Info 2007 - Nuclear Weapons: Who has what

Photo by Cristina Biaggi, 1983

NUCLEAR WEAPONS: WHO HAS WHAT
Arms Control Association, October 2007

At the dawn of the nuclear age, the United States hoped to maintain a monopoly on its new weapon, but the secrets for making nuclear weapons soon spread. Four years after the United States dropped atomic bombs on Japan in August 1945, the Soviet Union detonated its first nuclear device. The United Kingdom (1952), France (1960), and China (1964) followed. Seeking to prevent the nuclear weapon ranks from expanding further, the United States and other like-minded states negotiated the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT in 1968. In the decades since, several states have abandoned nuclear weapons programs, but possess nuclear arsenals. Iraq initiated a secret nuclear program under Saddam Hussein before the 1991 Persian Gulf War. North Korea announced its withdrawal from the NPT in January 2003 and tested a nuclear device in October 2006. Iran and Libya have pursued secret nuclear activities in violation of the treaty’s terms.


Nuclear Weapon States
The nuclear-weapon states (NWS )are the five states – China, France, Russia, United Kingdom and the United States – officially recognized as possessing nuclear weapons by the NPT. Although the treaty legitimizes these states’ nuclear arsenals, it also establishes that they are not supposed to build and maintain such weapons in perpetuity. Article VI of the treaty holds that each state-party is to “pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament.”

In 2000, the five NWS committed themselves to an “unequivocal undertaking…to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals.” But for now, the five continue to retain the bulk of their nuclear forces. Because of the secretive nature with which most governments treat information about their nuclear arsenals, the figures below are best estimates of each nuclear-weapon state’s nuclear holdings, including both strategic warheads and lower-yield devices referred to as tactical weapons:

China: 100-200 warheads
France: 350 strategic warheads
Russia: 4,327 strategic warheads, 2,000-3,000 operational tactical warheads and 8,000-10,000 stockpiled strategic and tactical warheads
United Kingdom: Less than 160 deployed strategic warheads
United States: 5,914 strategic warheads, 1,000 operational tactical weapons and 3,000 reserve strategic and tactical warheads.

Defacto Nuclear-Weapon States
Three states – India, Israel and Pakistan – never joined the NPT and are known to possess nuclear weapons. Claiming it nuclear program was for peaceful purposes, India first tested a nuclear explosive device in 1974. That test spurred Pakistan to ramp up work on its secret nuclear weapons program. India and Pakistan both publicly demonstrated their nuclear weapon capabilities with a round of nuclear tests in May 1998. Israel has not publicly conducted a nuclear test, does not admit to or deny having nuclear weapons and states it will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons in the Middle East. Nevertheless, Israel is universally believed to possess nuclear arms. The following arsenal estimates are based on the amount of fissile material – highly enriched uranium and plutonium – that each of the states is estimated to have produced. Fissile material is the key element for making nuclear weapons. India and Israel are believed to use plutonium in their weapons, while Pakistan is thought to use highly enriched uranium.

Israel: 75-200 warheads
Pakistan: up to 60 warheads

States of Immediate Proliferation Concern
Iran is pursuing an uranium enrichment program and other projects that could provide it with the capability to produce bomb-grade fissile material and develop nuclear weapons within the next several years. In contrast, North Korea has the material to produce a small number of nuclear weapons, announced its withdrawal from the NPT and tested a nuclear device. Uncertainty persists about how many additional nuclear devices North Korea has assembled beyond the device tested in 2006. In September 2005, Pyongyang “committed to abandoning all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs.”

Iran: no known weapons or sufficient fissile material stockpiles to build weapons. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) concluded in 2003 that Iran had established the capacity to indigenously produce fissile material. The IAEA continues to investigate and monitor Tehran’s nuclear program.

North Korea: has separated enough plutonium for up to 12 warheads

Syria: has foresworn nuclear weapons as a state-party to the NPT and its nuclear research reactor is subject to IAEA monitoring. In September 2007, Israel conducted an airstrike on what unnamed officials and some analysts allege may have been the construction site of a nuclear research reactor similar to North Korea’s Yongbyon reactor. In addition, according to a 2004 declassified intelligence report to Congress, “Pakistani investigators in late January 2004 said they had ‘confirmation’ of an IAEA allegation that Abdul Qadeer Khan offered nuclear technology and hardware to Syria, according to Pakistani press, and we are concerned that expertise or technology could have been transferred. We continue to monitor Syrian nuclear intentions with concern.”

States That Had Nuclear Weapons or Nuclear Weapons Programs at One Time
Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine inherited nuclear weapons following the Soviet Union’s 1991 collapse but returned them to Russia and joined the NPT as non-nuclear-weapon states. South Africa secretly developed and dismantled a small number of nuclear warheads and also joined the NPT in 1991. Iraq had an active nuclear weapons program prior to the 1991 Persian Gulf War, but was forced to verifiably dismantle it under the supervision of UN inspectors. The March 2004 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq definitively ended the country’s pursuit of nuclear weapons. Libya voluntarily renounced its secret nuclear weapons efforts in December 2003. Argentina, Brazil, South Korea and Taiwan also shelved nuclear weapons programs.

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SoNG 036 Waterloo Talking Blues

Ann, singing Waterloo Talking Blues, 1983. Footage by WOMEN.O.W., Madison, WI.

Ann, singing the Waterloo Talking Blues, 1983.






Anybody out there have any information about this woman, this song or WOMEN.O.W. filming at Seneca? Please share!

Waterloo Talking Blues
This song, written shortly after the incident, tells the story of the 54 women who were arrested in Waterloo in the summer of 1983 as they attempted to march from Seneca Falls to the Seneca peace camp.

Well, we took a bus from New York City
about 45 of us, we all we’re ready
to meet our sisters for a walk in Seneca Falls.
Slept on the floor of a church overnight,
got up in the morning early and bright
to pay a friendly call on the Women’s Hall of Fame.
Honoring the feminists, community locals,
the founding mothers of our not-to-distant past:
Lucretia Mott, Jane Hunt, Harriet Tubman,
Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

Well, we gathered en masse upon the lawn,
formed a circle and raised a song.
With our voices high and our banners drawn,
a bunch of us, slightly over a hundred in all
Proceeded in an orderly fashion gaily forward,
up the straight and narrow and formerly public
sidewalk in the town of Seneca Falls

Well, our peace parade moved right along
and we carefully stayed off the town’s folks lawns
And we’re totally amazed when an egg was thrown
from the upper most, flag-draped window of a two-story home
Didn’t do too much damage but it looked as though
our 15-mile hike was indeed going to be a long one.
When a message came down from some women who knew
and had seen just what were about to go through,
a mile or two up the road in a town called Waterloo.
Waterloo? Do you recall what happened to Napoleon Bonapart
when he visited there some time ago. Do you?
Well, never mind, we said, we’ll go straight on through,
singing, “This land I your land, we live here, too.”
In what hitherto, and somewhat mistakenly, I suppose,
was still considered a free country.

