ILLEGAL!
Beyond Trident celebrates the beginning of the end
of nuclear weapons at the Kings Bay Trident
submarine base in St. Marys, Georgia
Members of the Beyond Trident campaign brave cold, wet weather and covid to observe the first anniverary of the U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons at the Kings Bay Trident nuclear submarine base in St. Marys, Georgia. Photo by Teresa Grady. The rollover image is from January 2021: Nuclear Watch South joined Beyond Trident, Susie King Taylor Women's Institute and Ecology Center and the Coastal Black Women's Ocean Memory and Conservation Collective at the gates of the Kings Bay Trident nuclear submarine base in St. Marys, Georgia to celebrate the beginning of the end of nuclear weapons. Photo by Tasha Wei.
St. Marys, GA, 1/21/22: Activists with the Beyond Trident campaign braved cold and rainy weather to vigil at the Kings Bay Trident nuclear submarine base in celebration of the 1st anniversary of the U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
The vigil was one of more than 200 vigils occurring all over the world. The Treaty rendering nuclear weapons manufacture and possession illegal is backed by 59 nations, none of which possess nuclear weapons, all of which recognize that if the nuclear super powers continue the suicidal path of nuclear weapons, it perpetuates a crime against the God-given right of all living things to enjoy and endure in creation.
It is fitting that the nuclear ban treaty anniversary falls exactly one week after Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday. Dr. King was quoted in Liberation magazine, in 1959, when asked his position on nuclear weapons, "I have unequivocally declared my hatred for this most colossal of all evils."
Earlier in the week Beyond Trident hosted two on-line discussions on The Radical King, a collection of 23 of Dr. King's strongest speeches, letters and articles edited by Cornel West.
The Beyond Trident campaign is inspired by the Kings Bay Plowshares 7 action on April 4, 2018, when seven committed Catholic Workers, one of them, Father Steve Kelly, a Jesuit priest, occupied Kings Bay on the 50th anniversary of Dr. King's murder. The Kings Bay Plowshares 7's nuclear disarmament message focused on King's lifelong dedication to address what he called the “triple evils of militarism, racism, and materialism.” Beyond Trident works to keep the spotlight on the evil triplets.
According to a report by ICAN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, the United States spent $70,881 per minute on nuclear weapons in 2020. The U.S. is the aggressor in a new global nuclear arms race and intends to spend $1.7 trillion from the U.S. Treasury on nuclear weapons in the next decade. The nuclear weapons industry, now yoked with the label of "international outlaw," is a murderous drain on the money, natural resources and brain trust of the world's peoples.
ICAN received the Nobel Prize in 2017 for its work to establish the U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
The U.S. has not detonated a nuclear weapon in 30 years. The nation's nuclear weapons factories have all been shuttered for 30 years or more. The Soviet Union was bankrupted and dissolved because of the Cold War nuclear arms race. The new nuclear arms race is simply a pipeline to funnel the people's tax money into the bank accounts of powerful industries like Lockheed, Boeing, Raytheon, and Northrup Grumman. While people are distracted, understandably, by climate catastrophe and covid concerns, they ignore the nuclear industry at great peril.
Kings Bay is currently undergoing a $500,000,000 expansion to accommodate a new fleet of bigger, more deadly submarines. Currently Kings Bay is home port to six Trident submarines, each one capable of destroying hundreds of cities in 30 minutes, less time than it takes to order a pizza. The Coastal Georgia Navy base deploys 25% of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. The first of the new $4,000,000,000 Columbia class submarines is under construction in Newport News, Virginia, and planned for delivery in 2030. It is hoped that the U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons will bring an end at last to the madness of mutually assured destruction.
Dr. King spoke clearly in his last sermon given days before his death, "It is no longer a choice, my friends, between violence and nonviolence. it is either nonviolence or nonexistence, and the alternative to disarmament, the alternative to a greater suspension of nuclear tests, the alternative to strengthening the United Nations and thereby disarming the whole world may well be a civilization plunged into the abyss of annihilation, and our earthly habitat would be transformed into an inferno that even the mind of Dante could not imagine."
