Coordinator Trip Report - California Resent-Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 12:41:59 -0600 (CST) Coordinator Trip Report - California This report covers the period of Feb 29-March 3 as I traveled to Santa Barbara, California to attend the weekend retreat of the Pacific Life Community (PLC). The retreat had more than 50 activists from as far away as Vancouver, Canada to Tucson, Arizona and points in between. A large number of those at the event were from Catholic Worker communities up and down the west coast. The event was hosted by Dennis Apel and his wife Tensie Hernandez who run a Catholic Worker house in Santa Maria, a farm worker community, very near Vandenberg AFB. Dennis and Tensie have been regular vigilers at Vandenberg for years and he has recently been jailed for civil disobedience at the base. I was invited to the retreat as a co-presenter with Rev. John Dear, a Jesuit priest and long-time peace activist. On March 1 we both were asked to share reflections on what we have been hearing and seeing as we travel across the country. In unrehearsed presentations that were intended to stimulate conversion, John and I told stories about the sense of despair and hopelessness now prevailing among many in the peace and social justice movements. This led to a wonderfully honest sharing over the next hour as lifelong dedicated people who house and feed the poor and protest war poured their hearts out to one another. In the end we talked about where hope was found and John quoted Martin Luther King Jr. saying that hope came from our determined effort to keep making demands on the system. So the message to me was that hope does not come from external sources - it flows from our own ability to stand up during hard times and speak the truth as we best see it. Those collective voices of courage then spread hope. On the evening of March 1 the PLC retreat moved to an Episcopal church in town where a community event was held. Again John Dear and I spoke, this time in longer talks, and were followed by a presentation from The Atomic Mirror about indigenous people throughout the Pacific who have been impacted by the nuclear age. On March 2 a bus took the folks from the PLC retreat about one hour north to Vandenberg AFB for a demonstration to mark the 25th anniversary of public protest at the base. Vandenberg is the west coast launch facility for the Pentagon. It is the place where nuclear weapons missile testing has been launched from over the past many years. Recently George W. Bush deployed so-called "missile defense" interceptors at the base and Vandenberg regularly launches military satellites into space. In recent weeks the base was involved in the shoot down of the falling spy satellite. It was more than ironic that just days after the shoot down, another schedule launch from Vandenberg had to be cancelled because space junk from the recent anti-satellite test was still orbiting the Earth making it impossible to try to launch through the space debris. Oh, the consequences of the "space warriors" actions are coming back to haunt them. The protest at Vandenberg was attended by over 150 people. The Los Angeles Catholic Worker community organized a busload of people to come north from the L.A. area and we all had a rally and then a march outside the base. Military police watched us from horseback, MP's in plain clothes took our pictures, and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) buzzed overhead sending back "real-time" video to HQ on the base. They get to play with all their high-security toys at these protests. The base name and logo were shrouded in black cloth on the stone wall near the front gate. Temporary orange fencing was strung all along the front of the base to make it hard for us to gather. After a die-in, three protestors walked past the green line painted in the road and were arrested for trying to enter the base. They went forward on our behalf to invite the military personnel to come out and join with us in opposition to moving the arms race into space. Several local media outlets covered the demonstration. It was a great and inspiring weekend for me. There are some great heroes in the Catholic Worker movement and a real honor to share food, song, reflections, and to protest with them. On May 3 I began the long coast-to-coast trip home. It took three flights and a total of 12 hours to make it back to Maine. My next trips take me to the University of Maine-Orono on March 27 to give an analysis on the "elections" game at a forum sponsored by the Department of Philosophy. Then on March 29 I speak in Bethlehem, PA at the peace group Lepoco's annual dinner. So now I rest and try to catch up with things here. Bruce K. Gagnon Coordinator Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space PO Box 652 Brunswick, ME 04011 (207) 443-9502 http://www.space4peace.org globalnet@mindspring.com http://space4peace.blogspot.com (Blog)