Ukraine Shoots Down F-16 With Patriot, A... Sat Aug 31, 2024 11:53 | Anti-Empire
Surprise Offensive Puts 300 km² of Russ... Fri Aug 09, 2024 08:44 | Marko Marjanović
The Wholesome Photo of the Month Thu May 09, 2024 11:01 | Anti-Empire
In 3 War Years Russia Will Have Spent $3... Thu May 09, 2024 02:17 | Anti-Empire
UK Sending Missiles to Be Fired Into Rus... Tue May 07, 2024 14:17 | Marko Marjanović Anti-Empire >>
A bird's eye view of the vineyard
Alternative Copy of thesaker.is site is available Thu May 25, 2023 14:38 | Ice-Saker-V6bKu3nz Alternative site: https://thesaker.si/saker-a... Site was created using the downloads provided Regards Herb
The Saker blog is now frozen Tue Feb 28, 2023 23:55 | The Saker Dear friends As I have previously announced, we are now “freezing” the blog. We are also making archives of the blog available for free download in various formats (see below).
What do you make of the Russia and China Partnership? Tue Feb 28, 2023 16:26 | The Saker by Mr. Allen for the Saker blog Over the last few years, we hear leaders from both Russia and China pronouncing that they have formed a relationship where there are
Moveable Feast Cafe 2023/02/27 ? Open Thread Mon Feb 27, 2023 19:00 | cafe-uploader 2023/02/27 19:00:02Welcome to the ‘Moveable Feast Cafe’. The ‘Moveable Feast’ is an open thread where readers can post wide ranging observations, articles, rants, off topic and have animate discussions of
The stage is set for Hybrid World War III Mon Feb 27, 2023 15:50 | The Saker Pepe Escobar for the Saker blog A powerful feeling rhythms your skin and drums up your soul as you?re immersed in a long walk under persistent snow flurries, pinpointed by The Saker >>
News Round-Up Sun Sep 01, 2024 01:04 | Richard Eldred A summary of the most interesting stories in the past 24 hours that challenge the prevailing orthodoxy about the ?climate emergency?, public health ?crises? and the supposed moral defects of Western civilisation.
The post News Round-Up appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
Domestic Abuse Charity Allows ?Men Who Identify as Women? to Apply for £47,000-a-Year ?Women-Only? R... Sat Aug 31, 2024 15:00 | Will Jones A domestic abuse charity has been criticised for encouraging "men who identify as women" to apply for a senior £47,000-a-year "women-only" post.
The post Domestic Abuse Charity Allows “Men Who Identify as Women” to Apply for £47,000-a-Year “Women-Only” Role appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
Ed Miliband and Chris Stark Have Just Admitted They Have No Clue What They?re Doing Sat Aug 31, 2024 13:00 | David Turver Ed Miliband and Chris Stark have asked National Grid for fresh advice on how to achieve Net Zero electricity by 2030. In other words, they've just admitted they have no clue what they're doing, says David Turver.
The post Ed Miliband and Chris Stark Have Just Admitted They Have No Clue What They’re Doing appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
Authoritarian Government Always Suppresses Free Speech ? But the Worst Part is the Public Joins In Sat Aug 31, 2024 11:00 | Sallust Authoritarian government always suppresses free speech, but the worst part is that the public joins in, says Sallust, as he sees lessons in the 1939 writings of Nora Waln, who saw the iron fist coming down before her eyes.
The post Authoritarian Government Always Suppresses Free Speech ? But the Worst Part is the Public Joins In appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
German Supermarket Chain Takes Brave Stand Against the Colour Blue, in Latest Effort to Stamp out Fa... Sat Aug 31, 2024 09:00 | Eugyppius As AfD leads the polls in the east, a German supermarket chain has taken a brave stand against the colour blue in the latest beyond-parody effort to stamp out fascism and preserve democracy, writes Eugyppius.
