PEACEFUL SEPTEMBER 8 PROTEST
DEMO PLANNED AT KANSAS CITY CENTER
NUKE MONSTROSITY ON HWY 150
ON KANSAS CITY MISSOURI PUBLIC PROPERTY
A striking new colour poster publicizes another peaceful anti-nuke demonstration planned by peace activists to ‘RESIST THE FIRST NEW NUKE BOMB PLANT IN 32 YEARS’ to be held in Kansas City on September 8, 2010.
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‘CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY’
A group of 14 Catholic Worker peace activists, including Father Jerry Zawada, a well-known Roman Catholic Franciscan priest from Tuscon Arizona, hailing from three countries and twelve American states, were arrested on August 16, 2010 at the Kansas City Center, a former Honeywell nuclear weapons parts plant slated to be renewed and expanded by federal, state and local governments in conjunction with a private sector construction corporation.
These governments seem eager to sell the controversial project, the first new nuclear weapons parts manufacturing facility to be built in the country in 32 years, with promises of more than 2,100 jobs, and have united to proceed with stimulus and borrowed funding in an obscenely expensive public-private partnership with CenterPoint Zimmer LLC, in Kansas City, Missouri, according to a story written by Joshua J. McElwee, and published by the left-wing National Catholic Reporter.
The costs for the planned nuke weapons parts plant are shocking: an estimated US$673,000,000 for construction, and a further US$1,200,000,000 to be spent on maintenance over the next 20 years, most of which goes directly to CenterPoint Zimmer LLC.
Cherith Brook, a Catholic Worker community in Kansas City, published a complete list of the August 16 Kansas City Center anti-nuke resistors at its website: cherithbrookkc.blogspot.com.
1. Ed Bloomer c/0 Des Moines Catholic Worker, Iowa.
2. Felice Cohen-Joppa: Nuclear Resister, Tuscon Arizona.
3. Steve Jacobs: Columbia Catholic Worker, Missouri.
4. Frank Cordaro: Des Moines Catholic Worker, Iowa.
5. Father Jerry Zawada ofm, Tuscon Arizona.
6. Rachel Hoffman: Holy Family Catholic Worker, Kansas City, Missouri.
7. Gina Cook: Holy Family Catholic Worker, Kansas City, Missouri.
8. Robby Jones: Columbia Catholic Worker, Missouri.
9. Brian Terrell Maloy: Iowa Catholic Worker.
10. Josh Armfield: Cherith Brook Catholic Worker, Kansas City Missouri.
11. Donna Constantineau: Kansas City Missouri.
12. Beth Seberger: Kansas City Missouri.
13. Eric Garbison: Cherith Brook Catholic Worker, Kansas City Missouri.
14. Steve Clemens: Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Frank Burgh, writing at the Cherith Brook Catholic Worker community blogspot, reports from Kansas City Missouri in his article:
KANSAS CITY WMDs – Not on our watch!
The K. C. government is actively seeking to subsidize this new federal nuclear weapons production plant with $815 million in municipal bonds outside of NNSA’s annual budget.
Taxpayers will pay an estimated US$4,500,000,000 over 20 years for the Kansas City Plant, which is intended to replace the current KC plant.
The existing plant has been in operation since 1949, manufacturing 85% of the non-nuclear components of the USA’s nuclear arsenal, despite documented reports on health and environmental hazards resulting in employee illnesses and ecosystem contamination.
Frank Cordaro
Kansas City Center resisters in the August 16 demo included Frank Cordaro, a former Catholic priest from the Phil Berrigan Catholic Worker community in Des Moines Iowa.
Other Catholic Worker communities in Tuscon Arizona, Minneapolis Minnesota and Columbia Missouri were also represented on the Kansas City Missouri arrestee list.
Four other people had been arrested at the same site in a similar anti-nuke demo organized by other peace groups in June.
SISTER FILO SHIZUE HIROTA
Included in the number of international protestors, but not among the arrestees (as I erroneously reported earlier at LA ROSA), is Sister Filo Shizue Hirota, a Japanese Mercedarian Missionary of Berriz nun who represents that country’s bishops’ peace and justice secretariat.
My sincere apologies are extended to all those who were confused by my error, particularly members of Sister Filo’s order of Mercedarian sisters!
CathNews Asia says that Sister Hirota is the ‘international relations officer for the Catholic Council for Justice and Peace of the Episcopal Conference of Japan,’ and provides a colour photograph of the Japanese nun provided by Pax Christi International, the main office of the oldest international Catholic pacifist movement, based in Bruxelles, Belge.
Sister Filo Hirota is the translator for Archbishop Joseph Mitsuaki Takami of Nagasaki, who survived the atomic blast on that city while in his mother’s womb, and who is an outspoken critic of nuclear weapons stockpiling, according to another NCR article by Beth Griffin.