Well, we got to the bridge and to our dismay,
there were hundreds of townspeople blocking the way
waving little American flags stapled to sharp pointy sticks.
Screaming “Nuke the Lezzies” and “Kill the Jews!”
“Let’s get some blood on the evening news!”
“Go home, commies!” But all we were trying to do
is to stop the deployment of the Pershing and Cruise.
And to honor our fine, founding mothers and
our fine, founding sisters along the way.

We were mighty concerned about the men folk’s flatteries
and the sheriff’s bullhorn had run out of batteries
so none of the sides could figure out
what was being said exactly but they were getting awful loud.
That sheriff kept getting smaller and smaller
while the peace camp women got taller and taller
which was pretty damned amazing because by then
we were all sitting down in our circle again
In the asphalt lawn on the sticky black pavement
at the very peak of the mid-afternoon, July 30th, Waterloo sun.
Let’s have a meeting with the Waterloo 54.

Well, we reached consensus, soon I’d say,
and agreed, indeed, it was here we’d stay.
The KKK can stand in the way
of a bridge but can not, I repeat, can not, kill the spirit.
But those kindly townspeople were about to throw us
over the bridge to the river below us
but not before they killed us first
with their sharp pointy sticks
or smothered us in the flag.
With guns and feet, four-letter words and fist
they yelled and they swung and they swung and they missed
But the sit-down women, I said, the sit-down women,
yeah, the sit-down women were accused of inciting a riot.

Now a man came out and raised a loaded gun
but he was just a local boy having him some fun
So they hauled him in and let him ride out again
on just a tiny, little, bit of bail.
But the brave and mighty Sheriff Greer
was worried about election year
so him and a couple dozen cops in riot gear
dragged the Waterloo 54 off to jail.
For their own protection, of course,
but mainly for the protection of the sheriff’s job, of course.
But none of the women even backed down,
the sidewalk is public whether village and town
and there ain’t no judge’s cousin or police chief’s son
that should dare to think he could ever own one.

The 54 women held fast that day
being dragged in the wagon and taken away.
Unjustly arrested and falsely detained
and now about to be arraigned
on a misguided, much abused charge of disorderly conduct.
That’s, quote, disorderly conduct, unquote.
Strange how none of them drunked-up, flag-waving hellion,
spewing all kinds of vile obscenities, breaking through the police lines
trying to get at the women were not considered disorderly.
Of course, boys will be boys.

In the meantime
The sheriff searched high and low for a judge
While the D.A. Diller was sitting drunk in fancy little country club
a few miles down the road.
Yep, Huey Diller had been drinking hard
and the judge was home in his own backyard
having a little Saturday night barbeque with his family, friends and neighbors
and wasn’t in the mood to do any favors
for the cowardly sheriff, the drunk D.A., or just about anybody –
especially ones he didn’t even know -
but he was about to meet the mighty expanding family of the sisters Doe.
None of whom looked anything alike but all of whom
had identical first and last names, Jane Doe.

The magistrate, sunburned and grim,
couldn’t believe what had happened to him
that even he was being dragged in
on a Saturday night to arraign some innocent women for walking on a sidewalk.
Falsely accused, unjustly detained,
the Waterloo women agreed to maintain
dignity, composure, solidarity and silence - and that was just for openers.
“What’s your name?” “Jane Doe,” the first woman said,
and they threatened her with all they threaten women with
if you don’t tell them who you are from the very start.
“Will take your property, your watch and your car
and then we’ll even add on an extra charge –
‘obstructing governmental processes’ and we’ll put you all behind bars
for a year. Who the hell do you think you are, anyway?”

“Jane Doe,” the second woman said the exact same thing
and so did the third and the fourth and the fifth
and so it went on down the line,
mothers, sisters, daughters and wives
sharing one of the truly amazing adventures of our lives
in the rapidly expanding family of the sisters Doe. My how they multiply.

Well, we all got moved to the Interlaken Jail
and we all got held on $50 bail
which we all refused to pay
and awaited a court date five days away.
Then Julie came in to save the day,
“Legal counsel,” she said, “we’ll do what we can.”
“C’mon, Julie, just get us out of here and on our way.”
“Well,” she said, “we’ll do what we can.”
Well, we tried to figure out what we’d do and say
and worked out the details of bail solidarity
and even did local outreach in a limited way
due to the nature of our geographic area.
Mona was our guard, solid all the way,
brought in the veggies, took the junk food away
and even brought us some cigarettes as we watched day merge into day.

August 1st we were ready for action
but separated from our peace camp faction
so we thought we’d start a little reaction of our own
to what was going on outside of the Seneca gate without us.
So we stacked our cots, blockaded the door
and raided Pepsi from the lunchroom refrigerator
and chanted and sang and danced on the floor
until they sprayed the mace through the kitchen window.
Now the papers said that the food was flying
and we were even throwing furniture at each other but they were lying,
trying to make it appear that we were creating a distraction.
Well, the truth of the matter was at eight in the morn
long before the blockade of the jailhouse dorm,
while the guards were busy playing Frisbee on the lawn,
two little ones, so brave and strong,
got a wild hair somewhere, got over being scared,
jumped out a window and simply disappeared.
It was a long, long time – about 14 hours and 12 headcounts later –
before they were even discovered missing. Escaped.
In legal jargon, this constitutes a felony. And that, of course,
opened the rest of the women to the standard
prison harassment technique of a strip search.
What was that? Strip search.