4th Annual MAMI WATA RISING
International Conference
HIROSHIMA | NAGASAKI OBSERVANCE
Background photo of sandhill crane flying over Georgia marsh courtesy of Helen D. Young
August 6, 2021
Susie King Taylor and Sadako Sasaki
Heroines of War and Peace
Coastal Georgia, 8/6/21: On August 6, 1848, Susie King Taylor was born, enslaved on a plantation in Liberty County, Georgia. On August 6, 1945, the U.S. detonated an atomic bomb, destroying Sadako Sasaki’s hometown of Hiroshima, Japan.
Susie King Taylor’s escape to freedom at age 13 is just part of the great, uplifting story of survival by one of history’s great champions of literacy. Sadako Sasaki survived the destruction of Hiroshima, but died from radiation fallout a decade later at age 12. Sadako attempted to fold 1,000 origami peace cranes as a wish to get well, inspiring the adoption of the paper crane as an international symbol and call for world peace.
Please join Susie King Taylor Women’s Institute and Ecology Center and Nuclear Watch South to celebrate these heroines of war and peace.
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THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
U.N. building in New York lit up in celebration of the U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons entry into force of international law on January 22, 2021
Peace Vigil, 1-4PM on Friday, January 22, 2021
Stimson Gate of Kings Bay Trident Nuclear Submarine Base
PLANET EARTH 1/22/21: Nuclear Watch South and Beyond Trident are teaming up with Susie King Taylor Women's Ecology Institute and the Black Coastal Women's Ocean Memory and Conservation Collective to hold a peace vigil at the gates of the Kings Bay Trident nuclear submarine base in St. Marys, Georgia, from 1-4PM on Friday, January 22, 2021. The vigil is to celebrate the entry into force of international law of the U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The citizens groups are marking the occasion at Kings Bay to draw attention to the little known fact that 25% of the U.S. nuclear arsenal is deployed from the coast of Georgia and that if Kings Bay were a country, it would be the third largest nuclear weapons state on Earth.
The eco-groups are also celebrating the presence of the critically endangered North Atlantic right whales in Georgia's coastal waters during their annual calving season with a waterside cermony led by Whale Whisperer Michaela Harrison. Pregnant females migrate to Georgia every November through April to give birth and nurture their newborns. Kings Bay Naval Base is situated in the Cumberland Sound which is the only known calving waters for the North Atlantic right whale. Ironically, it may have been the construction of the base that led to the discovery that the North Atlantic right whale has habitat in Georgia. The discovery was made during the 10-year construction of the nuclear submarine base. The State of Georgia responded to the discovery by making the North Atlantic right whale its State Marine Mammal.
Other Treaty celebration activities include the placement of full-page ads declaring that nuclear weapons are outlawed in the Tribune-Georgian and Brunswick News and distribution of information packets to local leadership, especially to leaders in low-wealth communities of color. The ads and packets encourage community dialogue about the future of the region when nuclear activities cease at the base. It is recognized that the base dominates the local economy and yet many people are underserved with respect to basic human rights such as food, shelter, and health care. The groups are broadcasting the vision of a healthy environment and universal prosperity through sharing information such as that contained in the report Warheads to Windmills.
Glenn Carroll, coordinator of Nuclear Watch South says, "For 75 years our beautiful planet and all of its inhabitants have been held hostage by the terrifying prospect of nuclear annihilation. Fortunately, we have averted the wholesale destruction of nuclear war, so far, although the trillions of dollars squandered on these weapons of mass destruction have been a direct theft from the people of our country who need homes and food and healthcare. It is powerfully symbolic that nuclear weapons are being outlawed internationally during the week in which we celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. His prophetic words echo through the corridors of history as he called on his country to disavow the 'giant triplets' of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism. At last the beginning of the end of nuclear weapons has come!"
Hermina Glass-Hill, executive director of the Susie King Taylor Women's Ecology Institute says, "This ban on nuclear weapons by the 50 nations is a good sign of contagious compassion from the least among us for our common home — Mother Earth, and the ripple effect is the potential for true peace, equity, and equality for all of her citizens."
Teresa Grady, founder of the Beyond Trident Campaign and sister of Kings Bay Plowshares defendant Clare Grady says, "The 51 States Parties who have ratified this Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, though seemingly insignificant, will have an effect on those nuclear states who depend on the use of their lands for mining, manufacturing, transport, and deployment of these weapons. Banks invested in the nuclear weapons industry, will be boycotted by these States Parties; we must uphold their courage, and urge our communities and nation to ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons."
