Facing Brutal Repression

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Click here for the video of the event

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  Mark Colville, of the Kings Bay Plowshares 7, who was found guilty of conspiracy and damage to a nuclear sub base in Georgia, was sentenced on Friday April 9.    He was not given "time served", the 15 months he had been in prison in Georgia. He was sentenced to 21 months in prison, in other words six more months.  Colville and the other "6" poured blood on a plaque with the name of the base and a model of the submarine that is packed with Trident nuclear-tipped missiles in a waiting room of the base. Details here.

Before being sentenced Colville called as a witness Stephen Kobasa of New Haven.  Both Kobasa and Colville spoke eloquently on the evil of nuclear weapons and the possibility that weapons housed at Kings Bay might be part of the killing of billions of people  in a nuclear war.

We received this email on April 8:

“The taproot of violence in our society today is our intention to use nuclear weapons. Once we have agreed to that, all other evil is minor in comparison. Until we squarely face the question of our consent to use nuclear weapons, any hope of large scale improvement of public morality is doomed to failure.”  Rev. Richard McSorely, S.J.

Thank you, everyone, for your accompaniment and support during this unusually long stretch of time we’ve spent swimming in a legal undertow. It’s almost a year and a half now since the Kings Bay Plowshares trial ended in Georgia. I am the last of the seven who has yet to be sentenced, and that will finally be happening on Friday, 4/9, at 10am. Due to ongoing Covid concerns we’ve decided to opt for a hearing by video conference; one nice advantage this provides is the opportunity for the public to listen in on the proceedings. Should you wish to do so, here are the instructions we have from the court: 

Dial 1-888-684-8852, enter the call access code 2296092 and enter the security code 1234 or dial 1-888-684-8852, enter the call access code 8878734 and enter the security code 1234. If one isn't working or overloaded try the other access code. And remember to mute.

Deep gratitude to everyone who wrote letters to the judge. I’m asking her to consider them as expressions of the conscience of the community regarding the criminal enterprise of nuclearism, as it continues to scourge humanity and creation beyond reason or accountability. My family, my neighborhood and I have a right to live without a nuclear gun on hair-trigger alert held perpetually to our heads, and this court’s failure to recognize that right has made it an accessory to crimes against humanity. This is the reality that I plan to confront as clearly and simply as possible on Friday... and the rest, as an old friend used to remind me, is God’s problem. 

Peace and Love,

Mark

P.S.: Here’s a link to the beautiful festival of hope we celebrated Monday night...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jx7__Pm4Tss

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March 27, 2021

Hundreds have signed an open letter called "Erasing People through Disinformation: Syria and the 'Anti-Imperialism' of the Fools"  

This is how it begins:  

Disreputable writers and outlets, often operating under the aegis of “independent journalism” with purportedly “leftwing” views, are spreading corrosive propaganda and disinformation that aims to strip Syrians of political agency

[The following Open Letter was a collaborative effort of a group of Syrian writers and intellectuals and others who stand in solidarity with them. It is signed by activists, writers, artists, and academics from Syria and 34 other countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, North America, Oceania, and South America, and appears in multiple languages: English, Arabic, French, Spanish, Greek, and Italian.]

To see the full letter and all signers click here for New Politics or here for Al-Jumhuriya

March 1, 2021

We, the signatories of this letter, have to come together to demand the retraction or clarification of two recent articles that smear political movements and leaders in Ecuador. The gains of Yaku Pérez and the coalition around the Pachakutik party in the 7 February 2021 elections represent an exciting and emergent new left comprised of Indigenous organizations, eco-socialist politics, feminist and LGBTQ+ activists, anti-racist movements, and anti-extractivist causes. On 24 February 2021, these movements came together in the streets of Ecuador, to demand that every vote be counted. Silencing and discrediting Ecuadoran voices as well as new popular movements—while demanding fealty to state capitalist leaders associated with the extractivist “left” in Ecuador and across the region—must end. Ben Norton’s “How Ecuador’s US-backed, coup-supporting ‘ecosocialist’ candidate Yaku Pérez aids the right-wing,” (republished by the Monthly Review on 8 February 2021) [1] and Denis Rogatyuk’s “Ecuador’s Election Was a Massive Repudiation of Neoliberalism” (published in Jacobin Magazine on 18 February)[2] do not reflect the traditions of Monthly Review—the “longest continuously published socialist magazine in the United States.” [3] 

See the rest of the statement and the long list of signers by clicking here.

Marc Colville, the last of the Kings Bay Plowshare 7 will be sentenced on Feb. 19.  They went into the Georgia Kings Bay sub based and put their onw blood on a plaque in honor of a submarine equipped with nuclear-tipped Trident missiles.  In view of the anti-nuclear treaty that went into effect a petition has been started to ask that Colville be sentenced to the 15 months he's already "served".  To sign it or to find out more go click here.  Read this op-ed in CT Hearst newspapers to see what might be done to take away the power of a U.S. president to start a nuclear war any time just on his/her says so.

Akram Swedaan, Molly Crabapple, Marc Nelson, Adeebah Alnemar,   

Wasfi Massarani, Dylan Connor, Linda Sarsour and Orlando von Einsiedel and speeches by Honorees Mayson Almisri and Dr. Zaher Sahloul (poem read by Amina Masri)  Click here for video