this is a very moving and powerful interview with a highly intelligent and remarkably committed group of activists, rarely seen at work, and from whom much is to be learned. they articulate their personal, political, moral, ethical, and legal reasons and strategies for their actions and legal defense that should be used broadly elsewhere.

https://www.democracynow.org/2019/4/8/kings_bay_plowshares_peace_activists_face

Martha Hennessy, Carmen Trotta, Patrick O’Neill, Clare Grady, Liz McAlister, Jesuit priest Stephen Kelly and Mark Colville

And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: 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. Book of Isiah, KJV

A group of peace activists have been jailed for over a year before trial for entering the Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base in Georgia last April to protest U.S. nuclear weapons. The action took place on April 4, 2018—the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s assassination. Armed with hammers, crime scene tape and baby bottles containing their own blood, seven anti-nuclear activists secretly entered Kings Bay—one of the largest nuclear submarine bases in the world—under the cover of night. Their goal was to symbolically disarm the six nuclear ballistic missile submarines kept there. Each submarine carries 20 Trident thermonuclear weapons. One year after this historic action, three of the Plowshares activists remain jailed in Georgia. The other four are out on $50,000 bond with electronic ankle monitors. All seven face up to 25 years in prison for their actions.

https://www.democracynow.org/2019/4/8/kings_bay_plowshares_peace_activists_face

AMY GOODMAN: And why did you choose that site to perform this, to engage in this Plowshares action?

PATRICK O’NEILL: Well, it seemed absurd that we would have a shrine to nuclear weapons. In North Carolina, where I live, we’re taking down Confederate monuments. But here we had monuments, literally phallic monuments, that were actually replicas of weapons of mass destruction surrounded by flags, including the U.S. flag. And I thought, “This is the most incredible example of modern-day idolatry we could find, maybe on planet Earth.” And it was it was the responsibility to smash idols. So that’s why we went there.

President Carter who brought Kings Bay Nuclear Submarine Base to Georgia