THE DAY THE EMPIRE FELL

VINCENT SCOTTI EIRENÉ

Foreword by Mark Vender Vennen

a

Barbary Shore

book

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons

Attribution-Noncommercial-

No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

Published by Barbary Shore, Pittsburgh.

http://barbaryshore.com

barbary.shore@gmail.com

This book would not have been possible if it was not for the love of my family: Rebecca, Caitlin

and Chenoa.

THE DAY THE EMPIRE FELL

CONTENTS

i. Foreword by Mark Vander Vennen

1. Molly’s Clear Broth Chicken Soup

7. Uncle Joe Goes To The Circus

11. 1968: What 35¢ Will Buy You

13. I Thought You Had The Handcuffs!

17. On The Road

25. The Children Of Edward Abbey

31. The Brains Of Auschwiz

43. Olympic Reflections

51. Caitlin Is Born

55. Crime And Punishment

59. Italian Toast, Margarine On The Side, Please

63. Winking At Fallujah

67. Empty Playgrounds

71. The Last Visit To My Father

75. From Pittsburgh To New Orleans

79. Malik Rahim

91. Community and Nonviolent Confrontation

101. Pilgrimage to Los Alamos

Foreword: The Art of Peacemaking

Mark Vander Vennen

The Day the Empire Fell is a remarkable book,

and I am delighted to commend it to you.

Vincent Scotti Eirené is a consummate

storyteller. In this book he offers poetic vignettes

about his family and his lifelong journey into

nonviolent peacemaking. Along the way he takes

us across the country, from Pittsburgh to Chicago,

Colorado, Oregon, Idaho, California, Nevada, the

White House, New Orleans, Atlanta, and even

beyond, to Fallujah and Baghdad. We meet an

assortment of colorful characters, people like

i

Grandma Molly, Phillip Berrigan, Hungry Bear,

Uncle Joe, Black Panther Malik Rahim, Martin

Sheen, judges, lawyers, activists and others.

Stitched together, the stories serve as a striking

miniature of our age. They form a snapshot of a

time in American history, flashes of what Jack

Kerouac did for an earlier era with his book On

the Road.

Throughout these finely rendered stories,

Vincent’s reflections are tender, and his

juxtapositions are startling. For me, all of them

come together naturally in one theme: the art of

peacemaking. And at least two aspects of that

theme stand out.

The first is humor. These vignettes illustrate

that humor is at the core of Vincent’s

peacemaking. Humor is not an interesting add-on,

nor is it simply an endearing aspect of Vincent’s

personality. On the contrary, humor is an essential

tool by which we creatively engage people. It is

the door into building respectful and genuine

ii

relationships with one’s opponents, without which

peace is impossible. I know of no one who knows

this—and practices it—better than Vincent.

Vincent is to peacemaking what Patch Adams is to

medicine.

The second theme is nonviolence, and it is this

which is the central plea of the book. Violence is

nonpartisan. It runs underneath the polarizations of

our age, such as the Left and the Right. Vincent

uses poignant stories from his own family to show

that the confrontation between violence and

nonviolence lies within our own hearts. This book

serves as a clarion call: perhaps at no time in

American history is nonviolent direct action, in the

spirit of Mahatma Ghandi and Martin Luther King,

more desperately needed than today. History has

done its cruel work of largely sanitizing the

legacies of Ghandi and King. Daniel Berrigan has

pointed out that while the remnant of the peace

movement attempts to assess the damage done to

Iraq, it has avoided assessing the damage done to

iii

our moral conscience that will allow the next war

to occur. Today an ideology of fear and hate has

sanctioned, without questioning, unprecedented

economic and military violence, done in our

names, even in the name of Christianity. But Jesus

calls us to love our enemies. Nonviolence

introduces an incisive, comprehensive alternative

to the “logic” of self-interest and the cynical,

reactive patterns of violence. It throws up a mirror

that forces us to confront ourselves.

On these pages Vincent tells stories; let me tell

two stories which illustrate that Vincent walks

what he talks. In the early 1980s, at the height of

the Cold War, Vincent and I participated in

C h r i s t i a n P e a c e m a k e r s i n P i t t s b u rg h ,

Pennsylvania. Christian Peacemakers undertook

nonviolent civil disobedience at the U.S. Steel

Building in downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,

then headquarters of Rockwell International, the

third largest military contractor in the United

States. At one such witness, a police officer

iv

dragged Vincent away by his hair. Though in

obvious pain, Vincent responded beautifully, in

accordance with our training in nonviolence: he

did not resist. An anti-war bystander, a self-

described Leftist, ran up to the scene and yelled,

“Hey listen, he’s a human being, you [expletive]

pig!” Later, when Vincent told this story to his

close friend Phillip Berrigan, I remember Phil

laughing, laughing and laughing some more, his

laughter deep and free.

In the 1990s Vincent was falsely accused of

assaulting a police oficer at a demonstration. The

reverse had actually happened: a number of

policemen had viciously assaulted Vincent. A

crucial character witness in Vincent’s defense was

the retired Head of Security at the U.S. Steel

Building. Vincent had developed such a mutually

respectful and genuine relationship with him over

the years that the Security Head was delighted to

testify on Vince’s behalf (as were Phil Berrigan

and actor Martin Sheen). The testimony of the

v

police was such that at various points during the

trial the spectators, jury and judge broke out into

laughter. The jury rightly declared Vincent

innocent of the trumped-up charges.

Finally, a word of advice. Never let Vincent

leave a restaurant ahead of you. At the door, he

will turn and address the entire restaurant with an

enthusiastic “good night everybody”. In the time

that it takes the patrons to turn towards the door,

Vincent will have left, leaving you to face the

crowd.

In a manner not unlike that scene, this book

sets up a confrontation. Like nonviolence itself, it

throws up a mirror. I invite you to look steadily

into it and ask whether its reflections give a more

accurate picture of ourselves and of contemporary

America than the narratives given by pundits and

academics, stories emanating from the false

polarizations of Right and Left.

vi

I am convinced that out of this difficult but

courageous personal confrontation with violence,

comes peace.

Mark Vander Vennen is the co-author of Hope in

Troubled Times: A New Vision for Confronting Global

Crises, Foreword by Desmond Tutu (Baker, 2007).

vii

Molly’s Clear Broth Chicken Soup.

Molly married my grandfather in a small town

outside of Naples, Italy when she was a teenager.

She was brought to America one year later

pregnant with no knowledge of English or the

American way of life.

Molly lived in the United States until she was

79 years old. She died only knowing a small

handful of English phrases and never having

learned how to drive. She had a tremendous fear

of outliving her husband. She knew nothing of the

world outside of her Italian neighborhood; her

grocer and butcher both spoke Italian. Yet this

1

humble woman raised and cared for her husband,

four sons and two daughters.

For my grandmother, whom we called Molly, it

was time to be strategic if her family would be fed.

It was after World War II and food and other items

were rationed so that the government could feed

the armed forces. To obtain these basic needs,

ration stamps were issued according to the size of

your family. Taking advantage of this small

opportunity, Molly applied to run a small produce

store out of her garage. Back then the feds allowed

a 15% spoilage rate. Even when there was not 15%

spoilage, she would take it. At the end of each day

she would close her makeshift store and allow

other mothers with large families to come into the

garage. She would lock the door and they would

divide the spoils of war.

Even before I was born, my father placed

boxing gloves over my bedroom door. When I was

4 or 5, he started to throw balls at me. I had no

2

idea what he was doing. He never realized that I

was a southpaw, and kept trying to make me a play

ball as if I was right handed. For all I know, if I'd

played right, I may have become the next Mickey

Mantle. This was not meant to be.

Upon realizing I would never be a boxer or

basketball player like him, he would go into

violent rages and beat me. Knowing that there was

no way to meet this problem head on, Molly asked

if she could babysit me every Saturday.

I loved our Saturdays together. Molly took me

shopping in Market Square, a small shopping

district in the heart of downtown Pittsburgh. We

would shop for fresh meat and produce, staples

and bread. Upon arriving home she would cook,

and cook and cook... she would dramatically hold

up a green pepper and say to me, Oh VJ, this

pepper is a work of art! How can I bring myself to

cut this up?

I was so skinny that she would try to feed me

for eight hours each Saturday. She would put

3

honey in a double boiler and throw in tufts of

pastry dough, then pour out the cooked nuggets

and honey onto the cutting board. She would

explain, saying, look VJ, this is struvoli.

When I finally escaped my embattled home

life and went to school at Ohio State University, I

missed Molly the most. I would call her each

Saturday, and her voice was soothing in such

violent times. In the spring of 1970, all it took was

twenty eight seconds of gun fire – four dead and

ten wounded – to sound the end of Hope and the

sixties at Kent State. The campuses went up in

flames, and over 250 schools were closed.

It would take another five years until the war

was slowed down to the point that the US lost. In

April 1975, the world's mightiest military was

pushed out of a country the size of New Jersey.

Over 3.2 million Vietnamese had died in this

undeclared war.

