 Just try it, because they probably will be better off. Can you hear us? Yes, let's hear it again. Let's do it. That's all right. Very good. Very good. Woo. Just right at the wire there. That was good. Okay. So are we missing Mary Ann? Are we missing anybody off of the speakers? And musicians. From your list, Mary Ann Grady. We can't hear you. You're muted. Oh, Leona. We're missing Leona. Morgan. Yep. I'll text her right now. And is Liz McAllister on? Thank you. No. I'll text Frida. And I'll have peanut butter on my teeth. Just in time to say hi to everybody. And Chrissy, I'm going to go ahead and transfer primary host over to you in just a moment. Okay. That's great. Thanks. I just heard my voice come in later. Did you hear me? We can hear you, Mary Ann. Okay, good. Because I heard my voice of what I said. Come back later. Like a feedback. All right. Mary Ann, the reason that you likely heard that is you might have the YouTube playing or something else playing. Yeah. I don't have anything else going right now. So, so Leona said she's running late, but she will be coming on. So hopefully by the, you know, She can still get on there. So if we need to, Ellen, we can switch. Right. Agnes. Agnes, if we need. Can we put you before Leona? Agnes. Hi. Hi, please. Hi, trees. Yes. So Leah, I'm going to send you it in your email, the letter from Martha. And I think we got a yes from Agnes that. This is willing to, to go ahead of Leona if necessary. All right. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Hi. I'm free to, should be coming on. Do we see her yet? Oh, she's there. Okay. Great. Okay. So Frida, can we check your sound? And also your very. Backlit. So it's hard to see your mom. And you. Oh, oh, and there's Karen. Hey, Karen. Where's Claire? Claire is there. We have. Yeah. And I'm just checking my volume. We're working on the backlit thing. And by the time it's our turn, we'll. Yep. You're looking marvelous. Is that okay? Volumize. Yeah. Yes. Right. Okay. Love you all. Yeah, you could. And Leona is, is. Anyway, I just told her to take her time. So I think we'll, I, now do we have everybody else? Yeah. Hi Mary. Hi. How are you? Good. Thank you. Yeah, maybe put it. Can you put it up a little Mary? Valium. Oh, no. I don't think so. Get married. Avalanche. Headphones. Have a good microphone. Yeah. Also your reception isn't very good. Yeah. Yeah. All right. When you're reading the letter, you might need to turn off your camera. So we'll have a better. We'll get to hear the letter. Okay. All right. Give me an idea of when that is. Yes, it's back. It's, it's after. Oh, thank you, Mary. Yeah. Thank you. There'll be, there'll be about five speakers and then. And with me giving little chat box reminders. And then after John Flynn. And Owen. Oh, cabinet kind of on. We'll play music. Then I will say. That we're going to read. We're going to hear jail letters from Patrick read by Mary. We're going to read them. We're going to read them. I just don't want to wander away. Yep. And now it's 401. So we should go live. We are live. We've been live for a few minutes, but that's fine. And Chrissy, I'm going to go ahead and transfer over to you now. Thanks. And greetings. I'm Marianne Grady Flores. I'm Claire Grady sister. This past Friday. I'm going to play my first play. We're going to read. We're going to read it. I'm John Yassura. A Buddhist nun from the Nippon. John. My oh, oh, G order. And Irene Lee came to ethical to pray with Claire before she enters prison. Claire has joined Junson on her many walks for peace and justice over the past 40 years. So we just played a snippet of that prayer time. So the Kings Bay plowshares support team is hosting this nation. The Cayuga people are members of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, an alliance of six sovereign nations with the historic presence on this land. The Confederacy precedes the establishment of New York State and the United States of America. So thank you all for joining the Kings Bay Plausure 7 Festival of Hope for our sister Claire Grady as she leaves to Alderson Federal Prison in West Virginia. She reports this coming Wednesday, February 10, for her part in the April 4, 2018 symbolic nonviolent disarming of Trident's Omnicidal Nuclear Weapons in Georgia. Claire is the sixth of the seven who have been sentenced. Mark Colville is the last and we will hear from him shortly. We want to thank Ariel Gold and Code Pink for sharing their webinar platform and spreading the word of today's event. Today's Festival of Hope was inspired by Claire's sentencing statement found on the on our website. Claire calls on us to listen to the people who have been on the receiving end of US nuclear policy from its beginning and to hear from people working to dismantle what the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. identifies as the evil triplets, racism, materialism and militarism, also known as white supremacy, capitalism and US total global domination enforced by US nuclear weapons. To read letters from jail from Carmen and Steve and Patrick and Martha and Claire eventually and to read background and media coverage on the action to see videos and review history of the 100 previous plowshares action since 1980, please visit our website the kingsbayplowshares7.org and today's video, today's webinar will also be posted there. So just a heads up if you have any comments or greetings for Claire, you can use the chat box and there will also be links posted there including our website and you can also post on Facebook, our Facebook page and to the YouTube comments section. So we are honored to have activists from different parts of the world participate with us today. The first we'll begin with Mark Colville, who is one of the Kings Bay plowshares co-defendants and he's the only one of the group that has not been sentenced yet and though Mark did spend 15 months already in the county jails down in Georgia before the trial. Mark lives at the Amistad Catholic worker in New Haven, Connecticut with his wife Luz and their youngest of four children, Isaiah. Okay Mark, you're on. Thank you, thank you Mary Ann and thanks everybody who worked to put this together. Much appreciated, I'm very honored to be included and really my main task or objective right now is to just say something brief about Claire and to introduce a very powerful interview that we're going to hear in a few minutes. I also thought it might be a good idea to just again I'm as as mentioned I'm still awaiting sentencing and I'm happy to give whatever information people want about that but I just wanted to give a brief update. I continue to hold the position that it's insane to be sending anybody to federal prison or to any prison in this country at this time and in fact it is against the BOP, the Brewer of Prison and the Justice Department of Justice's own policies to be sending anybody to prison right now and so it's part of the point that I'm trying to make by refusing to go to Georgia for sentencing until the governor of my state says that it's safe to go to Georgia and that I will not give up my constitutional right to be sentenced in person so I'm continuing to do that we just we just got another postponement so right now I'm scheduled to be sentenced on April 9th and I hope to you know I'm trying to make a point here I'm trying to make a point on behalf of all of us that this is this is insane and so we'll see what happens with that anyway onto the main event here when I see Claire I see someone whose life is like a hologram one of the most one of the amazing things people may or may not know about holograms is that if you embed a holographic image on a piece of glass and then you were to like shatter the glass that each piece would contain the entire image and to me that's a real good metaphor for how Claire chooses to live her life that's how she lives nonviolence personal and communal disarmament and always always engaged in the liberation struggle by centering the voices of those who are held down and held bound these commitments form the essence of who Claire is and in my experience I simply never have an encounter with her in which I don't recognize them as her primary agenda and that's why to me while I may personally worry about my friends going to prison this week I cannot grieve over it because I know the gifts that she will bear with her beyond behind those walls I know how fresh is the air of hope she will be breathing with those who feel like they're suffocating in there and so it's also fitting and not a bit surprising to me that that we should begin this festival of hope by listening to a voice that embodies hope a voice that Claire has made tremendous efforts to amplify through her participation in the Kings Bay plowshares community and that voice belongs to Setsuko Thurlow forgive me if I'm mispronouncing it Setsuko Thurlow Hobakasha the survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima she's been a powerful witness and a tireless organizer as part of the international campaign to abolish nuclear weapons Setsuko gave an acceptance speech for ICANN as it was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017 which was three and a three and a half months after the treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons was adopted in July 2017 and we know now that it has become part of in the body of international law what we will see and hear today is a brief excerpt of a recent interview with Setsuko Thurlow the full version of which will be made available on the Kings Bay plowshares website she has a particularly a particular and a powerful message for the people of the united states in this clip at this critical moment in human history and so let's let's listen to the voice of Setsuko Thurlow girls were mobilized to work well at a 13 year old grade 8 student in the girl's school in Hiroshima I