Well the matrons came at us wearing rubber gloves,
things came to push, things came to shove
and we assured those jr. high school jailhouse guards
that we weren’t hiding any prisoners up our vaginas.
“Girls,” she yelled.
“Women,” we said.
“All right, girls,” she said.
“Women.”
“We’re looking for razor blades, knives, guns and bombs,
rubber bands and any other deadly weapons
you may have smuggled on your 20 foot walk
from the cafeteria to the bathroom.
But we all sat down and we all held hands
in a tight little circle and refused to stand
for this indignity and simply wouldn’t move.
“I got herpes and aids,” I cried
and then sat back and waited for the panic to subside.
The prison guards were utterly horrified,
after all, it’s what they suspected all along.
But it wasn’t until Barbara Jane Doe,
tribal elder among the wisest of all,
stood up and spoke to one and to all
that a feeling of calm came over that hall.
“The hour’s late and we’re tired and worn
but were willing to talk for however long
it takes to establish some communal respect.”
And that’s just exactly what we did.
We knew that the guards have difficult jobs
and the women here face unlikely odds
that we’ll ever be able to leave here
unconditionally free and clear.

Well, eventually it came around to August the third,
the day that the Jane Does were allowed to be heard,
there were 43 of us left in the prison yard
and hundreds more being banned and barred
at the Seneca Women’s Encampment for a Future of Peace and Justice
right next door to the Seneca Army death-dealing Depot
in the teeming metropolis,
the town of Romulus,
New York, just off Route 96.
Well, some 15 Does had our private say,
we were given trial dates a month away
and we all announced we would refuse to stay
on hand to participate
in such a miscarriage of justice.
Well, the D.A. sat with beady little eyes
and a starchy white collar, he just realized
how much this illegal detainment was actually costing.
And he knew he’d never recover those dollars,
he was wilting in the heat like week-old flowers
so he called a recess and conferred for a couple of hours
with the judge.
And to this day he’s probably holding a grudge
because he couldn’t convict us of a charge
that didn’t exist.
Now, Jane, from Vienna, spoke of the Nazis;
Jane, from Nebraska, complained of the Klan;
Jane, from Virginia spoke of the waste and
how we’d neglected the elders of our land.
With one mass hearing, they met our demands.
We got back our fingerprints and photographs.
And the Waterloo 54 walked out the door,
even freer then we were five days before.
She wrote no more.
But praise the Goddess and
long live the name of those fine, fine women:
the Waterloo 54!

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Video 1983 - Die-In, part 1

Nagasaki Day Die-In, part 1
August 9, 1983
Main gate of the Seneca Army Depot, Romulus, NY

Copyright 1983. Women's Video Collective. All Rights Reserved.

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Video 1983 - Die-In, part 2

Nagasaki Day Die-In, part 2
August 9, 1983
Main gate of the Seneca Army Depot, Romulus, NY

Copyright 1983. Women's Video Collective. All Rights Reserved

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Video 1983 - Die-In, part 3

Nagasaki Day Die-In, part 3
August 9, 1983
Main gate of the Seneca Army Depot, Romulus, NY

Copyright 1983. Women's Video Collective. All Rights Reserved.

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Video 1983 - Waterloo arrests

"Peace camp marchers arrested at the bridge"
July 31, 1983
Waterloo, NY
Copyright 1983. Women's Video Collective. All Rights Reserved.









STATEMENT OF THE WATERLOO FIFTY-FOUR

We are a diverse group of 54 women from throughout America who on July 30th, 1983, began a peace walk along with 75 of our sisters. We set out from Seneca Falls, New York, to the Women's Peace Encampment in Romulus. Our purpose was to honor the great, defiant women in our past who have resisted oppression and to bring their courageous spirit to the encampment.

In the small town of Waterloo, 4 miles into our walk, our way was blocked by several hundred townspeople brandishing American flags and chanting, "Commies, go home!" To diffuse the potential violence, many of us sat down in the classic tradition
of nonviolence to discuss what to do. Others of us faced the mob, speaking calmly to individuals. One man said to one of us, "If more people here understood what you're saying to me, this wouldn't be happening. There is a lot of misinformation.” Gradually, the tension began to subside.

We had earlier taken great care to notify the authorities of the towns through which we had planned our walk; we had been assured of its legality. For the past week, however, Vietnam vets and local VFW members had been devolving a plan to prevent us from passing by blockading the bridge. On July 28, the Seneca County Sheriff assured the
women at the encampment that he had successfully dissuaded them from hindering us; that he had gotten them to agree to stand on the side and let us pass.

Although this trouble had been anticipated, when we were actually confronted, police protection proved grossly inadequate. The police did take care to protect us from the more violent members of the community, but certain of the sheriff's orders in fact served to excite tensions. For example, while we were sitting, the Sheriff announced that if we did not disperse, we would be charged with inciting a riot. At these words, the crowd became truly menacing. The chanting swelled into a roar, and the crowd surged forward, thrusting their pointed 2-foot flag poles at us. People on the sidelines kept insisting that our actions would lead to conquest by the Russians and the denial of our freedoms as Americans. Ironically, they now were threatening our freedom with the flag that was to them the very symbol of freedom. It was also ironic that they were incensed by our response to their blockade, since the blockade itself was a classic - albeit far from non-violent protest tactic.

Aware of the danger of our situation, most of us sat down to help diffuse the violence and to discuss what to do. It was hard to do this, as we also had to cope with fear for our lives. This was not hysteria on our part. The general police appraisal of the crowd was that women could try to pass through the crowd but they would surely "be massacred.” Flowers were thrown into our midst and when we sniffed them we found they had been sprayed with mace. We prepared then for the possibility of teargas by holding moistened cloths over our noses. The announcement of our imminent arrest came more frequently over the bullhorn, and the sheriff pressured us to take an alternative route. We discussed this possibility, but realized that turning our backs to the crowd would put us in greater danger. Moreover, we wanted to stand firm in our constitutional right to pass through the town and complete our walk.

At one point, the police succeeded in making the crowd retreat about 20 feet and some of them suggested we might be able to get through on the sidewalk. The instant we stood and tried to do so, the crowd moved back in and the police began arresting us, even hand-cuffing a few of us. During the arrest, as some police tried to carry women without hurting them, they were egged on to hurt the women by the crowd’s shouts of "Drag her, drag her." In all, four truck loads of us were deposited at the Seneca County Jail by 3:30 that afternoon, including Millie, a respected local resident who had joined us when she saw the obvious injustice of our arrest. Other townspeople expressed support for us by sending fruit and beverages to us that evening.

In resistance to this injustice, we refused to give our names during processing, and refused to post bail. Though we had been taken in on a violation, "disorderly conduct," we were fingerprinted and photographed. Our court hearing was not set until August 3, four days later.