For Molly it was another war that ended her

life. Her sons had formed a construction company,

4

V. Scotti and Sons. The new-found wealth of this

first generation Italian-American family tore them

limb from limb. There were divorces and

accusations of theft. The attempt to pass the

concrete construction business to the grandsons

failed.

They say Molly had a soft heart and that is

why she died in 1973, but I knew differently. It

was the obscenity of her sons fighting over money.

It broke her heart.

Months before she died, I called her and asked

her to share an old family secret. Molly, I asked,

how did you make your chicken soup broth clear?

She answered, well VJ, let me tell you: I strain

the broth through asbestos cheese cloth.

Well, I thought, we can’t all be perfect.

5

Uncle Joe Goes to the Circus.

Light years before the Pentagon was levitated,

or Timothy Leary was kicked out of Harvard for

proclaiming far and wide the benefits of LSD, or

the armies of the night thrust flowers into the

barrels of M-16s at the Pentagon, or the Black

Panthers initiated their breakfast program... way

before Abbie Hoffman ordered us to shoot our

parents or the Pieman took aim at the homo-

terrified orange juice queen Anita Bryant... before

the Yippies hatched the idea to throw dollars onto

the floor of the stock exchange or Vietnam

Veterans threw their Purple Hearts on to the steps

7

of Congress... before Martin Luther King went to

Memphis, Uncle Joe took us to the circus.

It was 1958 and after much booming, millions

of post-war babies were let loose onto the world.

Here in the USA, in Pittsburgh, the Scottis were

doing their part; they had conceived thirty-three

first cousins (including the Navarros, Della Gattis,

Zaccharos and the Della Vecchias) into this

blossoming Italian-American family.

With great expectation we sat in darkness on

dirty bleachers, with an offensive acidic smell in

the air. From the sky came a single beam of light

that landed on a little man with a big manual

megaphone to announce the night's activities.

Women and men flew through the air, human

cannon balls crossed the sky, elephants moved to

their knees and gave out an other worldly bellow,

tigers leapt through flaming hoops. A little car

screamed across the big top floor and crashed into

a pole and out of the cracked shell of the car

emerged a thousand clowns.

8

When my father, Adolfo, returned from WWII,

he and his father Vincenzo were asked if they

could pour cement sidewalks. They were amused

by the question and answered in the affirmative.

Then father and son were asked if they could

construct all of the sidewalks in Mt. Lebanon

Township. What had been an unobtainable treasure

could now be gained by crisscrossing a sea of

suburban green lawns with concrete paths. That is

when the trouble began.

As the iced Cokes and pillows of cotton candy

were passed down the row to legions of squealing

boomers, my father bent way down and whispered

in my ear: Look at Uncle Joe. I looked over, his

body shaking with laughter, he was imitating one

of the clowns. He had a fist full of dollar bills,

which he passed out to us...

See Uncle Joe, my father said. He will never

amount to anything.

Do not be like Uncle Joe! Save your money

and make something of yourself!

9

Epochs before the John and Yoko bed-in for

peace I realized who I was to be like, that I must

run away and join the circus and that I must never

never save my money. For Uncle Joe showed me

that money is only valuable when given away.

Uncle Joe died in 1984, outside the favor of his

nuclear family. At the time of his death, he was

volunteering his time teaching concrete

construction to convicts at Pennsylvania’s Western

Penitentiary.

10

1968: What Thirty-Five Cents Will Buy You.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out thirty-

five cents. I had a decision to make: should I buy a

pack of Larks? Buy lunch? Skip school and take a

trolley downtown? As I climbed aboard the South

Hills/Drake Line trolley the driver looked upon me

with suspicion. Why was I not in school?

Weeks before as we were sitting in class, we

watched curiously out the window as local police

arrested some college students for trespassing on

school property. We rushed to the edge of campus

to meet these intruders, college students, anti-war

activists, and were met with people just a few

11

years older than us. They were dressed in army

trench coats, with patches that seemed to mock the

military garb. They told us of a demonstration

against the war, calling for a ceasefire, a

moratorium. Behind the eyes of these Pitt students

was a wild desperation. I promised myself I would

go.

As I left the trolley for downtown I was

confronted with tens of thousands of suits, dresses

and construction workers. Soon I found out that a

moratorium against the war meant folk took the

day off of work to demand an end to the killing.

There was not a hippie in the crowd.

This was Pittsburgh and people, normal

people, were angry. Enough people had died.

Enough had been killed. The buttons of that day

screamed:

Out Now!

12

I Thought You Had the Handcuffs!

With Phillip Berrigan we planned various acts

of civil disobedience. The beauty of this type of

witness is that it pulls the opponents into a drama

that they have no interest in being part of. This is

an effective and faithful way to break up the false

consensus that surrounded the building of five

nuclear weapons a day, the US contribution to the

nuclear arms race.

As Phil spoke, we dutifully filled the keyholes

of a half a dozen handcuffs with hot wax, making

it virtually impossible for the police to unlock

them.

13

Trying to appear normal as we entered the

White House tour provided the day’s only comic

relief. No matter how you dressed up these nuclear

resisters we just did not fit in. We tucked our hair

up under our hats, put on sports coats and dresses

and “blended in.” On cue we made a break with

the tour and sped across the White House lawn for

our goal post, the White House fence. This was not

part of the plan. The previous week a man had

been killed by the Secret Service for running

towards the White House swinging a pipe.

Federal marshals were chasing us across the

lawn and warned us that we should halt or they

would shoot. We ran forward even faster, as if we

could outrun even a speeding bullet.

Upon reaching the White House fence, we

stood there in disbelief that our support people

were nowhere in sight. Phil, upon hearing we were

running across the lawn, pushed people out of the

way to see if we were alive.

Finally, someone appeared and threw the

14

handcuffs over the fence. They fell a bit short of

their mark - the handcuffs landed at the feet of the

police. The police smiled and assumed the gig was

up. But somewhere deep inside of us, the anger of

being reminded of our mortality, and of our future

being taken from us, gave us the strength of

survival and, possessed by God’s will to preserve,

we wrestled the police to the ground and tore the

cuffs from their hands.

We snapped the handcuffs shut around the

White House fence.

Unknown to us, Jimmy Carter and concerned

congress people were watching this entire fiasco.

They were in the middle of a secret meeting,

plotting the demise of this unpopular weapon. The

international media moved in, shoving for a good

shoot of the unwanted White House guests.

Several hundred miles away Adolf Scotti, my

father, had sat down to his traditional Sunday

spaghetti dinner. As the spaghetti sauce dripped

onto his freshly pressed, starched white shirt, the

15

TV screen at the end of the table filled up with his

son’s face and long curls. He sat there in disbelief

as I shouted: Just as these chains are being cut, so

we must free ourselves from the chains that bind

us to this nuclear madness!

My father swung toward the TV and spat out:

And for this I sent him to Ohio State?

16

On the Road.

In the Hebrew Scriptures much is written

about Sabbath, meaning “rest of God.” Believers

in antiquity were even instructed to allow their

fields to lay fallow so they could be naturally

replenished. So too, with the human heart, one can

only witness so much suffering before they

themselves become unresponsive. After a fourth

person in my neighborhood of Manchester on

Pittsburgh’s North side died from gang violence,

those who support my hospice for the homeless

insisted that I take a sabbatical.

With much trepidation I handed the sanctuary

17

for the homeless over to another community. I

reduced my possessions to three boxes, including

my pastel art, videos of various peace actions, my

scrapbooks and manuscripts. A bit unnerved, I

released them to a friend, who periodically

assured me that they were safe under her bed. I

bought a three hundred dollar Dodge Aries, met a

young hipster named Blackwater to share

expenses, and we headed to points unknown.

The first stop was Chicago. I visited a friend,

who is a radical feminist visual artist. We made it

just in time for her art opening. Once there I was

overcome with this sinking feeling in my stomach

that my time on the road was a mistake. I was

surrounded by the most arrogant people, dipping

their strawberries in fresh whipped cream. Facing

the gang wars in Pittsburgh seemed more

advantageous.

Our next step: Boulder, Colorado. Here we

stayed with some Gothic Death Rockers. Even

18

these pale bohemians would have tested the

patience of Manny Theiner, Pittsburgh’s best

known music/culture revolutionary. How many

times can one listen to “Bela Lugosi’s Dead?”

Walls were painted black, and a cage was filled

with screeching exotic parrots, unnervingly

imitating the high-pitched shrill of a smoke

detector.

I was told that tonight the Zombie Tribe would

assemble for some home-grown entertainment. As

Lurch played the hurdy-gurdy out came a rendition

of belly dancing only to be matched by Laurel and

Hardy. Now I was absolutely convinced that I had

made a big mistake leaving my home town. Yet

Blackwater convinced me to push on to the West

Coast.

If one is to survive economically on the road

food is a big issue, so preached my back-to-the-

Earth guru and co-pilot. I was, literally, spoon-fed

millet day and night. Millet is a lot like the manna

that fell from Heaven and caused the Israelites to

19

go insane, to turn their backs on God and engage

in less than kosher feasts. Millet, millet, millet...

millet cereal with honey, millet patties, millet stew

with onions and spices. I am a vegan, but I could

see the pagan fires in the distant night, beckoning

me to infidelity.

