The Plowshares movement is an anti-nuclear weapons and Christian pacifist movement that advocates active resistance to war. The group often practices a form of protest that involves the damaging of weapons and military property. The movement gained notoriety in the early 1980s when several members damaged nuclear warhead nose cones and were subsequently convicted. The name refers to the text of prophet Isaiah who said that swords shall be beaten into plowshares. [2]
The U.S. Plowshares group was deeply influenced by Catholicism and, in particular, the Catholic left movement of the late 1960s and the Catholic Worker Movement. [3] The Plowshares movement takes its name from the idea of beating swords to ploughshares in the Book of Isaiah:
And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. 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.
— KJV
On September 9, 1980, Daniel Berrigan, his brother Philip Berrigan, and six others (the "Plowshares Eight") began the Plowshares Movement under the premise of beating swords to ploughshares. [4] [5] They trespassed onto the General Electric Re-entry Division [6] in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, where Mark 12A reentry vehicles [7] for the Minuteman III missile were made. They hammered on two reentry vehicles, poured blood on documents, and offered prayers for peace. They were arrested and charged with more than ten different felony and misdemeanor counts. [8] On April 10, 1990, after 10 years of appeals, the Berrigans' group was re-sentenced and paroled for up to 23 and 1/2 months in consideration of time already served in prison. [4] Their legal battle was re-created in Emile de Antonio's 1982 film In the King of Prussia , [9] which starred Martin Sheen and featured appearances by the Plowshares Eight as themselves. [10] A book of poetry by Anne Montgomery RSCJ, a Catholic sister who was one of the eight, was published in 2024, and all of the living members of the group contributed to it. [11]
Other actions followed. In 1983, the "AVCO Plowshares" entered AVCO Systems Division, a manufacturing plant for MX and Pershing II missiles in Wilmington, Massachusetts, and damaged plans and equipment. They were arrested. The subsequent trial, including testimony from historian Howard Zinn, is documented in the film The Trial of the AVCO Plowshares by Global Village Video. [12] [13] As of 2000, some 71 such actions happened on several continents. [14] There have been several more such actions since 2000. The longest sentences given to individuals were those meted out to the 1984 group, the Silo Pruning Hooks, two of which were sentenced to 18 years in federal prison for entering a Minuteman II missile silo. [15]
Pouring of blood is a controversial symbolic act [16] that has been traditionally conducted by Plowshares activists including Susan Crane. [1] [2] [17]
On April 30, 2008, three Plowshares activists entered the GCSB Waihopai base near Blenheim, New Zealand and punctured an inflated radome used in the ECHELON signal interception program, causing $1.2 million in damages. In March 2010 the three men stood trial by jury at the District Court in Wellington and were acquitted. [18] The New Zealand Attorney-General then lodged a civil claim, on behalf of the GCSB, for $1.2 million. This claim was dropped in February 2014. [19]
On November 2, 2009, a Plowshares action took place in the U.S. at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, where Trident nuclear weapons are stored or deployed on Trident submarines. [20] These weapons constitute the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons in the US. [21]
On July 28, 2012, three Plowshares activists, Megan Rice, Greg Boertje-Obed, and Michael Walli, who compose the Transform Now Plowshares movement, breached security at the U.S. Department of Energy's Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, causing the government to temporarily shut down the weapons facility. [22] [23] Once inside a "secure" area, the activists hung protest banners on a uranium storage site, poured human blood and spray-painted the walls with anti-war slogans. [24] [25] Following a controversial trial, the three activists were convicted in early May 2013 on the charges of damaging property in violation of 18 US Code 1363, damaging federal property in excess of $1000 in violation of 18 US Code 1361, and intending to injure, interfere with, or obstruct the national defense of the United States and willful damage of national security premises in violation of 18 US Code 2155. [23] Megan Rice was sentenced to 35 months, or just under three years. The other two protesters, Greg Boertje-Obed and Michael Walli, both were sentenced to 62 months, or a little more than five years. [26]
The National Nuclear Security Administration has acknowledged the seriousness of the 2012 Plowshares action, which involved the protesters walking into a high-security zone of the plant, calling the security breach "unprecedented." Independent security contractor, WSI, has since had a weeklong "security stand-down," a halt to weapons production, and mandatory refresher training for all security staff. [27]
Non-proliferation policy experts are concerned about the relative ease with which these unarmed, unsophisticated protesters could cut through a fence and walk into the center of the facility. This is further evidence that nuclear security—the securing of highly enriched uranium and plutonium—should be a top priority to prevent terrorist groups from acquiring nuclear bomb-making material. These experts have questioned "the use of private contractors to provide security at facilities that manufacture and store the government's most dangerous military material". [27]
On April 4, 2018, seven Plowshares activists calling themselves "Kings Bay Plowshares" were arrested at the Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base. Longtime peace activist Susan Crane was among those arrested. [28] They stated that the action had been planned to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. [29] The activists were arrested, handed over to local authorities, and taken to the county jail. The Kings Bay spokesman, Scott Bennett, said that no one had been threatened and no military personnel or assets were endangered. The base houses 8 Ohio-class submarines, 6 of which carry ballistic missiles and are described by the Navy as "designed specifically for stealth and the precise delivery of nuclear warheads." [30] [31] The seven Plowshares were found guilty on October 24, 2019. Liz McAlister was sentenced to time served, 3 years of supervised probation and a portion of the $33,000 restitution. [32] The other defendants remain to be sentenced.[ when? ] Sentencing guidelines suggest 8 to 33 months of incarceration and/or conditional probation, although they face potentially more than 20 years. [33]
Philip Francis Berrigan was an American peace activist and Catholic priest with the Josephites. He engaged in nonviolent, civil disobedience in the cause of peace and nuclear disarmament and was often arrested.