Robert Randall has maintained a presence at Kings Bay for more than 30 years and is one of the main organizers of Beyond Trident. He says, "Because of the Treaty to Ban Nuclear Weapons coming into force we have no choice now but to Think Beyond Trident."
The peace vigil is free and open to the public. Parking is available across the highway at the Sugar Mill Park. Masks are mandatory and social distancing protocols will be strictly observed.
For more information contact:
Glenn Carroll, Nuclear Watch South, 404-432-8727
Hermina Glass-Hill, Susie King Taylor Women's Ecology Institute, 404-587-3182
Robert Randall, Beyond Trident, 912-399-4862
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HISTORIC U.N. TREATY ON THE PROHIBITION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS RATIFIED!!!
The countries in green ratified the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and the countries in yellow are signatories. The countries ratifying the treaty: Antigua and Barbuda, Austria, Bangladesh, Belize, Bolivia, Botswana, Cook Islands, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Fiji, Gambia, Guyana, The Holy See (Vatican), Honduras, Ireland, Jamaica, Kazakhstan, Kiribati, Laos, Lesotho, Malaysia, Maldives, Malta, Mexico, Namibia, Nauru, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Niue, Palau, Palestine, Panama, Paraguay, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, San Marino, South Africa, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Tuvalu, Uruguay, Vanuatu, Venezuela and Vietnam.
EARTH 10/24/2020: Honduras became the 50th nation to declare war on nuclear weapons with its ratification of the U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons on October 24, 2020, the 75th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations. The Vatican (Holy See) submitted the first ratification in 2017 shortly after Treaty's adoption by the U.N. The Treaty outlaws nuclear weapons by international law, adding nuclear weapons to the list of other outlawed weapons: land mines, biological weapons and chemical weapons. Pope Francis has condemned nuclear weapons possession, manufacture and threat of use, upending a longstanding tolerance for nuclear weapons by the Catholic Church.
By its terms, the treaty will enter into force in 90 days, becoming legally binding for states that have joined the treaty. The historic treaty will enter into force on January 22, 2021.
The treaty was negotiated in 2017 by 122 states, none of them possessors of nuclear arms. They took responsibility for creating a path toward the global elimination of nuclear weapons, essentially because the world’s most powerful states — all nuclear-armed — are failing to do so despite the disarmament obligation set forth in the Nonproliferation Treaty.
In the week leading up to the treaty's full ratification, the U.S. government reportedly pressured states that have ratified the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons to withdraw their ratifications so that the treaty does not enter into force. The U.S. approach of opposing the treaty, on display since negotiations began, has been obvious and is shameful. The United States should welcome the treaty as a powerful statement of the moral, political, and legal principles that should guide the abolition of nuclear arms.
The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons robustly recognizes and reinforces existing international law requiring the non-use and elimination of nuclear weapons. That law applies to states whether or not they join the treaty, as the treaty’s preamble recognizes. The preamble reaffirms the need for all states at all times to comply with international humanitarian law forbidding the infliction of indiscriminate harm and unnecessary suffering and with international human rights law, and considers that any use of nuclear weapons would be contrary to international humanitarian law.
U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres commended the 50 countries and saluted "the work of civil society, which has been instrumental in facilitating the negotiation and ratification of the treaty." Guterres said the treaty's entry into force "is a tribute to the survivors of nuclear explosions and tests," and "represents a meaningful commitment toward the total elimination of nuclear weapons."
Japan, the only country to have suffered the devastation of atomic bombings, has decided not to sign the treaty in consideration of its security ties with the United States.
Survivors of the U.S. atomic bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki along with others are calling for the Japanese government to take the lead in achieving a world free of nuclear weapons.
Setsuko Thurlow, survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, said “I have committed my life to the abolition of nuclear weapons. I have nothing but gratitude for all who have worked for the success of our treaty.” As a long-time and iconic ICAN activist who has spent decades sharing the story of the horrors she faced to raise awareness on the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons this moment held particular significance: “This is the first time in international law that we have been so recognized. We share this recognition with other hibakusha across the world, those who have suffered radioactive harm from nuclear testing, from uranium mining, from secret experimentation.” Survivors of atomic use and testing all over the world have joined Setsuko in celebrating this milestone.
