Our appearance yesterday in district court in Alexandria, Virginia indicated how the Pentagon fears protests at the home of the newly declared 'Department of War'.
We began the morning at 8:00 am holding vigil in front of the courthouse that was set in a part of the city that looked like it belonged to the elite class. Not a blade of grass was out of place. The buildings were grand - whether the court, hotels or apartment blocks. No trash was anywhere to be seen, which is unusual in most urban centers across America these days.
I chose to take my banner that read 'Countdown to Insanity' and stood on a nearby corner where lots of traffic was busily heading to and fro. Several older women out walking stopped to ask me what was going on with the crowd of just over 50 people (24 of whom were those of us who had the court appearances for our March 27 Pentagon protest and arrests).
Three of our original group of 27 were earlier excused from appearing due to a stroke by Patrick O'Neill, who led our March 27 civil resistance action at the Pentagon. Patrick is now in the hospital near his home in North Carolina and it sadly appears he has a long road to recovery. His wife and one of his daughters had also been arrested and were excused by the government from appearing.
Just after 9:00 am we were called into the court and sat through an hour of traffic violation cases before the prosecutor informed the judge that the government was dropping the charges 'without prejudice'. This phrasing is confusing but it actually means that the government can at any time re-charge the 24 of us and haul us back into court. (It's really a threat, a scare tactic, to keep us from coming back.) But the judge, a rather uptight middle-aged man, made sure to tell us that it is not usually likely that this would happen.
We also were told that the two Pentagon 'police' in uniform standing in the back of the court were going to hand us a letter telling us we were banned from all Pentagon 'reservation' lands for an 'undetermined' time.
One of our leaders asked for a list of these so-called off-limits 'reservation lands'. We got no response. We were told we would be given this ban letter but did not have to sign it - but it would still be in force anyway. After things were all over we left the building and all of our 24 'now free' people refused to take the letter from the Pentagon police.
But before we left the court our dialogue with the judge carried on for more than 30 minutes. Essentially he told us that we were free to do as we wished but we'd suffer penalties if we continued to 'break the law'. If we wanted to really change things he suggested we go and vote. I yelled out from my seat in the courtroom 'Tell that to Thomas Massey in Kentucky' - the Republican Congressman who was just defeated for re-election by Trump and AIPAC. They spent $32 million against him because he had the temerity to repeatedly speak out against Trump's wars and his failure to release all the Epstein files.
It's more than obvious that the Pentagon did not want the 24 of us, from all over the country, to go on trial. They knew that we would attempt to put the war machine on trial for its many crimes.
One of my favorite moments was when one of the men in our group made a loud statement that we the taxpayers were not trespassing - it was the Pentagon that is now trespassing in Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen and ......
So much for democracy in the land of freedom and justice.
There is already talk amongst some in the Catholic Worker community about returning to the Pentagon again for another such action. I'll be sure to let folks know what comes of this.
We were proud to be part of the March 27 protest and despite the long trip from Maine it was an honor to stand with the other determined peacemakers as we demanded that the Pentagon stop its daily killing of people around the globe and toxifying lands which its more than 800 unwanted bases currently occupy.
Bruce