Trident Ploughshares is an activist anti-nuclear weapons group, founded in 1998 with the aim of "beating swords into ploughshares". This is specifically by attempting to disarm the UK Trident nuclear weapons system, in a non-violent manner. The original group consisted of six core activists, including Angie Zelter, founder of the non-violent Snowball Campaign.
Daniel Joseph Berrigan was an American Jesuit priest, anti-war activist, Christian pacifist, playwright, poet, and author.
Swords to ploughshares is a concept in which military weapons or technologies are converted for peaceful civilian applications.
The Y-12 National Security Complex is a United States Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration facility located in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, near the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. It was built as part of the Manhattan Project for the purpose of enriching uranium for the first atomic bombs. In the years after World War II, it has been operated as a manufacturing facility for nuclear weapons components.
The Catonsville Nine were nine Catholic activists who burned draft files to protest the Vietnam War. On May 17, 1968, they took 378 draft files from the draft board office in Catonsville, Maryland, and burned them in the parking lot.
John Dear is an American Catholic priest and peace activist. He has been arrested 85 times in acts of nonviolent civil disobedience against war, injustice, nuclear weapons.
Thomas P. Lewis was an artist and peace activist, primarily noted for his participation with the Baltimore Four and the Catonsville Nine.
Elizabeth McAlister is an American peace activist and former nun of the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary. She married Philip Berrigan and was excommunicated from the Catholic Church. McAlister served prison time for nonviolent acts of civil disobedience.
Anti-nuclear organizations may oppose uranium mining, nuclear power, and/or nuclear weapons. Anti-nuclear groups have undertaken public protests and acts of civil disobedience which have included occupations of nuclear plant sites. Some of the most influential groups in the anti-nuclear movement have had members who were elite scientists, including several Nobel Laureates and many nuclear physicists.
Macy Morse was an American activist in the non-violent peace and anti-nuclear movements. She died in July 2019 at the age of 98.
Molly Rush is a Catholic anti-war, civil and women's rights activist born in 1935. She co-founded the Thomas Merton Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, along with Larry Kessler in 1972, She was one of the Plowshares eight defendants. They faced trial after an anti-nuclear weapons symbolic action at a nuclear missile plant in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania.
Seeds of Hope was a plowshares group of women who damaged a BAE Hawk warplane at the British Aerospace Warton Aerodrome site near Preston, England, in 1996. The four were part of a larger group of 10 who planned the action. Their aim was to stop the aircraft from being exported to the Indonesian military, for use in the illegally occupied country of East Timor. They left a video and booklet in the cockpit of the aircraft to explain their motivation.
Megan Gillespie Rice S.H.C.J. was an American nuclear disarmament activist, Catholic nun, and former missionary. She was notable for illegally entering the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, at the age of 82, with two fellow activists of the Transform Now Plowshares group. The action was a nuclear disarmament protest referred to as "the biggest security breach in the history of the nation's atomic complex."
Ardeth Platte, O.P., was an American Dominican religious sister and anti-nuclear activist. She was inducted into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame in 1999.
The Pershing II Weapon System was a solid-fueled two-stage medium-range ballistic missile designed and built by Martin Marietta to replace the Pershing 1a Field Artillery Missile System as the United States Army's primary nuclear-capable theater-level weapon. The U.S. Army replaced the Pershing 1a with the Pershing II Weapon System in 1983, while the German Air Force retained Pershing 1a until all Pershings were eliminated in 1991. The U.S. Army Missile Command (MICOM) managed the development and improvements, while the Field Artillery Branch deployed the systems and developed tactical doctrine.
Sister Anne Montgomery RSCJ was an American non-violent activist, educator, nun, and poet who was part of the Plowshares movement. Aside from teaching, she worked with the poor, and advocated for peace via the Catholic Worker Movement. She was a member of the original Plowshares Eight in the first Plowshares action in 1980. Anne Montgomery House in Washington, D.C., run by the Society of the Sacred Heart, is named for her.
The Kings Bay Plowshares are a group of seven Catholic peace activists who broke into the Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base and carried out a symbolic act of protest against nuclear weapons. The name of the action and the wider anti-nuclear Plowshares movement comes from the prophet Isaiah’s command to "beat swords into plowshares."
Stephen Michael Kelly is an American Jesuit priest and peace activist. He spent six years in prison for hammering on D-5 Trident missiles and other Plowshares movement actions. He has spent at least a decade behind bars, with six of those years in solitary confinement.
Frida Berrigan is an American peace activist and author. She published the 2015 book, It Runs in the Family: On Being Raised by Radicals and Growing into Rebellious Motherhood, about her life in a family of prominent activists and her own philosophies of parenting. Raised in the Plowshares movement, she has been featured in documentaries and studies of the movement, including award-winning director Susan Hagedorn's 2021 The Berrigans: Devout and Dangerous. Frida Berrigan has documented and interpreted the movement's history and meaning from her first-hand perspective for a global audience.
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