Ms. Thurlow, who was 13 years old at the time of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, is critical of Japan's reluctance to support the historic treaty. Toshiyuki Mimaki, acting head of the atomic bomb survivors in Hiroshima, said the ratification by the 50 countries has established a base to press nuclear powers and those under a nuclear umbrella to abolish nuclear weapons. Mimaki, 78, urged the government to ratify the treaty, saying, "Can the (only) atomic-bombed country just stand by and watch developments from the sidelines? I would like the government to change its attitude."
ICAN, the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, said in a statement, "In countries that have not joined, it is up to us to make sure that companies, governments and people know that nuclear weapons are illegal and that they need to stand on the right side of history."
TRIDENT ON TRIAL
Pre-Sentencing Declaration of Father Steve Kelly, S.J.
[This statement was filed with the court before Fr. Steve Kelly’s October 15, 2020 sentencing. Father Kelly, pictured right, is one of the Kings Bay Plowshares 7. Father Kelly has been incarcerated at the Glynn County Jail on the coast of Georgia since his participation in the action at the Trident nuclear submarine base on April 4, 2018, the 50th anniversary of the murder of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.]
Presentencing Declaration of Pro Se Defendant's Conscientious Objection To and Non-compliance With Any and All Post-incarceration Conditions
While still in chains, I, pro se defendant Stephen Michael Kelly, S.J., file this declaration in an attempt to remove any ambiguity and avoid all misunderstanding, come time of sentencing.
I assert the innocence of the Kings Bay Plowshares. But this statement is my own declaration. Both my conscientious objection and my Religious Freedom Restoration Act testimony are attempts to fulfill the mandate of the Nuremberg Accords. This witness has me confronting and engaged with the omnicidal policies of the U.S. government. Recourse to appeal is futile, pathetic, and dangerous because all the judiciary’s rulings precluded our jury from hearing any defense. The circuit, appeal, the entire judiciary has thwarted redress that would fulfill the purpose and mandate of the signatories of the Nuremberg Accords. For this reason, I am a political prisoner of conscience for Christ. The judiciary has been unable to see the Isaian vision as a way out of this spiral of violence. The Isaiah 2:4 vision is an imperative to conversion. The judiciary dangerously legitimizes a nuclear holocaust in following previous rulings. The precedents, when followed, have functioned as a gag order. This court would not allow the jury, the triers of fact, to hear what was recognized in our Religious Freedom Restoration Act evidence; we were at the Trident base to preach against the sin that flourishes in weapons of mass destruction.
Given that situation, my participation in any aspect of supervised release is to comply with and accommodate the U.S.’ compelling interest of the nuclear weapons agenda. Compelling interest is a euphemism for 1,000’s of Hiroshimas and Nagasakis. And, as in the case of the duty of citizens' obligation to expose the Nazi concentration camps’ industrial scale genocide in Germany/Europe in the 1930s and 1940s, the Nuremberg Accords were/are both an appraisal and indictment. The nuclear weapons are flying extermination ovens. In conscience, I can't let any court order or threat restrict me from imitation of the Good Shepherd, Jesus when he placed himself, laying down his life between the wolf, the thief and the flock. In this case, the wolf is the Trident aimed at millions and the thief is the larceny from the poor predicted by Eisenhower in his Oval Office departure.
I answer to a higher authority in that my faith imperative, as outlined in the tenets of the Catechism, missions me to respond to the needs of the poor, oppressed, disenfranchised, in any locality and without any exclusion to those with felony records. I am indigent and itinerant. I will respond, should I be found worthy, led by the Spirit to witness the prophetic vision offered in Isaiah 2:4 by fulfilling its embodiment.
I am aware that imposition of supervised release is a guideline option, not mandatory for this court. I point out that supervised release was not intended for anti-nuclear activists. Consistent with the above, I will in conscience refuse any fines and restitution. This renders probation's role to oversee collection pointless. In the wake of sentencing, I will be taken in chains to Federal Court, Tacoma, Washington, to answer for the warrant that stemmed from my stating in open court in September 2016 that I refused supervised release. And I suggested to the federal magistrate presiding to translate any term of supervised release into a period of incarceration. This has been consistent in all my previous Plowshares witnesses.
