Remembering Florida: 1987 Cape Canaveral protest against first-strike missile testing

 

In January of 1987 we organized the largest protest in my organizing career. The event was held at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida and I was working for the Florida Coalition for Peace & Justice.

We called the protest 'Cancel the Countdown!'.

More than 5,000 people turned out to protest the first test launch of the Trident II nuclear missile from the space center. 

Things actually began two weeks before the big rally.

Our 'Peace Pilgrimage to Stop the Trident' began at the Kings Bay Trident submarine base (built by President Jimmy Carter) which is located just over the Florida-Georgia border line. More than 200 people were on the peace walk. The walk was led by John & Martina Linnehan.

Affinity groups were formed on the peace walk as it headed south and just days before the pilgrimage reached Cape Canaveral small teams of activists began sneaking into the launch zone at the Cape. The public goal was to reach the Trident launch area and sit on the pad so the nuclear missile could not be test fired into space.

In the middle of the night people walked south down the beach to the Cape, others waded through the alligator and snake infested swamp, and others still found even more creative ways of getting into the forbidden zone. 

Each day for a week before the scheduled national protest, arrests were reported in front page articles in the local papers about those who had been captured by the military security. Warnings blared in the mainstream media about machine-gun armed military personnel and the dangers of being eaten by alligators. But the alarms did not deter people from their peaceful trek.

We were strongly supported by then national Mobilization for Survival that had its office in New York City. They organized a 'peace train' on Amtrak that began in Boston and headed south to Florida. At each big city they stopped, a news conference was held at the train station, and more people joined the journey to the Cape. Mobe staff helped in many ways to make this a special event.

On the day of the final rally a slew of great speakers and musicians took the stage at our protest area just one mile from the Cape Canaveral (now named) Space Force station gates. 

Among the speakers were Dr. Benjamin Spock (the famous baby doctor and activist), Odetta, Bishop Thomas Gumbleton and more. Peter Yarrow (from Peter, Paul and Mary) sang at a church fundraiser for the protest in Orlando the night before. 

Dr. Benjamin Spock

After the rally was finished we began a slow but deliberate march to the Cape's well-armed front gates. The day before several of us on the organizing team met with the Brevard County Sheriff's Department who told us that a 'counter protest' was planned against us. We agreed that the cops would keep us on one side of the four-lane road and the counter folks on the other side - with police down the middle. But things did not turn out that way.

During our rally we sent our peacekeeper team down to check out the front gate and they reported that the police were on the base side of the closed gate. And standing in front of the gate were beer drinking right-wingers who vowed to block us from entering the base. Many were carrying wooden sticks with signs on them.

As we approached this mad scene at the gate it was difficult to communicate with our peacekeepers on the walkie-talkies because a military chopper was just above our heads and along the river to the left side were air-boats making an additional racket. It was a prescription for a disaster. The police had set us up. 

One of the counter-protesters 'guarding' the front gate. Our numbers swallowed them up as we approached the missile launch base gate.

 

There were maybe 50 of the heavy drinking rightists and over 5,000 of us. As we made our final approach to the gates we paused and our peacekeepers went forward and mingled with the right-wingers. Then the rest of us just overwhelmed them with joy, love and determination to get over the fence. 

 

Among the many Florida Coalition leaders arrested was Bobbie Heinrich from Ft. Myers, Florida who went over the fence. She was a deeply spiritual woman and spent many years in Africa working with tribal people.

Ladders were placed up against the fence and large carpet remnants were slung over to cover the barbed wire. Dr. Spock was the first to climb over then many, many more followed. In the end over 200 of us were arrested either at the Cape base gate or during the previous days as folks attempted to venture into the launch zone. 

As it turns out one woman was able to reach one of the launch towers and picked up the phone and called security to come get her. The local media loved that story.

The reason we felt this protest so important was because the Trident nuclear missiles on submarines are a key element in Pentagon first-strike attack planning. 

It was in those days that I really began to understand that the US was setting in motion a dangerous and provocative program to gain global supremacy by threat of first-strike attack - something both China and Russia have renounced. It is even worse today.

I too climbed over the fence and spent five days in jail for refusing to give my real name - something many people did during that action. I said my name was Joe Nagasaki. (The jailers had never heard of Nagasaki and called me Nag-ass-key.)

My work today is just a continuation of those days back in the 1980's. I keep people like Dr. Spock and Bobbie Heinrich (and many others) close in my heart. 