Our intent was to walk, not to do civil disobedience. We sat to diffuse the violence, to decide our course, and to make the denial of our constitutional rights clear. One of the
things we love most about our country is the Bill of Rights. These rights were denied when the police tried to disperse us and when they arrested us instead of the people threatening us. If we had retreated, we would have neglected to honor our country’s
most democratic mandate. That Saturday, everything was pushed to its most rapid, confusing and expensive conclusion.

The taunts from the crowd were "Nuke the Lezzies," "Go Home Commies," "Kill the Jews," "Throw them off the bridge, let’s see some blood." Among us are many lesbians. There are Jewish women. Almost all of us would call ourselves feminists. Most of us have various beliefs in economic or social change that people label communist, socialist, anarchist.

All of us, whatever we are, deeply feel that our civil rights to be any of these - lesbian, Jewish, feminist, critical of our country - were violated. And further, our civil rights as citizens, to walk free of terror through any town in our own land and express our views and feelings, were trampled.

We know that many of our perhaps unwitting persecutors feel strongly about the flag of our country as expressed in "My country, may she always be right, but right or wrong - my country." Yet trapped by their fear, their hatred, their unfamiliarity of lesbians, Jewish people, radicals, feminists, they missed our efforts as Americans, just as they are, to right our country's wrongs.

And it is exactly two of those major wrongs that we had come to protest - the nuclear weapons in their backyard and our position as women. As women we know all too well the connection between militarism and the violence in our lives. The masculine ideal which the military perpetuates encourages force, dominance, power and violence. It is a concept of masculinity that victimizes women, children and nature.

At this writing we are still being held at Interlaken J.H.S. Group solidarity grows stronger by the hour, and we remain undaunted in our determination to stop the nuclear weapons and save life on our planet.

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Video 1983 - Flowers gone affinity group

"First women go under"
September 4, 1983
Main gate, Seneca Army Depot, Romulus, NY.

Copyright 1983. Women's Video Collective. All Rights Reserved.

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HeRSToRy 033 Cristina Biaggi

PeHP Oral Herstory 033: Cristina Biaggi
Date: October 21, 2007
Location: Palisades, NY
Present: Estelle Coleman, hershe Michele Kramer, Alice O’Malley, Kim Blacklock

Photographs by Cristina Biaggi


E: Cristina, can you tell us when you first heard about the peace encampment?

C: Somewhere in the beginning of the 80s, that’s when I first heard about it and then I was very excited because a whole bunch of women doing something political is always extremely exciting.

E: And did you end up spending time at the peace camp?

C: The first time I came up was with my friend Gail Dunlap and we joined the women there to climb over the fence and that’s what we did and then we got arrested, right off the bat [shared laughter].

E: Were you part of an affinity group?

C: We were part of an affinity group, yes.

E: And how many people were in your affinity group?

C: Oh, I don’t remember.

E: That’s okay, can you tell us about your impressions when you first got to the camp.

C: Well, I was overwhelmed by the fact that there were these women that were doing these very exciting things, resisting. I’ve always liked to resist and here were these women resisting something that is untowards the powers that be.

E: Can you tell us what kinds of things went on at the encampment while you were there?

C: Well, I don’t remember. I remember very much about the action - I remember going over the fence, I remember the policeman arresting me. I remember how they trembled when they would put on the handcuffs. I remember things like that. I remember in the camp, there was a great camaraderie between the women - this living together, this sharing which was very, very important and that’s how I met Catherine Allport (1) who I was madly in love with. She was cooking and that was lovely, she was cooking for everyone. There were these womanly things that were going on such as cooking and doing so-called traditionally women’s things and then there was this other force of resistance and climbing over the fence and being active, being proactive - the more, you might say, masculine sensibility aspect of the whole thing - or the more Athena (2) aspect, Athena defending the city.

E: Did you participate in events that were happening on the land?

C: Yes, I don’t remember too much of that, but I remember the action was the very first time that we went over the fence and then got arrested. Six hundred of us were there. I remember it was quite a large number. That’s when I met Kim (Kim Blacklock, see Herstory 027), and I remember very well that it took four men because she was passively resisting, it took four guards, and she was screaming and so on so forth, it took four guards to drag her off to jail. I remember that, it was wonderful, wonderful. It was very life-affirming.

E: Did you spend time inside the depot in their…

C: In their holding cell? Yes, for, I don’t know, five hours or something like that we were there, chanting and doing various things like that.

E: Do you remember any of those chants?

C: Well, I remember [singing] We are the flow and we are the web, we are the weavers, we are the web. [others singing along] We are the tide and we are the ebb, we are the weavers, we are the web.” That and many others, you know.

E: Were there skills or activities that you participated in that you hadn’t participated in?

C: Well, certainly, climbing over the fence, I had never done that before. I’d never been arrested before. This was the first of a series of arrests. I ended up getting arrested at Comiso (3), too, that’s a whole different story.

E: Had you been politically active before you went to the encampment?

C: Yes, but not as much, that really raised my consciousness and I became much more politically active after that.

E: Did you spend a number of different times at the encampment?

C: I didn’t spend as much time, certainly as you or Kim, probably, because I had commitments, I had children, I had dogs and all of that, but I spent a few weekends there. I didn’t live on the land like many of the women did, unfortunately I was not able to do that, I didn’t feel I could do that, but I would have had I not had children or dogs. But I did come for some weekends or for five days here and participated in that way.

E: You made long term relationships with some women from the encampment?

C: Yes, Catherine Allport and I became lovers and she’s still my very, very good friend. And Gail Dunlap was my friend and continues to be my friend and we shared that first action at Seneca that we went to together. We were just bowled over by it. I remember it was very much in some ways, like being at Vassar (4), because when I went to Vassar the first time I said to myself, ah, all of these gorgeous, intelligent women! Studying together, discussing things that matter together, well, this is kind of like that, in a sense, the being with women and being totally yourself with women. That’s what I remember. I don’t remember so much the details, but I remember the feeling about that.

E: So you had lived in women’s community to some extent at Vassar?

C: Oh yes, exactly.

E: And had you experienced other women’s communities?

C: No, only at Vassar and then at Seneca and Greenham (5) and unfortunately at Comiso there was nobody there, so I did the action all by myself.











E: How did you end up going to Greenham?

