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Uncommon Martyrs: The Plowshares Movement and the Catholic Left
Plowshare activists are for more dangerous to the US government than any rapist or murderer or terrorist. Because we are promoting nonviolence. -Jean Gump, imprisoned for a plowshare action "What is clear throughout, however, is that members of Plowshares are willing to risk alienation, physical injury, the rupture of relationships and prison, and, as Wilcox observes, like heroes of the past, 'they are greatly hated and feared while they live, a fate reserved for all uncommon martyrs'. -Hudson Valley Writers Guild
272 pages, Paperback
First published December 28, 2011
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May 26, 2023
AN EXCELLENT HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF SUCH NONVIOLENT PROTESTS
Author Fred Wilcox wrote in the Introduction to this 1991 book, “on September 9, 1980, six men and two women … entered General Electric’s plant… and knew that the consequence of this action could be years in a federal penitentiary… a security guard ordered them to stop, but they ignored his command… racing… toward the room where the nose cones for the Mark 12A warhead are tested. Once inside, they pounded on the nose cones with hammers, ripped blueprints to shreds, and poured vials of their own blood over the nose cones and prints… The police shoved them into vans … The action had lasted only a few moments… the eight WOULD NOT… pay the bondsman. To post bail, they explained, would be to … cooperate would be to concede that their action was somehow illegal.” (Pg. xi-xii)
He continues, “I read brief accounts of the Plowshare Eight’s actions… Who were these people, and what were they trying to accomplish? I was familiar with Daniel and Philip Berrigan, whose opposition to the Vietnam War had inspired hundreds of thousands… About the other members… I knew little or nothing. While I could not fully understand their actions, on some level I had to admire the eight defendants for their courage… Yet conversations with friends did little to explain the meaning behind … Plowshare actions. Indeed, said a member of the local nuclear freeze campaign’s steering committee… Plowshare actions were ‘divisive’ and ‘counterproductive.’ … ‘Nostalgia for the sixties…’ said still another friend. Driving home… I felt bewildered. Why did the Berrigans and their friends seem to … anger and frighten so many people?” (Pg. xiii-xiv)
He observes, “At the very least, Plowshare activists are controversial figures whose ultimate judge will be history… they remain faithful to their belief that people must take direct nonviolent action to beat swords into plowshares… If what the Berrigans and others are saying is true, and if we fail to change our ways, the human race will disappear… should the superpowers decide to truly disarm… it will be most interesting to see how much credit, if any, the Plowshare activists will be given for bringing about world peace. My own sense is that one day our … great-grandchildren will study Plowshare activists as we now do Harriet Tubman… and Mahatma Gandhi.” (Pg. xvi-xvii)
He recounts that in 1965, “Fathers Philip and Daniel Berrigan [stated] that nonviolent defiance of the Vietnam War was not only noble, but absolutely necessary… [Church] reaction to Dan’s participation … was swift, uncompromising, and cruel… he received notice from Cardinal Spellman’s chancery that he was to pack his bags and depart posthaste for Latin America.” (Pg. 17-18) But “Daniel Berrigan returned from exile as a hero to his supporters and a recalcitrant troublemaker to those who had sent him away. He… was now more determined than ever to speak out against the war in Vietnam. During his absence, there had been a substantial and---to the church hierarchy---surprising outpouring of support for Berrigan from liberal Catholics.” (Pg. 23)
In 1967, “Philip explained [to Daniel] that he and a few friends had decided to walk into the draft board… pour blood on the files, and then simply wait there for the police to arrive, accepting whatever consequences there might be. The draft board invasion would be… nonviolent, loving… in the name of peace… Daniel declined [to join them]... explaining that he would stay… doing what he could to support students who were working for peace and social justice. Philip was impatient…” (Pg. 24-25)
He summarizes, “Twelve years before the first official Plowshare action, the groundwork had been established for new forms of resistance to state violence… In his writings from prison, Philip Berrigan would acknowledge the influence of … Thoreau on his thinking and actions. The state, said Thoreau… could never defeat someone who truly stands up for justice. Indeed, the more the state corrupts … its courts, conspires to jail … its critics, the less legitimate it becomes, until finally any real hope for its future is lost.” (Pg. 27-28)