In closing this declaration, if it is not apparent that our nonviolent witness at the Trident base was to save not a few but a multitude of lives, then let this instrument serve to make that an explicit recapitulation of that intention.
More information on the sentencing, and about the Kings Bay Plowshares, can be found at https://kingsbayplowshares7.org/
NUCLEAR WEAPONS, MILITARISM, RACISM
To Protect Black Lives,
Georgia’s Laws Have to Change
BRUNSWICK, GA 5/29/2020: Martin Luther King Jr., in his important April 1967 speech, warned of the evil triplets of militarism, extreme materialism and racism in America. These factors combined lethally in the murder of Ahmaud Arbery by white men in Brunswick, Georgia on February 23. All three are enshrined in the laws and culture that made the McMichaels feel like heroes when they loaded guns to chase a young black man jogging in their neighborhood.
Like the Trident nuclear arsenal amassed just 30 miles south of the neighborhood where Ahmaud was shot, Georgia’s citizen’s arrest and gun laws are deadly and immoral. Like Trident, these laws’ very existence serves as a loaded gun to threaten and intimidate people of color all day, every day, whether they are used or not. And the deaths resulting from our government’s spending on militarism rather than human needs (nuclear weapons rather than health care, for example), like the deaths resulting from these types of gun laws, are disproportionately visited upon people of color and the poor, who are also, under a system of white supremacy, disproportionately people of color.
Racism, militarism and greed combine in laws that attempt to make these deaths, these nuclear weapons that could destroy all life on earth and these shootings of black men who dare to jog in white neighborhoods acceptable because they are “legal.”
If we want to stop killings like that of Ahmaud Arbery, we must change the laws that encourage them. If we want to bring about justice, we must repeal the laws that obstruct it. Despite COVID-19, we can all run with Ahmaud by calling our state legislators. Phone calls are much more effective than emails and exponentially more effective than online petitions.
If you really want to make a difference, please make some phone calls.
You can find your legislators’ contact information by entering your address at https://openstates.org/find_your_legislator/
Before you call:
Read the background information provided below so that you feel comfortable, but keep in mind that you do not have to make yourself an expert to ask for these changes. As a member of this community who has been impacted by this killing and this culture, your opinion is important and your feelings and values matter.
When you call:
• Be polite. Tell the person who answers the phone your name and that you are a constituent and you want to talk to Representative X (or Senator Y) or the relevant staff person about the legal changes that are needed to prevent incidents like the killing of Ahmaud Arbery.
• You may not be able to speak with your legislator in person. More likely, you will speak with a staff person, who will pass your message along in one form or another.
• Make sure your request is clear: I want Representative X (or Senator Y) to work for repeal of these Georgia laws:
1. Open Carry
2. Citizen’s Arrest
3. Lethal Force in Self-defense, aka “stand your ground”
• Tell them why this is so important to you and make it personal.
• Ask them what Representative X or Senator Y is doing about these issues. If the answer doesn’t satisfy you, say politely that you expect them to do more, or differently. Ask them to make sure the legislator knows this.
• Thank them for their time.
Background: Although it seems that under a strict interpretation of these laws, the McMichaels are still legally guilty of murder, vague legal language combined with pervasive racial bias can lead juries to bring in not guilty verdicts in cases like these, which further empowers and encourages anti-black vigilantism. These laws were cited by District Attorney George Barnhill, who eventually recused himself, in a letter to the Glynn County police department as reasons why the McMichaels’ actions were “perfectly legal.” Laws like these were used to let George Zimmerman walk free after killing Trayvon Martin in Florida and to justify the unjustifiable killing of black people by police all over the country. These are the laws that the McMichaels’ attorneys will undoubtedly use to argue the innocence of their clients.
Georgia’s Open Carry Law
Official Code of Georgia Annotated § 16-11-126 allows any person to openly carry a handgun if the person has a “weapons carry” license. Georgia also allows any person to openly carry a long gun. In fact, if a long gun is carried while it is loaded, it must be carried openly.
“Carrying openly visible guns in public can quickly turn arguments fatal, be used to intimidate and suppress the First Amendment rights of others, and create confusion for law enforcement responding to shootings.” Giffords Law Center
“Violent extremists and hate criminals often use guns as a tool to threaten and intimidate members of historically vulnerable or marginalized communities. In doing so, they inflict serious harm without ever pulling the trigger.” Center for American Progress
Georgia’s Citizen’s Arrest Law
O.C.G.A. § 17-4-60 Grounds for arrest, states “A private person may arrest an offender if the offense is committed in his presence or within his immediate knowledge. If the offense is a felony and the offender is escaping or attempting to escape, a private person may arrest him upon reasonable and probable grounds of suspicion.”