C: Once I knew about Seneca, of course Greenham was the next step. And being a person who doesn’t like to be confined to the United States, I thought, well, England. I had a feeling about how wonderful and how strong the British women were and the Irish women and all the women that were resisting in Greenham Common so I decided that my next step was to go there. I heard about this 40,000 women action that was going to take place, I think, on December 11th, in ’84 or ’83, I think, I have it written down in my interview that I wrote.

So I went to Greenham and the night before I went to Greenham, I remember I went to see Les Dialogues de Carmelites which is an opera about nuns in the French Revolution who are resisting the French Revolution in a sense, who are resisting being told that they can’t be nuns, that they can’t be in this women’s community and that was extremely inspiring to me and they end up all dying – guillotined. I remember seeing the opera and then thinking to myself, ah, I’m going to Greenham Common and I’m going to experience this community of women who are resisting against things that are wrong. So, I went to Greenham and sure enough, it was not at all a disappointment, it was absolutely wonderful and the commitment of the women was beyond compare - living in tents along the periphery of the fence, and the wonderful camaraderie that was between the women. And the buses started coming, huge bus loads of people - something like 40,000 women resisting. I set myself up as the photographer, I wasn’t going to climb over the fence, I was going to just record everything that I saw to give the photographs to people and for publication and also for my own art because basically in life I’m an artist and I get inspired by things that are around me.

So the action started and the women started to chant and they started to pull the fence. The bobbies (6) were actually quite respectful, they were told to be respectful and they were on the whole, very, very nice, actually, they didn’t engage in slurs or anything like that. The women started to pull down the fence and they succeeded in some areas and they went over to the other side and of course they got arrested, but everything was done in a respectful way. There were a couple of incidents where people got hurt but it wasn’t really, really bad, no one, that we know of was beaten up or injured like that and some people ended up in jail for a while and then we went to some of the trials, not trials, you know when…

E: Hearings.

C: Hearings, yes, and, and supported them that way for about a week or 10 days, something like that. But that was, that was an incredible, incredible action, that Greenham action. It snowed at one point, I remember the second day the snow was falling and all these tents right outside the fence and we were walking around the periphery and seeing the guards on the other side - it was incredible, it was an incredible scene.

H: Did you know any women from Seneca that were at Greenham at that time?

C: Yes, I met some women from Seneca - I don’t remember who they were and I also met some women from Minnesota - there were women from all over, from New Zealand, from Australia, I think there were some from Germany, there were women from all over the world. It was a very powerful action, very powerful, very inspiring.

H: And do you recall when you were at Seneca, were there women there from Greenham or other parts of the world?

C: Yes, there was. There was Gwyn Kirk (7), you remember her? She was from Greenham, I think. Because eventually, she and somebody else, and I forget who it was, came to Palisades and we presented some of the things we had done at Seneca, Greenham and Comiso in a church and an article was written in the Journal News about it. It was a whole series of events that took place after that as a result of the Seneca things and as a result of the Greenham things. It’s a pebble that falls in the water and spreads and here you are doing it again [shared laughter], here we are doing it again.

E: A continuation.

C: The continuation of that. Maybe it will be a revitalization of something that we need right now in this world because certainly our government has gone to the dark side and we need to resist that. We haven’t resisted it enough, we’ve all been too involved in our own things and I’m basically talking about myself because I can’t talk about you certainly, but I, but I can see that we need to revitalize and reenergize.































E: When you continued your Seneca journey, you went to Greenham and then you went…

C: And then I decided that I had to go to the Italian peace camp, because I’m half Italian myself, so I decided that I wanted to check out Comiso, La Ragnatela, the Spider web in Comiso, which is now totally dismantled, the base has been dismantled. It was an American base in Sicily. I had made contact with some Comiso women and I was going to meet them at the base, this was in January of ’84. So I went to Sicily and I did some touring around by myself, visited some megalithic monuments, some art touring and then I planned to meet these women at a certain time in Comiso. Well, when I got there, there were no women. There were no women. And the reason was that some of them had become sick because of the hygienic conditions there or something like that and they become sick and they had to go to the hospital. So nobody was there to meet me and that was very frustrating.

It was about 10 o’clock or 11 o’clock in the morning and so I decided I would go around the base, I would tool around the base with my car - I had rented a car and then I thought, well, why don’t I take a few photographs, at least that. I saw very clearly, I have to admit, I saw really clearly, ‘E vietato fotografare’- no, you can’t photograph, there was a sign. I said, bah, I don’t like that” and I start taking pictures, in fact, I got on top of my car and started taking pictures. I was feeling in a combative mood, and there was a little cabin there, a little hut where the women had done the kitchen, that was the center of the Ragnatela and it said there, ‘Ragnatela.’ So I climbed up to the roof and started taking really panoramic shots of the base and suddenly I hear, wheeeeeeeeee, and two police cars from two directions come charging in.

Six policeman leap out or there were eight, I don’t remember, with submachine guns trained on me. And they say, “Che fa lei?” [What are you doing?] and I said, “Faccio foto,” - I’m taking pictures. He said, “Don’t you know that it’s forbidden to take pictures?!? And I said, “I didn’t see any sign.” So, he said, “Scendete subito!” Come down immediately! So I did, I was trembling but I was trying to act as if, who are you, that kind of thing. So they arrested me right then and there, they said, “Signora, you have, you have to come with us, you did something very illegal, we’re arresting you.”

So they take me to the station and they tell me that I have one telephone call that I can make and I think I tried to call one of the women and there was an answering machine, so I said, I couldn’t reach anyone, can I make another call? So I called a friend of mine in Italy, in Genoa, and I told her that I was being arrested and very briefly, why. She of course alerted my mother and my family and the next thing I know is that I made the papers in Lausanne, I made the papers in Italy, I made all these papers because everybody was kind of claiming me for their own. I didn’t make the American papers, but I made the Lausanne papers, I made the Geneva papers, I made the Genoa papers and so on and so forth, they said, the first pacifist of the year has been arrested in Comiso. In the meantime I am in police station and this very kind of handsome policeman who was very debonair and all that, he says, “Signora, we have to take you to jail.” I said, “Okay, fine.” And then on the way, he tries to pick me up in a sense, he says, “You’re a pacifist, I really respect that. When your jail sentence is over would you like to, I’m really a great admirer of art, would you like to come and see my art collection.” [laughter]. Oh my, I said, “Sure.” [laughter]. Then on the way from the police station, he takes me to the jail and it’s this 16th century dungeon, it’s this huge castle. The walls are 12 feet thick, you enter and then there’s this clanging gate that clanged shut after we entered. You thought you were entombed and as we entered, he started to quote Dante, he was a very kind of passionate person, so he started to quote the first four lines of the Divine Comedy, “Nel mezzo del cammin” and he practically had me in tears because he had this beautiful voice and he said, “I leave you here and I’ll see you again!” [laughter].