No road movie is complete without an

encounter with the enemy of the road, the state

police. Just outside of Denver we were stopped by

a policeman who had a remarkable resemblance to

one of the corrections officers in Cool Hand Luke.

My mind raced, my heart pounded.

At the time, there was an active warrant out for

my failing to appear at a trial for blocking the

doors at Carnegie Mellon University’s Software

Engineering Institute (SEI) last August 6th,

Hiroshima Day. Would the computer reveal my

fugitive status?

But running my plate would have followed

linear thinking, and this situation would not yield

to that.

20

In an unprecedented move the cop asked me to

come back to his car.

He asked, where are you going?

His knuckles had turned white from the the

crushing grip on his gun handle.

I would not answer.

Then he spi t out , Why did you leave

Pittsburgh?

I obtained a glimpse of what Kennedy and

Khrushchev must have felt during the Cuban

Missile Crisis, face-to-face, staring eyes painfully

dry. So I blinked and mischievously told him the

truth. I told him about my need for time off, this

fall and winter national speaking tour, about the

fiftieth anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima

and Nagasaki. I told him of my plans to cross the

fence at Los Alamos National Labs in January

1995.

The state policeman ever so slowly removed

his sunglasses to reveal a fresh black eye. As if

speaking to an annoying dog, he simply

21

exclaimed: “Geeeet out!”

Twenty-six hundred miles and thirteen tanks of

gas later, we arrived at the West Coast. Out of the

car I stepped into Eugene, Oregon’s festive

Saturday farmer’s market. There my eyes met a

large, hairy man with dreads. His eyes revealed a

young man I’d not seen since the raging peace

marches in 1991 against the first US killing in

Iraq. We laughed at this serendipitous path

crossing.

He was now Hungry Bear, a hemp advocate.

He sat me down and told me of the West Coast

criminalization of the homeless and harassment of

colorful people. He led me to various people who

are fighting against this injustice.

So I traveled to San Francisco, LA, Seattle,

Portland, Sacramento and San Diego. I zig-zagged

up and down the coast in disbelief of the darkside

of paradise, all victims of America’s last cottage

industry, tourism. The unsightly were arrested for

sitting or sleeping in public. Riot police were

22

arresting people for running a restaurant without a

license (feeding the homeless). Monthly sweeps of

the city in which anyone not fitting into the social

landscape (anyone other than the hipwazee, in their

shorts and sunglasses) was arrested. This was an

ugly side of America, unseen in the conservative

east.

Contrasted with the West Coast's response to

the homeless, Pittsburgh seemed like the city

where you should wear flowers in your hair when

visiting. The previous winter members of the

city's police force, homeless advocates and the

media searched the streets, saving the lives of our

city's lesser members by finding people under

bridges, in parking lots, in alleys and taking them

indoors before the life-threatening blizzard hit.

While in Eugene, Oregon, some environmental

warriors invited me to drive nine hundred miles to

a march against logging in central Idaho. The

logging industry was clear-cutting hundreds of

acres of our last and largest wilderness areas, and I

23

wanted to see this first hand. They warned me of

the danger involved in a proposed march through

logging country, and then we dumpster-dove for a

load of not-so-perfect peaches.

My next stop was Dixie, Idaho, to join Earth

First!

24

The Children of Edward Abbey.

Edward Abbey was an American iconoclast.

Born in 1927 in Indiana, Pennsylvania, he has

been called the “Thoreau of the American West”

for his book Desert Solitaire (1968). He liked to

bait environmentalists, shooting guns into the air

and tossing the empty beer cans out of his truck as

he barreled down America's highways. “What the

hell?” he asked me once, before his death in 1989.

“The highways are much worse than the litter.”

His best known book, The Monkeywrench Gang,

was a send-up of all the aspects of the

environmental movement, and it was an early

inspiration for Earth First!

25

In 1994 I left my shelter for the homeless,

Duncan and Porter House, to see the United States.

I had been living in Manchester, on Pittsburgh's

North Side, for a number of years, and I needed a

sabbatical. All the people killing each other in my

neighborhood, the Crips and the Bloods and the

drug deals gone bad were beginning to take its toll.

I went on the road for almost two years, ending

with my imprisonment for crossing the line at Los

Alamos in 1995, the fiftieth anniversary of

Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In doing so, I would face

“the Guns of Navarone,” the M-16s there, and I

wanted to make sure that I saw some of the world

before I was possibly killed. I traveled from

Pittsburgh to Denver, from Denver to Eugene,

from Eugene to Seattle, and finally back to Eugene

to live for a while with Hungry Bear, a hemp cook

and farmer, and an advocate for medical

marijuana. When the time came for me to leave

Eugene, I met a woman who asked me to drive

with her to Dixie, Idaho, where Earth First! was

26

fighting the loggers.

I said, well, isn't Dixie, Idaho a long way from

here?

No, she said, it's not that far. And it turned out

to be some nine hundred miles.

The philosophies of the various members of

Earth First! and myself were much different. On

one hand, these folk were picking up where we left

off in the sixties and seventies, after decades of

violence inflicted upon the Earth. On the other

hand, they seemed to be reacting to the activism of

the sixties and their parent's nonviolence. And a lot

of them were acting very macho, and talking like

thugs, and they were talking about blowing this up,

and getting guns for the revolution, and blowing

up dams and burning up condos and trashing

SUVs, and it was all very offensive to me.

From Dixie, we hiked seventy-five miles into

central Idaho. When we reached the forest that was

earmarked for destruction, I could see that the

anger of my friends was more than justified. We

27

lived outside and we ate outside in the most hostile

environment imaginable. Like the civil rights

movement in the sixties, the people living in this

area couldn't hide their contempt for us. One

would have to travel sixty miles for gasoline, forty

miles for supplies. There was a lot of hostility

directed at the environmentalists. People had been

shot at, people had been injured doing this. And

where they did the clear cutting, it looked like the

moon – there were no trees at all, and black flies

everywhere, biting us – and we realized that this is

what the lumber company wanted to do to the

entire region.

William Stringfellow, an Episcopal theologian,

once said that in the future – and of course, that

means now – “every relationship, whether between

nations, states or our relationship with ourselves

would be marked by violence.” The destruction of

another country through war, and the destruction

of the environment, the trees, which allow us to

breathe, all of this is being done just so people can

28

make money. This destruction seems to be

employed in every aspect of our lives. So I felt that

the sabotage, the monkeywrenching that was

happening was wrong. I felt, and I still feel, that

our action, and our activism, must come from a

place of love and respect, like Gandhi driving the

British out of India.

This led to some very long late-night

discussions.

And Gandhi, too, used to get in trouble for this.

He would stay up late at night, talking to the

violent anarchists. He enjoyed their company, and

he felt that their anger and passion were more in

line with his desire to see change than the passivity

of his religious friends.

It took us about twelve days to reach our

destination. When we arrived, almost immediately

we received word that we had won, that this

lumber company would be pulling out of the

forest. As we hiked, a lot of attention had come our

way: there were articles in the New York Times, the

29

lumber company was being sued, and all the

people who were clear cutting this forest couldn't

handle the controversy. That is the beauty of this

type of action: it draws the other side into a game

that they are incapable of playing. Here I was in

the forest with these people who had been talking

about the acts of sabotage that they had been “not

committing” for years, and we were employing the

nonviolent method of an open air march.

And we won.

30

The Brains Of Auschwitz.

Interview by Claire P. Rivlin in The Student

Union.

How long have you been an activist?

I have been engaging in some form of activism

since I was sixteen, in 1968, the Vietnam era. For

the last thirteen years I have attempted to speak

some truth to the powers about the nuclear arms

race, and I have been in and out of prison,

believing it's only by transgressing the law that we

can get to the heart of the injustice.

31

What do you know about Carnegie Mellon

University’s Software Engineering Institute?

How would you characterize it?

SEI is not some computer engineering firm. It

is central to enhancing every aspect of military

software and is central to the Department of

Defense. SEI is the brains of Auschwitz.

What do you mean, "the brains of Auschwitz?"

What I mean is that there were a lot of people

involved with the genocide of the Jews in Nazi

Germany who felt they were not responsible for

the hideous crimes because they were not

"directly" involved in the actual murders of

innocent people. But in fact everyone was guilty,

from citizens all the way up to those who turned

the valves releasing the gas and those who fired

the ovens. Nuclear holocaust is even worse

because it is not simply racial genocide, but the

killing of every living thing. So whether we pay

our federal taxes that enable our country to make

32

five nuclear weapons a day or work at SEI or

Pittsburgh’s Rockwell International (the third

largest military contractor in the United States), we

all stand before history as premeditated murderers.

What about the SEI statements that they are a

software research organization, simply doing

research to discover information which could

lead to anything?

Almost all of its funding comes from the

Department of Defense (DoD). Now if they aren't

doing anything for the DoD, why are they being

funded?

Well, they say the National Science Foundation

is unable to fund them.

