BCR #54: Kings Bay Plowshares 7 @ a Georgia Court & Nuclear Abolition

We have talked with the peace activists of the Catholic Worker movement on several BCR episodes [#29 & #46 with bonus material] and knew that the seven men and women who broke into the U.S. Kings Bay Naval Base at St. Marys, Georgia would be in court in Brunswick in mid-August. This submarine base is where the U.S. military stores its Trident nuclear missiles. We wanted to talk with four of the Kings Bay Plowshares 7, who were under house arrest and on bail, about the hearing and how they were doing.

That week was also the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, and there were protests going on outside the Kings Bay Naval Base. So, while Becky and I sat at her brother's dining room table in Santa Maria, California, we called south Georgia.

We first talked with Kathy Kelly, Brian Terrell, and Anthony Donovan while they were fasting and holding a vigil outside the gates of the Kings Bay Naval Base.

The next day we spoke with four of the Kings Bay Plowshares 7. The day before they had argued in the Federal Court in Brunswick Georgia that the case against them be dropped based on RFRA – the Religious Freedom Restoration Act – which requires the government to prove a compelling state interest if it restricts a person’s free exercise of religious beliefs – a defense successfully used by the Religious Right. We talked with Carmen Trotta, Martha Hennessy, Clare Grady, and Patrick O’Neill.

Here are some resources that were mentioned during our conversations:

• Anthony Donovan recommended -- "Warheads to Windmills: How to Pay for a Green New Deal." A report that relates spending on nuclear warheads to ending the dangers of Global Warming.
• The Doomsday Machine. by Daniel Ellsberg (2017).
• No Immediate Danger? : Prognosis for a Radioactive Earth. by Rosalie Bertell (2006).
• Planet Earth The Latest Weapon of War: A Critical Study into the Military and the Environment. By Rosalie Bertell (2000)
• Nuclear Issues Study Group -- "Dismantling the Nuclear Beast". nukewatchinfo.org
• Treaty for the Prevention of Nuclear Weapons
• ICAN -- International Campaign to Abolition Nuclear Weapons

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