experienced that horrific experience um Monday morning and a group of about 30 girls were mobilized to work for the army we were not at the school we were mobilized away from school doing the work at the army headquarters at eight o'clock we had a meeting and the officer in charge of our students gave us pep talk and we said yes sir we'll do our best for the emperor's sake at that moment I saw the blueish white flash in the window and I had a sensation of being blown into the air I still have that sensation of floating and that's the end of my recollection when I found myself in a total silence and darkness I found myself pinned under collapsed building I could not move my body so I knew I was faced to death I knew finally Americans got us uh then I started hearing whispering voices of the girls god helped me mother helped me I still hear those voices from time to time then all of a sudden strong male voice said don't give up don't give up keep kicking you see the sunday coming through that opening cruel toward it as quickly as possible so I knew the soldier or officer was there trying to help me to free me I managed to come out and by the time I came out the building the rebels were on fire and I thought about about 30 girls were with me in the same room but I couldn't possibly get back into that building and outside it was dark by the time I came out that bright summer morning turned into a dark night perhaps because of the soap and the particles in the air rising in the mushroom cloud and I started seeing some moving object and that happened to be the procession of ghostly figures the human beings but they did not look human beings to me they looked like ghosts that's why I call it ghostly procession and nobody was running everybody was slowly shuffling and their hair was standing up to the sky and the skin and the flesh were burned they are burned blackened and swollen and they collapse and when they collapse the stomach burst open in this line stretch out and some were carrying their own eyeballs in their hands um it was the sight you can never for anyway the soldier told us join that procession and escape to the nearby hill that's what we did at the foot by hill there was large military training ground about two football fields and by the time we got there the place was packed with the dead bodies and dying people injured people everybody was in families begging for water water water but we had no bucket or containers to carry the water we three girls who managed to escape went to the nearby stream watched off the blood and told the blouses and soaked them in the water and we dashed back to the people begging for water we put this cloth soaked with water and they just sucked the moisture out of that that was the only kind of so-called rescue operation we thought about 80 percent of the other healthcare professionals were killed them they were killed and the remaining people were working somewhere else but not where i watch when tens of thousand people are dying their medication not even drops of water that is the kind of situation i witnessed the situation caused by a very primitive nuclear weapon today we're talking about the nuclear weapon which far more destructive could kill millions of people it's so different level different scale of destruction but i saw parts of it at that time and i think at the first moment about seven thousand people vaporized or carbonized and additional seven thousand people died from burns or from the effect of radiation by the end of 1945 well after five six months all together 140 000 people were killed and today 30 000 people have been killed in that city and every one of them died in agony the first image which come to my mind is my four year old nephew four year old child that tiny body was just transformed into a unbearable almost melted chunk of flesh he was still talking he was still asking for the so the image of this little fella had become in my mind the image which drives me and compels me if doing what i have been doing look those people who didn't know what happened to their bodies nobody had any idea what was happening to them they were simply melting and dying and imagine me as a you know child the whole city disappeared from face of earth and 100 000 people disappeared and nine of them were my own family and relative to uncle to aunts to cousins my sister and her four year old child sister in law just put yourself in that situation that's what the nuclear weapon does indiscriminate mass killing tool in a very primitive so today we're talking about far more sophisticated destructive weapons which could kill millions of people could be the beginning of the end of this beautiful planet and we simply to use our imagination to think what we are talking about what the nuclear weapons do to humanity and the environment the planet won't be here i know it's difficult for people to conceptualize this change in our lives but we simply have to we have no choice but to recognize this is the reality we cannot hide our heads in the sand and nothing is happening you know we simply cannot we have to get our heads out of the sand and open the eyes open the ears and hear and listen and learn and have to be a responsible citizen you see when i speak to american people i want to explain to them look united states led us to the nuclear age nation which first used the nuclear weapon and it never seemed to have sense of remorse or guilt it kept on merely piling up more and more today we have over 13 000 and united states and russia owns about 90 percent of it and additional seven nations have them nine nations and united states are all led in this nuclear arms race and it's about time we have to study the issue and accept the fact it's a insanity it's the illusion and delusion and to put so much faith into so so called the military doctrine of deterrence to brag to each other especially to the opponent look we have so many nuclear weapons and to threaten each other that threat tactics cold deterrence i think that is blasphemy to the creator who created each and every one of our lives and to threaten each other we have more horrible things to kill you to wipe out and that's what we are using to maintain so-called security that's nonsense i have seen the new nuclear weapon did to us i experienced it and it was a very small scale it's a survivor's motto never again otherwise we feel that to speak out to the world that is our mission our responsibility and this is why we have been talking about the inhumanity and cruelty of the weapon but ten years ago i came in contact with the icamp people icamp stands for international campaign to abolish nuclear weapons and when i met the campaigners of this group i was astounded i was so delighted because large number of the campaigners were young people who recognize this as their own issue not somebody else's issue and they said we want the future for ourselves for our children for grandchildren and they got themselves involved and couldn't believe it on July 7th 2017 when 122 nations voted at the united nations to adapt for the prohibition of nuclear weapons and then in the middle of October October 22nd i think it was last year uh 15 nations ratified it and then 90 days later on January 22nd it finally came into force that means for the first time the treaty said it's illegal to have nuclear weapons not only to have the nuclear weapon to use to test to develop to manufacture every nuclear weapon is outlawed well i was so happy i lived to this day to witness that day well a lot of kibaksha from Hiroshima Nagasaki a lot of victims from marshal islands and Kazakhstan and the people who were involved with mining nuclear and the uranium mining like the states canada and australia and africa and so we all came together and the diplomats representing 122 nations and there is a thought it's not a easy thought unfortunately small group of people reached the decision to use the first nuclear weapon on Hiroshima and Nagasaki you know when i lived at the college in the united states often people asked are you still mad at us american for dropping the bombs on Hiroshima Nagasaki and my answer has been i really am not angry at the people because american people in the dark at the Manhattan project was concerned just like the rest of us in the world we didn't know what was going on at the Manhattan project so i cannot blame them but small group of people starting with president Truman they knew what they were doing and they made that choice they made that decision indiscriminate my murder of human beings and that was a crime against humanity and i repeat the same story i believe that and i want american people to recognize that and i know you do and that's why you're doing what you have been doing but your government has never expressed the remorse and regret or guilt as long as the united states government continue with that policy there would not be reconciliation there would not be peace and security anywhere on this earth mr obama said in his famous speech in Prague in 2009 since the united states is the only nation which has actually used nuclear weapons america has the special moral responsibility to lead the campaign toward the world with a nuclear weapon the world rejoiced with that statement and he got the noble peace rise for that too but unfortunately nothing came out of it i wish american policymaker could reach that state mind to recognize the united states moral responsibility and on this citizen pressure the government they won't act this is where your responsibility lies i'm not simply criticizing you i love this life i love this planet and to ensure them we have to speak out the truth we know you know and i know we got continue to work thank you well thank you um to setsuko and to alan my sister for uh interviewing setsuko um what she said uh at the end was a perfect segue for our next