I don't want a society organized like that. I

don't want the DoD enhancing software for a

trauma center at a hospital as they said they're

doing. That's the job of Health and Human

Services, the old HEW-Health, Education, and

33

Welfare. You're not going to tell me that the

military, the DoD and all the military brass, are

running in and out of SEI, that there is no type of

military value. That's not double-speak, it is

beyond double-speak. It is a lie.

So what's the solution, to burn down the

building to stop it from functioning?

The answer, I believe, is a very thoughtful,

very loving and systematic nonviolent disruption

of Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and SEI. I

still believe that my ideas are not obtuse. Now

here's a problem. We are not Gandhi's Indians, we

are not Martin Luther King's blacks, we are not the

early union people, we are not even the protesters

of the Vietnam war. But the mere survival of

humanity depends on the white educated middle

class throwing off its selfishness, because in reality

we have no aggressor. We are not an occupied

country, we are not being racially discriminated

against, we are not being shut out of the

34

workplace; so it's dependent on us. That's why

some type of miracle has to happen. We have to

act on something beyond self-interest.

Do you feel that your attention-getting methods,

such as your vigils, have gotten through to the

CMU administration and/or SEI?

I have talked to people that work at SEI, to

professors and faculty, administrators and students,

and I feel that slowly but surely by developing

relationships with people here, that it will be a

combination of the general populous and the CMU

community that is going to bring about the

disarmament of CMU. We just have to do what's

right because it's right, not because it works.

Now you were fined for dumping 100 pounds of

ashes on the steps of SEI...

If we could go back a bit, it's been since

September first of last year that as a community

we have focused on SEI. And so, when we came to

35

campus a year ago, to leaflet, the police told us

that we would face arrest for trespassing on private

property. When I told them that we would stop

leafleting, they proceeded in asking me for ID.

When I refused ID, they said they were going to

arrest me.

And did they?

No. I produced some ID and was escorted off

campus. Since then, the campus policy has

changed. So, a year ago I came here and leafleted

every week, up until December 11th, which was

the grand opening of SEI: I knelt down in front of

the oncoming traffic that was going into the

parking lot of SEI, to pray for peace, and was

dragged around several times and then finally

arrested for obstructing traffic. I spent ten days in

jail for that.

The third act of civil disobedience was in

remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki day, once

again vigiling on the steps of SEI, sleeping there

36

overnight, trying to be thoughtful and mindful of

the future that has now become possible. On

August 9th, we dumped a hundred pounds of ashes

on the front steps of SEI in order to symbolize

what people were turned into at Nagasaki.

Now the symbolic aspect of it is very

important. A symbolic action is a lot like sign

language-if somebody can't hear you, then it would

be a disservice to speak to them as I am speaking

to you now. So you speak in sign language to a

society that doesn't hear, to a society that is deaf. I

think that it's a disservice to concentrate on the

normal methods of raising consciousness, because

raised consciousness is not a changed heart, it is

not a changed life. Somebody could be aware of an

injustice, but that has nothing to do with

interdicting that injustice, with engaging the

darkness. But if we go back to the dumping of the

ashes, I think it was a sign pointing towards a

deeper truth. I think we have forgotten how to

think, how to speak.

37

Have a lot of CMU students been supportive of

what you're trying to do?

I find people this year to be a lot more

responsive than I have ever found people, and that

gives me a lot of hope. It doesn't mean that

somehow there's going to be some type of massive

nonviolent confrontation against this injustice. But

at least the openness and the curiosity and the

willingness is there. So what I did was I had a sign

which said, "SEI WAR" and I leafleted and found

the students to be very, very, responsive, asking

when the next demonstration would be, and I was

really caught off guard. This new openness gives

us a better chance to speak to the travesty of a

university like CMU engaging in such destructive

activities as opposed to creative ones.

What about the argument, "Well, somebody's

got to do it?"

Yeah, someone has to destroy humanity. That's

just sick. If we're ever going to have love counter

38

this hate then we've got to speak some type of

truth...people are telling me about M&M's and the

moon and Johnny Carson, and the reality of the

matter is that we're twenty minutes away from our

own extinction and that we have to find a moral

equivalent to nuclear war. And hopefully, that will

be found through some nonviolent battle to purge

the evil from our society that has allowed our

culture not to even care about the extinction of its

own species. Even animals protect their young and

we are one step below that...we have not even

given the children of society the basic security and

right to have a future.

Anything else?

I think this year will be a significant year in

terms of expressing our hearts against the

darkness, those representing SEI. I am hopelessly

enthusiastic.

39

In a broader sense, what can people do about

this "darkness?"

I think that in the time we live in, people

should make time. And I think that they should

make time for the care of present victims of

nuclear war, for the poor and oppressed, the

homeless and the physically and mentally

disabled. That we should spend our time serving

and loving these people, and being their friends

and developing non-paternalistic answers so that

the poor are not the victims of our concern. And

that people should somehow creatively and

contemplatively confront the nuclear arms race,

live simply in community, that we should share the

majority of our money, time, and energy with

those who have none.

We need to move to the margins of society if

there is ever to be any world for those who have

not chosen the destruction of our society, if the

children are ever to have a future. We need to take

this very, very, seriously and yet not hold onto it so

40

much that we choke the truth out of it. We need to

leave a legacy for the future generations that some

people were not afraid.

41

Olympic Reflections.

It was late and my article about my trip to the

1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta was not

happening. Then the news broke about a pipe

bomb exploding at the Olympics during a free

concert, with Daddy Mac and the Heart Attacks.

Violence is so gray. Anonymous violence is

insidious, no preparation can absolutely prevent it.

There is no defense. No marching army can defeat

terrorism. Like the first Gulf War news reports, the

43

more we are told about the terror at the Olympics,

the less we know.

If only the late-breaking news response to this

act of terror was applied to the displacement of the

poor of Atlanta. Over 15,000 poor people were

forcibly removed to make way for the Olympic

games. To the disenfranchised people of Atlanta,

the Olympic chaos was like the aftermath of a war.

Never would the light of TV cameras report this

“Olympic defeat.”

Food Not Bombs held its Third International

Gathering in Atlanta to unmask the Olympic

games for what they really were, corporate greed

at the expense of the poor of the city. Food Not

Bombs has grown to over 130 autonomous

chapters throughout the world since it’s inception

in Boston in 1990. This anarchistic collective was

formed in direct response to the US war in Iraq.

Food Not Bombs employs public feedings of the

homeless as public commentary on the neglectful

violence of poverty and the waste of military

44

spending.

Olympic security forces being housed at

Morehouse College (ironically the alma mater of

Martin Luther King) had already demonstrated

their professional readiness by arresting 74 local

residents in the Morehouse College community the

week before the Olympic games started. With the

added urgency of this news, I planned my

Greyhound bus trip down south.

There is no fear like the venture into the South

for a northern activist. The accents are unnerving.

The journey conjures up images of Bull Connors

unleashing dogs and hoses on Civil Rights

protesters in the 60’s. The closer I got to Atlanta

the more my anxiety deepened. I kept seeing flash-

backs of “Deliverance” in my mind. I was weary,

tired from recent construction work and the mental

exhaustion that comes from living communally

with our homeless men. These men are elderly,

mentally sick, with one lovely, determined man

dying of AIDS. I slept all the way to Chattanooga,

45

Tennessee.

Leaving Duncan and Porter Hospitality House

for the Homeless made me feel a bit like a

representative of some obscure banana republic.

Six to nine million homeless are a small nation

within America — a nation without a homeland,

without a flag to burn, without borders to violate,

no history, forgotten — forever wandering. Its

citizens remain uninvited to the Games of

established nations.

Finally, my nineteen-hour journey was over

and I found myself asking a security guard,

dressed in an unmistakably brand new uniform,

directions to the city’s capitol building. For a

moment after the directions were politely given

there was a blank, hostile, lingering stare. He and

others were alerted to the impending protest.

It was nine blocks to the capitol building, a

brisk walk, welcome after sitting for so long. As I

approached the capitol I came upon a gathering

crowd, a mix of dirty punk rockers, Food Not

46

Bombs people and old African American Civil

Rights activists. This desperate remnant watched

as famed civil rights activist Hosea Williams put

an Olympic-style torch to the Georgia state flag.

The state flag has included the confederate state

flag in its design since 1956 in defiance of a court-

ordered integration.

T h r o u g h a b u l l h o r n t h i s e l d e r l y ,

statesman/activist shouted, We are not burning the

Georgia state flag, but this enslaving Confederate

symbol. The nylon flag did not burn, but sort of

shriveled. I suggested that the next time they did

this it would help to apply a thin layer of sterno.

The Georgia state trooper standing by nervously

laughed. This was the first day of the Centennial

Olympic games.

I must admit that I am not comfortable with

protests that include burning: book burnings, cross

burnings. These seem to better reflect the

intolerant hate of our opponents.

It is now Sunday, July 28th. I call down to

47

Atlanta. Food Not Bombs is on their way to the

center city, an area called Five Points, to feed the

homeless another vegan meal. Part of their

nonviolence is to not use any animal products in

their meals, another expression of compassion for

all living creatures. People are anticipating arrests

for feeding in downtown Atlanta, because of new

security measures since the terrorist bombing at

the Olympics Saturday.