This law was invoked in 2019 after a young white woman chased down a 62-year-old black man who left the scene of a minor car accident, began punching him and then shot him dead in Atlanta. She was not personally involved in the accident.
“Reasonable and probable grounds of suspicion” is not defined, leaving this law open to interpretation by vigilantes, law enforcement and members of juries whose bias leads them to see black people as criminals and a black man running as proof of guilt.
Not surprisingly, this law dates to the civil war era. In 2020, with cell phones, 911 calls and generally fast police responsiveness, it is obsolete and dangerous.
Georgia’s Self-Defense “Stand Your Ground” Law
Under O.C.G.A. § 16-3-21, people who “reasonably believe” that their life or property is being threatened don't have to retreat (stand your ground) and can use deadly force if they think it's necessary to prevent their own death or "great bodily injury" to themselves or other people or to prevent a "forcible felony," such as rape, armed robbery or kidnapping. While there are exceptions to the use of deadly force that apply to the McMichaels – if the person using deadly force was the aggressor, or initially provoked the other person – District Attorney George Barnhill interpreted the McMichael’s actions as justified under this law.
A jury may do so as well. “Stand your ground” has been used successfully as a defense even when the ground the killer was standing on had been reached by stalking the victim, as in the Trayvon Martin case.
This law was unsuccessfully challenged in 2012 as “unconstitutionally vague,” particularly with regard to the standard of “reasonable fear” as reported in a Courthouse News article.
“It is without question that the determination of the reasonableness of one’s fear in the invocation of self-defense will differ in application if the decedent is an unarmed elderly white woman as opposed to an unarmed young black man,” the complaint states. “Thus the reasonable person standard with regards to the use of self-defense when an individual is standing one’s ground offers different levels of protection to individuals based upon their race.”
The Giffords Law Center lists these important facts:
Multiple studies show that Florida’s stand your ground law escalated violence across the state.
Stand your ground laws have proven to be a clear threat to public safety, with no evidence that these laws deter crime. In fact, studies have conclusively associated these laws with increases in homicides and injuries.
In many cases, the race of the attacker and victim are highly significant factors in whether an attack is determined to be justified.
• Controlling for other factors, the odds a white-on-black homicide is found justified is 281% greater than the odds a white-on-white homicide is found justified.
• An analysis of Florida stand your ground cases similarly found that a defendant is twice as likely to be convicted in a case that involves white victims compared to those involving non-white victims.
Beyond Trident Campaign Launched in Georgia
BRUNSWICK, GA 4/4/20 Local activists Robert Randall, Roxane George, Teresa Berrigan Grady and Sarah Cool have been meeting with local and statewide citizen activists to launch a new campaign to bring increased awareness to the impact of Kings Bay Trident nuclear submarine base on the coastal Georgia environment and economy.
The Beyond Trident Campaign aims to resist U.S. Navy plans to expand and modernize Kings Bay to accommodate a new, larger submarine fleet as part of the U.S. instigation of a new global nuclear arms race.
The Beyond Trident Campaign mission is to abolish nuclear weapons and power by focusing on the intersections between racism, militarism and excessive materialism. The purpose is to change hearts and minds in order to generate active resistance to nuclear weapons in south coastal Georgia. The Beyond Trident Campaign will work to ensure that the community conversations about nuclear weapons that have been inspired by the actions of the Kings Bay Plowshares 7 will continue and expand into support for a nuclear ban.
Beyond Trident aims to increase and support the involvement of activists and community members in Camden County, where the base is located, and in Glynn County, where most of the activities related to the Kings Bay Plowshares 7 have taken place. A related goal is to encourage people in Camden County to think about ways to diversify the local economy, which was not always dependent on Kings Bay Naval Base. Beyond Trident intends to provide people in both Glynn and Camden Counties with information and tools to urge their elected officials to support the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and to oppose the U.S. nuclear weapons modernization currently underway.