‘CRIME AGAINST PEACE’
At the recent May 3 – 28 international review of the United Nations nuclear non-proliferation treaty, Sister Filo Shizue Hirota quoted Nagasaki Archbishop Joseph MItsuaki Takami saying ‘even one nuclear weapon should not be tolerated.’
‘There is no reason whatsoever to justify this deadly weapon,‘ said Archbishop Joseph.
The Nagasaki Archbishop called the existence of nuclear weapons ‘intrinsically evil.’
At the Kansas City Center protest site, Sister Filo Hirota ‘envisioned a new world order in which the “principle of non-violence is translated into the way the world is organized.”‘
Her peaceful international pro-life activities, formed in Christian charity, Spanish colonial missionary zeal, Gandhian pacifism, the long great meditative tradition of Zen Buddhism in Japan, and the tragic Americanist nuclear strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, make Sister Filo a true role model for 21st century pro-life Christian women of peace everywhere.
STRANGE QUIETISM OF THE KANSAS AND MISSOURI BISHOPS
The local bishops of the states of Missouri and Kansas were not known to have participated in the peaceful Gandhian protest in south Kansas City, nor were statements forthcoming from their offices, although Church teaching speaks of the social sinfulness of nations developing, stockholding, transferring and/or selling, threatening to use and using such deadly nuclear weapons, and the late Pope John Paul II condemned them in no uncertain terms in his very popular and influential book The Gospel of Life.
According to Eric Bowers Photoblog, ‘protestors met at the road entrance to the old Bannister complex on Missouri Highway 150 near Botts Road in south Kansas City.’
Eric Bowers provides interesting photos of the protestors at his Photoblog site just prior to their being arrested, but also speculates on why no photos of the actual arrests were allowed by police.
Altogether there were about 100 protestors, according to Donald Bradley writing in the Kansas City Star, 75 of whom ‘locked arms and walked onto the excavation site.
‘Young and old, all colors, they came from 12 states,’ writes Mr. Bradley.
When police announced that the protestors had to leave the property, 14 refused to disperse, and these were the ones who were then arrested and charged.
PROTESTING PADRES: Father Jerry Zawada, on the left, and Father Louis Vitale, on the right, attended the Southwest Witness protest at Fort Huachuca, in Sierra Vista Arizona with Felice Cohen-Joppa, in November 2008. The peaceful Franciscan priests frequently get arrested protesting in the Gandhian tradition. Cohen-Joppa and Zawada were among 14 Catholic Worker peace activists arrested and charged with trespass at the Kansas City Center on August 16, 2010.
[For links to National Catholic Reporter articles by Beth Griffin and Joshua McElwee, Eric Bowers Photoblog, the Kansas City Star article by Donald Bradley, a CathNews Asia article, and other related articles on Father Jerry Zawada, Sister Filo Hirota, Frank Cordaro, Felice Cohen-Joppa and their Catholic Worker – Ghandian pro-life peacenik protestor arrestee friends in the great state of Missouri, please refer to the Comments section below.]
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PEACE PROPAGANDA BY ‘GOYO DE LA ROSA’
DEEP PEACE DANCE POSTER FOR NUCLEAR FREE PORTS
JULIO CABRERA Y MONTUNO SIETE
BENEFIT FOR VANCOUVER ISLAND PEACE SOCIETY
Designed by ‘Goyo de la Rosa’
Below: February 9, 1993 LA ROSA cover design showing same tondo
Donna Wakeford with Raging Grannies
Federal Court of Canada, Vancouver B. C.
Supporting Nuclear-Free Ports Lawsuit
Vancouver Island Peace Society
Love is Stronger than Death
LA ROSA NO. 27, FEBRUARY 14, 1995
Robert Moore-Stewart & Vancouver Island Peace Society
Working for Nuclear-free Ports
Photo from The Big Picture by Andy Sinats and Ian McAllister
Cover design by ‘Goyo de la Rosa’
NANOOSE NO NOOX: JUSTICE
Poster by ‘Goyo de la Rosa’
Young Gandhi wearing a Nanoose No Noox t-shirt,
August 1999 LA ROSA cover design by ‘Goyo de la Rosa’
Nanoose Nuclear Base Map,
showing torpedo testing range,
with ecstatic Teletubby,
by ‘Goyo de la Rosa’
Peace Pilgrim: Young Gandhi in LA ROSA No. 32
Wearing NANOOSE NO NOOX t-shirt
‘Some of Many
Nanoose No Noox Supporters’
including Gandhi!
by ‘Goyo de la Rosa’
LA ROSA TRANSCULTURAL PEACE PROPAGANDA 1988 – 2010
LA ROSA 