I saw a report in which Atlanta officials are

claiming that this year five times as much money

was spent on the homeless as in previous years. Of

course the City Fathers of Atlanta fail to tell the

world that Urban Redevelopment money intended

for urban renewal (read: removal) was used to tear

down a shelter and several businesses, to relocate

people from housing projects and to build Olympic

housing This new housing will be used after the

games to attract productive city dwellers. These

model citizens will be able to move into the

temporary Olympic shelters (now a glorified

48

efficiency) for a mere $85,000.

Since the explosion there have been 125 bomb

scares due to copycat psychos and fearful visitors

frightened by unidentified packages. Today

security forces at the White House were called to

investigate a suspicious package. They cleared the

area only to discover a little child’s discarded

lunch.

It seems that all we have holding us together in

America is our fear of each other.

49

Caitlin Is Born.

On June 4, 1998 at 6:49 PM my wife Rebecca

gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. Caitlin Greer

Scotti Eirené was born 7 pounds 9 ounces.

After nine months Rebecca went into labor.

We called the midwife center and informed them

of our imminent arrival. Bored with timing

contractions we took a long ride in our 1979 Ford

Ranger pick up truck; this rough ride caused

Rebecca’s water to break. Finally this eyesore of a

work truck had earned its keep! Rebecca was

already packed, and I put a few pair of underwear,

51

socks, and t-shirts in a Giant Eagle blue bag and

soon we were at the urban zoo hospital.

We had chosen the contemporary room at the

midwife center, complete with an adult size

swimming pool/bath tub. Joseph and Mary never

had it so good.

As Rebecca employed every method of

encouraging birth, I dove into a thousand page

biography about Ché, the revolutionary from the

1960’s. As Rebecca paced the halls and listened to

the comforting words of the midwives, Ché was

landing in Cuba with Fidel, accompanied by a

handful of rag-tag revolutionaries, overthrowing

the Batista regime. As we breathed through

contractions, the U.S.-backed regime fell. As many

attempts were made to bring this pregnancy to

term, Dr. Guevara was making his historic

motorcycle ride through the mountains of Bolivia.

But alas, the best efforts seem to only prolong

the birth pangs. We held on to each other, waiting

for sleep that would never come, as Ché fought

52

with Fidel and his brother Raoul… the

“revolution” was reflecting the very state-ism,

reflecting the very system that they had fought so

hard to dismantle.

As the doctor dug his heel in and pulled her out

with forceps, our first and new daughter made her

appearance. The doctor commented on how alert

she was, hence her middle name “Greer,” which is

Celtic for alert.

53

Crime and Punishment.

I have sat down to write this several times but

given the atmosphere of hostility and apathy it

seemed pointless. After the brutal murder of 11-

year-old Scott Drake by Joseph Cornelius, a

Pittsburgh homeless man, I even found myself

cringing upon seeing the homeless. It was the

news that Pittsburgh’s Mayor Tom Murphy created

a commission in response to this inexcusable

murder that shook me from my fears. This was the

same Mayor who attempted to have a high school

youth group arrested for “enabling” the homeless

by feeding them on a cold winter Sunday morning

55

and distributing blankets downtown. He went on

record as stating, “let the homeless go to Mount

Lebanon if they want cared for.” Five years later,

the same Mayor approved the arrest of Food Not

Bombs members for distributing food in Market

Square. Tom Murphy has created and encouraged

this hostility toward the homeless and those who

would provide “aid and comfort.”

Neglect is violence. In Pittsburgh we have the

fourth poorest African-American community in the

country. It is not a harsh judgment to say that this

has not been mentioned from many, if any, pulpits.

The homeless have fallen out of favor with the

general public. This “issue” no longer inspires

people to action. People mistake panhandlers for

the homeless. After four years of being panhandled

on Forbes Avenue students of the University Of

Pittsburgh are drained of compassion. Neglect

moves to hostility as Scott Drake’s parents petition

the public to clear the streets of Pittsburgh’s North

Side of the unsightly forgotten. Members of the

56

media asked me to be silent for fear that our

homemade sanctuary for the homeless would be

shut down… or worse.

The moment has passed. Joseph and Scott have

fallen from the front page and therefore from the

short-term consciousness of Pittsburghers. It is no

longer news. So here is what I would have said if

the media had called: This tragedy is but a dress

rehearsal. You cannot cut millions off of welfare

and say it has had no effect… such a statement

shows the company you keep. We must open our

homes to the sick, the destitute, the criminal. If we

do not extend this hand of justice the forgotten will

visit us and it will not be to thank us.

I do not side with Joseph Cornelius, who will

surely face capital punishment for his crime. My

heart is with the parents of Scott Drake. If

retaliation would bring back his son I would be the

first to strike a blow. But revenge will not give the

peace the Drakes so desperately seek. After 23

years of caring for the homeless, I have never felt

57

more determined to bring the hidden to light. Let

us pray to God to show us a way out of this

endless spiral of crime and punishment.

58

Italian Toast, Margarine On the Side, Please.

When I need to think, I go to a little diner that

my brother Victor and I used to visit. As a rule, we

would go out no earlier than four a.m. Three

months ago, in August 2003, he took his own life.

As I make my way there after some late-night

shopping, I stop to get a Post-Gazette. The man at

the 7-Eleven informs me that even though it is

three a.m., Monday’s paper has not yet hit the

stand. I must have flashed a great sense of

disappointment because he proceeded to give me

Sunday’s paper for free. People are always giving

me stuff.

59

As I settle into the diner for Italian toast and

coffee, I am offended by the spin on the war and

the cartoon-like announcement that Billy

Graham’s son is going into Iraq with all his

resources to help rebuild Iraq. It was reported that

more Iraqis have died during the aftermath of

“liberation” than during the war itself. There is no

clean water, no electricity and bombed-out

hospitals. Even the world’s oldest museum was

looted, almost a means of self-ethnic cleansing.

Where four religions claim that civilization started,

at the Tigris and Euphrates, the scene looks like St.

John’s vision of the end of the world.

The Marines have been informed their stay in

Iraq is indefinite.

Finally my Italian toast arrives; it smells like

the freshly baked loaf of Italian bread grandma

Molly used to make. I raise my tired eyes to the

waitress. Her eyes fly open and she takes a step

back.

After regaining her equilibrium she says,

60

you’re Victor’s brother. Then she stops herself,

pauses and disinterestedly asks if I want more

coffee. It seems that folk don’t want the

responsibility of remembering.

And the war goes on...

61

Winking At Fallujah.

As the journalistic delegation made its way to

Fallujah, a city north of Baghdad, the landscape

seemed to change. I was informed that we were in

Sunni country, an anti-American stronghold.

As we made our way to this complex of big

thick colorful pipes I was amazed at how such a

small water purifying station could supply water to

over 60,000 people. The Vietnam Veterans Against

The War financed its rehabilitation to the tune of

$22,000, and seeing this made the whole trip worth

it.

Whether the water treatment station was a

63

target of the last two wars or whether it fell into

disarray because of the US / UN sanctions does

not matter. The end result was the same; without

the station, there was no clean water. This was a

violation of the Stockholm Convention, a treaty

signed by the US which states that to destroy

facilities like this amounts to destroying a nation's

infrastructure, a violation of international law. This

atrocity is unimaginable to those of us in North

America, a city without clean, drinkable water, and

the disease and social upheaval that comes from

such a shortage.

But my moment of Zen at Fallujah was

interrupted... one driver excitedly suggested we

were in danger and that some Sunnis were

gathering across the street. I told him that it was

not true... in fact, I said, one of the Sunnis just

winked at you. He actually jumped backwards at

the suggestion!

As we rode up and down the highway with

Fallujah to our back, the other driver and

64

translator, Mahr, mockingly winked at him and we

all laughed hysterically.

65

Empty Playgrounds.

It is a sort of unwritten principle by radical

Catholic Workers that we need not go to war zones

to document the suffering. We can see plenty of

suffering in our own communities, with the

abandoned, those locked away in hospitals, and

with those given just enough by the government to

starve. Visiting, it is said, is not only a misled act

but wasteful. Perhaps that is how we lost the wars

in Latin America and South America: everyone

came back with his or her obligatory little slide

shows, a form of radical voyeurism, a poor

substitute for resistance. What was needed was to

67

disrupt and dismantle the war machine. To this

day, people suffer in Nicaragua, Honduras,

Guatemala, but the Left has moved on to other

issues, more fresh and relevant crusades.

After being to Iraq I feel that this principle,

that we should not venture forth from our

communities, is wrong. No photo, article, video

clip or audio interview could capture what I

perceived in Iraq, that which cannot be

electronically rendered. I had witnessed the utter

humiliation of the Iraqi people, the shame that they

could not stop their country from being destroyed.

They simply could not stop the lives of those

around them from being ruined.

We met a psychologist at the Artist Café in

Baghdad. As he talked, and talked, and talked, I

zoned out and allowed others to hold the

microphone. Upon reviewing his interview I heard

what he said but I was still too distracted by the

necessary insane pace we kept.