guest uh leona morgan is a dine activist from the navajo nation uh working in new mexico and arizona to stop uranium production and dumping and fighting nuclear colonialism okay leona you're you're next okay thank you marianne is is my volume okay yes you sound great and thank you for joining us yeah thank you for the invitation um i'm so honored to be here with you all um it's uh i guess a bittersweet event uh why we're gathering here today um i'm just going to introduce myself by my plans uh before i start um i'm from new mexico my my people are from the four corners area um traditionally situated within the four sacred mountains um and right now i'm i'm speaking to you all from albuquerque new mexico i have worked uh on several issues and i just i just want to acknowledge um some of the things setsuko said i had the pleasure and honor of speaking with her last last february almost a year now um in paris at the at the ucan paris for um the ican paris forum and so um we had plans to meet in new york in april at the world conference um during the some of the gatherings around the npt that didn't happen of course many events last year were canceled because of the virus and i just want to um acknowledge also last year was it was a really big year um for those of us fighting nukes especially for us in new mexico last year was its 75th anniversary of the first nuclear weapons test at the trinity site as well as um of course the bombs that were used in japan and so um i just wanted to um give kind of an overview and also acknowledge um a lot of people who are not here today um some of the activists who have uh fought um most of their lives to protect their homelands and their people um some of them that we've lost most recently such as uh deb debora whitebloom in the black hills area uh debora abrahamson um sister artith um novella marquez here in new mexico um and and i know there's many many more um but those are some of our um heroes who we who we've recently lost and um i'm just speaking to you while here um because uh my involvement really came from my family um i often uh preface what i'm about to say by letting folks know that i i didn't live in a contaminated area i didn't grow up um drinking contaminated water um but some of my family members did and some of my people are still dealing with contamination from past uranium mining on the navajo nation and um there's been over 15 000 abandoned uranium mines left um by the federal government across the country um the most the majority of them are in colorado and and western states and right now we're still fighting for cleanup because there's no um there's no law to clean up these abandoned mines and so one of the biggest issues i i think for all of us is stopping not just nuclear weapons but nuclear power um right now with the with the climate fight um there's a push for nuclear power as a so-called a transitional energy or you know that we need it um and i think um people like i like i said earlier people have died fighting you know because of the all the problems that are caused not just from uranium mining but every step of the nuclear fuel chain um both for weapons development and development of energy and one of the biggest fights we're dealing with in new mexico right now is the waste from the nuclear power plants so the long lived waste will will be radioactive for millions of years some of the isotopes and so we're fighting a company called whole tech international um they're proposing to build the world's largest radioactive waste dump in southeast new mexico and i just i just want to acknowledge that all of these issues are connected and and everyone um you know we're here to honor the all of you who had had you know the who are brave enough to do these um tremendous actions you know everyone from the king's bay plowshare seven um and and and other people who have risks not only their um their their freedom but their lives i i do a lot of work behind my computer you know i'm in the safety of my own home and i i can't thank you all enough for your brave actions um we really need a lot more attention and and and media on these issues and so um i just want to you know give a message that all of our fights are connected not just from um uranium mining but the habakasha i know some say it's it's all radioactive radioactive radioactivity all nuclear victims not just the the people in japan but everyone from the downwinders around the uranium mines and and all of these nuclear facilities are habakasha and some some believe this and some some also connect these fights and i think that's something we need to do more often is to connect the fights between nuclear power development and nuclear weapons development um because there's folks fighting um for amendments to rica um for downwinders of of both mines and the workers there and and of course um the people around some of the weapons test sites and um just one more group of folks i want to acknowledge are all the frontline communities um we did although uh you know a lot of us celebrated january 22nd as the entry into force of the un treaty but we're still fighting issues all of us locally at home and we still have people who are sick and and and you know people with cancers and and who who who we've lost because of the nuclear industry um and it's for these people that i continue to fight as well as for our our sacred places there's uranium on sacred mountains we're contaminating our water as tsuko said she mentioned water and water is life um and also uranium mining happens predominantly on on indigenous lands worldwide so i just i just want to say thank you um to to all of you who who do this work and and just to remember the people around the world who are still fighting for not just cleanup and and and reparations but acknowledgement and to bring attention to the people around shin coloby uranium mine in the present day democratic republic of the congo where that first uranium came from that was 65 percent uranium that went all over the world essentially you know it started with the manhattan project and we're still dealing with that fallout and so um we need to end all of it and it takes all of us to work together to do that so thank you so much for inviting me to be here with you all today and i will be thinking of you um claire and i'll be keeping you in my prayers and and all of you and all the political prisoners out there as well yeah thank you yona thank you so much we're so grateful that you could be with us today and don't ever diminish the work that you're doing just because it's you're behind a computer it's it's a lot of hard work especially in these these days so today i just wanted to make a remind make a reminder that if you have any comments or greetings for claire please use the chat box and um there will be there are links posted including our website and you can post on the facebook page or the youtube comment sections um so now we're going to hear from uh leah gradey savettes uh she's going to play music for us leah is claire's daughter and she lives in ithica and when the weather is warmer she works as a farmer in the area all right leah you're on hi everyone thank you for being here i have a brief song that i'd like to share and this song honors our connectedness uh that i am so grateful we are all reminded of in this gathering and thank you so much leona it's an honor to meet you here over this platform i am grateful for the things that you have done yes i'm grateful for the victories we've won about your because i'm grateful grateful so grateful just to praise you lord flowing from my heart are the issues of my heart it's grateful me i am grateful for the things that you have done yes i'm grateful for the victories we've won thank you leah oh my god bring as well the tears so right now a little hard being the auntie and the sister in this facilitating thing um so now we're going to hear from our dear brother and friend and neighbor um russell rickford he is a historian of the black radical tradition and also an organizer with the democratic socialists of america nestle you're on well thanks so much um that was incredibly beautiful and moving so i want to um honor that um tremendous gratitude for that um so it's a pleasure to be among so many beloved comrades um and people of conscience in embracing our dear friend clear grady as you all know clear is something special i've been struggling to describe this amazing quality that clear possesses the effect that she has on people the wavebolts respond to her uh the warmth and the enthusiasm that she exudes uh it's a kind of charm a kind of grassroots credibility and sincerity but it's much more than that it's a integrity profound faith there's inspiration it's love and above all it is trust you know folks trust clear we trust her kindness and her truthfulness and moral consistency and conscience and we trust her political values and we trust and we cherish clear's militancy you know i've been thinking a lot about this question of political militancy especially in terms of the history of the modern black freedom struggle and in particular i've been reflecting on women's militancy and black women's militancy and how so many of the most extraordinary militants in the black radical tradition have been women um and how so many of those radical women have been ignored or erased by master narratives of history um in honor of the activism of clear and kingsbay plow share activists i thought i'd briefly highlight a remarkable black radical woman who was incredibly militant i was a star war anti-war organizer as well as a pan-africanist a leftist um and an anti-imperialist and i'm not at all drawing a direct political parallel between this person and and clear i'm simply invoking this figure as a reminder that we stand in a rich tradition of radical struggle and the phenomenal complex women