Bruce  

See more photos from the protest here  

Hungarian Peace Community approves government’s intention to reduce sanctions

By Magyar Békekör Egyesület Hírek  (Budapest)

The Hungarian Community for Peace approves of the Orbán government’s intention to ease and reduce sanctions against Russia, the political association said in a statement issued on Tuesday.

The NGO expects that at Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó’s meeting with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington, a step will be taken towards normalising relations with Moscow by reducing the sanctions policy, thereby facilitating a peace settlement in Ukraine.

In a letter sent to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on 21 February, the President of the Peace Community considered it necessary for the government to no longer vote for sanctions against Russia, not to consent to the extension of sanctions that have already been voted on, but to start reducing sanctions and normalising bilateral relations with Russia. He asked the Hungarian government to do everything in its power to remove Hungary from the Russian list of countries unfriendly to Russia.

According to the Peace Community, the Western sanctions policy has boomerang back on its masterminds, as their production costs have skyrocketed and the living standards of their people have fallen sensitively due to the rejection of Russian energy sources.

“We would consider it appropriate if the head of Hungarian diplomacy not only defended Hungarian interests in Washington, but also spoke in the interests of those European peace-loving forces who, unlike the Commission led by Ursula von der Leyen, would like to restore normal relations with Russia, because they know that without cooperation with it, the European Union will face further economic degradation,” the statement reads.

According to the Hungarian Community for Peace, economic and financial stability is in the common interest of Hungary and the United States, for which political compromise with Russia is indispensable.

Edited by Magyar Békekör  

In memory of memories....

 

MB and I are heading to Florida for some R & R and visits with folks.

My mind has been drifting back to Florida as we neared the time to head south. Memories of past work across the state brought the idea to share some of the campaigns we organized while I coordinated the Florida Coalition for Peace & Justice between 1983-1998.

So during the next two weeks I'll post some of the photos and stories from those early campaigns to keep space for peace.

I also plan to take in a spring training baseball game while there. (Tickets are getting so expensive these days.)

Bruce

Art by Bill Park (Florida native and one of my best all-time friends)

Does Europe really want war with Russia?

 

The EU-NATO globalists just can't stomach an end to the war in Ukraine. They've long been using Ukraine as a hammer to break up Russia into smaller nations. They want Russian resources.

This is nothing new as Europe has been regularly invading Russia for over 500 years. Sweden attacked Russia about 12 times. Napoleon in France unsuccessfully tried the same as well. Hitler famously attacked the former Soviet Union. Hitler lost the war but about 28 million Soviet citizens (military & civilian) were killed by the Nazi invasion.  (In comparison the US lost less than 500,000 troops in WW2. Still alot but you get the point.)

The European 'leaders' keep wrongly claiming that Russia wants to invade and take over all of Europe. That is pure BS.

The EU globalists (long connected to the Dems in the US) are urging the US to guarantee that Washington will come to their rescue if they get into a losing war with Russia. So far Trump appears not to be interested.

The big question now is how the taxpayers in Europe will respond to this crazy war program of the EU-NATO? Will the people there support massive cuts in social spending and enviro programs? How much longer can the faltering EU economies continue without cheaper Russian gas?

What will come next for Europe?

Bruce  

 

Coalition of the Killing

By Clare Daly (Former member of EU parliament from Ireland)
@ClareDalyIRL

EU leaders have now branded themselves the "Coalition of the Willing," a tribute act to the band of war criminals led by George W. Bush and Tony Blair, who lied to the world, spat on the UN Charter and launched a war of aggression against Iraq that killed a million human beings.  

Yes indeed but which Brits will get richer? 

Increased military spending will make Brits richer – Starmer

Trump's 50% cut in military with Russia & China gives U.S. big advantage

2023 global military spending

Sputnik

President Donald Trump floated offering Russia and China to join the US in slashing their defence budgets in half when speaking to reporters at the White House earlier in February, adding that he hoped to take this up with President Vladimir Putin and President Xi Jinping “when things calm down”.

Washington hopes to drag Moscow and Beijing into “deceptive” 50% military spending cuts, staking on their desire to “avoid appearing disinterested in peace overtures by the US,” geopolitical analyst Brian Berletic told Sputnik.

The proposal is a ruse by Donald Trump aimed at rectifying the “disparity between the bloated US military budget” and the “more efficient ones of Moscow and Beijing,” noted the former US Marine.

"A genuine agreement would not be based on a percentage cut, but an equal reduction in [...] explicitly capabilities the US has used for decades to project power abroad, including its global-spanning network of military bases, its membership in aggressive blocs like NATO, its sea and airlift capabilities, and various types of missiles and drones (both naval and aerial) the US is right now developing to menace nations like Russia and China along, and within their own borders," he said.

