Update (10/25/19, 3:05pm): This article has been updated with new information from a press conference held by the defendants on Oct. 24.
The Kings Bay Plowshares 7, a group of Catholic activists who broke into Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base in April 2018, were found guilty this afternoon. All were convicted of three felonies and a misdemeanor each, including trespassing and defacing federal government property. The Kings Bay Naval Base is the largest nuclear submarine base in the world.
According to Bill Quigley, who represented Elizabeth McAlister during the trial, sentences for the Plowshares activists will be handed down in 60 to 90 days. All of the defendants will be free to return home during that time, with the exception of Jesuit Father Steve Kelly, who has refused bail. The group faces up to 25 years in prison.
“[The activists] have told the truth, despite the cost. They have taken their actions, despite the risk.”
“[The activists] have told the truth, despite the cost. They have taken their actions, despite the risk,” said Mr. Quigley, in a statement made outside the courthouse immediately following the verdict.
“The nuclear weapons submarines at Kings Bay have 3,800 times as much destructive power as the weapons that were used at Hiroshima,” Mr. Quigly said. And so “after two years of prayer...they came together and took action to preach the word: the word of life, the word of love, the word of peace. And they are paying a huge price for it.”
The Kings Bay Plowshares 7 includes Martha Hennessy, granddaughter of Dorothy Day and a member of the New York Catholic Worker community; Carmen Trotta, also a New York Catholic Worker; Elizabeth McAlister, a member of the Jonah House community in Baltimore and wife of the activist Philip Berrigan; Steve Kelly, S.J.; Patrick O’Neill, a founder of the Fr. Charlie Mulholland Catholic Worker House in Garner, N.C.; Mark Colville, a member of the Amistad Catholic Worker in New Haven, Conn; and Clare Grady of Ithaca, N.Y., who participated in her first Plowshares action in 1983.
"We are called to keep trying. We will do this together. We have no other choice.”
Despite the ruling, the activists remained committed to pressing on with this legal battle.
“It’s not over yet,” said Martha Hennessy. “The efficiency of the state can never be underestimated, yet, we proceed in humility. The weapons are still there, the treaties are being knocked down one after the next, but we are called to keep trying. We will do this together. We have no other choice.”
The activists also expressed their gratitude for those who had attended the trial in support.
“Thank you all for your caring, thank you for your presence, thank you for your work with justice and peace,” said Elizabeth McAlister. The other defendants echoed this sentiment.
On the night of April 4, 2018, the group illegally entered three areas of the naval base, including an administrative building, an installation that features a model of the Trident D5 missile, and bunkers that store nuclear weapons. They hung crime scene tape and signs with anti-nuke slogans including “The ultimate logic of Trident is omnicide” and hammered the missile model to symbolize the verse from the prophet Isaiah, “They will beat their swords into plowshares.”
As I remarked before what has the sign about racism have to do with protesting nuclear weapons? Besides not being true, racism has existed in all societies since the beginning of time, it seems its only purpose is to provoke.
On how words are used inappropriately
I believe the solution lies in a photo I came across that appears to have been snapped at the same time: https://www.newcoldwar.org/trident-is-the-crime-kathy-kelly/.
It shows them holding a sign that says: The Ultimate Logic of Trident is Omnicide. I'm guessing that the banner is two-sided, with the Martin Luther King Jr. quotation on the other side. Thus (whether one agrees with them or not) they're drawing a parallel between the dynamics of the two views.
"A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom."
Martin Luther King, Jr.
This is not the first, but just the latest, example of the fact that the United States has arrived at spiritual doom.
Dangerous, confused, single-issue nonsense.
Since the face of the earth became unable to feed and clothe and shelter all the humans alive on it, there has been competition and conflict about necessary resources.
NECESSARY, not just desired.
Herds, flocks, pastures, crop fields and gardens necessitated more fixed abode and semi-permanent custody of the appropriate lands for them.
Conflict was inevitable and the likelihood of it perpetual ever since.
Wars and concomitant arms races were inevitable. Motivated by intent on having living space to operate the means and labour of generating those provisions and protecting them for rivals for the goods or the territory. Race has nothing to do with it.
How soon the young become ignorant of even very recent history. Has anyone told them about Russian nuclear missiles and Cuba, ever?
Let them prudently heed the non-renewable nature of fossil fuel supplies providing powerful and reliable base load electrical energy for maintaining civilisation and focus on the related ploughshares, nuclear fission generated power plants.