have so often been our most militant warriors so let me say a few words about the african-american Harlem activist May Mallory and i wonder if i can share my screen how would i do that see oh share screen um can you all see that yes play from current slide it's only one slide so i should be able to handle this um sister uh May Mallory um uh two few students of history know Mallory's name uh she was a comrade of Malcolm X's she was actually there in the audience that horrible day February 1965 when Malcolm X was gunned down and like Malcolm she was an early and outspoken opponent of the U.S. military adventure in Southeast Asia which she condemned as a product of imperialist aggression uh and she did so long before Martin King broke his silence on Vietnam May Mallory was a member of the old left having come out of the communist party she was an intrepid working-class organizer who struggled with poverty and meager wages her entire life she was also a black nationalist who insisted on black pride and self-determination within and beyond leftist organizations indeed Mallory was a staunch internationalist who identified deeply with third world revolutionaries including those who took up arms against the American War of Aggression in Vietnam let me see if i can unshare my screen here okay am i back yes you are okay great um so rejecting the term Negro Mallory saw herself as an African in the west she was an advocate of solidarity with anti-colonial struggles on the African continent and she was among the African-American expats who lived in Tanzania East Africa in the 1970s for years however the base of her activism was Harlem um and it was there that she had launched militant school desegregation struggles in 1950s in the early 60s she traveled to the deep south to help deliver guns and supplies to Robert F Williams the Monroe North Carolina civil rights leader who had vowed to resist with force of arms the murderous assaults of the KKK as a result of her radical activism Mallory was constantly harassed and hounded by intelligence and police forces she was repeatedly jailed on trumped up charges herself a victim of state repression she devoted much of her energy to advocacy on behalf of other political prisoners including black power militants who faced intense persecution in the 1960s Mallory was an iconic class she was a true rebel she was unflinching and uncompromising she was known for her sharp resistance to white paternalism and racism within the left but she also battled sexism at the hands of black male leaders who to her dismay and disgust dared to define black radicalism as a masculine prerogative and attempted to relegate her to maternal or symbolic roles within the movement in the late 50s and early 60s as king emerged as the ultimate symbol of passive resistance in the US Mallory remained a harsh critic of the philosophy of non-violence she always insisted that black people had the right and the duty to arm themselves against racist terror Mallory blended multiple political traditions including feminism black nationalism and socialism she was unabashedly black and working class and revolutionary in many ways she embodied the personal and political intricacies of radical women who never had the luxury of separating their struggles against patriarchy capitalism militarism and white supremacy main Mallory was a marvel and I invoke her again not to draw a simplistic analogy to the activists we celebrate this evening but rather to suggest that the fighting spirit that inspires and inhabits us today has many complex and vibrant sources and that this is one of the reasons that it survives so in honor of Sister Mae Mallory and all the unsung militants we salute our dear comrade clear and we honor her verb and her splendid indomitable militancy solidarity free Palestine and thank you Russell dear brother and wow as we would say up Mae Mallory just for folks to know our friend Steve dear posted in the chat a wikipedia link to Mae Mallory so there's info for people to look up to know who this powerful woman is and was so our next speaker will be Claire Daley who's an Irish member of the European Parliament for the Dublin constituency and she's been a co-defendant in an Irish trial of civil resistance to US warplanes refueling in Shannon airport where the resistance continues Claire you're on thank you for being with us from the other side of the pond we can't hear you I have to unmute yourself can you hear me why did you do that for me and no no look thank you so much Mary Ann and everybody for their contribution so far I really have to say it's a total honor and in some ways an outrage to be with you all tonight we're obviously honored to share this occasion such an important celebration with such inspiring people but at the same time it is utterly outrageous that we have to gather here because Claire will be leaving during the week to go to prison for the crime of standing up for humanity and she will join people like Julian Assange who has almost spent 10 years incarcerated for exposing US war crimes when the criminals walk free and we only have to listen to the horror outlined by Setsuko to realize the stance taken by Claire and her co-defendants was absolutely the morally correct and courageous stand to take and I suppose we're here to say that our resolve is even stronger as a result of the measures taken by Claire and the others it is a beacon to activists around the world and I know that Claire is very proud of her Irish roots and in the spirit of James Connolly who was somebody that I would be inspired by James Connolly was one of our early revolutionary leaders who very much fought around the idea of enshrining Irish neutrality he was in many ways a lone voice with very few others in opposing world war one and the slaughter of ordinary people in the interest of capitalism and he had a quote which was and just read it now if you strike out in prison or kill us out of our prisons or graves we will still invoke a spirit that will toward you and perhaps raise a force that will destroy you we defy you do your worse and that's kind of the way I see Claire stands here because she's raised in a force kind of like the rest of us a nonviolent force against empire against the waste of resources for war when there's so much want in the world and I was delighted to be able to send Claire a copy of her book and I have a little surprise for her that joining me is my co-defendant is here with me to also send greetings but he's not in the picture if you can't get into the picture but our book was coalition of the unwilling which was you know our stance really of saying that we around the world who are going to stand up against empire against war and we're very glad to be part of I suppose the coalition of the unwilling along with the rest of them so my co-defendant Mick Wallace if you can get into the camera if he can wants to say a few words as well well it's not that I've been pushing to get a few words but I just its support of Claire and I think people should realize that like for example the 27 member states in the European Union and each of them has been involved in promoting the militarization of Europe but it's true to say that in every one of those 27 member states it's actually not what the people want in any of those countries the people are on a different wavelength and the work of activists like yourselves you have no idea sometimes you think that oh god it's such a struggle with mainstream media completely against us you know I mean you have the likes of Obama who got his as our friends pointed out got a peace prize in 2009 for going to because he was supposed to do the right thing around nuclear which he didn't and he ended up dropping more bombs than any previous American president and now he's lauded as a hero in America but in actual fact the people are not stupid the people realize what's going on and they realize the damage and the destruction does cause in it in the interest of financial gain right across the world by the major powers and probably none worse unfortunately than the US but my point is that the majority of people right around the world are actually will be back in everything that is due and use his might and speed all the time but there's far more support for it and I love to quote norm chomsky when he said without any doubt he says it's a difficult struggle he says but he says every single human being on the planet he says to make the world a better place each day and he says sometimes it only takes a smile and listen every effort that we make everything we do to highlight the injustices it's a tough gig but you know what I don't underestimate the impact that you're making on people right across the world things are changing and I'm an optimist at heart and I do believe that these people that are causing so much destruction just in the name of profit are actually reaching the bottom of the barrel and things will have to change and I'm confident that things will change and listen all the best that we want to be well done stay strong we'll be with you in spirit Claire all the very best your our inspiration and thank you so much for allowing us to be part of this so Claire and say your colleague's name there Mick Wallace Mick Wallace much more infamous than me well that's wonderful oh my god what a send-off and it's wonderful to hear your brogue so only because Agnes William our next speaker has to leave at five I'm going to transition real quickly forgive me so Agnes and thank you thank you so much from the voices across the pond um Agnes William is a Cataraugus Creek mother grandmother and she educates the public about uranium mining and waste disposal on Indian territories Agnes met Claire walking with Junsan across New York state and she's a community organizer activist with the indigenous women's initiative in Buffalo New