19] Baltimore Sunrise meeting –June 1
20] Get out the vote in Virginia – June 1 - 2
21] Say NO to new nukes –
June 1
-----
19] –
Amy at Sunrise Movement Baltimore [general@sunrisemovementbaltimore.org] is
inviting you the next Sunrise Baltimore Hub Meeting on Tues., June 1 from 6:30
to 8 PM ET. Connect with one another, learn about the past month's
activities, and talk about how to get involved. Continue a conversation
about how the hub can address white supremacy and strengthen accountability and
transparency within the Sunrise movement. Register here: https://www.mobilize.us/sunrisemovement/event/392739/?emci=e6556485-28c2-eb11-a7ad-501ac57b8fa7&emdi=96b9c8e7-28c2-eb11-a7ad-501ac57b8fa7&ceid=177631.
20] – Friends of the Earth Action [info@foeaction.org] is seeking your help in Getting out the vote for Richard Walker, an opponent of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline! This was Duke and Dominion Energy’s fracked gas pipeline -- which would have been an environmental nightmare. RSVP at https://www.mobilize.us/leadlocally/event/388473/?utm_source=foe. The Atlantic Coast Pipeline would have moved fracked gas from West Virginia through Virginia and into North Carolina. It would have generated more than 67 million metric tons of global warming pollution yearly -- all while threatening local communities, wildlife, and drinking water. Walker is running for the House of Delegates in Virginia and needs your help, and there is a need for activists like you to call environmental voters in Virginia. Call on Tues., June 1 from 6 to 7:30 PM ET and Wed., June 2 from 6 to 8 PM ET. All you need is a phone and computer with internet access.
21] – Marcy, CODEPINK [info@codepink.org] wants you to Say NO to New Nuclear Weapons! You are invited to join CODEPINK CONGRESS, the new campaign to mobilize co-sponsors and votes for peace legislation as part of its Tuesday Capitol Calling Party on Tues., June 1 at 8 PM ET. Hear from William Hartung, the director of the Arms and Security Program at the Center for International Policy and a senior adviser to the Center’s Security Assistance Monitor. He is the author of Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex. Also hear from Yasmeen Silva, the partnerships manager at Beyond the Bomb, a grassroots organization building power on the local, state, and national levels to prevent nuclear war. While the 1980s witnessed the nuclear freeze and a mass movement to demand nuclear disarmament between the U.S. and Soviet Union, the 1990s gave birth to the missile caucus, the congressional engine careening the U.S. into a renewed nuclear arms race. Join a discussion on stopping the $1.7 trillion plan to produce new nuclear weapons, from land-based intercontinental missiles to low-yield tactical nuclear weapons. RSVP at https://www.codepink.org/06012021?utm_campaign=cp_congress_6_1_21&utm_medium=email&utm_source=codepink.
To be continued.
nukewatch1 [mailto:nukewatch1@lakeland.ws]
FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
31 May 2021
Nukewatch/The
Progressive Foundation
740A Round Lake Road
Luck, WI 54853
Contact: 715-472-4185
US peace activist who
occupied US nuclear weapons site in Germany is convicted of trespass,
property damage
LUCK, Wisconsin — A
peace activist from Wisconsin was convicted of trespassing and damage to
property May 31 in Cochem District Court (+49-02671-98800) in the German state
of Rhineland-Palatinate, charges that stemmed from two 2018 nuclear weapons
protests against the threatened use of approximately 20 U.S. nuclear gravity
bombs deployed at the Büchel Air Force Base in southwestern Germany.*
After a 2-1/2-hour
bench trial conducted by Judge Alexander Fleckenstein, John LaForge, 65, of
Luck, Wisc., was sentenced to a $600.00 fine or 50 days in jail. The trial took
placed in LaForge’s absence, with attorney Anna Busl of Bonn representing him.
Ms. Busl read
LaForge’s prepared testimony, and introduced supporting “declarations” by
international law expert Anabel Dwyer of Ann Arbor, Michigan, and by retired
German Judges Bernd Hahnfeld and Ulf Panzer.
The U.S. nuclear
weapons at Büchel — known as B61s — are maintained on the German base by the
U.S. Air Force’s 702nd Munitions Support Squadron, and are used
by Germany’s PA200 Tornado jet fighters flown by the German Air Force’s 33rd Fighter-Bomber
Wing in preparing nuclear attacks against Russia.
LaForge, a
Co-director of the nonprofit nuclear watch dog organization Nukewatch since
1992, and the German group GAAA (Nonviolent Action Abolish Nuclear Weapons),
coordinated delegations of U.S. peace activists to an annual peace encampment
near the Büchel base in July of 2017, 2018, and 2019. All three delegations
joined nonviolent vigils, blockades, and “go-in” protests alongside others from
Germany, The Netherlands, Italy, France, and the U.K. (Over 90 similar court
trials in Cochem have resulted from the campaign of civil resistance aimed at
permanently ousting the U.S. H-bombs from Germany, and coaxing Germany to ratify
the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.)
In the July 15, 2018
protest, LaForge and 17 others entered the base through five openings that were
cut in the chain link perimeter fence in broad daylight on a Sunday morning. In
the August 6 action, LaForge and Susan Crane of Redwood City, California also
entered the base unhindered in daytime and spent an hour on top of a bunker
holding the U.S. H-bombs.
LaForge says he will
appeal the conviction. “The court refused to consider federal and international
laws that forbid preparations for mass destruction. It is grimly ironic that my
defense relies on the Nuremberg Charter and Principles, law created by the
victorious WW II allies, with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson as
chief prosecutor leading the charge. Nuremberg established that the planning of
indiscriminate destruction is criminal before the fact. Our actions were taken
to hinder or prevent illegal preparations for massacres using U.S. nuclear
weapons going on at the base.”
The United States
deploys over 100 of its B61 hydrogen bombs in four NATO states besides Germany:
Italy, Belgium, The Netherlands, and Turkey.* The U.S. is the only government
that places its nuclear weapons in other countries.
A Duluth native,
LaForge is the recipient of the Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice’s 2007
Lifetime Achievement award, and a co-recipient of the US Peace & Justice
Studies Association 2004 Social Courage Award, and the 1986 War Resisters
League Peace Award. Photos and interviews available from: John LaForge, (715)
491-3813; nukewatch1@lakeland.ws.
*See: De Morgen
[Antwerp], “Black and white at last: U.S. nuclear weapons lie in Belgium,” July
16, 2019, https://www.demorgen.be/nieuws/eindelijk-zwart-op-wit-er-liggen-amerikaanse-kernwapens-in-belgie~b051dc18/ /30/
Nukewatch
740A Round Lake Road
Luck, WI 54853
(715) 472-4185
www.nukewatchinfo.org
Donations
can be sent to Max Obuszewski, Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 431 Notre Dame
Lane, Apt. 206, Baltimore, MD 21212. Ph: 410-323-1607; Email: mobuszewski2001
[at] comcast.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/.
"The
master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought
the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while
the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially
their lives." Eugene Victor Debs
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