The post German Supermarket Chain Takes Brave Stand Against the Colour Blue, in Latest Effort to Stamp out Fascism and Preserve Our Democracy appeared first on The Daily Sceptic. Lockdown Skeptics >>
Voltaire, international edition
Voltaire, International Newsletter N°97 Fri Aug 30, 2024 12:14 | en
The New Iranian Foreign Policy Fri Aug 30, 2024 12:12 | en
Press lies about the Venezuelan presidential election, by Thierry Meyssan Tue Aug 27, 2024 06:59 | en
Voltaire, International Newsletter N°96 Fri Aug 23, 2024 15:28 | en
China chooses international law, distances itself from Israel and reunifies the ... Fri Aug 23, 2024 15:18 | en Voltaire Network >>
|
Carmen Trotta, Friend of the Homeless in Prison this Christmas
international |
anti-war / imperialism |
news report
Thursday December 17, 2020 12:28 by Justin Morahan
![Report this post to the editors Report this post to the editors](../graphics/report.gif)
Nonviolent protest at Nuclear base got him 14 month sentence
Carmen who worked with the homeless in a New York shelter is banged up. Please write to him on plain white paper with a blue pen and, unbelievably, no pictures allowed even at Christmas.
Carmen Trotta (58) will not spend this Christmas looking after the needs of the poor in St Joseph's Catholic Worker House in Ithaca New York where he lives and works. On 12 December 2020 he wias brought to prison in FCI Ottsville, NY to start a 14 month sentence in the middle of a raging pandemic. Carmen is well known to Irish anti-war activists as he directed the public marches of supporters from O’Connell St to the Four Courts in Dublin during the 3 trials of the five Pitstop Ploughshares in 2005 and 2006.
In the early morning of 4 April 2018, with 6 other protestors (the Kings Bay 7) he entered Kings Bay nuclear submarine base in Georgia to “beat swords into plowshares”. All seven were sentenced in the course of the past year. In Ireland, the Pitstop Ploughshares successfully defended their own similar actions at Shannon airport on the plea of lawful excuse and were acquitted by a jury; the Kings Bay Seven Plowshares were denied the same defence in the USA.
Here is Carmen’s moving address to the court after his sentencing with subheadings added]
Child of the Vietnam War
In my opening declaration to the court, I remarked that I’m a child of the Vietnam war, and my primary reason to go to college was to discover who was telling the truth about the war in Vietnam and the reasons for which we fought it. I’m only like 18 years old. It was in college that I first heard Rev. King’s “Beyond Vietnam” speech, and in a way, that was the saddest day of my life.
It also redirected my life.
The proof was simple enough. As King explained it, by 1954 the United States was paying for 80 percent of the French effort to recolonize Vietnam. Then and there, I learned that the U.S. has no more noble reason to be there than the colonizers we sought to replace. Then did I begin a journey that has led me to my presence before the court today.
“Extensive Criminal Record”
I was told by the prosecution that I have an extensive criminal record, and when I heard this, I was dumbstruck. I didn’t think I had any criminal record, but I did at some point come to understand that I had 20/30 arrests, but in my mind they were all justified. Every one of my actions has been a reaction to an American war crime.
Moreover, in every instance, my arrests were for acts of nonviolent civil disobedience or civil resistance. Let me say, unambiguously, that in all of my extensive criminal history, I have never raised a hand in anger and violence against another. In court, I had mentioned my concern that the “institutional memory of the court is perverse.”
The court knows where and when I was arrested, what the charges were and what I was sentenced to. But nothing of the context within which I was arrested: and context is everything. We may remember in our own trial, Mark Colville was confronted with the notion that what he had done was like running a red light – a straight forward violation of the law. But there are times when, in a particular context, anyone in their right mind would run a red light, as for instance the several times I rushed my ailing father to the hospital, saving his life.
Nonviolent Responses to Concerns of Conscience
So as regards war crimes, I’ve run a lot of red lights. To be clear, this criminal has never assaulted anyone, never stolen anything, has never threatened anyone. If convicted of disorderly conduct, it was not for being drunk and urinating in the street. It was for holding a banner in front of the White House and refusing to move… unfortunately the court would not know what the banner said.
Notably, the longest sentence I’ve ever been given, prior to my fifty days for the action at hand, was twelve days. So in short, all of my arrests were deliberate, nonviolent responses to the concerns of my conscience, which I hold to be a divine gift. It is not merely a divine gift to me. It is to everyone. It is what makes a human.
Nicaragua – Reagan and his “Contras” Terrorist Militia 1986
My first incarceration was in 1986 in Des Moines, Iowa. A number of Catholic Workers had joined a larger coalition petitioning then Gov.Branstad to reject a federal request for the state’s National Guard unit to go down to Honduras “to build roads.” In actual fact, they would be building invasion corridors into Nicaragua for the so called Contras, a terrorist militia adopted, funded, trained and advised by the Reagan administration, to overthrow the first democratically elected government in Nicaragua in more than 40 years. Prior to the Sandinista revolution Nicaragua was a US client state, under the despotic control of the Somoza family.