York and the next and the local affiliate with the indigenous women's network in Austin Texas currently she works on three campaigns one dismantling the doctrine of discovery two water is life and the third is nuclear free future so with that Agnes we turn it over to you I'm sorry I didn't know you had to leave at five greetings and well I'd like to extend the greetings of thanksgiving to all of my distinguished colleagues here and especially to my friend and dear mentor Claire Brady um you know it was the 90s when I first met Claire and uh we were at the uh Junsan's temple when she first built the stupa there and um there was an immediate soul bonding I think when we were uh in the festivities after the ceremony for the stupa and uh one of our elders from the Onodog nation had a song sung that actually brought a a water spout the wind came that was the lake all the kids our kids were young at the time were playing by the water and this wind came flying in and it brought up this water spot that was about 70 feet high and um at that point we knew you know that this was that was this uh soul sister kind of thing that happened for us and I followed her career ever since and um I just wanted to wish her uh the best greetings and also the prayers from my nation from my family my nation and the indigenous people um as indigenous people are at the beginning at the end of the nuclear chain and here in uh western New York uh we are downstream on the Keteragus Creek from the West Valley nuclear waste plant and uh through Junsan you know it's really Junsan's campaign um I was sent to Japan in 1983 uh by Dennis Banks and the American Indian Movement with Janet McLeod from Washington State and uh we participated in the eight H bomb conferences there and there were seven indigenous uh delegates at these conferences and take Tokyo Hiroshima and Nagasaki and it was our role and we were invited specifically specifically to introduce uh the issue of nuclear energy because the reality of that that chain is that it's the same chain and it's the same process that leads to weapons that leads to energy and the weapons are only on the end of that chain so there's been a lot of myths you know and a lot of people try to say uh you know all those are two different things the energy and they're not and uh this was the role uh that we had to go to 1983 and to try to bring that awareness and that participation in in Japan uh because there was such a focus on on the weapons and and this rising uh nuclear energy monster you know has been coming so in the early 64 we experienced the uh building of this nuclear waste plant on the Tuscarora Reservation which is in Niagara Falls they actually buried uh nuclear waste from the Manhattan Project in the roadway on true road there and that roadway bubbled up and the hazmat team had to come on and remove it while people uh Tuscarora people lived on that same road and experienced that exposure so in in our communities we've continued to experience in the last 50 plus years this radiation poisoning that nobody likes to talk about because it's always focused on events and it's not talking about this continuum that was started in the mid 20th century so that's you know that's the nuclear free campaign that we have here and I did put a link on there for the nuclear information resource service in uh Washington DC we have a campaign right now to try to uh they're taking down a building uh we're at risk for even more exposure and we're trying to get a mask put on that uh demolition as well as an inventory done so people can go there the other campaign that we have is dismantling uh the doctrine of discovery I don't know how many people have heard that phrase doctrine of discovery is actually a US law that uh you know morphed out of the 15th century papal bulls by the Vatican by the church to invade and and kill anybody who didn't convert to Catholicism in Africa there's papal bulls for Africa and there's papal bulls for uh North America and once Columbus land and uh it was that conquering um got you know that happened and it started this long trajectory that we've been on in terms of domination so there's a link that I put up for this uh film that a great film that has been produced about decoding the domination and really identifying you know some of these uh the white the roots of the white supremacy and the domination that has existed for uh brown red brown and black people in in the Americas so that's on there the third campaign that we have uh it is the uh water is life and and that is very urgent for us now the temperature in Minnesota is is 12 to 17 below zero and there's six different camps that are trying to stop the line three uh all these pipelines you know that are leading to the Alberta tar sands in Canada the Alberta tar sands produces one quarter of the carbon into the atmosphere daily and and that because that oil is so dirty that dirty oil and and the pipelines they're trying to put in are going to bring that oil from Canada and run it to the south and then export it and again nobody in the path of the pipelines is going to benefit from any of that uh the development of the first in the second world mostly European descent peoples has been dependent upon the under development of the third world people of color the wage workers and and no development in the fourth world so what's happening on line three one of our projects of the indigenous women's uh network in Austin taxes was started by Winona LaDuke who has the honor of the earth the website is on there but you can go to the stop line three and read all about how this uh genocide of uh contamination of of indigenous food sources because that whole area where they're putting a new quarter in and uh the corporation culprits that put the first quarter in the pipelines just left them there to rot and to pollute the lands so there's you know there's this uh same thing happening in the nuclear industry that's happening in the oil industry we have corporation culprits who do not take any responsibility for the destruction of the earth and the destruction of livelihoods food sources and specifically for us indigenous peoples you know since the time of columbus uh the uh united states has had this doctrine of discovery policy they made it into law and nowadays for the nuclear issues they say it's a national they call it the national sacrifice area where regional governors get together and decide where they're going to put nuclear waste and it's always on the least populated areas which of course ends up being indigenous people and uh and that's why we're uh under this policy national policy national sacrifice policy that you know eventually uh we will be destroyed and we will be eliminated so our population as seneca's um and nationally we've been going extinct till 1900 and that's why west valley is so important to us because uh we there's no place else that we can go as seneca's this is it we can't go back to europe we can't go to africa we can't go our genetic pool here this is the end of the seneca's if this pollution and this uh uh radiation poisoning continues on so we're fighting real hard here to stop that um as well as to bring me awareness about uh the problems with the nuclear industry a failed industry um at west valley the uh the the corporate culprit was the westinghouse and again it's the westinghouse who saw uh you know uh the plowshares uh went and to the trident missile they went to that missile and now they're promoting oh look at what we've done with these uh submarines these nuclear submarines and its westinghouse that's promoting uh offshore nuclear uh sites so that they'll start producing that as a as a remedy for the climate change so we've got a big fight in in front of us we have to all continue to band together i just want to say thank you for allowing me this uh time and thank you to claire for all of her sacrifices and i just would like all of us to uh every day in the morning to think of her put a big bubble of protection around her in our prayers and just keep her in our hearts as she goes forward with her life so thank you very much agnes you are a dear thank you sister and we're grateful to be in this haudenosaunee confederacy lands uh shared with you thank you for all of what you shared that's very important okay um right now we're going to transition to a bit of music uh from ireland again uh john i i think this is a irish family tradition thing here going on john flan and oan ocanavan our our musicians from dublin ireland uh who play a lot with other musicians and have been part of the band called skippers alley all right john and oan you're on hello hello yeah hi claire um so we're just gonna we're gonna just sing a just quick song this is our own sorry we already said that yeah we're just gonna sing a song these are the others are is great john and oan i'm gonna interrupt just for one second this is ellen uh talking and claire uh just said uh that she'd love to chat with people afterwards um but we'll continue on with the program so if anybody wants to is able to stay on and chat uh she'd love to say hello to you all but uh right now we'll keep going with the program okay and thank you ellen so right now we're gonna hear some letters uh from jail uh from patrick o'neill uh mary writer his wife will read his letter and martha hennessy will read uh well martha hennessy's letter will be read by leah and then i'll introduce the next person after those two so mary you're on thank you thank you thank you can you hear me all right yes it sounds great okay okay good so patrick has been in prison 550 miles from home for the last uh three days no three weeks and a couple of days and he sends his greetings to all of you and especially to claire and what he has written he says the road has been long for those of us on the journey of the king's bay plow shares and