In 1968, “Daniel, Philip and seven friends entered the draft board at Catonsville, Maryland… [and] dumped files into wire baskets… In the parking lot, the demonstrators poured homemade napalm … over the files, then struck a match… They did not run… The FBI raced to the scene… Reaction to the Catonsville protest was resoundingly negative. Even some of those the Berrigans had counted on for support joined the chorus of denunciations---the action was ‘useless,’ ‘violent’ …and ‘scandalous.’ But as the trial opened, supporters of the Catonsville Nine---nuns, priests, rabbis, ministers, students---stood in line each morning, jamming … [the] courtroom wall to wall.” (Pg. 33-34)
He continues, “all nine were sentenced to up to three years in federal prison… As the date set for Dan and Phil’s surrender to federal marshals approached, they weighed various arguments for and against going willingly to prison. After much soul-searching… they decided to go underground. Within less than two weeks, FBI agents captured Philip… but Dan eluded the FBI for four months, turning up at anti-war rallies, taping interviews… disappearing just before his pursuers arrived.” (Pg. 37) He adds, “Daniel … would spend seventeen months … in Danbury federal prison… Philip had been confined in … a tough maximum-security prison… Philip was transferred to Danbury, where he and Daniel struggled to understand and accept one another as brothers and friends… Philip was … imagining that Daniel … was about to … sell out, become yet another ‘dimestore liberal.’ … Philip recovered his perspective and he and Dan began working together.” (Pg. 39-40)
Wilcox notes, “When the tumultuous sixties phased into the New Age seventies, Dan Berrigan did not sail away to the never-never shores of Esalen… or write a best-selling Jesuit cookbook Philip didn’t franchise encounter groups… or vanish into the Himalayas, only to reappear as a Rolls Royce guru. After the fall of Saigon… Vietnam faded quickly into the folds of our collective amnesia and the arms race… was little more than a subliminal nag…” (Pg. 42)
In the ’80, “The real problem wasn’t convincing people they would die in a nuclear war, or from the effects of radiation and nuclear winter that would ensue. Anyone with a modicum of good sense knew that. The problem was telling people that our country … is a hit-man, mercenary, manipulator, swindler, split personality, genius of disguise, black belt in sleight of hand, world-class conjurer.” (Pg. 62)
Jean Gump, one of the Plowshare Nine, stated, “Plowshare activists are far more dangerous to the U.S. government than any rapist or mass-murderer or terrorist. Because we are promoting an idea that is so very contrary to our national policy. We’re promoting NONVIOLENCE. A dangerous concept articulated two thousand years ago by the man to whom millions of Americans pay homage every Sunday, including men and women who spend the rest of the week designing or building weapons of mass destruction.” (Pg. 74)
Lin Romano “thought and prayed. Certainly she had all the right excuses for not engaging in a Plowshare action: ‘She could accomplish more outside of prison. She deserved to have children… The poor and the homeless really needed her.’ But millions of children were starving to death while she sat pondering her own fate, dying because the world’s governments chose to squander trillions of dollars each year on military hardware.” (Pg. 91-92) Asked about the effectiveness of the Plowshare actions, Romano replied, “I don’t try to measure the effectiveness of our action, because that just can’t be done. But it was a very important turn in my life….” (Pg. 108-109)
He/they summarize, “The Cold War may be over, but the arms race is clearly not. Peace, say Plowshare activists, does not come through strength, but through love. It would be wonderful to believe that events in Eastern Europe will convince the superpowers to disarm, but that would mean a radical transformation of our own wartime economy… It would mean an open, not secret, government, a constitutional democracy rather than a national security state.. [that] the multinational corporations … will just never accept.” (Pg. 184) Wilcox concludes, “The rhetoric once used to rationalize building missiles instead of schools… instead of funding hospitals, and to prepare for war rather than converting to a peacetime economy, makes little sense today. The world has changed. Our own nation’s vision has not.” (Pg. 193)
This book will be of great interest to those studying nonviolent protests.