A: The opera, huh?

C: Very operatic. So here I am, fingerprinted and booked and put in solitary confinement– a small cell with a bed and a basin and all that. Solitary confinement in Sicily is not the solitary confinement in the United States because people started coming and talking to me and then every once in a while the guards would say, “No, she’s in solitary confinement, leave her alone!” So they would stop talking to me. There were seven other women in this jail and two of them had killed their husbands and you can really understand why if you travel around in Sicily because the men are very, very patriarchal. And one of them, she was about 72 years old had become this model prisoner and she took care of everybody else, she’d become the mama of the prison. She also kept the prison clean, it was spotless, it was wonderful. She’d bring me my food for the day, which was bread, cheese, a little bit of wine - they have wine in jail! And then meat, we were quite well fed. And there was toilet paper, the necessities of life.

I had my little exercise for one hour a day but I had basically nothing to do. Thank heavens they let me keep some books, so I read. I read about three books the first day. I was there about four days. But I had a great time, in some ways, I had a very unforgettable time in this jail. One of the women was about 24 and she was an expert at stealing from the post office. She was person of great conviction but she had carried it a little bit too far. She really admired the fact that I was a peace activist and she said that she would become a peace activist herself. She had this collection of books about how people were treated in jail in different parts of the world, so when I ran out of books to read, I said, “Patricia, do you have, do you have any books that I could borrow?” She gave me a book about torture in Chinese prisons. I said, “Well, do, do you have anything lighter than that? Because here we are.” And then she offered, How I Spent 10 years in Jail in Vietnam or something like that.

And then there was another woman who also had killed her husband but instead of reacting like the first one, who had become this model prisoner and who was going to actually be released in a year’s time, she had turned to Jesus. I asked her, “Why did you kill you husband?” and she started quoting the bible to me so I didn’t pursue that. And then there was the priest who came and spoke with me and said, “ I really admire the fact that you’re a pacifist, come to our services on Sunday and tell your story,” and so I did.

There were all these wonderful moments in the jail, the guards were very nice to me and then finally what happened is, on the outside, my friends and family had finally gotten me a lawyer, and the lawyer helped to spring me out, if not, I would have stayed there for 10 days. I was told that I had to leave Italy within a three day period. I didn’t know how long I was going to be in there for and it was quite, scary because some people had been there for years, so I had no idea when, when I was going to be sprung. But finally the fourth day these guards come in and the guard comes into the prison and he has a staff and he beats on the staff and says, “La prigionera Biaggi e liberata!” Just like straight out of opera, “The prisoner Biaggi is liberated!” And everybody cheered. [shared laughter] And so I hugged and kissed everybody - the guards, the inmates - and then I left and I was free and they were not and I felt very badly. I went immediately and took my car and went to the volcano Aetna and went as far as I could to see the lava and that was purifying and then I went to sleep [laughter]. In my privileged condition I brought some Swiss chocolate and I sent the Swiss chocolate to all the inmates and to all the guards and to the priest and I don’t know if they ever got them, but anyhow, that was my story of Comiso.

A: What happened to the film?

C: It was taken by the police. I had taken a lot of pictures of things that I was interested in like megalithic monuments in Sicily. I was writing my first book about the great goddess all that was taken and I never saw, what’s his name, Davio the policeman [shared laughter].

H: Did this experience ever make its way into your art or literary work?

C: I wrote one of my articles about that and it’s as vivid now as it was then, every detail. The guards would come in every single day and announce what they were doing, they said, “Dobbiamo vedere se le sbarre della prigione sono intatte!" “We have to see if the bars are all intact, if nobody’s been sawing them at night.” All this was done in such an operatic way, they would take their batons and run them over the bars and if they made a strange sound then they knew something was wrong and everybody had to clear out and look on, it was in some ways, wonderful. [laughter] This patriarchy was operatic.

E: Did that take the edge off the terror of it all?

C: It did because it was very, very ludicrous. The human aspect was so wonderful, though, talking to the guards, talking to the priest. The guards were supposed to be the patriarchal purveyors on the other side but they were admiring of the peace movement. They were doing their job but they also admired what we were doing in a larger sense and that was very heartening.

H: So you made a conscious chose not to get arrested at Greenham?

C: Yes, because I was taking photographs. I didn’t want to be there too long, some people stayed in jail for 10 days and I had kids in college and I didn’t know whether I should do that or not. When you have children you have to think of them.

H: But when you were standing on the car in Italy, you were willing to take the risk of a prison sentence?

C: I was not thinking about the fact that maybe I would be arrested. I really wasn’t. I was taking my chances. I was carrying on, that’s what I was doing. And at Greenham it was a little bit, to be honest, it was very overwhelming to see 40,000 women, it was very, very exciting but overwhelming, and I thought, god. I just decided, I said no, I’m going to take pictures, I’m not going to actually go over the fence.

E: You’ve done a lot of writing and artwork about these experiences?

C: I’ve done some writing and a lot of artwork. Most of my artwork is a continuation of that, for instance, when I went to Nairobi for the women’s conference, that’s a continuation of that, the Beijing women’s conference, there was one in Copenhagen and one in Mexico, I think, four of them and I went to two and that was marvelous, that was wonderful.

E: Tell us about that.

C: At Nairobi there were women from all over Africa. We looked at the faces, the sea of faces were mostly black and they were a lot of women from South Africa who came and discussed their plight in the land of apartheid. I eventually went to South Africa with Catherine Allport, I met her there and we went to some of the hotspots, the so-called hotspots, in South Africa where the blacks were allowed to live. We also went to Soweto which is a suburb of Johannesburg where the blacks lived and you see these long lines of black people at the end of the day who would come and work in Johannesburg, going back, on buses to Soweto. Huge long lines, masses of people getting on the buses to go back to the places where they live. Most of the women from South Africa were activists who had spent a considerable amount of time in jail and were constantly being threatened by the government. And in fact, when I went to South Africa, we had dinner with some whites and blacks who had spent a lot of time in jail and Catherine and I were very, very inspired by the whole thing. We did some writing on that.