now we have reached another milestone so to speak claire i wish you safe landing without any shock i know you will be a light in the darkness to the women you meet on this stock in truth our burden is so very light when compared to what those around us are experiencing in these dens of oppression and despair here at elkton i share conversations daily with men who have been here for 10 years or those who have 10 years more all for offenses that deserve mercy sorry sorry just a minute mary avalan mary avalan i am on i am on a meeting right now mary avalan i'm reading something on a meeting go out of my room now okay i'm sorry everyone all right so let me try that again here listen oh my god sorry 15 year old here um back to patrick here at elkton i share conversations daily with men who have been here for 10 years or those who have 10 years more all for quote offenses that deserve mercy so i try to see my time here as a work of mercy as i know you will see yours claire know that i love you and look forward to the day the seven of us will have a reunion and share stories like all of us my heart aches for our brother steve kelly on december 29 2020 served his one thousandth day in jail and the madness goes on as steve who turned 72 on january 15th as he has secretly moved from jail to jail with no rhyme or reason my prayers are with all of you on this love zoom peace and blessings patrick o'neill and my apologies for our daughter's interruption whoa apologies necessary mary thank you so much all right leah you're up here is a letter from martha hennessey claire you taught me how to share with the women in prison i'm always thinking about how you would respond to certain situations here at danbury federal prison camp i try to remember how you would see it the issues of race relations how this prison is built on indigenous land how the bomb tops off our system of oppression and exploitation also hard-boiled eggs salted peanuts and pickles from commissary make me think of you as my bunkie both you and liz i miss you my friends and co-conspirators i am so grateful you are in the bosom of your family dear liz and claire you are prepared for alderson and i am praying for your health and strength i hear the food is better there than here i love you god is with you see you at our getting out party love martha wow that was sweet leah thank you you i realized i had a different letter that i wanted to let all of our viewers know martha has sent and the letters from all of these folks are posted on our website the kingsbayplowshare7.org website so leah thank you and now we have our friend jack koanjapa of the nuclear resistor and a great support of a direct support of uh father steve kelly the one who was uh spoken about in transit and he'll read words from steve and give a brief update on uh on carmen yeah all right thanks jack thank you marianne so we're coming to you today from the lands of the people of the desert of tohana autumn in tucson arizona and i'm going to read the a note of update from carmen first and then i'll finish with steve's message for claire and us all carmen's been at the satellite camp at fci odisville in upstate new york for almost two months and he's doing reason reasonably well and his indecent spirits they've had a lot of snow lately which has slowed down the mail somewhat that said carmen is grateful for the many letters he is receiving and responds to them as quickly as he can he's also reading a lot he's happy to be receiving the new york times monday through saturday and he shares it with the other prisoners in the camp he asks that you continue to hold him in your prayers and from the father steve kelly he dictated this for to felice it's been a sweet to have this occasion to impart our blessing for our sister our co-defendant claire she steps into the labyrinth of the third phase or witness that is incarceration as a consequence of king's bay plowshares she joins carmen martha and patrick in spirit as a prisoner of conscience the category not listed by her soon to be keepers in the bureau of prisons as to my own situation i relay word to you from a zombie version of the bureau of prisons going by the name of core civic formerly known as corrections corporation of america these institutions were singled out in one of biden's first directors as president when on january 26 he declared the administration was not going to rely on private detention facilities hopefully the profit motive will be removed from the prison industrial complex i'm not holding my breath this place in the middle of the contiguous 48 states is classified as a holdover detention center but i digress claire has plenty of experience in the belly of the beast buried out of sight out of mind by the empire like a slave galley ship oaring toward the prison island of potmos the attempt is to bury her personhood standing up it dawns on me that this third witness the previous two were a the witness at king's bay and b the trial before a jury with judge wood presiding this third witness consists in humanizing oneself in the face of institutional dehumanization and possible degradation and we know that claire meant that she is valiantly preserved the humanity of those around her she is a maven of inclusion and listening for heart and soul of those she interacts with but we know that while this comes naturally to claire it is a full-time effort and thus requires stores and resources of energy from her and support from us may claire and i and our co-defendants be found worthy to undergo this barrage of inconveniences for nuclear abolition god bless everyone thank you jack that's wonderful um i just want to make note here that uh mark coville tell us what the date is of your uh what the court is expecting of you and just for people to know that you're in a sort of limbo as you've not yeah what's the date yeah well i um again i'm insisting on on being sentenced in person and i am refusing to uh leave connecticut for georgia until the state of georgia gets attacked together and the governor of connecticut says that they have gotten their act together so um anyway the new i'm i'm now scheduled i've gotten it basically like a two-month continuance again uh april ninth is the uh next day so and thank you uh to map out we see our our dear friend um and uh thankfully a lawyer um who is really handling this for me and so you know a few weeks beforehand we will assess the situation and uh if um you know if if there's nothing changed then we will uh request another continuance um the you know basically the the judge doesn't have a leg to stand on in terms of justifying uh not giving one so until again until the government um does something to make the people of this country uh safe so that's where we're at thank you brother thanks mark all right now we'll hear from liz macalester who's um she's also co-defendant with the uh hi liz how are you of the king's bay bow shares and liz has served 18 months in the county jail in georgia uh pretrial and is now living in london connecticut with her daughters and their families the liz you're on thank you yes you're welcome well i think it's clear to so many of us that we are in a period of struggle with a movement that is spiritually deep and broadly connected and a movement that knows that it's got to continue to go deeper and broader and yet we need to keep connecting connecting across barriers barriers of faith barriers of ideology the good news however is that we have not imploded in despair after all of these years and all of these efforts um and yet we need to keep on keep on connecting across barriers of faith and ideology you know many of us understand that a deeper resistance is summoned of us and we are trying praying working to be strategic to be faithful to be human and i think we all know that we have to keep at it inspire conspire the next steps be in conversation be in community be in the streets disrupt business as usual for folk prefer poetry to ideology pray for the victims before the nations the powers of death and destruction appear to be in in the upper upper categories but the mayhem with which the powers of this world would bamboozle us well we address those when we like the candle the candle that means in transition resistance and we bamboozle them when we continue to pray and try to live the spirit of that prayer and Claire embodies all of this and she does it so beautifully we love you Claire we love what you're doing and our prayers are going to be with you thank you dear Liz sweet Liz thank you by the way folks for those of you that don't know this Liz and Claire were uh housed together at Alderson way long ago Claire what year was that or Liz 1984 and 1985 Liz had a three-year sentence I had a two-year sentence yeah so people can see the information about the previous plowshares actions the 100 we've got a long history um so just a reminder to if you have any comments or greetings for Claire please use the chat box and also many people have posted links including to the nuclear resistor and to the um the work of Leona Morgan and Agnes Williams and many others are all in the chat box and also in the youtube and facebook page comment section so our next uh just wanted to also make note we're near the end we've only got three more and my closing remarks and we're done so hang in there a little bit longer and and we're uh we'll close up soon our next dear friend dear cousin Emma O'Grady Irish writer and actor from county Galway and his uh Claire's cousin our cousin Claire um Emma you're on hi thanks for inviting me um I'm sitting here in Carol Estran in County Galway which is just a couple of miles away from uh where mine and your and Claire's ancestors came from um I was asked to write a blessing for Claire and uh I thought that zoom might go on fire such is the state of my lapsed catalysism so um this is my attempt at a