Einstein spoke to the UN in 1946 saying that the "village square" did not want a nuclear arms race. The iconic Armageddon Clock of The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists  is 90 seconds to midnight, rating the current and never-before-faced proximal threat of nuclear war. Currently the US is "showing force" near Gaza--Meanwhile, blatently disregarding its US Treaty Obligations under Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty signed by the US in 1968, the U.S. Navy has announced the commissioning site of a submarine still under construction.   1. Nuclear Weapons and Gaza, 2. USS Massachusetts to be commissioned in Boston Nuclear Weapons and Gaza The US silence on Israel's possession of nuclear weapons is one violation of the Non Proliferation Treaty. I point to the foundations of this in the Golda Meir-Nixon agreement  in my essay " Gaza Babies and Achille Mbembe's  Necropolitics "  but disarmament activists are making other connections.  Nine we...

 You might have seen this ongoing action by Mansoor Adayfi, author of Don't Forget Us Here: Lost and Found at Guantánamo (Hachette 2021). On Day two, Biking around the country of Serbia, where he was sent from Guantanamo, he is raising money for the Guantanamo Survivor's Fund campaign through CAGE . ********************* This marks the second campaign for Survivors. Donations of $200 to the Guantánamo Survivors Fund received a signed copy of Dr. Maha Hilal's book Innocent Until Proven Muslim:Islamophobia, The War on Terror, and the Muslim Experience since 9/11  (Broadleaf Books 20221)  Guantanamo Survivors Fund  campaign through No More Gitmos. ********************* U.S. context shift: On this issue, since the quiet release of 5 men just before the 20th anniversary of Guantánamo's opening, this is the latest good news of President Biden (WSJ here ) : finally restoring a special envoy for Guantánamo within the State Department--Tina Kaidanow. The last to do this work...

 Walking into Boston, I admired the newly constructed metro line set to run test trains this Friday. The Boston skyline shone, as I was about to learn with the offices of state street securities and Black Rock , financial enablers of nuclear weapons, war and climate destroyers. In my hands for company I carried  The Feel Trio, a collection of poems by Fred Moten. On the 28 overpass I stopped in my tracks reading, " I burn communities in shadow, underground, up on the/ plateau..." "...o, for a muse of fire music!" Assembled at the Sam Adams statue,  30 others contingent the War Industry Resisters Network: #ResistWarIndustry (Primary) #PeopleOverPentagon, #CommunityNotConflict, #ProfiteersMustPay..  Rep. Mike Connolly Rep. Mike Connolly of Cambridge and Somerville 26th said, "The number of unhoused doubled in the last decade, even before the pandemic--we see it at CASS . Instead of the war machine, build affordable housing! ...in Massachusetts we have Raytheon an...

Draft resisters Fr. Tony Mullaney, Jim Forest and John Bach endured federal sentences savoring the victory of permanently effacing the War Department’s draft record, sparing lives. Forest would call his year in prison a sabbatical. When he received a NASA photograph of Earth through the prison mail, Forest contemplated it for hours. Bach, recalled his "draft bit" an ideal compared to the floating space station Metropolitan Correctional Center. The maximum security prison was “a Bicentennial metaphor,” he wrote to supporters, for how out of touch the country was, the best it could see to make off the poor while it waged fronts increasing the gap of the rich and poor, sustaining “a permanent war economy, a permanent national security, a permanent emergency.” Eleven stories up from “Park Row” in New York City, he felt so isolated the street might as well have been in Paris or Rome. By then  Forest was on a caper in Paris with a friend climbing the roof of the Chartres cathedral....

“This is a lesson in style, not in participative emotion” Vladimir Nabokov said, giving a lecture on Charles Dickens' Bleak House. Even the most pathetic passages of the prison conditions were not emancipatory ethical tracts or polemical dirges eliciting an "participative emotion," pity. But shown as real texture, evocative features.    In case of arrest in DC as part of the Poor People's Campaign, I summon a temperature of support for childcare from friends during an after school playdate. Immediately I'm asked, admiringly, justifying "the lack of effect?" Prison is relaxing, presuming the subjectivity of becoming, the unfolding-self that becomes a self in relation with prisoners of conscience who have walked before you, a relation in Kierkegaard's  Sickness Unto Death  that ultimately refers to God. Yes, the Dakota Access Pipeline now chug-lops through sacred lands while Water Protector Jessica Reznicek  writes of "battling depression" an...

Rev. Savina Martin has a spark. I'm reminded of a certain friend when the Poor People's Campaign asked attendees in its orientation to describe themselves as either an impacter / an activist / or a change agent. Then Rev. Savina adds to the prompts, asking whether a new comer had gone to jail for justice. Many responded they admired and conceived of such an ambition. For these I offer the fruit of my own prayer. Prayerful discernment raises questions such as, "What do you aspire to accomplish in the name of God? What consequences do you foresee hazarded by our society? How would you mitigate against repercussions?"   This past election week 5.2 million incarcerated people were denied the vote due to Federal Disenfranchisement laws . While elections say something about power, many disregard the importance of the vote, or worse, discount their own voice, saying to themselves, "I have nothing to contribute, no opinion to give. How can my vote make a difference?...

Written testimony by C.R. Spicer to the Joint Committee on Public Service, House Chair Gordon, Senate Chair Brady, following in-person testimony given June 9 approximately 11:45am. In my remarks, I had followed Nick Cantrell’s analysis of the financial responsibility to divest, pursuant to H. 2597/H.1703 An Act to Divest the State Pension Fund from Nuclear Weapons. I limited my remarks to the moral argument in favor. I expressed thanks to the testimony shared by Dr. Jonathon King and Dr. Ira Hefland, whom you also heard from, colleagues on the Mass Peace Action Working Group for Disarmament, where I have the distinction of leading the Direct Action subcommittee. The personal responsibility for disarmament was taken to Kings Bay Submarine Base, a group of seven performed symbolic and prophetic disarmament, praying the Rosary at the site of sin, pouring blood, then making their case in court that their action followed from the Catholic Social Teaching, as expressed most visibly by Po...

Trial by Jury--Jesus never got one, still, how did Jesus resist during his trial? How is the Gospel of Nonviolence attesting against Crucifixions of our time? As a follow up to my article Feb. 22 " Disarmament Learning with Fr. Louis Vitale OFM " who was arrested 350 times standing up against war, nuclear weapons and drones, 2009-2011 spent 17 months in prison for opposing torture training at Ft. Huachuca, AZ and Ft. Benning, GA.  In recognition of Jesus' defense "If my kingdom were of this world, my attendants would be fighting to keep me from being handed over" (Jn 18: 36), the followers would be fighting (Greek agoni-zomai, struggling with all their physical and mental energy like athletes) or with soul-force? I present legal work that demonstrates the right to a trial by jury. As food for thought this Good Friday, while we mourn the crucified--I hope in a small way to honor the tradition of trial resistance. -*-*-*- A new DePaul Peace Award to the Kings Bay...