Following are three live ustream videos from yesterday, during nuclear weapons protest with the
Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action (
www.gzcenter.org). After the videos is a photo from the day published by GZ Center, then more written description of the protest, by me. After that, will be some thoughts of prominent thinkers/writers about aggression and humanity. First the Ustream videos:
The first video, I thought was about one minute long, although only about 30 seconds show up here, so maybe I was wrong about that. Anyway, it shows the walk from the GZ house to the main gate. The house is about one quarter of a mile from the main-gate:
The second video is about a minute or a minute and a half, it shows the scene around the main-gate prior to protesters entering the roadway to blockade. We had a banner that read, "Enriching a few at everyone expense: occupy trident," on one side. On the other side it said, "Care for sailors and marines. Peaceful jobs for all." This shows a little bit of that.
The third video is from on the grounds at the Ground Zero Center. It includes some information and thoughts about the day, and more information about Ground Zero and the military base, which is called Naval Base Kitsap Bangor.
[Sunday 15 January 2012photo and description from the GZ Center Facebook Page: In honor of Martin Luther King Jr. and in resistance to the first strike Trident nuclear weapons system, Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action closed the Main Gate to Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor (West Coast homeport for Trident) for 26 minutes earlier today. More photos, video, and reports to come.]
While protesting nuclear weapons, I was cited, yesterday, for a pedestrian infraction. Location: main-gate at Naval Base Kitsap Bangor. At Bangor is a nuclear weapons storage facility, as well as port for a class of submarines that carry the Trident weapons system. Trident is an ICBM with a range of 4,000nm. They can be launched, again, from a submarine.
I believe that the Trident submarine ICBM nuclear weapon system is aggression. Carried on Submarines, there is potential to lurk nearby targets, and to strike without warning.
I believe that the best defense is not offense. And further that the best defense is certainly not aggression. Instead, it makes more sense in a humanistic world that the best defense is simply to be a good neighbor, be kind, respectful, build trust, find common security—in deed mutual security for all—in what MLK Jr. talked about as, "Beloved Community."
The following is a collection of various words of wisdom on the topic of Aggression and Humanity, partly inspired by my participation in a weekly peace vigil (hence the photo):
Aggression has bankrupted and impoverished humanity...
This is from a weekly peace vigil that I regularly participate in. I try to be there every week. It's from 4:30pm to 6:00pm every Friday at Percival Landing, the corner of 4th Avenue and Water Street, which is in downtown Olympia, Washington.
The vigil is sponsored by the Olympia Fellowship of Reconciliation, and anyone is welcome to attend. If you would like, you can bring a sign to hold, or you're also welcome to use of one of the signs provided by the Oly FOR.
President Dwight David Eisenhower:
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron." - April 16, 1953
George Owell:
"The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labour. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent."
Major General Smedley D. Butler U.S.M.C.:
"War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small 'inside' group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."
...
"I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents."
Albert Einstein:
"The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing."
Photo by Dennis's friend from Croatia, Charles Tauber
