On June 12, 1981 Seattle’s Catholic Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen spoke to a gathering at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington, and gave what has come to be known as the “Faith and Disarmament” speech. Frank Fromherz, who wrote “A Disarming Spirit: the Life of Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen,” called Hunthausen’s message that day, “a prayerful invitation to examine personal and collective conscience on great moral questions regarding nuclear arms.” In his speech, Hunthausen referred to the Trident nuclear weapon system at the Bangor naval base just 20 miles west of Seattle as “the Auschwitz of Puget Sound.” In reflecting back on […]
READ MORETag Archives: Nonviolence
MLK: Way Beyond Vietnam
Editor’s Note: Although this essay is a tribute to the life of a great prophet, it is even more a call to action. I invite each of you reading this to dedicate or rededicate yourself to Dr. King’s vision articulated in his essay, The World House, in which calls on us to “1) transcend tribe, race, class, nation, and religion to embrace the vision of a World House; 2) eradicate at home and globally the Triple Evils of racism, poverty, and militarism; 3) curb excessive materialism and shift from a “thing”-oriented society to a “people”-oriented society; and 4) resist social injustice […]
READ MOREWhen will we learn the lesson of war?
Editor’s Note: The following opinion piece was written by Ground Zero member Marianne Mabbitt, and published in the Kitsap Sun on September 19, 2017. Sunday’s opening episode of the new Ken Burns documentary airing on PBS this week, “The Vietnam War,” exposed some history of Vietnam that was never common knowledge in the United States. Most Americans knew that it was once called French Indonesia and that the French had a long embattlement and defeat in Vietnam. However, most of us never read of Hoh Chi Min’s experiences in the United States and England, or that he’d written letters to […]
READ MORE14 cited at anti-nuclear weapons demonstration
55 people were present on May 13, at the demonstration against Trident nuclear weapons at the Bangor submarine base. 14 demonstrators attempted to block the main highway entrance into the base and were cited by the Washington State Patrol. At around 3:30 pm on Saturday, six demonstrators entered the highway carrying a large banner stating, “THE EARTH IS OUR MOTHER—TREAT HER WITH RESPECT”, and briefly blocked traffic at the Main Gate at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor. They were removed from the highway by the Washington State Patrol. After a short period of time, eight other demonstrators entered the highway with a […]
READ MOREApril Ground Zero Newsletter, and much more…
Greetings Friends of Ground Zero Center, As I sit here contemplating the seemingly endless cycle of global violence and the reactive, shortsighted reactions that continue this madness I find myself working hard to stay centered, and I am all the more grateful for the huge community of people who are working on many levels for a nonviolent world at peace with justice for all. We know that war is NOT the answer, and yet the rush to violent “solutions” and war has become the norm. Concepts like diplomacy become meaningless in such a context. We are continuously fed the false […]
READ MORE