Swords to Plowshares

Looking out the window I noticed a long row of people lined up along the side of the bus. They were men and women, carrying posters and signs that protested various aspects of the event: some of the signs had gruesome pictures of the victims at Nagasaki, and Hiroshima. While others held signs that were more factual: "2 out of 3 children in the world suffer from hunger and malnutrition", "the U.S military spends 250 billion dollars a year on the military comprising 50% of the annual budget" I didn't know quite what to make of them, for in all honesty, it had been the first time I'd actually seen active protestors involved in demonstration. Except these protestor were not shaking their first, nor were they yelling and screaming like you stereo-typically assume protestors to be doing. They just stood their with somber faces searching for eyes behind the school bus windows. One protestor caught my stare and she squeezed the wooden stick tighter, causing her knuckles to briefly turn white. We drove on through the gates while the protestors stood their quietly, watching us pass. A passenger remarked at how "crazy" they were, and another commented about "those fucking people...."

I forgot the protesters and turned my attention to the glamorous event before me. In spite of the poor weather, the Navy had done a good job making everything look quite grandiose: cadets dressed in impeccable white ironed uniforms, brass bands played in white kid gloves, red, white and blue ribbons twisted around every lampost, while white chairs lined up in front of the massive submarine that floated motionless in the grey water. Its name was the USS Kentucky and it was a member of the fast attack seawolf submarine category. After several (not so memorable) speeches filled with simplistic puns and annoying crowd pleasers, the commissioning was over, and the audience was invited to walk through the submarine. Excited to say I had been on a submarine, I took the little tour through the extremely cramped quarters of the hull. The "tour guide" mentioned several impressive statistics about the machinery: the submarine was equipped to travel around the world completely submerged for three years on a tank of nuclear fuel a foot cubed in size. It was also completely self sufficient, producing both its own fresh water and air through the electrolysis of sea water. Most visually impressive was the thin corridor between the missile compartments. Complete with 24 long range (nuclear) missiles, this submarine had the nuclear strength of 1000 nuclear bombs that had blown up Hiroshima, all with the frightening accuracy of hitting something the size of a tennis court over hundreds of miles (as though that would really matter!) The technological sophistication was enough to impress even the most stalwart procrustean, and represented the "pinnacle" of Western technological advances and dominance.

Four years have passed and much has changed since I boarded the USS Kentucky. Yet still the image of those silent protesters remains vivid in my mind. I would not have had reason to recall them had it not been for a man I met whose name was Arthur Laffin. In all likelihood, none of you will ever hear of, or see Arthur Laffin. Perhaps if any of you chose to enter the field of political activism, you might occasionally bump into him, but even this is not guaranteed. You see, Arthur Laffin essentially makes his living by protesting. He protests everything from nuclear armament, to illegal imprisonment of detainees, from the American foreign policy sanctioning of Iraq to IMF/World Bank impoverishment of the "third world."

Laffin is a leader of the Plowshares movement. This movement has at its ideological root the Biblical understanding of turning "Swords into Plowshares." The raison d'etre of the movement is to nonviolently protest the production of nuclear weapons. But this is not just the simple protest like the one I saw outside the submarine base. Rather, Laffin and the other dedicated "Plowshare" members protest by taking hammers to these instruments of mass destruction in an attempt to disarm them. After they hammer, they pour blood upon the shards of broken machinery.

I had never heard of such a strong and expressive form of protest, but I must confess that it moved me when I heard what they did. I think anybody who allows him/herself to think of this form of protest for just a moment, will generaly feel the same way: these are some dedicated people who feel very seriously about their cause. The usual outcome of such a "mission" is to be arrested "for destruction of state property," and then subsequently tried and imprisonment for however long (generally depending on the record of the "offender" and the sympathies of the judges.) In the 1980's there were 58 such missions in a variety of countries that included England, Sweden, Holland, Germany and the U.S. The movement is still quite young, and has a very small amount of adherents. But those who are involved are usually involved for life.

Such is the case with Arthur Laffin. He is a man you have to meet to appreciate. It is problematic to try and describe him because you have probably never met anyone like him in your life. Soft spoken and patient, Laffin slowly explains with simple precession the things he protests, and why. He has been imprisoned more times than he can remember, (the longest stint being 6 months) He has been involved in several Plowshares movements and has even lead some of them himself. He is also involved in a whole slew of protest that are based in Washington D.C. In fact, Laffin is involved in a protest a week. Usually sights include the Indonesian Embassy (protesting the occupation and genocide of the East Timorese), the Israeli Embassy (protesting the imprisonment of Mordechai Vinunu- the man who revealed Israel's nuclear capability and has subsequently spent the past ten years of his life in solitary confinement), the White House (protesting continued sanctions on Iraq which has caused the death of 500,000 Iraqi children since its placement), the CIA (which funds and established "The College of the America's-also known as the "School of the Assassins", which trains and educates Latin American military thug groups), and the House and Senate (for everything from the death penalty to nuclear armament.)

A native of Hartford, Laffin went to 2 different colleges before he graduated from the University of Prince Edwards Island. He has no officially recognized job nor does he have a salary. He avoids commercialism as much as possible, and he survives by begging for food. He explains his lifestyle by saying he is trying to "live out an alternative vision of how life can be lived." He is a committed catholic and operates according to a morality system that seems to blend egalitarian, non violent, communal socialism. He recently edited a book entitled "Swords into Plowshares: Non-violent Direct Action for Disarmament...Peace...Social Justice." It is a collection of original essays that expose and confront the nuclear empire. "It addresses why non violent resistance is an imperative for bringing about disarmament and the connection between faith, nonviolence and resistance."

Laffin impressed me with many more things than I could conceive of describing here. I admired him for his committment to his cause and his dedication to his principles. Rarely do we ever meet individuals who have developed a sense of personal principle to begin with, let alone those that are so humanistic, unselfish and moraly virtuous. Laffin is overflowing with them. He believes in the sanctity of human life, and the preservation of it at all cost. But I would be doing a disservice to Laffin if I did not speak of him in the context of his movement. Here is a cause that every universal citizen should embrace. Yet instead, its supporters are incarcerated, marginalized and stereotyped as "fanatics." In a way, of course, they are fanatics: fanatics that are justifiably scared of the prospects of nucear war, fanatics that are unwilling to allow their silence be a form of compliance with gross abuses of human rights, nuclear armament, and economically driven foreign policies that smack of human , mineral, and environmental exploitation. If there is something wrong with being "fanatical" about these causes, I beg explaination. The question I ultimately have however, is why aren't more people in America involved in these movements?

To begin with, people in this country have been reduced to a state of apathy to such a degree, that to develop a political opinion is considered somewhat gauche. Various commercial and governmentally sanctioned structures contribute to this: the mass media, the active imprisonment of political dissenters, the U.S military etc. When was the last time you saw a protest broadcast on television? Probably not very recently. Certainly the protest going on outside of the submarine commissioning (mentioned above) was not given any coverage (but you can bet the commissioning itself was given plenty.) Unfortunately, protests and demonstrations have been commercialized and drained of their (economic) media life, such that they fail to get the public attention they deserve. The media (which itself is a massive and influential group of corporations) has succeeded in convincing much of the public that protestors are annoying, obsessed freaks that have some developmental flaw that has caused them to be so "intractable."