Beyond Trident will work to create bridges between groups and issues to increase local understanding of the intersections between racism, militarism and extreme materialism.
Kings Bay Plowshares 7 Historic Action Targets Georgia Trident Nuclear Submarine Base
Catholic peace activists confront nuclear weapons and U.S. militarism on 4/4/18 in observance of 50 year anniversary of Martin Luther King's murder
BRUNSWICK, GA 6/9/19 Seven Catholic plowshares activists entered Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base in St. Mary’s, Georgia on April 4th, 2018. They went to make real the prophet Isaiah’s command to “beat swords into plowshares.”
The Kings Bay Plowshares 7 (KBP7), chose to act on the 50th anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who devoted his life to addressing what he called the “triple evils of militarism, racism and materialism.” Carrying hammers and baby bottles of their own blood, the seven attempted to convert weapons of mass destruction. They hoped to call attention to the ways in which nuclear weapons kill every day, by their mere existence and maintenance.
Kings Bay Naval base opened in 1979 as the Navy’s Atlantic Ocean Trident port. The largest nuclear submarine base in the world, President Jimmy Carter, a former submariner, used his influence to have the base sited in his home state of Georgia. The St. Mary's Sound where the five-story tall, 200-yard long submarines are based is the only known calving area for the endangered right whale. There are six ballistic missile subs and two guided missile subs based at Kings Bay. Each Trident submarine carries enough nuclear weapons to qualify as the third largest nuclear power on Earth.
The activists went to three sites on the base: The SWFLANT administration building, the D5 Missile monument installation and the nuclear weapons storage bunkers. The activists used crime scene tape, hammers and hung banners reading: “The ultimate logic of racism is genocide - Dr. Martin Luther King”, “The ultimate logic of Trident is omnicide” and “Nuclear weapons: illegal / immoral.” They also brought an indictment charging the U.S. government for crimes against peace.
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Liz McAlister |
Fr. Steve Kelly, SJ |
Carmen Trotta |
The activists at the nuclear weapons storage bunkers were Elizabeth McAlister, 78, of Jonah House, Baltimore; Fr. Steve Kelly SJ, 69, of the Bay Area, California; and Carmen Trotta, 55, of the New York Catholic Worker. Elizabeth "Liz" McAlister is the widow of famed founder of the Plowshares Movement, Philip Berrigan. Father Steve Kelly participated in a similar action at the west coast Kitsap Trident base in Bangor, WA, in 2009.
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Clare Grady |
Martha Hennessey |
Mark Colville |
Patrick O'Neill |
At the Strategic Weapons Facility Atlantic Administration building were Clare Grady, 59, of the Ithaca Catholic Worker; and Martha Hennessy, 62, of the New York Catholic Worker. At the Trident D5 monuments were Mark Colville, 55, of the Amistad Catholic Worker, New Haven, Connecticut; and Patrick O’Neill, 61, of the Fr. Charlie Mulholland Catholic Worker, Garner, North Carolina. Martha Hennessey is the granddaughter of Catholic Worker founder Dorothy Day who is being considered for canonization.
Still incarcerated in Brunswick, Georgia, at the Glynn County Detention Center are Mark Colville, Liz McAlister and Father Steve Kelly. The other four Plowshares activists are under house arrest and forced to wear ankle monitors. The KBP7 will have their arguments for Religious Freedom Restoration Act defense heard in federal court in Brunswick on August 7, 2019.
This is the latest of 100 similar actions around the world beginning in 1980 in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania.
LEARN MORE AT KINGSBAYPLOWSHARES7.ORG
WRITE TO THE KBP7 PRISONERS!
DISARM TRIDENT
SAVANNAH TO KINGS BAY PEACE WALK
SEPTEMBER 3-14, 2018
SUPPORT KINGS BAY PLOWSHARES 7
FOR MORE INFO SEE VETERANS FOR PEACE
OPEN LETTER FROM PATRICK O'NEILL
Patrick O'Neill is the father of eight children, and is the cofounder of the Fr. Charlie Mulholland Catholic Worker House in Garner, NC. He is one of the Kings Bay Plowshares 7 which committed civil disobedience at the Trident Base on April 4, 2018. He is awaiting trial in Brunswick, GA.
The Kings Bay Plowshares 7 are, from left: Clare Grady, Elizabeth McAlister, Patrick O'Neill, Carmen Trotta, Father Steve Kelly, Martha Hennessey and Mark Colville.