blessing a blessing for Claire there's a rumble a rumble in the heart you don't even have to close your eyes and quieten the world to hear it it's as loud as can be this rumble which right now you are at the center of can be heard by everyone that has gone before us and will be heard by all of those after us the rumble is what connects us across continents through generations the thing that we are is a manifestation of the dreams of the people gone before us the rumble's name is truth that's why we can hear it loud and clear when our people separated and yours emigrated and mine stayed here in Galway little could they have imagined this moment in their wildest dreams zoom and all honor Burke Grady and Patrick Grady they say you die twice once when you breathe your last breath and a second time later on when someone says your name for the last time honor Burke Grady and Patrick Grady I'm saying their names because no one has said their name is for a long time the names of the people we came from the people we share Irish DNA on both sides of you anti-colonialism in your blood they and the whole glenophosial loss and all the other branches of the tree and all the trees before and after and yet to come can hear the rumble it's an deniable sound I believed I believe they imagined the kind of people we might be I hope we haven't disappointed them I know they're proud of you tonight as I sit here in the place you were dreaded of an east wind is blowing outside one usually east usually it blows from the west to bring you lot home to us for a visit or a fly but this time it's going the other way about time there was some reciprocity and gratitude a little kindness across to a place that needs it to you to your siblings your daughters an east wind to carry all our blessings and love across the Atlantic air to fill the lungs in this time of global breathlessness gusts to bring clarity of thought in the Celtic tradition it's now in bulk spring in bulk meaning in the belly hope of brighter warmer days there is light shining in the darkened corners seeds are deep in the ground they are experts in patience in bulk is symbolized by Saint Bridget may you be safe may you be protected may the fires of Bridget protect you I am speaking gently but that is not to pretend that this is not difficult and unfair and dangerous and messy and painful you did a symbolic act but you are not a symbol or a saint you're a human woman which makes your faith your trust your belief in truth and justice your selfless fight all the more remarkable I'll finish now by reading you a blessing from John O'Donohue's book Anumkara which means soul friend on the day when the weight deadens on your shoulders and you stumble may the clay dance to balance you when your eyes freeze behind the gray window and the ghost of loss gets into you may a flock of colors indigo red green and azure blue come to awaken in you a meadow of delight when the canvas phrase in the cork of thought and a stain of ocean blackens beneath you may there come across the waters a path of yellow moonlight to bring you safely home may the nourishment of the earth be yours may the clarity of light be yours may the fluency of the ocean be yours may the protection of the ancestors be yours and so may a slow wind work these words of love around you an invisible cloak to mind your life thank you oh my god Emma what a cousin we have that was wonderful what a gift so Claire I'm just looking through this list of people that are left and I think it's your turn thanks Marianne and thanks Emma this is our first time really meeting each other and uh I don't I didn't plan to say this but it was uh only a powerful reminder of how we are connected when we met John Flynn and the other guys at the at the pub and uh we were just shooting the shit and John Flynn uh turns like a cat and I said wow you're such a good cat you're such a good actor he says I am an actor I said no he says yes I am and he pulls out this theater program and I say that's my cousin and Ellen had just given me your your program from coming back from Ireland and sure enough um we make friends with your dear friends in a pub here in the cats the cat skills the Irish cat skills as they call them so um yeah I um I prepared my remarks but I have to say I told Ellen about a month ago I don't want to send off I don't want to say anything more I don't want any more uh work for everybody to do and Ellen said well it's not about you Claire this is about uh giving voice to the people who need to say something and I was like of course thanks for taking that so seriously um so thank you each of the women that shared here today Leona who had to go uh maybe you're still there Leona Leona and Agnes and Claire and Emma and then Russell god bless you Russell you're tireless and you're just genuine as can be uh we always benefit from your words and Bill we're about to hear from you as well thank you and hello Denise and um all the musicians that joined us here uh Ellen is uh she knows that resistance without a party and without joy is just not going to go far so we are um in that lineage of joy music dance poetry um may may joy continue um and uh I want to give a shout out to the Kings Bay Clowshares um support community that has done an amazing job of spreading the word and continuing to make connections and build community and a special shout out to Teresa and Robert Randall and Sarah Cool and all those in Georgia who are doing the work to go beyond Trident um and that they're making the connections with the triplets and right where Teresa is is where Ahmad Aubrey was killed uh a year ago this February on the 23rd which is anyway another anniversary that we have here for Sean Greenwood on the 23rd of February 10 years exactly to the day 10 years before um so thank you Teresa and thanks for being on this call here um um I want to acknowledge the ancestors and thank you so much Emma for uh not just speaking about them but really really truly being in touch with our ancestors and that they don't it's not just where we came from but they I truly believe accompany us on our journey and I have felt that powerfully strong powerfully strong um if anyone who knows me knows I I started out a little shy and I definitely am not a writer and the speaker but I have been challenged to ask for the ancestors and this and the cloud of witnesses and the spirit to help me so um everything that comes out of my mouth is only because I have that help or even not just my mouth but my actions going to Kings Bay was not the act of James Bond or any hero at all it was the simple act of a very simple minded person in community um and uh in a very beloved community so I want to acknowledge the cloud of witnesses and I want to um acknowledge that they chose to resist empire with a gospel of non-violence and I'm not using that word to condemn at all anybody's struggle however militant they have to do to uh resist empire I'm just speaking it as an I statement my religion did not start out as an imperial religion but 313 AD with emperor Constantine's conversion Christianity became the religion of empire we Christians have much to atone for as the church has blessed the colonial projects of empire for hundreds of years colonialism requires the triplets of racism militarism extreme materialism and thank you Russell patriarchy it requires those and we I seek to stand in the remnant that follows the nonviolent Jesus who is not a white man who is not a blue-eyed blonde haired man but a brown man living in occupied Palestine I seek to follow that Jesus repenting and atoning for the sins of empire the sin of colonialism the sins of white supremacy militarism and the economies of greed I am grateful also for that spirit that I call upon regularly and that spirit moves through all people in all creation not owned by one or any religion a spirit that calls us to write relationship with the creator with creation spirit that calls us to be our true selves so I want to echo and acknowledge the words that Steve already said that this prison time is just another stage of the action and going to Kings Bay is going for me like going to the head of the beast and yes we will find ourselves in the belly of the beast and it is in those places and the belly of the beast that I have encountered some of my best teachers people in prison and formerly in prison are some of the most amazing powerful teachers of resilience of resistance of joy in the face of the most utter brutality I want to shout out to the prisoners in st. Louis who took it upon themselves to break out of their cells help each other break out of their cells and break the windows and display the banners with their their requests and their their demands and set a fire to the sheets throw some furniture out but not harming each other or anyone else after the first little fight that happened but I really I I want to say the narrative that is just predictable that says they are violent they are murderers they are polices that is not true so I hope it's in the chat that you can see the link of the interviews of what happened there and also the reflection from Heather and Thompson who studied so much about and uh anyway accompanying all this killing and oppression is always the lie so almost just like flip it upside down each time don't be fooled again and again uh about who is violent and who is a criminal uh almost without fail I just flip it upside down if anyone knows me I I do not let people utter the word criminal without actually stopping and having a good conversation about what the real crime is and who the real criminals are so prisons is a site for my next uh my next stop and um I I had a lot of thoughts but I uh got interrupted a lot think think you'll be thankful for that because I didn't completely write them all out and um but I have a few little notes I'm glad that it went up