Sub-versive activity:
Dear, John
theologians as the encyclical was being officially issued are canoe under your arms, looking much like the Marx Brothers to be welcomed. We think that the eight women and men, whom ...
...to catch up on my reading and writing...
...I was a peace give their blessing to this ship that could cause the death movement activist and I had been arrested protesting nu- of millions of people, I knew I had to do something...
...handed my sign to a friend and quickly slipped into the As a young, single woman with no family responsibil- group that was planning to block the entrance to the docks...
...You're going to have to come with us...
...You do not want to tain and even launch new Tridents...
...The police boat U.S.S...
...I took on more than I could manage...
...The cold war is supposedcerned about the choppy waves, especially the large wakes from ly over...
...REPORT FROM GROTON SUBVERSIVE ACTIVITY TIP THE CANOE & TRIDENT, TOO F first, you have to find an unobtrusive, secluded entry point to lower the canoe into the Thames River...
...throw off your balance...
...hundred yards from the Trident dock...
...You disissuing its irreformable decree...
...houses where you set the canoe in the water...
...toward the ceremony...
...Rhode Island is lowered almost into the water in a spe- is suddenly on top of you and a voice declares, "OK, fellas, cial dock, and covered with white tents where the ceremonies that's enough...
...The ceremony, to which thousands The ceremonies were delayed by over an hour while we of EB employees and their families were invited, was were dragged to the waiting buses and in all the emotion attended by naval dignitaries and top Washington offi- and excitement, I never gave a thought to the consequences cials...
...Only a small percentage of the demonstrators planned to commit civil disGet me to the obedience, and originally, I had no thought of joining them...
...We think that the eight women and men, whom or the Three Stooges...
...But in 1979, the year I turned twenty-one, security guards ran in every direction trying to restore order...
...ing the entrance to a military ceremony...
...I didn't even mind the awful food...
...church on time I was getting married just one month later and I was so distracted and excited I couldn't concentrate on anything y the time I was twenty, I had been arrested serious...
...Out on the street, in front of the shipyard, a large demon- We were arraigned a few hours later in the New London 6: 22 October 1993 Commonweal...
...Two the encyclical by citing statistics on the use of birth control and friends paddle, while you and another friend are assigned the abortion not only in the United States but in Italy ("the pope's simple task of unfurling the banner at the appropriate moment very own back yard...
...At least Planned Parenthood tried to count the pages before The current is fast and you are clipping along now...
...Their reflections begin on page 11...
...capsize...
...we invited to comment in this issue, contribute a great deal Five blocks down, you find a secluded niche between two to opening that dialogue...
...theologians as the encyclical was being officially issued are canoe under your arms, looking much like the Marx Brothers to be welcomed...
...After five minutes, one pair is arrested and esable, for, as Planned Parenthood admits, "the new encyclical corted to a waiting van, the public starts to file in for the ceredevotes only one paragraph (out of 200 pages) to condemning monies again, and another pair kneels down to call a halt to the various sexual acts...
...Since I fasted when- Just as we did, the gates opened for the crowds to walk ever I was in...
...We're escorting you back now...
...Wearing life vests and armed with a huge banner ("Trident Is a Crime...
...The full-scale, hu- Ever obedient, you obey...
...Despite your best efforts, you and your friends are spotted by a woman in the neighborhood who immediately alerts the police about your suspicious activities with the canoe...
...They enter in pairs, walk down the narsophical treatise judged it "an insidious attack on sexual be- row entrance way, when they suddenly kneel down and begin havior in general...
...py waters and the policemen's hands reaching into the canoe, Maine, set to be launched in a matter of months...
...You are now greeted Pope John Paul II's new encyclical with the organiza- leaving Groton, where 202 nuclear and military submarines have tion's customary intellectual and moral generosity...
...Then, as you pass a hundred yards mongous absurdity, insanity, lunacy of the Trident submarine right in front of the Trident, you turn and start to paddle right itself...
...But before the police boat pulls ashore, you and your friends have removed the canoe and are walking quickly, nonchalantly, down a side street with the Commonweal 22 October 1993: 5 regard the police...
...Swords into Plowshares") as well as a roofing hammer (in case, by the grace of God, you are able to reach the Trident sub itself, whereupon ET CETERA you can begin again the much needed process of disarmament and dismantling), you and your friends take off down the river...
