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3. Beating Swords into Plowshares: Plowshares Communities and Their Actions
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3 Beating swords into Plowshares Plowshares Communities and Their Actions And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. —Isaiah 2:4 T hese are the nuclear abolitionists, the people who make nuclear resistance the compelling center of their lives, those who risk long prison terms and sometimes even death for their actions of symbolic disarmament . It’s a big step to go from crossing a line, sometimes with hundreds of others, to sneaking into a fenced military installation in the dark of night to hammer and pour blood on a target in order to dismantle a weapon, to symbolically turn it into a plowshare or a pruning hook. Yet over 150 people have been moved to this type of “divine obedience.” The numbers differ depending both on who does the counting and what one counts.1 Perhaps in the end, numbers don’t matter as much as the commitment each represents. The term “Plowshares actions” originated in 1980, coined by the peace activists affiliated with Jonah House.2 They took the promise of Isaiah to heart and used it to unite a continuing series of actions against the US nuclear arsenal, a threat to the world they call the “taproot of violence.” The actions began in the United States, but soon spread to other countries, with Plowshares or similar disarmament actions occurring in Germany, Australia, Ireland, Scotland, England , Sweden, and Holland.3 Targets include the plants that make weapon components, the planes and ships that carry them, and the silos that store the missiles, ready to strike. During the eighties and early nineties, when 450 underground silos dotted the Midwest , sitting fenced but unguarded in out-of-the-way cornfields, silos were frequent actions sites. Under the provisions of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), the missiles in the Minuteman II system were deactivated, with the last of these missiles removed in 1995.4 Plowshares actions are united by their process and their symbols. Unlike conventional Gandhian direct action, secrecy is essential, but participants al70 ways either wait for arrest or turn themselves in. For various reasons, people involved in the early planning don’t always stay. Those who provide support but don’t want to “risk arrest,” as the phrasing goes, may meet in community with the group at first, but Plowshares people are careful that these helpers—those who serve as media contacts, raise money, drive to the site, and perform other tasks—don’t expose themselves to a conspiracy indictment. The group chooses symbols and props, mostly from biblical narratives. Blood—their own, usually carried in a baby bottle—remains a primary symbol. Hammers are an obvious choice from the biblical plowshares verse; other instruments have included a jackhammer and air compressor, spray paint, saws, hatchets, and wire cutters. Kathleen Rumpf told me that blood-pouring is actually more damaging than hammering because the blood corrodes engine parts.5 They eliminate the potential for violence to persons, including themselves, by taking great pains to avoid contact with military personnel until after they’ve performed their actions, and only infrequently do they choose targets within a “shoot to kill” high security zone. They usually act at dawn, often simply cutting a fence to enter a site and sometimes walking long distances to reach their target. Then they hammer on the weapons, pour their blood, hang photos and artwork, and sometimes spraypaint peace slogans on the planes or other equipment. They pray and sing and have even said complete Roman Catholic Masses on the sites. Many leave statements explaining their rationale or banners with slogans such as “Disarm and Live” or “Choose Life for the Children and Poor.” They also leave documents they hope to have presented as evidence during the trials—codes of international law, the Nuremberg principles, disarmament treaties. Often they have ample time to complete the planned actions, and several times they’ve had to alert security personnel before they were arrested and charged. Later, one or more state and/or federal trials occur, although very occasionally charges are dismissed. Plowshares people regard the trial and the prison sentence as part of the action, as more chances to “speak truth to power.” Prison sentences range from the rare acquittal to seventeen years, although no one in this collection has served that long at one time. In the trials, the rhetoric becomes complicated, as the charges...