Even if the US, Russia, and China were to slash military spending by 50%, proportionately America would "still enjoy greater overall spending than both nations combined, speculated the pundit.

Despite this proposal sounding promising at face value, he added, without further details from the US government’s side, it "appears to be an attempt to provide the US an overwhelming military advantage all while appearing to pursue global peace."

US President Donald Trump proposed that the United States, Russia, and potentially China each reduce their defense budgets by 50%, saying: "One of the first meetings I want to have is with President Xi of China, President Putin of Russia. And I want to say: 'Let's cut our military budget in half.' And we can do that."

Following this proposal, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin indicated Moscow’s openness to negotiations: “We are not against it. The idea is good: the US cuts by 50%, we cut by 50%, and if China wants, they can join later.”

China’s defense spending “is completely out of the need of safeguarding national sovereignty, security and development interests, and the need of maintaining world peace,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian stated at a press conference on February 25.

Slow Motion Ethnic Cleansing in Hebron

Photograph Source: Oren Rozen – Own work – CC BY-SA 4.0

Counterpunch

By Ken Jones

“Tell our story!” the man in the checkpoint cage yelled, in English. He and a crowd of Palestinian Muslim men were jammed together waiting to be checked out, one at a time, by an Israeli soldier in a glass booth so they could go into Hebron’s Ibrahimi Mosque to pray. Such daily and routine humiliation is the hallmark of the Israeli occupation.

I was in Hebron (Al-Khalil) for two weeks recently as part of a Community Peacemaker Team (CPT) delegation. Every day, we accompanied or heard testimony from people living there who were living under the guns of the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) and the aggressive hostility of the 800 settlers who claim that the city of 200,000 was given to them by their god. Every night, I kept a blog trying to capture one of the many stories we heard of the oppression.

Hebron is in the southern part of the West Bank. It hasn’t gotten the genocidal Gaza treatment that Jenin, Tulkarem, and Nur Shams are now getting. But, as someone said to me, “We are waiting our turn.” It may be that the tanks and bombs will come to Hebron too, but at the moment, what is happening there is the decades-long grind of military occupation and settler colonialism.

The stories we heard are gruesome. And everyone has one. Most men have been taken to prison and tortured. It’s common to have your home broken into in the middle of the night by soldiers who yell, beat everyone, and kidnap fathers, sons and daughters, taking them away to unknown locations, with no charges, and for an undetermined time. Entire homes are demolished regularly. Land is stolen. Movement is restricted. Surveillance is constant and pervasive. These stories don’t make the news. They have become too normalized.

Here are a couple of stories that may give a glimpse of what daily life is like in Hebron.

One day, a 20 year old woman told us about her year in prison. She recounted the horribly dirty and crowded conditions, the scarcity and bad quality of the food, the strip searches, the beatings, the constant verbal abuse.

She said the hardest thing that she witnessed was when women from Gaza were brought in. They wore bloody clothes and their hijabs had been stripped away from them. They were given no beds, nothing to clean themselves with. They were given dirty clothes that had been deliberately contaminated with lice. When they went to the bathroom, they were taken by male soldiers.

Then she told us the story of Oct 7, 2024, the one year “memorial” of the Gazan attack on Israelis. An officer entered women’s rooms and gave them 30 seconds to cover themselves before soldiers came in. When the soldiers came, they put zip ties on the women’s hands, blindfolded them, and took them out. They made them lie face down on muddy ground, beat them, cursed hatefully at them, and brought police dogs out to terrorize them. While this was going on, soldiers went into their cells, took all of their clothes, and set off tear gas grenades in their cells. Then they put the women back in their cells.

On another day, an older man who was living in a family home handed down through generations told us of the daily harassment he has been subjected to by settlers living next to his house. Protected by the IOF, they are taking pieces of his land every day. They have poisoned his sheep, stolen his olives, and destroyed over 250 olive trees.

His home is frequently used for family gatherings. During one of these recent gatherings, a large group of settlers burst into the house and started assaulting people. Some of them were dressed as soldiers. There were many injuries, windows were broken, and cars damaged. Then they stopped an ambulance from getting to the house.

When at home in Asheville Ken Jones and friends regularly hold solidarity vigils on bridges. Ken makes the fancy banners as well like this one with lights!

Settlers have attacked his family in the fields and farm with stones, have brandished guns, and beaten them with sticks. They have driven jeeps right into the house, dumped bulldozers full of trash at their front door. Soldiers have tear gassed the inside of their home and flown drones overhead frequently.