Weeks after arriving home I was watching my

68

children play in a playground. Suddenly, I went

into convulsive weeping. I remembered the words

of the shrink at the Artist Café, that he was seeking

funds to counter the “delayed stress syndrome” of

the Iraqi children. When Iraqi children were placed

in a room with toys they did not play with each

other. Fear of the future bombings have left

children terrified of the openness and vulnerability

of going to a playground.

My children are safe, but the children of Iraq

have been robbed of a future and of the simple

joys of childhood.

69

The Last Visit To My Father.

My family told me not to come but my

intuition whispered, go now.

I slipped my hand down to his and grasped it.

I stroked his gray hair. He winced in pain...but he

was relieved I was there. After having half his

cancerous vocal cords removed, he looked strong.

Except for the 24 years difference in age, we could

have been twins.

Even before I was born, my father put boxing

gloves above my bedroom door.

When I was young, my first memory of him

was seeing him laugh... as children we all loved to

71

laugh. Also I remembered my father would throw

all these balls at me, I was too small to understand

and would usually fall backwards trying to catch

them. As the years went by, Dad could not believe

the only thing I threw was a frisbee.

When I was eleven I was told it was time to go

to work. I would work construction every Saturday

and summers until I was 22.

We had a large extended family, with 32 first

cousins on one side. We were the baby boomers.

My father would come home from work, shower,

eat dinner and go off to build us a house, on land

purchased from some farmer. When we finally

moved in, the neighbors were horrified that these

wild Italians had arrived in this quiet suburban

neighborhood. The green lawns were filled with

children. After playing one day I came home and I

told my mom and dad some guys roughed me up

and said I worshiped Mary.

My parents stood silent then quietly cried; they

had hoped that Upper St. Clair would save me

72

from such base prejudice.

One night as we watched our black and white

TV, a bare-chested man with long bushy hair came

on with war paint and a big rifle and screamed,

shoot your parents!

My Dad said, don't you get any ideas... and we

laughed for a long time at our first encounter with

Abbie Hoffman.

My father would become angry as we watched

children being knocked to the ground while

protesting segregation in Birmingham. He would

sit silent as scenes of the war poured into our

living room, as we ate off our TV trays. To my

surprise he was enthusiastic when I told him I was

applying for conscientious objector status with the

Selective Service... I had wrongfully assumed he

was for the war.

Once during college I asked my Dad if he

could help get me some wheels so I could get

around at college. He said yes, and shipped me a

one-speed bike. I would come home from Ohio

73

state for the holidays and he would ask me to get

my hair cut. I never did.

Now the winking and blinking of various

machines connected to a tangle of tubes woke me

up; he had throat cancer. He had never smoked a

day in his life. Stubbornness and his strong body

would pull him through this.

I unclasped my hand and he pulled me back, so

I stayed for a long time...

74

From Pittsburgh To New Orleans.

The light from the fire was unable to pierce the

darkness around us. No matter where you sat, the

smoke drifted straight towards your eyes. My new-

found comrades were drinking what they called

“flood water booze." It was presented to me as

being a necessary ritual after a day of hurricane

clean-up. Yes, you could only find it searching

through abandoned homes, but what a prize!

People were thrusting these nameless mold- and

dirt-encrusted bottles in my face and offering me

their newly found stash. I do not drink, so I faked

it.

75

There was a sense of peace in the midst of this

post-apocalyptic scenario, as people loaded pieces

of what used to be their homes on the fire. It was

very late when the party was over and it was time

to make it back to St. Mary of the Angels Primary

school, abandoned after Hurricane Katrina and the

scene of a dramatic rescue; and now our home

away from home. The school houses hundreds of

volunteers gutting area homes seven days a week.

As we slowly walked back, the "war-zone"

landscape became acute – metal and wood and dirt

in an upheaval, forming twisted sculptures. One of

my fellow volunteers, and a bona fide local, Eli,

was talking about the trouble he was having with

the Federal Emergency Management Agency

(FEMA) as we passed through a never-ending

corridor of utterly destroyed houses. When we

finally arrived at St. Mary's, the only sound was

that of the diesel generators droning away,

bringing the barest of lighting to our base of

operations. The hallway was lit just enough for me

76

to find my way back to what was once a

classroom, and now a mass bedroom. I quietly

crawled into my bottom bunk, and quickly fell

asleep. This was my first night in what used to be

the Ninth Ward of New Orleans. I was a guest of

the Common Ground Collective.

I have been running the Second Mile Light

Hauling and Handyman Service or, should I say, it

has been running me. I perform odd jobs – moving

furniture, cleaning out basements and taking junk

to the dump. The work is hard, but being outside

and searching for the perfect vegan breakfast

makes it worthwhile. More importantly, being self-

employed is the springboard for freedom to act.

Since Hurricane Katrina, I have heard talk of

Malik Rahim, former Black Panther and Common

Grounds Collective co-founder. I want to meet him

and get the story of the collective's extensive relief

operation.

77

This was my third trip to New Orleans. And in

just over two months, hurricane season would

descend upon the Gulf Coast once again.

78

Malik Rahim.

Throughout the hero-shy anarchist community,

the name of Malik Rahim, a former Black Panther,

has come up over and over again. My curiosity

was piqued, so I made my way to the Common

Ground Collective Relief Operations press

conference. We had arrived a bit early and were

dismayed at the lack of turnout from the press.

Nevertheless, up to the stage lumbered a large old

man with graying dreadlocks. I introduced myself

and asked if I could interview him after the press

conference.

He threw back his head and laughed and said,

79

why not now? As I set up my equipment we talked,

like old friends, having much in common from our

varied experiences from the Sixties. But more

importantly we were still active almost forty years

later. We’ve burned too many bridges. Selling out

is not an option.

Malik was original equipment, he was for real,

and as I realized this, I relaxed and a wonderful

conversation flowered amid the rubble.

Malik, talk to us about when you were young

and started to become active.

My activism started in 1962 or 63. I saw a very

courageous hero of mine, Reverend Avery

Alexander, sit at a counter in New Orleans City

Hall cafeteria. For that he was jerked off the

counter and dragged up two or three flights of

stairs to the mayor's office.

Then after they talked to the mayor about how

he had the nerve to go into the lunch counter, he

was dragged back down the stairs. The only reason

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why this was happening was because he was

black. At that time it truly opened my eyes to just

how blatant the racism was. I knew that I had to

make a choice, y'know. So my awareness basically

started then. My activism itself started in 1970

when I joined the Black Panther Party.

Tell us about the Black Panther chapter here.

The party was started here by a person named

Steve Green who came down under the direction

of Geronimo Pratt from Los Angeles to organize,

not necessarily a chapter, but to organize.

Steve came down with 300 papers, met two

brothers and from there they started selling the

papers and just going out and raising awareness. I

found out they were doing this maybe a month,

month and a half after they started. That's when we

started what was known as the NCCF: the National

Committee to Combat Fascism.

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There's a lot of talk about violence and

revolution, revolutionary violence and class war

– it goes on and on and I'm sure you're

surrounded by this talk.

I was part of it. I was entrenched in it as a

member of the Panther Party. We were armed and

we advocated self-defense.

One of the greatest, most profound events that

ever happened in my life took place when the

police came to raid our office and the community

surrounded our office. Men in public housing, in

the Deep South, surrounded our office and told the

police you will not raid this office. What they did

was an act of nonviolence, civil disobedience.

The police were trying to tell the people to get

out of the way, and I'm not talking about ten or

twenty or one hundred or two hundred. I'm talking

between two to three thousand people surrounding

our office to prevent the police getting in. I

thought a shootout was going to happen and I

figured they'll probably kill us and we'll get some

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of them. But it's not justice, you know, it might be

revenge but not justice. Every act of violence will

be just to the winners and unjust to those who were

being victimized.

There's no justice in it and without that there

can be no peace. I believe that everything I've been

doing in the 36 years I've been involved in the

struggle for peace and justice --it's all been a

glorious experience. I believe I've been blessed to

meet some of the greatest people that I would want

to meet in my lifetime.

Would you mind speaking a bit on the origins of

Common Ground?

Common Ground came out of Hurricane

Katrina. Scott Crow and I founded Common

Ground on September 5, 2005. So what you have

seen has happened since September 5. At the time,

at our kitchen table Sharon Johnson, my partner,

had thirty dollars and I had twenty, and with that

fifty dollars we started Common Ground. Then we

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started contacting activist people we knew on the

phone and over the Internet. I even called other

people to contact activist people I did not know.

Through that chain and the wonderful efforts of

Scott and Brandon Darby, we went from four

people to twenty. Then one day, I was walking my

dog and as I was coming home, I said to myself,

what in the world is going on? There were sixty

people standing on my porch.

Ever since then we have grown. Since

September 2005, we have had well over seven to

eight thousand volunteers. During spring break we

have had over 2,700 volunteers. They have gutted

out over three hundred and fifty houses that are

now ready to be rebuilt. It will take ten to twelve

years to rebuild New Orleans, but it must be

rebuilt, in every aspect, by the people of peace and

justice. We have done what the government refuses

to do and is not capable of doing.

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We have been shown around to the different

aspects of Common Ground and are amazed.