ST. MARYS, GA -- Among the small cadre of peace activists living in Camden County, Georgia, few are willing to endure the scorn — or worse — of their friends and neighbors should they publicly profess their support for the Kings Bay Plowshares, the group of seven Roman Catholic pacifists who on April 4, 2018 entered the Trident submarine base and hammered on a few idols. So it goes.
In the three-plus decades since President Jimmy Carter brought Trident to southeast Georgia, the Navy base has been welcomed by the Camden County community and beyond.
We are so unpopular that my first cousin who lives in Jacksonville, FL, told my wife that she was afraid to visit me in the Camden County jail because the FBI might ask her questions if she did.
So what gives? Why did the seven of us leave our friends and families behind to risk jail and prison? Since Trident is almost without opposition, we were compelled by our Catholic faith to come to St. Marys on the 50th anniversary of Georgia native Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination to warn the world about the dangers of Trident.
One Trident submarine carries a payload of D-5 nuclear missiles that could end life as we know it. Trident is literally a diabolical doomsday machine embraced by most Americans as virtuous and godly.
Such unquestioning assent to these weapons of mass destruction is idolatry of the most dangerous kind. The D-5 is a weapon of mass idolatry. Our action is a wake-up call to Georgians and to the nation that Trident is not proper to life and must be disarmed. Humanity is in a race against time. Either we abolish nuclear weapons or their eventual use will abolish us. The risk of nuclear weapons being deployed — whether by accident, computer hacking or in war — has become an "acceptable risk" for our world.
Disaster almost struck on Sept. 26, 1983, when a Soviet command center for the Oko nuclear early-warning system erroneously reported a nuclear missile had been launched from the United States, followed by up to five more. It was only the cautious response by Soviet Air Defense Forces Lieutenant Colonel Stanislave Yevgrafovich Petrov, who suspected a computer error was to blame, that prevented a "retaliatory" nuclear attack on the United States. Petrov, who died May 19, 2017, became known as "the man who single-handedly saved the world from nuclear war."
This is madness. Nuclear weapons are risky death-dealing props disguised as deterrents. The U.S. deploys them and, like other nuclear powers, we train our military personnel to launch them without question when ordered to do so.
This is our peril every second of every day. Worse, our WMDs represent our willingness as a nation to inflict horror of an untold magnitude on our fellow humans.
So, Elizabeth McAlister, 78 - grandmother and widow of iconic peace prophet, Philip Berrigan; Martha Hennessy, 63; granddaughter of Dorothy Day, a 20th century Catholic pacifist who will likely be canonized by the Catholic Church; Fr. Stephen Kelly, S.J., 69, who like Pope Francis, is a Jesuit priest; and Catholic Workers Clare Grady, 59; Carmen Trotta, 55; Mark Colville, 56; and myself, sit and wait for our chance to put Trident on trial in federal court.
Trident is illegal under international law because treaties, which the U.S. has signed, prohibit the manufacture and deployment of WMDs [Weapons of Mass Destruction]. Pope Francis recently said, the "very possession" of nuclear weapons is to be "firmly condemned." Christians are called to love their enemies.
Today, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists "Doomsday Clock" stands at two minutes, 30 seconds to midnight, the closest it's been to Armageddon in more than 50 years.
Like lemmings hurtling to the sea, we humans act as if "nuclear posing" is the only way to insure peace for our children and grandchildren. Distracted by this presumption, we ignore the greatest threat to human survival: our world on nuclear hair-trigger alert.
The Kings Bay Plowshares, acting on the words of the Old Testament prophet Isaiah, decided to "beat swords into plowshares." (Isaiah 2:4) Our actions were a minor transgression of the law, yet we are facing three felony charges, one misdemeanor and likely prison sentences. The court is protecting Trident, and leaving us all dangerously vulnerable to nuclear attack.
Let us recall the prescient words of Dr. King: "The choice is no longer between violence and nonviolence, it is either nonviolence or non-existence."
Kings Bay is the home for the Navy’s Atlantic-based nuclear-powered Trident submarines armed with ballistic, or guided, nuclear missiles.
"To the village square
we must carry the facts
of atomic energy.
From there must come America's voice."
ALBERT EINSTEIN
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