Author Fred Wilcox wrote in the Introduction to this 1991 book, “on September 9, 1980, six men and two women … entered General Electric’s plant… and knew that the consequence of this action could be years in a federal penitentiary… a security guard ordered them to stop, but they ignored his command… racing… toward the room where the nose cones for the Mark 12A warhead are tested. Once inside, they pounded on the nose cones with hammers, ripped blueprints to shreds, and poured vials of their own blood over the nose cones and prints… The police shoved them into vans … The action had lasted only a few moments… the eight WOULD NOT… pay the bondsman. To post bail, they explained, would be to … cooperate would be to concede that their action was somehow illegal.” (Pg. xi-xii)
He continues, “I read brief accounts of the Plowshare Eight’s actions… Who were these people, and what were they trying to accomplish? I was familiar with Daniel and Philip Berrigan, whose opposition to the Vietnam War had inspired hundreds of thousands… About the other members… I knew little or nothing. While I could not fully understand their actions, on some level I had to admire the eight defendants for their courage… Yet conversations with friends did little to explain the meaning behind … Plowshare actions. Indeed, said a member of the local nuclear freeze campaign’s steering committee… Plowshare actions were ‘divisive’ and ‘counterproductive.’ … ‘Nostalgia for the sixties…’ said still another friend. Driving home… I felt bewildered. Why did the Berrigans and their friends seem to … anger and frighten so many people?” (Pg. xiii-xiv)
He observes, “At the very least, Plowshare activists are controversial figures whose ultimate judge will be history… they remain faithful to their belief that people must take direct nonviolent action to beat swords into plowshares… If what the Berrigans and others are saying is true, and if we fail to change our ways, the human race will disappear… should the superpowers decide to truly disarm… it will be most interesting to see how much credit, if any, the Plowshare activists will be given for bringing about world peace. My own sense is that one day our … great-grandchildren will study Plowshare activists as we now do Harriet Tubman… and Mahatma Gandhi.” (Pg. xvi-xvii)
He recounts that in 1965, “Fathers Philip and Daniel Berrigan [stated] that nonviolent defiance of the Vietnam War was not only noble, but absolutely necessary… [Church] reaction to Dan’s participation … was swift, uncompromising, and cruel… he received notice from Cardinal Spellman’s chancery that he was to pack his bags and depart posthaste for Latin America.” (Pg. 17-18) But “Daniel Berrigan returned from exile as a hero to his supporters and a recalcitrant troublemaker to those who had sent him away. He… was now more determined than ever to speak out against the war in Vietnam. During his absence, there had been a substantial and---to the church hierarchy---surprising outpouring of support for Berrigan from liberal Catholics.” (Pg. 23)
In 1967, “Philip explained [to Daniel] that he and a few friends had decided to walk into the draft board… pour blood on the files, and then simply wait there for the police to arrive, accepting whatever consequences there might be. The draft board invasion would be… nonviolent, loving… in the name of peace… Daniel declined [to join them]... explaining that he would stay… doing what he could to support students who were working for peace and social justice. Philip was impatient…” (Pg. 24-25)
He summarizes, “Twelve years before the first official Plowshare action, the groundwork had been established for new forms of resistance to state violence… In his writings from prison, Philip Berrigan would acknowledge the influence of … Thoreau on his thinking and actions. The state, said Thoreau… could never defeat someone who truly stands up for justice. Indeed, the more the state corrupts … its courts, conspires to jail … its critics, the less legitimate it becomes, until finally any real hope for its future is lost.” (Pg. 27-28)