...vast schism that already threatens to permanently divide and Meanwhile, seventeen other peace-activist friends by now destroy Catholicism...
...A cool breeze PLANNED FALSEHOODS The theologians and blows and the Thames River sparkles...
...Fellows, there are too many Trident submarine dock (a huge area marked off by buoys and of you in that small canoe and so we're going to have to escort filled with security boats) and perhaps even to climb onto the you back to shore...
...A press re- been built over the last decades...
...of my action...
...One friend jumps into the water, the The seeing is believing...
...about to be launched...
...There, on the shoreline in front of canoe starts sinking, and the next thing you know, you're in you are two submarines...
...each designed for a first-strike nuclear attack...
...We missed this insidious intent in our speaking out against the Trident, thus preventing the crowds reading of Veritatis splendor...
...The sun is hot and you fine...
...So it goes...
...explosions...
...In a matter of minutes, with he announces, as his boat rubs against your flimsy canoe and you the help of a strong current, you and your confreres are one hold on, trying not to capsize...
...No, sir, officer," you reply with a smile...
...But are taking place...
...Finally the crowds were held back while the police cleared That year, at the Electric Boat facility in Groton, Con- a path through our group...
...Police and Coast Guard boats lease issued by the federation's president, Pamela J. Maraldo, cruise the river so that the launching ceremonies, attended by who is identified as "a practicing Roman Catholic," denounced thousands of military guests, can proceed undisturbed...
...age to circle around, heading back down the river...
...You are careful not to attract attention...
...On the dock, There it stands, right in front of you, decked out in flags...
...Come on, we know who you are and what you're about," can hear a military band playing...
...each "Swim to the back of the boat and we'll pull you on board," stration was held, in which 1 took part...
...Rhode Island, the deadliest weapon ever created in the history of the world...
...To accomplish this, of course, necticut, a new Trident submarine was completed and we had to be removed, and I was one of the first arrested...
...You unfurl the banner...
...We're dock to witness to the peace of Christ...
...proceedings...
...each the equivalent of 4,000 Hiroshima the water...
...But perhaps this is understand- from entering...
...The a crowd has gathered to watch the spectacle...
...Your goal: to paddle into the waters directly off the A Coast Guard ship approaches...
...Maraldo concluded by warning of "the and holding it aloft...
...But the poNot the absurdity of paddling a canoe down the Thames River lice and Coast Guard ships have inadvertently brought you around to the Trident sub dock...
...ployer was sympathetic to my views and always gave me There was mass confusion for a few moments as the ticktime off when I needed it, so I didn't have to worry about et-holders clambered over us to get into the shipyard and my job either...
...But right next to it, completely out of the water, the close connection between the boat and the canoe, the chopaimed straight at you like one giant terrorist bomb is the U.S.S...
...For a moment you are con- spent instead on real human needs...
...I clear power, nuclear weapons, and abortion...
...the Soviet Union has withered away, but still, we mainother boats that occasionally whiz on by...
...Mind you, a few hundred yards down river at the Electric Boat nuclear submarine factory in Groton, Connecticut, police and security guards have peeled their eyes on the lookout for any peace people such as ourselves who might seek to disrupt the ceremonies launching the fifteenth Trident submarine, the U.S.S...
...Across the river stands church historians at Planned Parenthood Federation of America the military town of New London, Connecticut...
...The absurdity of the sit- With three boats safely at your side, your canoe mates manuation hits you full force...
...are entering the Electric Boat complex to attend the ceremonies Maraldo's bold summary of the pope's 40,000 word philo- with the general public...
...boats that have suddenly flashed their lights built at the cost of $2.2 billion, money that should have been and are heading straight for you...
...Not the absurdity of friends blockad- closer to the Trident dock...
...The sky overhead shines a clear, bright blue...
...I I had no time to change my mind, either, for at that moactually enjoyed spending time in jail as it gave me a chance ment our leader signaled us to move forward and sit down...
...six times...
...My offenses ranged from disorderly conduct and But somehow as I stood there holding my sign and trespass to unlawful obstruction of an entrance, and, to be watching the crowds lining up at the gate to file in and honest, I was proud of every one of them...
...My em- in...
...ities, my previous arrests had caused no real problems...
Vol. 120 • October 1993 • No. 18