There is so much going on and it's a lot more

about justice than about disaster relief.

Disaster relief organizations basically deal with

natural or national disasters. But see this wasn't a

national or natural disaster – this was a national

tragedy. People came down because of the tragedy,

because of the injustice. We didn't make a call just

to those who believe in bringing relief. We made a

call to those who stood for peace and justice to

come down. Our advocacy is paramount.

I told you about what happened with Rev.

Avery Alexander. The only other time in my life I

saw such an event was in ‘63 or ’64, and then in

2005 when I saw African Americans being denied

access into another parish just because they were

African American and coming from New Orleans.

Nothing in my history prepared me for the fact that

here in a state of emergency, with people fleeing

for their lives, in America, that one section of

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America would be denied access to another

population of Americans simply because they are

the wrong color.

It's obvious that rebuilding is going to take

more than a year of two. It's will take a long

time to wrench out of the system the injustice it

has done. It seems like there's going to be a lot

of work for a lot of years.

Oh yes, oh yes. The rebuilding of New Orleans

will probably take somewhere between ten or

twelve years. That's if New Orleans is ever rebuilt,

because the first thing we have to do is start

thinking smart. We need to stop thinking about

preserving or rebuilding levees. We need to start

restoring and preserving our wetlands. That's the

first thing we need to do. And we need to be

talking about really building a strong protection

system, one that works with nature rather than

trying to control nature. Then we can rebuild our

city --a great city, a progressive city, I believe one

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of the most progressive cities in the world. And I

believe we can. We have opportunities here, such

as the opportunity to break the shackles of our

fossil fuel dependency. We need to explore this

and encourage and implement. No other city has

these opportunities. We have the opportunity to

turn this big lemon into real lemonade... and I don't

believe we can do it unless the activist community,

those who truly stand for peace and justice,

wherever they are, come and do the work. And

that's what I see here.

During spring break more than 2,800 students

came from 200 universities, and from 8 countries.

I mean they came down, answered our call, and

they did a wonderful job. They gutted almost 300

homes. Then we did churches, businesses

including Kohlman's, and we're doing another one

further down the street. We operate three health

clinics, one has become a permanent health clinic.

All this has happened in seven months, and the

only reason why this great phenomenon has

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occurred is because of the greatness of the

American people. Not the government. I think we

have a rich government, a powerful government,

but I don't think we have a great government... but

I do know the greatness of the American people

and of those who really stand for peace and justice.

Years after I'm dead and gone, when people

think about what happened in New Orleans, they'll

always think about the courage and fortitude of

those who have made such sacrifices to come

down and help in the rebuilding of New Orleans.

We have done what the city refused to do, and I'm

not talking about the work. I'm talking about

bringing people together. For the first time in

history of this city you see whites in the Lower

Ninth Ward working side by side with African-

Americans, in many case whites working inside

the houses of African-Americans, to help people

get there lives back in order. Just think what that's

doing to the racism that's here. Seeing this in the

Deep South, I'm telling you this is not someplace

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else. During Slavery, half of the slaves who were

brought into this country came straight through

New Orleans. But now you see people coming and

trying to break the edifice we've built to separate

ourselves.

And it's done more for race relations and

offered hope. Our health clinic in Algiers, the first

one, started off as a first Aid station. Now we're a

fully accredited health facility. We're hoping that

one day that health clinic can blossom into a

solidarity hospital. We have offered new health

services in a community that has been absent of

health care for at least the 58 years I've been on

this earth. Now they have a permanent health

center – and we're doing it, no one but the activist

community.

When I say 'we', I don't mean just Common

Ground, I mean the activist community that is

down here, whether people are working for the

People's Hurricane Fund, SOS, or other

organizations. The great sacrifices they are making

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for peace and freedom can't be ignored. You can't

ignore the positive change.

Well, Malik, it was great to finally meet you.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you, man. Listen, it's the alternative

media that make the difference. There's always

been an alternative media in Louisiana, in

America. The reason slavery ended is because of

the alternative party. Workers' rights are due to the

alternative movement. There has always been

alternative media to expose the lies of the

mainstream and force them to tell the truth. So I

thank you.

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Community and Nonviolent Confrontation.

It was once said by lawyer/theologian, William

Stringfellow, that in our age, “every relationship

whether between nations, states, or our

relationship with ourselves would be marked by

violence.”

I live in a community that does hospitality for

the homeless. In the last months of 1993, on the

1300 block of Sheffield Street where I live, we

have seen unprecedented violence. Because of a

drug deal gone bad, a 14-year-old girl drew a

shotgun and killed her drug contact. Not even a

week later, a young man died in a drug overdose.

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Recently there was a drive-by shooting less than a

block from my home, which severed the spine of

an 18-year-old man as he stood on the steps of a

church — all this witnessed by a busload of

elementary students. Countless times the

neighborhood drug task force has broken down

people’s doors, in the vain hope of finding drugs.

Within our home for the homeless we have

seen the fruit of years of neglect and abuse that

leaves men in their twenties with no hope for the

future. Vietnam veterans and people who are

physically or mentally ill, upon their arrival, look

as if physically beaten-up. This violence is the

result of being forced to call the streets one’s

home.

They say if an individual feels no remorse after

killing someone, that person is insane. Even

though we have experienced 3,000 dead in

Panama; well over 300,000 dead in Iraq; over

$200 billion spent for operations Just Cause,

Desert Storm, and Restore Hope; the military

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intervention in Somalia; and the threats of air

strikes on Bosnia and a military restoration of

democracy in Haiti, the list of our enemies still

seems endless. After years of confronting the

military contracting done at Carnegie Mellon

University (CMU) and its Software Engineering

Institute (SEI), I was told that calling into question

the relationship between academia and the military

was an obscure approach to peace-making.

Documentation has confirmed ties between the

Computer Science department and Operation

Desert Storm. Adding insult to injury, CMU is now

peddling to research bomb damage assessment

done by its “intelligent” bombs.

Insanely, no remorse is felt! The tragic

injustice of such a slaughter transpired and

transpires at the very cradle of civilization, the

Tigris and Euphrates. This moral amnesia of a

blind society is indicative of a nation that refuses

to see the suffering that it has caused and continues

to inflict through sanctions that deny very basic

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food and medical supplies to reach an estimated

750 children under the age of five dying every day

in Iraq.

Dan Berrigan, a Catholic priest and anti-war

activist, has stated that while the remnant of the

peace movement attempts to assess the damage

done to Iraq, it has avoided assessing the damage

done to our moral conscience that will allow the

next war to occur. With that thought in mind, I

would like to recognize four activities/attitudes

much needed by those people who try desperately

to be compassionate.

First, we need to build community and not

organizations. If, in fact, our times are marked by

violence and our relationships are broken, then

within our fragile relations, and within ourselves,

we must concentrate our energies to be a

community and not concern ourselves with the

logistics of building an organization. Once trust is

established, the necessary organizational structure

will follow. If we are going to capture peoples’

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imagination, surely it is not to be through boring

routines of meetings, panel discussions, lectures,

demonstrations, and fund-raisers. There must be a

way to build community through creatively

confronting the system, the collective mirror of our

fracturedness.

This might at first appear as impractical

idealism. But one has only to attend these

repetitive activities to know these boring routines

only inspire pettiness and infighting among

groups. Perhaps we need to seek the counsel of

those in the arts, the visually oriented, and those in

literature, who can teach us about the imagination.

Perhaps it is in the context of these communities

that we can learn new ways of capturing people’s

imagination, which is so desperately needed, as

opposed to mastering Robert’s Rules of Order.

Secondly, we must bury our glorification of

violence and experiment with nonviolence to

confront the injustice of war. During the ‘60s I was

kept awake countless nights by people who talked

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about violent revolution. One time Gandhi did say,

“It would be better to pick up a gun than to give

way to the cowardice of inactivity,” but of all the

hundreds of people I have worked with over the

years, not one of these “violent revolutionaries”

has ever picked up a gun against an oppressive

government or a police force. If you are

approached by people who express the necessity

for violent revolution while, ironically, employing

the tactics of nonviolent demonstrations, tell them

this story.

Once Malcolm X was confronted by the unjust

arrest of two young black men in Harlem in the

early ‘60s. He took with him fifty young black

men down to the police station. They asked for the

release of the two young men, much to the surprise

of the all-white police force. Emphatically, he

stated that they would not leave until these men

were released. He then stated that each member of

the group was willing to be arrested himself, if the

police did not meet their demands. There was

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Malcolm X, the man who said, “By any means

necessary,” employing a nonviolent tactic to

confront the injustice of the Harlem police. This

was a man who at the end of his life refused to call

white people devils, and was murdered for this

unorthodox belief. Suffice it to say the two men

were freed.

There is enough hate in the universe. Those

who call themselves activists should not add to this

through empty violent words. The time for talking

is over. Action is needed. Are there fifty people

today willing to stand nonviolently in the way of

this oppressive nation before it kills again?