on the on the board that the US plans to spend $100,000 a minute for the next 10 years on its nuclear weapons alone I just contemplate that as we contemplate these triplets and deconstructing uh colonialism and the whole colonial project um US maintains 800 military bases around the world and the most recent ones are in Africa promoting the US project of african that the colonial project continues it's not a thing of the past may we not wait another 500 years or 700 years before we uh make amends for something but may we stop it now and see how it's using our complacency to go full steam ahead and one little thing that um came across my path years ago that just popped up in early morning was you know it cost a million dollars according to one account to keep one US soldier in Afghanistan for one year contrast that with it cost between 14 and 70 thousand dollars to keep a prisoner in prison and it cost between 10 and 60 thousand to keep a person in college for one year I just want to put that out there it's um a very revealing thing if we didn't already know we were possessed by this killing imperial this spirit already that we have normalized it so much that that uh this constant unrepentant killing um hardly raises our our eyebrows anymore hardly raises our eyebrows um so yeah who lives and who dies in this project and whose lives matter so I give thanks for the movement for um liberation that comes from black lives from indigenous struggle from um all the people around the world on their own behalf who are um saying no to this uh death dealing domination and yes to to life and joy and thanks Oona and James are about to play some music and Bill is going to do a blessing and uh I love you all and I don't know how to use the chat here I love to chat but I don't know how to do that so well so I'll stay afterwards to to share some love thank you Claire oh my god that was wonderful um so there's a whole bunch of stuff in the chat I hope that one of us whoever the tech person is can scroll and copy and paste all that and that we preserve that uh along with this uh recorded event tonight so um we'll move right into Oona Grady who is our niece my brother's daughter and James Gascon uh who are part of a band called drink uh Drank the Gold and they live in Saratoga Springs New York uh so you're on thanks Oona and hello hello you guys hi thanks for inviting us and everyone we love you so much Claire sending sending our love and uh yeah we're gonna play play a tune that James wrote yeah we wrote this for the occasion it's called march toward peace awesome and James thank you thank you all right well folks it's uh eight minutes to six o'clock eastern standard time and we now present our dear brother and friend Bill Wiley Kellerman the theologian from Detroit Michigan uh Bill is an author and a nonviolent community activist and civil resister most recently to water shutoffs in Detroit Bill you're on you're welcome welcome welcome love and greetings to all Denise and I uh join you from land the Anishinaabe called Waliata Nong where the water goes around uh the Europeans renamed the Strait de Tois by way of intro I I want to do two things one to mention that for the past three months I've been thinking and writing about uh Daniel Berrigan uh and this week I turned into the publisher of Manuscript and if I may I'd like to share my dedication of that for Claire Grady indeed the greater Grady Klam with Elizabeth McAllister and all of the Kings Bay plow shares for an acting like Daniel and Philip their own hammer witness of love the second thing I would like to do is to take a moment to widen the circle of those of us uh of those who pray with us today uh members of this community who are absent by distance or circumstance or imprisonment and especially those who have crossed over ancestors elders and saints all our relations some of those have been named by Leona and Russell and Emma and uh I think readily of John and Teresa Grady Peter DeMott and I would invite you to name a loud uh and if you like also in the chat those who are a part of this circle and let us take a moment pick their names like to uh remember and bring in the spirit of Ardeth Plattie presente Elmer Moss people are writing names in the chat sister Anne Montgomery Tom Lewis Jerry Sawada uh Jim Missy Father Bill Bix many of the oh St. Oscar Romero Patrice LaMumba Judy Beaumont well I guess this is partly because other people's voices can't chime in on the webinar the gumps uh Joe and Jean Gump Jackie Hudson Lynn Romano for those of you who are on the panel please do uh feel welcome to chime in Russell do you want to add some names or Kristen Schmidt from the Persian Clause shares great great Russell I didn't mean to Heidi Himes Russell go ahead oh you need to be unmuted um no it's okay I just I put some names in the uh oh in the chat chat sister Fanny Lou Hamer sister Ella Baker and many many many others Claudia Jones Claudia Jones great internationalist yes yes Heidi Heinz Heidi Heinz yeah Lynn Romano Gino Bush Diane Sams Bill Quigley says Muhammad Ali a great resistor cabinet and Larry Cloud Morgan it turns out we're related to Muhammad Ali there's one of one of his family members is a grady there to Kasadis Lynn Stewart Fred Hampton Jack Egan Larry Roseba Darcy Day Gordon Judd Leon and Marianne Savitz Kirby Edmonds Jerry Berrigan um Christina says Mary Grace McCoy for partner Rafael Cancel Miranda and Lolita Lebron and Father Alvaro de Boer all of Puerto Rico yay Garrison there's surely no end to this listing of our hearts and we lift them up and summon them to join us in this moment of prayer let's pray spirit of life breath holy and deep who convenes the community beloved and bends the moral arc of this universe toward justice be with us now we are beset with giant triplets a mock and unholy trinity the ruling principalities of our time we name them raging white supremacy predatory capitalism umnesidal weaponry all assault your people and earth come to our assistance make haste to help us we believe and so we pray that these powers cannot separate us from the love of god that they may be engaged in nonviolent struggle defeated with weapons of the spirit they can be exposed made spectacle resisted unto death be dethroned and dismantled they are doomed to pass away and we renounce them with our lives we give thanks for all of those whom we join in this work of action and spirit especially those who have testified among us in this hour bring their labors and their hopes to fruition to the kings bay plowshares may they know and see that day and for claire grady let your hand be always upon her guard her health body and soul less her roots in family and land hold faster daughters lia and rosie in this minute of separation enable her to know notice and build community in the places where it is forbidden denied suppressed may she find ways to touch earth to walk it and savor blooms in the prison yard grant her even in these days a catholic worker sabbatical the hidden graces of reading correspondence stillness and solitude thank you for her vision and discernment and for her willingness may her heart remain unshaken bless her for blessing us through her and with her we pray for all prisoners especially in these fearsome covid days bring them and all of us into your kingdom of beloved community this in the name of jesus a name so misused and yet so strong and in the name of that community to which he calls us amen amen thank you bill wow oh my gosh this feels really hard i just realized that i should have put these other words first and let you go last to tie this as you just tied this so beautifully together um so it's my job to end this with the last final word so bear with me for a sec so um during the massive global movement to disarm nuclear weapons back in the 80s reagan and gorbachev reduced their stockpile from 90 thousand nuclear warheads down to 15 000 according to nobel prize winner dr helen i mean dr ira helfand who came to ithica and shared this news people back then in the 80s knew the threat because of these enumerated things one was living through atomic bomb school drills hiding under desks called duck and cover they knew it from watching the film the day after which showed what nuclear winter looks like they knew it because of living through the meltdown of three-mile island they knew it from the indigenous led fight to end nuclear dumping and testing on sacred lands they knew it from the freeze and the sane campaigns and they knew it also from the early plowshares disarmament direct actions and from the millions weren't marching in the streets so when dr helfand came to ithica just a year ago before covid and was sharing this news and people were saying well this is not the 1980s he said no this is 1979 this is a moment of incubation of the new movement so today the doomsday clock we just learned this last week from the um bulletin of atomic scientists the doomsday clock is set still to 100 seconds to midnight despite the fact that the biden administration is in place and i'd like somebody to please post in the link um to the statement from the uh bulletin if you can in the chat so it's our work now from city to city by city town by town to disarm directly and to divest from pension funds that buy stock and nuclear weapons as new york city did last january 28th the treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons is now in force as set suko and all the others that had worked on um outlawing nuclear weapons so we must rid the world of the last 14 000 the world's movements for justice are merging in the streets and as we used to say in the united farm workers si se puede it can be done so thanks to all of you who've uh stayed with us through this whole long event and let the work of disarmament continue and may we embody that thank you all for being with us and claire we bless you