Pictures of my first arrest, 1989

Very low-key affair: I walked up to the guard post at the main entrance to the Grand Forks, ND, Air Force base and asked to be allowed to present a Notice to the commander of the base, informing him that nuclear weapons are a crime against humanity, and requesting him to remove them, and the military personnel, from the base. I was arrested and taken to jail, where I spent 5 days, until I was taken to court and sentenced to time served. It was my second arrest, but my first time in jail. I felt very good about standing up for what I believed, in a peaceful, respectful, and nonviolent manner.

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My mother just sent me these pictures, which she found while cleaning house. They were sent to her by a press photographer who had browbeat the guards into allowing her onto the base to take them.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(ZenCruiser @ Jun 2 2007, 04:12 PM) [snapback]454081[/snapback]</div>

As you suggest, I was ordered to leave, and I refused to leave without an opportunity to hand my Notice personally to the commander of the base.

In subsequent years, the U.S.A. has asserted the right to invade and drop bombs on countries it claims have weapons of mass destruction, killing their civilians and obliterating their civilian infrastructure. I was not asserting the right to bomb or kill anyone: Merely the right of a citizen to confront the local officer presiding over a sufficient quantity of WMDs to exterminate the entire human race several times over.

There are 150 Minuteman III missiles in the eastern part of North Dakota, operated by the Grand Forks AFB. Each of those missiles has 3 warheads, and each of those warheads has enough explosive power to incinerate one entire large city. In addition, at the time of my protest, the same air base also had a large number of B1B bombers, also armed with nuclear weapons. Further, because the MX missile (not located in ND) is much more accurate than the older Minuteman III, the MX would have been the weapon aimed at hardened military targets, while the Minuteman III missiles were and are surely aimed at "soft" targets, not requiring the same degree of accuracy: in other words, civilian cities and civilian infrastructure. There is no legitimate use for these weapons, unless you believe it would be a good thing to exterminate our "enemies" quickly, and condemn ourselves to die slowly from the world-wide radioactive fallout and nuclear winter that would follow.

So, yes, I broke the law, and I served my time. But I regard the law, in this case, as in many others, to be illegitimate.