Thirdly, we must learn, we must struggle to be

with the people, the oppressed. Those deemed

useless by society must be our closest friends. Our

world-view must be completely developed by

seeing through their eyes. We don’t do this out of a

sense of paternalism or superiority, but out of a

sense of solidarity with those who have been

abandoned by this dying culture. Tangibly, this

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means to move into areas of a city where the poor

reside, to travel to parts of the world where the

victims of our violence lie, ultimately to become a

refugee, an outlaw. Though we will never

experience what it is like to be a Salvadoran, a

Palestinian, a Vietnamese, an Iraqi, a Native

American, a Somali, a Bosnian, to have the daily

experience of guns shoved in our faces, to be

constantly reminded of the effect of the

“intelligence” of U.S. Bombs.

Because the oppression of the poor and the

victims of war is always legal, we must relinquish

our privilege, let no luxury be enjoyed until every

need is met. We leave behind forever all academic

activism that has us standing detached from the

harsh realities we claim to be confronting. Put

simply, we no longer call these people “homeless”

or “oppressed,” but we call them by name, for they

have become our closest friends.

Fourthly, and finally, a much-neglected aspect

of activism is healing. If we open our hearts to the

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realities around us, our most natural response, and

I dare say most healthy, is despair. There is in fact

something to be depressed about. In our attempts

to fight this rotten system we will become

wounded. These uncharted waters must be

explored if our community and our activism are to

reflect any type of longevity in the face of

insurmountable odds. We must not give in to our

fears. Only love can drive out the fear that has

caused us to lack the courage it takes to confront

the system of hate. It would be collectively that we

discover the nonviolent miracle that will

overthrow this murderous empire.

My reflections are in the context of the

violence within our home for the homeless and on

my very block, and of the indiscriminate, senseless

murder of our nation’s international meddling

coming home. This i s why nonvio len t

confrontation is nothing less than courageous.

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Pilgrimage to Los Alamos.

Conventional wisdom said that our collective

nuclear nightmare was history. The Berlin Wall

had come down, the Soviet Union’s economy had

collapsed, and so ended the nuclear arms race.

The year 1995 marked the 50th anniversary of the

bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

I had spent the last two years on the road,

soaking in the beauty of America before facing the

guns of Los Alamos, the birth place of the atomic

bomb. Years ago in the New York Times I had

stumbled across the fact that Los Alamos National

Laboratory was the only place in the country that

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assembled the plutonium triggers for both old and

new refurbished nuclear weapons. So I made the

decision to make a prayer pilgrimage to the labs

of Los Alamos as a way of marking the

commemoration of the unthinkable.

Los Alamos is located in northern New

Mexico, atop the Pajarito Plateau in the Jemez

Mountains. Almost one and a half miles above sea

level, the air is thin and the water boils at 200°F.

The flora of the high desert is unusually beautiful,

lending a metaphysical aspect to the landscape.

The beauty of the ride up the mountain road, the

steep walls of the mesa that houses the secret city

cannot be expressed in words. You see the sienna-

colored mountains, the gnarled junipers and the

wisp of clouds as you ascend the only road to

where the Navajo once lived, evidenced by the

Tewa Pueblo ruins – abandoned cliff dwellings

dating from about 1225 AD. You only have to look

east at sunset, to the Pajarito, and Sangre de Cristo,

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to see why the mountains were once called "the

blood of Christ." Robert Oppenheimer, the father

of the nuclear bomb, had envisioned a laboratory

in a beautiful setting that could be an inspiration to

his scientists.

After witnessing the first nuclear explosion,

named Trinity, on July 16th, 1945, he famously

quoted the Bhagavad-Gita:

If the radiance of a thousands suns were to

burst at once into the sky That would be

like the splendor of the Mighty One... I am

become Death, The destroyer of Worlds.

Being in this violated paradise I could not help

but recall the old story of the Tower of Babel:

And they said one to another, Go to, let us

make brick, and burn them thoroughly.

And they had brick for stone, and slime had

they for mortar. And they said, Go to, let us

build us a city and a tower, whose top may

103

reach unto heaven; and let us make us a

name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the

face of the whole earth.

At sunrise on January 2, 1995, the first

working day of year, I made my way through the

driving snow to Area TA-55. As I approached the

entrance to the plutonium pit, the only sound was

the snow crunching beneath my feet. finally, I

came to the road that led to Hell's Kitchen. Once

upon the facility, I walked towards the line of

vehicles waiting to gain entrance for another day

of work. There were two sets of gates. The

vehicles were being locked in between them as

security searched beneath and around them. As the

next automobile entered, I slipped in and let the

door come down behind me. Then I knelt down to

pray for peace. Immediately, a female guard turned

around and asked me what I was doing.

Looking up through the driving snow, I

replied: I have come here to pray for peace. In a

professional manner, the guard cried out, oh, shit!

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As if on cue, thirty-six guards appeared, lined up

and pointed their M-16s at me. And then we

waited. After a very long time the Los Alamos

police department arrived. They were visibly

frightened. From a safe distance, they slowly

asked me if I spoke English, deliberately

pronouncing each syllable: Do... you... speak...

English? Very carefully, I responded in this same

strange lilt: yes... I... do...

The female cop asked if I was wired with

explosives, pointing to the bulge under my army

coat. I assured her that it was only my stomach and

she laughed; Khrushchev blinked. The tension

melted away and I was cuffed, placed under arrest,

and taken to jail.

Because of my intrusion all hell had broken

loose. I was later to learn that I was the first person

to intentionally cross the line at the labs, that no

one present knew how to react. The fact that I was

able to enter the premises of this highly secured

area (one of the most secure places on the planet)

105

unmolested made my incursion a breach of biblical

proportions.

After hours spent at the police station (this was

before computerized background checks) I was

brought before Judge Elaine Morris. Given the

number of people in the courtroom police, security

personnel, federal agents and several unidentified

suits, the court room was tortuously quiet. I sat

there, smiling, not participating in the legal

proceedings. Finally the judge asked in quiet

frustration, why have you come to Los Alamos? I

replied, I got here as soon as I could! The

courtroom burst into nervous laughter and I was

taken to the local pokey with an entourage rivaling

that of a visiting dignitary. Refusing to pay the

thirty-five dollar fine, I began what would be

ninety-seven days of free room and board.

The local peace community was very

welcoming and supportive. Helen Caldicott, an

international anti-nuclear celebrity, went out of her

way to visit me during my incarceration. Letters

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from all over the country started pouring in from

peace folk, and journalists from all over New

Mexico made their way up the mountain to meet

the intruder. The guards at the facility were

puzzled by this unprecedented period of activity.

They could not understand why I would choose to

remain.

Through the Catholic Worker grapevine,

Martin Sheen had heard that I was facing a lot of

jail time. He called and, surprisingly, the warden

gave me five minutes to talk. When Martin told me

that he wanted to help, I asked him to attend the

trial in April. He assured me that he would be

there.

At 4:00 AM on the morning of the trial, April

11, 1995, one of the guards woke me up, shouting:

= Martin Sheen is here... he flew in on a Lear Jet!

So the media circus began.

The courts forced a local lawyer on me, Dana

Kanter Grubesic, and we got along famously. I told

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her that we were not going to present a legal

defense, but that we were going to have a lot of

fun. She laughed, saying that she liked my non-

legal strategy.

The court was tailored made for kangaroos.

Martin Sheen kept the focus of his testimony on

the continuing nuclear nightmare. High school and

college classes were brought in by their teachers,

there were lots of federal and nuclear security

officials and a gaggle of local peace people. The

entire jury of my "peers" consisted of Los Alamos

Labs employees. In a letter to the editor of the

Albuquerque Journal, a lab employee wrote that

the trial was a waste of public money. I replied in

my own published letter that the trial was not to be

missed, and would be well worth the price of

admission.

During the proceedings we were prevented

from addressing the work that was being done in

the labs, in the interest of national security. Martin

Sheen's Oscar-worthy performance, however, went

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uninterrupted. Afterwards, the D.A. approached

him for his autograph. At one point during the trial

I was pulled into a room by the FBI. Is it your

intention to reveal the security procedures of the

lab? I was asked. Every one of them! was my

reply. We laughed a long time, and then I asked

them if they could send me home by train.

Upon being found guilty, the prosecution asked

for the maximum sentence of 364 days in jail and a

$1,000 fine, but the judge refused, saying that she

doubted that more jail time would do me any good.

I don't think that remorse is something we're going

to see here, she said at the sentencing. I don't think

that's even a factor. I have no doubt that you'll

soon be back doing these kinds of things. With an

admonition to never return to Los Alamos, I waved

to the bewildered feds as the train pulled away.

Conventional wisdom said that with the end of

the Cold War, so ended the nuclear nightmare.

What we didn't know was that in January, as I

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began my third week in jail, the world had come

within minutes of nuclear war. In the middle of the

night, Russian radar detected a nuclear missile

launch from an American submarine heading

towards Moscow. Then-President Boris Yeltsin

activated the "nuclear briefcase," the first step

towards launching the country's some 2,000

nuclear weapons that remain pointed at the United

States. Luckily, before he could finalize his

decision, the misidentified Norwegian research

vessel (which the Russian military had been

warned of in advance), plunged safely into the sea

and World War III was once again avoided.

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