Campaign Nonviolence

Speakers: Bob Cooke and Judith Kelly

Date: Friday, September 5, 2014 @ 7:30 p.m.
Place: Dorothy Day Catholic Worker, 503 Rock Creek Church Rd. NW, Washington, DC 20010

Campaign Nonviolence (CNV) is a new long term campaign initiated by Pace E Bene to help bring nonviolence to the forefront of our culture and society. Its first year will be marked by well over one hundred actions in every state of the union during the week of Sept. 21-27th with the themes of ending poverty, war and environmental degradation.

Bob Cooke is a CNV volunteer and former regional coordinator for Pax Christi Metro DC-Baltimore.  Long-time peace activist Judith Kelly served as a Pace e Bene regional associate and is a former SOA Watch prisoner of conscience. They will share Campaign Nonviolence’s long term vision and September 2014 events – both locally and nationally. The CNV web site is:

http://paceebene.org/programs/campaign-nonviolence/

Please join us!

For more info contact  Dorothy Day Catholic Worker: 202-882-9649, artlaffin@hotmail.com.

Reflection for Aug. 9 White House Peace Witness

(Offered by Art Laffin)

We greet all who have come to the White House in a spirit of peace. We, members of the DDCW, Jonah House Community, Pax Christi, the Columban Fathers Office of Peace and Justice, The Open Door Community and other peace groups, come to the White House today, the 69th anniversary of the U.S. nuclear bombing of Nagasaki, to remember the past, repent the sin and reclaim the future. As people of faith we believe it’s a sin to build a nuclear weapon. We decry the existence and continued possession and threatened use of these and other idolatrous and murderous weapons.

Photo by Ted Majdosz Photos shows people doing a symbolic die-in to remember the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

We apologize to the people of Japan for our country’s atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 69 years ago, and ask forgiveness for these atrocities and the ongoing suffering of those affected by nuclear radiation. We repent for the continued proliferation of nuclear weapons at the expense of unmet human needs. Further, we repent for the over 50 times the U.S. has threatened to use nuclear weapons since the first atomic bombings.

 

We call for the closing of all U.S. nuclear weapons facilities and for the disarmament and abolition of all nuclear weapons and all weapons of terror, including killer drones. As we call on the U.S. to abolish its nuclear weapons program, we call, too, on all nuclear powers to do the same. And as a first step towards bringing about a Nuclear-Free Middle East, we call on Israel to abolish its nuclear weapons program.

 

The colossal violence unleashed by the U.S. in Hiroshima and Nagasaki is mirrored today in the wars the U.S. has waged since 1945, including the U.S. slaughter of Vietnam, of Iraq and Afghanistan, in the use of killer drones and most recently, and in the U.S. supported Israeli slaughter of Gaza. We call for an end to all U.S. military intervention worldwide. We call, too, for an end to all U.S. military support and aid for Israel. We call, too, for an end to U.S. militarization of Africa and the Asian Pacific. With respect to the U.S. military pivot to Asia, we call for an end to the construction of a new U.S.-backed naval base on Jeju Island in S. Korea that will serve as a U.S. military outpost to threaten and contain China.  

 

We join with the imprisoned Transform Now Plowshares serving 3-5 year prison sentences, the jailed Jeju Island resisters, the Guantanamo hunger strikers, and all peace and justice makers everywhere in calling for a world without weapons, oppression, torture and war, where all the swords of our time are transformed into plowshares. We make this plea in the name of all victims of our warmaking empire, from Iraq and Afghanistan to Palestine, Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere. No More Hiroshima’s! No More Nagasaki’s! Disarm all weapons of mass murder! Abolish War!

Report of August 6 Hiroshima Peace Witness at the Pentagon–3 Arrested

Dear Friends,
To commemorate the 69th year since the U.S. began the Nuclear Age by dropping an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, seventeen friends (including a 6 month old baby Eli and 2 1/2 yr. old Stephanie) from the Atlantic Life Community and other peace groups participated today in a noon-time silent peace witness at the Pentagon that was organized by the Jonah House Community and  the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker. Carrying signs, photos of the aftermath of the Hiroshima bombing and banners, two of which read: “Remember the Past, Repent the Sin, Reclaim the Future–Hiroshima and Nagasaki” and “Abolish Nuclear Weapons,” the group processed from Army-Navy Drive to the regular protest area near the Pentagon metro station. Instead of going into the police designated protest zone which is situated behind a fence, the group initially remained on the sidewalk. However after a police warning that everyone move into the designated area or face arrest, most complied. However Liz McAlister, Kathy Boylan and Eric Martin continued to remain on the sidewalk for about fifteen minutes. After giving three warnings to comply with the order or face arrest, Pentagon police placed the three under arrest and they were taken to the Pentagon police processing center. They were charged with “disobeying a lawful order” and after  being  processed were released. They will be tried on October 17 in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, VA.   

One thing of note during our witness was that numerous soldiers from different countries were either going into or leaving the Pentagon during the hour we were there. This is yet another reminder  that the Pentagon is the center of warmaking on our planet! We concluded our witness with a closing circle and read  Dan Berrigan’s poem, “Shadow on the Rock” (see below), offered prayers of intercession and sang “Vine and Fig Tree.”

To mark the 69th anniversary of the U.S. nuclear bombing of Nagasaki, the group will hold a noon-time nonviolent witness this Saturday, August 9, at the White House.

With gratitude,
Art

Shadow on the Rock

by Daniel Berrigan, S.J.

At Hiroshima there’s a museum
and outside that museum there’s a rock,
and on that rock there’s a shadow.
That shadow is all that remains
of the human being who stood there on August 6, 1945
when the nuclear age began.
In the most real sense of the word,
that is the choice before us.
We shall either end war and the nuclear arms race now in this generation,
or we will become Shadows On the rock.