H: Why do you describe the time as a continuation of the peace encampment?

C: Because it comes from the same place in your heart in soul, it’s saying this is not right, we want to do something about it but it’s also this community of women who decide to try to do something about the status quo, and also enjoy each other’s company in the meantime.

E: Can you tell us about Beijing? How that was different from…

C: From Nairobi? It was much vaster and it was not in Beijing, it was in Whyrow, so we felt as if we were sequestered from the main action because of the powers that be. One of the wonderful things about Beijing was this wonderful lesbian march which the powers that be wanted to stop but they couldn’t because there were too many of us so they kind of looked on from the sides. It was wonderful to see women from Sri Lanka or India or Pakistan and places like that who had never been able to really express their feelings and suddenly they were expressing their feelings, they were weeping and they were walking, they were marching and they were singing - they were being themselves, finally for the first time, they were able to be themselves and it was great.

K: I want to remind you, too, that here was a move to bring women from Seneca over to Greenham and I remember you as being instrumental in arranging that. We had a diner party or something in New York City and women pitched in money to send some of the organizers from Seneca over to Greenham and I remember you being at that dinner party.

C: Yes, maybe I was. I think I was.

K: It was very moving to me and I wasn’t going to go to Greenham because I thought, no, I need to stay at the camp because I’d just gotten out of jail and I remember you saying to me, “Why on earth wouldn’t you go?”

C: Well, that 40,000 women thing was just so inspiring though, and I wished you’d come. Anyhow.

K: Well, I was there later, thanks to your efforts and some of the other women in New York City, they sent at least seven, seven of us over to Greenham.

C: Really? Right, I remember that.

K: And I stayed gone for two years.

C: I remember that, yeah. And Gwyn Kirk was instrumental in the whole thing, too.

K: But I really appreciated that the women from New York and that you helped get some of us over there who otherwise wouldn’t have had a chance to be over there.

C: Right. Well, women who have means should, period. I also think I helped a couple of women go to Beijing or Nairobi, I forget which, but so that they could be there.

E: Can you tell us more about Bejing?

C: I was there with Catherine Allport and we had a great time. We bought two bicycles and so we went around with our bicycles and we went to all these events. We went to one event, the Palestinian women which was very, very moving what happened to them as a result of the Israeli coming into their camp and killing some of them and we were heard all of the testimony of that, that was oh, that was incredible. There were something like 1500 events that were all taking place within two weeks and of course there were women from all over the world.

K: And what did you do with all this information?

C: I did a lot of talks, I did some artwork, but basically I talked, articles, artwork and things like that.

H: Can you describe the art piece you did with the web that you showed us the picture of?

C: Okay. There are three layers here, there’s the center portion which is basically the great goddess and it’s got Catherine Allport. And then there’s seven panels around here, these are all the movements - the anti-slavery movement, the suffragette movement – in the first circle beyond the middle and then on the outside are all the recent movements, including Seneca, Greenham, and various movements in Europe and all over the world at that point in the 80s and in the 70s. And the other side, it’s double-sided collage, is basically the same thing, here’s a black woman. I used a woman that somebody knew and I paid her to model for me and I made the collage on wood out of photographs and images from newspapers, magazines and images that I had taken and transferred it to cloth so the wind can shift it, like a flag. The cloth is attached by means of red rope, it’s very hard to see the red rope here, because this picture’s a little faded, but they’re all attached with red rope and the red symbolizes our menstrual blood that connects us all. It’s actually quite an effective piece, I think.



K: When did you begin your work in, for lack of a better term, goddess studies?

C: The end of the 70s, beginning of the 80s.

K: And how did you experiences at Seneca and the other peace camps and other women’s, gatherings, affect you, your spirituality and your work?

C: Well, the political became sort of merged with the spiritual because also what was happening at that point in the middle 70s was that Monica Soo came out with her book about gods and goddesses of all Europe which later became goddesses and gods of all Europe. That book was a huge affirmation for women, as being in the center of life, way back in the neolithic as opposed to peripherily, the way it is under patriarchy. That was very important and she became very important to the goddess spirit, to the women’s spirituality movement and the women’s political movement because I don’t think you should really separate them. Each person has these two aspects to them whether one is more developed than the other, we all have that. I see it as being intertwined and I think that Seneca and Greenham helped me to intertwine all of the parts - the women’s spirituality, the goddess and so on because there’s very, very strong evidence that our first numinous power, or sacred power was a female, we worshipped a female before we worshipped this bearded person up there and the goddess spirituality is much more egalitarian, much more inclusive and less, dualistic in the way the patriarchal god is and so it’s much more harmonious.

K: I would like you to also talk about your book the Habitations of the Great Goddess because, it seems, just from hearing your chronology, that these experiences at Seneca and Greenham and then with the women’s conferences that it, really kind of exploded you out into the goddess scene.

C: Habitations of the Great Goddess came as a result of my PhD dissertation which was 650 pages long. I got my PhD in 1983 in megalithic monuments that symbolized the great goddess. Habitations of the Goddess was basically about temples, tombs and habitations in Malta. Malta is a goddess center, they have 33 temples and they’re all very organic - there are no straight lines there. You enter into these incredible places, like caves, huge blocks of stone, coupolas - they’re shaped like the human body, they’re shaped like the women’s body. So I wrote about that and then I went to Scotland because I read an article about an interesting connection between some of the Neolithic Scottish temples and the ones in Malta. And in fact I discovered that there was a connection so I wrote about the ones in Malta and the ones in Scotland, basing all of my research on the goddess because I believed that that’s the motivating force for these structures. So that was my first book, but it was based on part of my dissertation, the first part being a compilation of all the work that people have done on the goddess and evidence of why the goddess was the goddess and why was she the motivating force of early people.

The second book I wrote is called In the Footsteps of the Goddess and that’s a small, little book, it’s very accessible and it’s basically how women - and I also included men because I believe that they should be included because, if not, change will not really take place the way it should - have come upon the goddess and how they’ve experienced the goddess. I have 63 contributors, only five of which are men. But all the men that I interviewed just went on and on and on and on and on because once they get it, they just go on and on. So these were just reflections on getting the spiritual thing.

