OPEN LETTER FROM THE BROOKLYN METROPOLITAN DETENTION CENTER from Sr. Megan Rice, on behalf of the Transform Now Plowshares July 28, 2014

 Our Dear Sisters and Brothers,

We send warm greetings and many thanks to all who actively engage in

the transformation of weapons of mass destruction to sustainable

life-giving alternatives. Gregory Boertje-Obed (U.S. Penitentiary,

Leavenworth, Kansas) Michael Walli (Federal Correctional Institution

McKean, Bradford, Pennsylvania) and I are sending you some of our

observations and concerns on the 2nd anniversary of our Transform Now

Plowshares action.

On July 28, 2012, after thorough study of nuclear issues, and because

of our deepening commitment to nonviolence, we engaged in direct

action by cutting through four fences at the Y-12 National Security

Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where the U.S. continues to overhaul

and upgrade thermonuclear warheads.

On that day, two years ago, when we reached the building where all

U.S. highly-enriched (bomb-grade) uranium is stored, we prayed and

also wrote messages on the wall, such as “The Fruit of Justice is

Peace”. (Realistically, the higher and stronger fences built as a

result of our nonviolent incursion can never keep humans safe from

inherently dangerous materials and weapons.)  We acted humbly as

“creative extremists for love”, to cite one of our most important and

revered leaders, Martin Luther King, Jr.

There are a number of reasons for what we did. We three were acutely

mindful of the widespread loss to humanity that nuclear systems have

already caused, and we realize that all life on Earth could be

exterminated through intentional, accidental, or technical error.

Our action at the Y-12 site in Oak Ridge exposed the storage of

weapons-making materials deliberately hidden from the general public.

The production, refurbishment, threat, or use of these weapons of mass

destruction violate the fundamental rules and principles by which we

all try to live amicably as human beings. The United States

Constitution and the Laws of War are intended to ensure the survival

of humanity with dignity. However, it is abundantly clear that harmony

and cooperation among nations can never be achieved with nuclear

weapons. (These arguments, we assume, will be made on our behalf

during the eventual appeal of our convictions that accused us of

sabotage, though it was never our intention to harm our country.)

Our “crime” was to draw attention to the criminality of the

70-year-old nuclear industry itself and to the unconscionable fact

that the United States spends more on nuclear weapons than on

education, health, transportation, and disaster relief combined.

We three Transform Now Plowshares consider it our duty, right, and

privilege to heighten tension in the ongoing debate of Disarmament vs.

Deterrence because history has repeatedly taught us that the policy of

deterrence doesn’t lead to security, but rather to the proliferation

of weapons of mass destruction. During our trial, the U.S. prosecutors

and the U.S. courts accused the wrong people when they claimed that we

violated the law, because what we did was to make America’s citizens

aware of egregious preparations for mass murder.

We took action because we were acutely aware that our government has

failed to keep its long-standing promise to pursue nuclear

disarmament. (As Ramsey Clark testified during one of our pre-trial

hearings, the U.S. entered into the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

in the 1960’s because our country was finally facing up to the severe

human and environmental consequences of the U.S. atomic bombing of

Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as to the hideous results of countless

nuclear tests conducted by the U.S. government within and beyond our

own borders.)

One of our pressing concerns is that U.S. prosecutors and the courts

adhere to an obsolete view of security with no cognizance – or

consciousness – of the horrific effects caused by nuclear weapons.

Greg, Mike, and I believe that, undeniably, the U.S. is in a state of

denial. It’s what Hannah Arendt called not evil, but the banality of

evil. “There’s nothing deep about it. It’s nothing demonic! There’s

simply the reluctance ever to imagine what the other person is

experiencing, right?” (Hannah Arendt, "Eichmann was Outrageously

Stupid" in The Last Interview and Other Conversations, Melville House,

Brooklyn 2013, p. 48).

We citizens cannot permit ourselves to be rendered passive and mute by

the banality of evil! Only complete nuclear disarmament can save

humanity. At stake is the honor and dignity of the Hibakusha, along

with the physical, environmental, emotional, and psychological trauma

long suffered by victims of the nuclear system, from uranium miners to

down-winders. (From 1946 to 1958, Marshall Islanders were bombarded

with 67 atomic and thermonuclear tests that were carried out by the

United States.)

Michael Walli, Greg Boertje-Obed and I are in U.S. prisons because,

ironically, our action at Oak Ridge was based on the common sense

reality that we human beings have endured more than enough destruction

and exploitation. We believe that we citizens can exercise our

collective power to consciously transform our nation’s priorities. We

all need to actively insist on more humane uses for the billions of

dollars now budgeted for the nuclear weapons/industrial complex.

Two years ago, as we neared the building in Oak Ridge, we were

extremely surprised by the ineffectiveness of the system that

supposedly guarded our nation’s most important National Security

Complex. We believed that we were about to expose the source of

unfettered violence that has led to the chronic spiritual and economic

decline in the U.S. As it turned out, it was the laxity of the

security system at Y-12 that caught the attention of the courts and

the mainstream media. Security weakness became the big story. There

was no mainstream acknowledgement that the national security complex

is rotting from its own irrelevance.

Most surprisingly, our July 2012 action and our court cases have

revealed that it is not the U.S. government that is in control of the

nuclear weapons complex, but in reality it is the corporations that

are in control through their solicitation and manipulation of endless

funding for the refurbishment of unlawful thermonuclear warheads. We

three are incarcerated because we stood up to a nuclear weapons

industry that is kept thriving by the interlocking and obsolete

institutions that subscribe to the long-discredited notion that law

and security can be enforced by ever-greater force.

Regarding the 22.8 billion dollar contract recently awarded for the

operation of the Y-12 site in Oak Ridge and the Pantex site in Texas

for the refurbishment of thermonuclear warheads and a new Uranium

Processing Facility (UPF), the relevant corporations don’t actually

operate under the long-discredited myth of “nuclear deterrence”.

Rather, corporations such as Babcock and Wilcox, Lockheed, and Bechtel

operate under limited liability subsidiaries, joint ventures,

consortiums, and partnerships for the main purpose of making profits

by engaging in huge nuclear weapons production/refurbishment

contracts. By this time, Congress certainly is aware that valid

contracts can be issued only for the dismantlement of all nuclear

weapons and for the environmentally-sound treatment and disposition of

all nuclear materials.

In order for the U.S. to negotiate for nuclear disarmament in good

faith, we say it is essential to peaceably transform these very

corporations so that they are no longer able to violate the most basic

moral and legal principles of civilized society by deliberately

precipitating planetary self-destruction.

We thank you for your letters and your concerns. We ask you to support

the Republic of the Marshall Islands in their current legal actions

against the United States in U.S. federal court  and against the U.S.

and all the other nuclear weapons states in the International Court of

Justice, for failure to eliminate their respective nuclear arsenals.

You can learn more and add your support by signing the petition at

www.nuclearzero.org.

Blessings,

Greg, Michael and Megan

[You can learn more about the July 28, 2012 Transform Now Plowshares

action, and find prison addresses to write a note of support to Sr.

Megan Rice, Michael Walli and Greg Boertje-Obed, at

http://transformnowplowshares.wordpress.com/]