We should all be aware of the fact that the US has almost no history of supporting democracy abroad.
Prior to our action, six states, under public pressure, had refused federal requests to state National Guard units. We were hoping to make Iowa the seventh. We went to the Capitol to meet with the Governor, and he failed to show up. Some 25 of us decided to remain in the office until he appeared. When the building closed for the night the coalition members decided we would wait overnight. Subsequently, state police entered the office to escort us out. I went limp, and was incarcerated overnight.
Days after the action, congressional legislation was passed making it impossible to deny a federal request for a National Guard unit, unless the Governor declared a state of emergency, the so-called Montgomery Amendment.
Iran Contra Scandal Exposed - Oliver North
So, my first arrest was in resistance to an act of American terrorism which came to be know as the Iran Contra scandal. The most active agent of the scandal was Lt. Col. Oliver North, a decorated Vietnam veteran who moved into a secret office within the National Security Council. Behind the back of congress and in violation of the Boland Amendment of 1985, North solicited money from private donors and various nations and turned a blind eye to money garnered from shipments of crack cocaine, brought into the the United States via drug cartels with ties to the Contras.
Eventually the scandal was exposed. Over a dozen government officials were convicted of crimes. Oliver North was given a 3 year suspended sentence for being a kingpin in an act of American terrorism which kicked off a ten year war which took the lives of 30,000 people. All of those convicted were pardoned by the next administration. Having never raised a hand in violence, it seems odd to me that I’m destined to serve more prison time than Oliver North.
US War With Iraq and Sanctions
Another war, indeed a series of wars that I responded to, were related to Iraq. For 30 years now we have been bombing Iraq.
Despite the brutal, dictatorial rule of Saddam Hussein, the people of Iraq managed to create a decent infrastructure. Before US intervention and occupation, Iraq had top of the line hospitals; child mortality rates were comparable to European nations; the populace was supplied with clean safe water; illiteracy was basically eradicated.
But in 1991 American bombs systematically obliterated that infrastructure. This was compounded by the most deadly regime of economic sanctions in history. Prior to the war Iraq 70% of the country’s food came from imports. The sanctions forbade UN member states from selling any foodstuffs to Iraq, with the exception of “humanitarian circumstances.” More the bombing destroyed nearly every water treatment plant in the country. Chlorine, an essential agent in water treatment facilities was deliberately sanctioned. This was done with the full knowledge that water borne diseases would result. Cholera and typhoid, previously almost non-existent, spiked dramatically in the next few years.
Madeline Albright’s Comment about 500,000 Children Dead
These were unconscionable policies! Deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure, and men women and children.
More than 200,000 Iraqis perished by the end of the first Gulf war. The Clinton administration then took the reins, and persistently, if sporadically, continued bombing. In 1996, the UN issued a report that 500,000 children below the age of 5 had died due to the harsh sanctions imposed. Then Sec. of State Magdalene Albright was questioned on this by Leslie Stahl on 60 Minutes: “We have heard that a half million children have died…I mean…that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?”
Albright responded:”I think this is a very hard choice, but the price – we think the price is worth it.”
Albright never apologized for that statement.
Protection of Dissent
So, this is my great dilemma: the conflict between my love of country and my conscience and, what seems to be, the increasing numbness of he nations conscience.
It still strikes me to hear the words “all men are created equal,” and the words “certain God-given and inalienable rights.” Rather obviously we have not lived up to these ideals. But somehow, it is still music in my ear. It is this very conflict that has led me to my actions and to this moment standing before you. I’ve read some of your stuff Judge Wood, and I know that you have some regard for the protection of dissent. Let us pray for the strength and resilience of one another’s conscience. And I hope you develop a relish for dissent.
|
View Comments Titles Only
save preference
Comments (1 of 1)
Jump To Comment: 1Here is his prison address:
Carmen Trotta #22561-021
FCI Otisville
Federal Correctional Institution
Satellite Camp
PO Box 1000
Otisville, NY 10963
PLEASE write to him. As a former prisoner I cannot tell you how much difference a flurry of white envleopes meant to me every morning during my own stay including Christmas in Mountjoy prison in Dublin in 1975.