The story we heard at the village of Um Al-Khair in the South Hebron Hills is emblematic of what is happening  all over the West Bank. The village consists largely of descendants of refugees from the 1948 Nakba.

Immediately next to the village is a settlement of some 500 Israeli families and nearby, a military base. The teens from the settlement act as front-line vigilantes. They roam around with sticks and pepper spray making life miserable and tense for the people of the village. They have broken into homes and beaten women, damaged the village water pump, and even herded sheep right into village homes.

Whenever the villagers complain to the police about such attacks, the police say they have been told by the settlers that the teens are being attacked by the Palestinians. The police threaten to arrest the villagers if they keep making these calls.

We were walked to a recently demolished house where a couple of young Palestinian men were sitting, looking sadly at the ruins. Three rooms and a water tank were all jumbled up in piles. One of the men told us his 60-year old mother, who owned the house, had been thrown to the ground when she yelled about her house being destroyed. There was nothing the son or mother could do about it. Their family is now crowded in with a next door neighbor. In June, Israel had demolished 10 homes in one morning in the village.

We were told that Israeli law forbids people from rebuilding a demolished home in the same site. There is, in fact, a settler organization in Israel named Regavin that flies drones over newly demolished homes to report to the military any Palestinian attempt to rebuild. Still, the son and villagers are planning to rebuild the home.

Our village guide talked about the trauma of it all, especially for the kids. He said, “It is very hard for us to live in this condition. These people are not neighbors, they don’t care about us at all. They treat their dogs better than they treat us.” He worried about the mental health of his five young daughters and all of his friends living there.

We walked down to the paved road that was put in for the settlement. It was put over a dirt road that had been there since Jordan controlled this territory many years ago. Israel now defined the paved road as the border of the village, beyond which they and their goats and sheep were not allowed to “trespass.” Simple as that, their pasture land was stolen. Soldiers also put a gate at the beginning of the road so that they can close off entry and exit into the village whenever they choose.

We walked past some sapling trees, supplied by the Jewish National Fund, that settlers had just planted right next to villagers’ houses. The obvious purpose of planting the trees was to establish a claim to the land.

We saw the electric lines leading to the settlement. The villagers can’t use that electricity. They have power only from a small number of solar panels. We also saw the now repaired water pump from which they are allowed to draw from only 2 days a week, for a total of 6 hours. We saw the surveillance camera up on a pole overlooking the village. “They are watching us all the time,” our guide said.

We were told about the sounds of gunfire from the military firing range that was put illegally on their land. I imagined how threatening that must be, especially for the children.

All of this pressure in Um Al-Khair is one big systematic slow motion ethnic cleansing campaign, designed to push the villagers off their land. The intention is not just to demolish homes, land rights, and mental health. It’s meant to demolish hope.

But from what I could see, Palestinians will never give up hope. Every story of injustice we heard was told with a spirit of determined resilience and resistance – sumud, as it is called there. No Palestinian we met was planning to leave or submit. Everyone appeared to be carrying on with life, with joy and humor, and with healthy relationships, despite the danger and indignities they were suffering. They refuse to live in fear. As one person said, “That’s what they want, for us to be afraid. They want us to leave. We will not fear and we will stay until this occupation is over.”

As has often happened to me when I visit places that are on the receiving side of U.S.-sponsored violence and oppression, I was struck during this visit by the strong and enviable character of the Palestinians we met. They are not defeated, their spirits are not broken. They are warm, generous, dignified. I always felt safe and cared for around them, even though I, as an American, had no right to expect such treatment. The only times I felt fear and coldness were when I was around Israeli soldiers or settlers. That’s telling.

The stories and voices of Palestinians have always been purposefully suppressed by the powers that be in the U.S. and the West. As has the truth about how Palestinians have been treated for over a hundred years. The genocide in Gaza has burst that bubble of shadows and lies and revealed the ugly truth of the Zionist project all over Palestine. It is a cancer.

Hebron is still a vibrant place, bustling with life. May its countless stories be heard, may its occupation end, may its people be free. And the same for all of Palestine.

~ Ken Jones is a retired educator and activist living in Asheville, North Carolina

UK Space Watch: Space facilitates modern warfare

 

Space Watch UK

🚨 Quietly and without public discussion, the UK is expanding its military space capabilities. But with what mandate? 

🔴 Billions in public money is being spent on military space programs – while urgent social and environmental needs go ignored.

In this video, we show the truth about: 

✅ The UK’s growing military space programme, and its expanding presence across the UK – from Cornwall to Shetland 

✅ The risks of space becoming a battlefield, and escalating competition for space-based dominance 

✅ How UK activists are fighting back – on their doorsteps