{"id":2702,"date":"2019-09-06T16:07:12","date_gmt":"2019-09-06T21:07:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.durhamfriendsmeeting.org\/?p=2702"},"modified":"2019-09-02T11:01:22","modified_gmt":"2019-09-02T16:01:22","slug":"durham-meeting-members-participate-in-vigils-at-bath-iron-works","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.durhamfriendsmeeting.org\/?p=2702","title":{"rendered":"Durham Meeting Members Participate in Vigils at Bath Iron Works"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\u00a0\u00a0By Renee Cote and Brown Lethem<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0 Durham Monthly Meeting of Friends, along with over a dozen Maine organizations including Maine Veterans for Peace, has co-sponsored vigils at the \u201cchristenings\u201d of two warships to be launched from Bath Iron Works. The USS Lyndon B. Johnson, the third and final Zumwalt-class guided missile destroyer to be built at BIW, was \u201cchristened\u201d on April 27, 2019. During that vigil, 25 people were arrested for engaging in nonviolent civil disobedience. Eight weeks later, on June 22, 22 people were arrested during the \u201cchristening\u201d of the USS Daniel Inouye, a naval destroyer. Dozens of people came out in solidarity during both events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \nBrown Lethem, along with several members of Durham Monthly Meeting,\nparticipated in both vigils, creating two pieces of banner art and being\narrested during the June 22 vigil. During both vigils, witnesses for peacetime\nconversion of the BIW facility gathered at the entrances with banners and signs proposing\nthe many benefits to society of a conversion to renewable green energy and the\nde-escalation of the military budget.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \nThe Sagadahoc\nCounty District Attorney\u2019s Office announced on May 9 that it would decline\nprosecution of the peace activists arrested on April 27. Those arrested on June\n22 were offered bail; nine of the 22 declined bail and asked to be released on\ntheir own recognizance. The nine were later sent to Two Bridges Regional Jail\nin Wiscasset and held over the weekend in lockup, where they witnessed in\nsolidarity with those being held long term to the insufficient food and poor\nconditions in the jail.  They also reported that the majority of the\nprisoners supported their efforts to convert the nation to a peacetime budget\nthat benefits human needs as well as their efforts to save the planet from the\nclimate crisis. Eventually all nine were released without paying bail. Hearings\nwill be held in August.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \nLong-time peace\nactivists Bruce Gagnon and Mary Beth Sullivan of Bath were among those arrested\nat the June 22 \u201cchristening.\u201d Bruce described their experience at Two Bridges\nto Brown Lethem: \u201cAfter we were released from the Two\nBridges jail yesterday one of the guards came out and thanked me for my service\nin the military.  (I had on my VFP sweatshirt.)  I told him that we\nvets are not so proud of our time in the military but are actually more proud\nof our current work for peace and environmental sustainability.  We had a\nlong talk and as he was going back into the jail he shook my hand and thanked\nme again.\u201d
\n     Russell Wray, an artist and\nlong-time environmental activist from Hancock, stated in an email to Renee\nCote: \u201cMy time in Two Bridges jail made it even more clear to me\nhow little the current system we are living under cares for those with little\nmoney or political clout, including all those other species we are supposed to\nbe sharing this planet with. Those in power don\u2019t even seem to be concerned\nwith their own, or their children’s future, as has been made clear by their\nmilitary and environmental policies. This insanity has to change \u2026 and\nhopefully it will, as more and more people are waking up to the crisis we are\nconfronted with, and doing something about it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0By Renee Cote and Brown Lethem \u00a0\u00a0 Durham Monthly Meeting of Friends, along with over a dozen Maine organizations including Maine Veterans for Peace, has co-sponsored vigils at the \u201cchristenings\u201d of two warships to be launched from Bath Iron Works. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":213,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8,72],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","category-peace-and-social-concerns"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9rLvf-HA","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durhamfriendsmeeting.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durhamfriendsmeeting.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durhamfriendsmeeting.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durhamfriendsmeeting.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/213"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durhamfriendsmeeting.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2702"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.durhamfriendsmeeting.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2702\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2704,"href":"https:\/\/www.durhamfriendsmeeting.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2702\/revisions\/2704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durhamfriendsmeeting.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durhamfriendsmeeting.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durhamfriendsmeeting.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}