In 1968, “Daniel, Philip and seven friends entered the draft board at Catonsville, Maryland… [and] dumped files into wire baskets… In the parking lot, the demonstrators poured homemade napalm … over the files, then struck a match… They did not run… The FBI raced to the scene… Reaction to the Catonsville protest was resoundingly negative. Even some of those the Berrigans had counted on for support joined the chorus of denunciations---the action was ‘useless,’ ‘violent’ …and ‘scandalous.’ But as the trial opened, supporters of the Catonsville Nine---nuns, priests, rabbis, ministers, students---stood in line each morning, jamming … [the] courtroom wall to wall.” (Pg. 33-34)
He continues, “all nine were sentenced to up to three years in federal prison… As the date set for Dan and Phil’s surrender to federal marshals approached, they weighed various arguments for and against going willingly to prison. After much soul-searching… they decided to go underground. Within less than two weeks, FBI agents captured Philip… but Dan eluded the FBI for four months, turning up at anti-war rallies, taping interviews… disappearing just before his pursuers arrived.” (Pg. 37) He adds, “Daniel … would spend seventeen months … in Danbury federal prison… Philip had been confined in … a tough maximum-security prison… Philip was transferred to Danbury, where he and Daniel struggled to understand and accept one another as brothers and friends… Philip was … imagining that Daniel … was about to … sell out, become yet another ‘dimestore liberal.’ … Philip recovered his perspective and he and Dan began working together.” (Pg. 39-40)
Wilcox notes, “When the tumultuous sixties phased into the New Age seventies, Dan Berrigan did not sail away to the never-never shores of Esalen… or write a best-selling Jesuit cookbook Philip didn’t franchise encounter groups… or vanish into the Himalayas, only to reappear as a Rolls Royce guru. After the fall of Saigon… Vietnam faded quickly into the folds of our collective amnesia and the arms race… was little more than a subliminal nag…” (Pg. 42)
In the ’80, “The real problem wasn’t convincing people they would die in a nuclear war, or from the effects of radiation and nuclear winter that would ensue. Anyone with a modicum of good sense knew that. The problem was telling people that our country … is a hit-man, mercenary, manipulator, swindler, split personality, genius of disguise, black belt in sleight of hand, world-class conjurer.” (Pg. 62)
Jean Gump, one of the Plowshare Nine, stated, “Plowshare activists are far more dangerous to the U.S. government than any rapist or mass-murderer or terrorist. Because we are promoting an idea that is so very contrary to our national policy. We’re promoting NONVIOLENCE. A dangerous concept articulated two thousand years ago by the man to whom millions of Americans pay homage every Sunday, including men and women who spend the rest of the week designing or building weapons of mass destruction.” (Pg. 74)
Lin Romano “thought and prayed. Certainly she had all the right excuses for not engaging in a Plowshare action: ‘She could accomplish more outside of prison. She deserved to have children… The poor and the homeless really needed her.’ But millions of children were starving to death while she sat pondering her own fate, dying because the world’s governments chose to squander trillions of dollars each year on military hardware.” (Pg. 91-92) Asked about the effectiveness of the Plowshare actions, Romano replied, “I don’t try to measure the effectiveness of our action, because that just can’t be done. But it was a very important turn in my life….” (Pg. 108-109)
He/they summarize, “The Cold War may be over, but the arms race is clearly not. Peace, say Plowshare activists, does not come through strength, but through love. It would be wonderful to believe that events in Eastern Europe will convince the superpowers to disarm, but that would mean a radical transformation of our own wartime economy… It would mean an open, not secret, government, a constitutional democracy rather than a national security state.. [that] the multinational corporations … will just never accept.” (Pg. 184) Wilcox concludes, “The rhetoric once used to rationalize building missiles instead of schools… instead of funding hospitals, and to prepare for war rather than converting to a peacetime economy, makes little sense today. The world has changed. Our own nation’s vision has not.” (Pg. 193)
This book will be of great interest to those studying nonviolent protests.
Displaying 1 of 1 review