September 2018 Philadelphia Chapter of Pax Christi U.S.A.
The Kings Bay Trident Submarine Plowshares
Bill Hartman
On April 4th, the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a community of seven long time Gospel enlightened peace and disarmament activists entered The Atlantic Naval Submarine Station Kings Bay, Georgia, home to six Trident ballistic missile submarines.
Each Trident Submarine can carry the explosive force of some 1825 Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs—if they are ever used it will mean the end of the world. The activists carried real tools and yet also symbols their hammers and bottles of their own blood into the base to “beat swords into plowshares,” as the Hebrew Prophets, Micah and Isaiah envisioned.
Finding no Tridents in their docks, they proceeded to hammer on a concrete model of a Trident D5 missile and poured their blood the symbol of potential life lost onto the Kings Bay Submarine Logo! The seven then crisscrossed the administration building with yellow crime scene tape, and hung banners on the fence surrounding the nuclear weapons bunkers reading “The Ultimate Logic of Racism is Genocide ~MLK” and “The Ultimate Logic of Trident is Omnicide.”
They also left the words, “Love One Another” a quote from the gospel of Jesus on the sidewalk. Of the seven, two of the plowshare peacemakers remain in the Glynn County Detention Center while five are out on bond and ankle monitoring house arrest. Several needed to attend to medical conditions that have developed or worsened and the others to care for family needs. All await a hearing on their motion to argue the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in their defense, and then a trial date.
An indictment was filed by the federal government in early May and the group was charged with four counts: conspiracy, destruction of property on a Naval Station, depredation of government property, and trespass.
The Kings Bay Plowshares community is all Catholic; Liz McAllister (long of Jonah House), Jesuit Fr. Steve Kelly, and Catholic Workers Martha Hennessy (a granddaughter of Dorothy Day), Mark Colville (New Haven), Clare Grady (Ithaca), Patrick O’Neill (Durham), and Carmen Trotta (NYC, St. Joseph House). Any notes of support to those incarcerated must be on post cards purchased at U.S. postal store with stamp emblazoned on the card. Your return address must have your full name, address and zip. Use only blue or black ink and include the prisoner’s exact name and number. No decorations of any kind (drawings) on the card. The address contact for the members (Elizabeth McAlister, #015633 & Stephen Kelly, #015634) [no titles like Reverend, please] of the Plowshares community still incarcerated is:
Glynn County Detention Center
100 Sulphur Springs Road
Brunswick, Ga. 31520
Their action to plead for disarmament is especially poignant as the Holy See was one of only three United Nations members to sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons on the very first day it was open for ratification, last September 20th, 2017. Then in November 2017, Pope Francis declared that the possession or the threat of use of nuclear weapons was to be “firmly condemned,” signaling the end of the road for the Catholic Church’s sanction of nuclear deterrence and the existence of nuclear weapons.
“We, The Kings Bay Plowshares hope to draw attention not only to the threat of nuclear annihilation posed by the weapons aboard the submarines whose homeport is Kings Bay, but to emphasize how the weapons kill every day.” They write, “We say, the ultimate logic of Trident is omnicide, and yet, the explosive power of this weapon is only part of what we want to make visible. We see that nuclear weapons kill every day by their mere existence. Their production requires mining, refining, testing, and dumping of radioactive material, which poisons sacred Earth and Water, all on Indigenous land. We see the billions of dollars it takes to build and maintain the Trident system as stolen resources, which are desperately
needed for human needs. We see nuclear weapons as a cocked gun, the biggest gun, used 24/7 to ENFORCE the many layers of state-sponsored violence and deadly force required to maintain white supremacy, global capitalism, and global domination.”
"The United States has a nuclear arsenal that includes 1,350 strategic nuclear warheads deployed on intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and strategic bombers. As followers of Christ, we must try to comprehend the wrongness of our perpetually feeding America’s Military Budget and the sinfulness of its nuclear weapon systems. American politicians and corporate leaders are surely destroying our nation and are a clear and present danger to the health and survival of planet earth!”
The 2019 Congressional appropriation for the United States’ current military budget totals nearly $857 billion. Their budget also includes an additional $644 billion for past military costs like veterans’ benefits and the interest clock of the debt for all this tax expense. This is clearly a theft from the treasury that everyone contributes with their tax dollars. Out of the current military budget, $24 billion ($24,000,000,000) this year will be spent on the management and advancement of America’s nuclear weaponry. The Pentagon and Congress have set a goal of spending $1.2 trillion dollars over the next 30 years on advancement of our Nuclear Weapons Stockpile! The report, released in 2017 by the Congressional Budget Office, said the
$1.2 trillion (1.2,000,000,000,000) in 2017 dollars includes $800 billion to operate and sustain existing forces, and $400 billion to modernize them, through 2046.
Steve Baggerly of the Norfolk, Virginia Catholic Worker participated in a pilgrimage of support and engagement of the local communities throughout southeastern Georgia. A group that some days had 20 or more friends, family and supporters of the prisoners walked for 126 miles starting on September 5th and ending before Hurricane Florence created travel dangers for all on the 12th.
Steve wrote the following:
“Organized by Voices for Creative Nonviolence and friends, the peace walk began in the rain at Forsythe Park in Savannah and continued for eight more days down coastal Georgia route 17. We hoped to walk all 126 miles to Kings Bay, but Florence had other plans and two days were shaved off. It ended this morning (the 12th) with a short walk and a two hour vigil calling for nuclear disarmament at the main gate to the sub base.
Most of the walk was through the rural coastal Georgia landscape which seeped into my bones as I walked through it mile after mile after mile—the ancient live oaks and the loblolly pines, the grasses and reeds and tannic colored water in the swamps and wetlands, the egrets quietly hunting or startled and taking wing, the ubiquitous Spanish moss cloaking the area in mystery. In several places wide, lazy rivers spanned by old concrete bridges seemed timeless, and huge, vertical, billowing clouds plastered the sky between us and the unseen ocean to the east made it feel like we were walking inside a giant oil painting.
Amid the hauntingly beautiful landscape were markers hinting at the area’s history. The matter of fact descriptions of prominent land holding families, governorships, military positions held, shipping facilities and rice, indigo, and cotton plantations, largely ignored the blood, sweat, and tears of enslaved blacks that soaked the land we trod. We were glad to be educated near Midway, Georgia by a Gullah Gee Chee descendent at a small DIY slavery museum as well as by a couple of local activists.
Our walking days included the 9th of September, the 38th anniversary of the first Plowshares action at the G.E. ReEntry Division Plant in King of Prussia, Pa.”
Bill is a member of CPF and the Atlantic Life Community
Updates are being posted on this Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/Kingsbayplowshares/ Check out our website! https://www.kingsbayplowshares7.org/
Follow us on Twitter! https://twitter.com/DisarmWalk
You can also email kingsbayplowshares@gmail.com to get on an email list that will be sending updates.
For other specific prisoner support questions please call/text or email Beth Brockman: (919) 824-9283 or brockman.beth@gmail.com.
There is a GoFundMe page (https://www.gofundme.com/xaajdf-kings-bay-plowshares-support-fund) where you can make donations online. Alternatively, you can write a check and mail it to:
Plowshares—Kings Bay Plowshares written on the memo line
PO Box 3087
Washington DC 20010
September 2018