And the idea for the third book, which is called the Rule of Mars, was started at an archeomythology conference I went to which was inspired by the work of Marija Gimbutas. The conference was about when did the Black Sea flood take place and how did it affect the goddess-centered communities in and around the Black Sea and around the Caspian region in Europe, way back in the neolithic. The conference took place in Italy and I wrote a paper called, Why Did the Kurgans Become War-like? The Kurgans had become patriarchal and so they clashed with the mother-centered people of so-called old Europe and then everything changed over the course of a millennium or two. So basically Rule of Mars is the whys and wherefore of patriarchy and how it’s affected us on this earth and what to do about it. In the last part I included Riane Eisler who wrote The Chalice and the Blade and she wrote a very wonderful article about it and Mary Clark who is a social scientist and Imogene Drummond who is an artist and a very deep thinker in terms of what can you do about the status quo - it’s not only a very negative book, it’s also positive. So this is the result of the peace camp and that feeling between women and that feeling of not allowing the status quo to continue un-remarked and to look at it. I think it is all part of it.

E: Do you remember the chant, We All Come from the Goddess?

C: [singing] We all come from the Goddess [shared singing] and to her we shall return like of drop of water coming from the ocean. We all come from the Goddess and to her we shall return like a drop of rain, flowing to the ocean. [shared laughter]

A: Did you participate in any rituals at the peace camp?

C: Oh, yeah.

A: Do you remember any of those?

C: Vaguely..

K: I’m assuming that you’ve participated in rituals since?

C: Oh, yes. [shared laughter]

K: Is there any kind of sense that rituals are growing? Was it like we were experimenting at the camp and got better over time? Was there any kind of progression?

C: I think there’s new wave of feminism that started with the camps and I’m digressing, but I went to Poland last November. Poland was under Soviet regime until 10 years ago and now they’re doing the same thing that we were doing at the camps. We sang We All Come from the Goddess in Polish and in English. I went there as a guest, they wanted me to come and they wanted me to tell my story and basically to speak about the goddess and I wanted to speak about patriarchy, but they said, no, we’ve had enough of that, we want you to speak about the goddess, we want to go back to the roots, we also want you to speak about you, about the camps, Seneca and so on and so forth. So I spoke about the goddess and I spoke about the camps and how that inspired the whole thing and then we had a lot of rituals and we had the same kind of rituals as we had in Seneca except in Polish. Which was great! So, I think this whole spirit is slowly, well, from our perspective it’s slowly filtering out to the rest of the world.

E: Unifying women internationally.

C: Yeah. Because there’s a movement in Turkey and now there’s this very strong group in Poland. There’s certainly a group in Switzerland, there’s a group in Germany – I’m in touch with some of these people.

H: You deal with really lengthy history in some of your works, can you speak a little bit why it’s important to record and preserve women’s stories of resistance?

C: Because we’re still living in patriarchy, we have to, we have to try to change that, we have to try to find an alternative way to do this. We have to do that. We can’t just stop. One of the conclusions I came to in my book is that in some ways patriarchy is worse than it’s ever been before, but in some ways the resistance, the underlying, the substratum of resistance is there and it’s got to be tapped, it has to rise more to the surface. We’re making more connections with women in the rest of the world - the Internet is helping with that. It’s very important to do this, it’s extremely important to have these kinds of recordings. I really applaud you for doing that

K: Do you remember when we were in jail together at Seneca? There was something that happened with our bonding and with all the other women in there. There was energy that was raised there that I thought kind of was freaking the guards out and I wondered if you could go back into that time when we were all together inside and what was happening with the chanting and the women versus the guards.

C: I think the guards didn’t know what to do with us. Many of them were kids from Oklahoma or Nebraska or something. The one that arrested me I remember very well, he was trembling so violently he could hardly put my shackles on, he was obviously a greenhorn. I think a lot of them were, they didn’t know what to do.

E: They were very young and they had been told that they might have to shoot us and to them that was like, “I’m going to shoot my mother, my sister, my girlfriend?” We represented every woman so I think a lot of them were terrified. I remember walking along and seeing guys with tears just running down - they’re standing there with those guns but the tears were running down their faces.

C: They were trying to hold it all in and this is what patriarchy does to men.

K: I want you to come back and talk about the Rule of Mars because I think one of the things that were talking about is herstory and how we’ve been written out of the pages of history. Can you talk a little bit about how herstory can feed us now?

C: I think I’ve kind of said it or we’ve said it, I think we need to continue with the spark, we need to be re-sparked and I think something like this project and I think what they’re doing at the Brooklyn Museum is terrific. I think anything like that is really making quite a new spark to regenerate and continue this feeling that we need to have in order to sustain us, in order to broaden our work in trying to dismantle or neutralize the patriarchy - maybe we should talk about neutralizing the patriarchy because dismantling just seems like it’s a futile act almost at this point, but neutralizing, it’s almost doable if we have these counter groups.

K: I want you to describe what you would think would be this matriarchy that we had. I’d like you to try to recreate, what was a day in this goddess-centered world that we had before the Kurgans, raped, pillaged, plundered and killed it?

C: There are some human beings right now that are still living in these communities, one of them is the Minangkabau in Sumatra - there are about four million of them and they’re Muslims which almost seems like a contradiction in terms because they are basically women-centered. There are these women groups that kind of guide the whole society, of course this is changing because everything is changing in the world, but I met two of these people, I met a man and a woman and they were very, I don’t know, there’s something very special about the men because they’re extremely respectful and if somebody asks this man, “How does it feel to be ruled by women?” He said, “I don’t feel ruled by women, the women are advisors, they advise my life and I can’t imagine anything else than my mother, not telling me what to do, but guiding me, I can’t imagine anything else.” I think because of women, who they are, there would be much more respect toward human beings at large on a day to day basis then what we have now.

K: And other models? What did it look like before patriarchy? How did it work? How did it operate? What were our systems? What was our economy? How were the villages set up?

A: I’m wondering if we could actually bring it up to the peace encampment, how does the structure of the feminist politic or government or whatever it was that we were doing reflect itself in history of matriarchy or was it a completely post-modern construct of government that we took?

K: Cristina, were you familiar enough with the peace camp structure - the webs and the coordinators and the committee meetings - to comment whether you thought that it was a throwback to matri-focal?

C: I think so, in retrospect, I think that it was a throwback in many ways, the feeling was certainly authentic, everyone was seen as worthwhile for themselves, I think that’s what happened with the world, you know animals and every being has a right to be here for its own self, for its own sake.











Notes

1. Catherine Allport - author of We are the Web: The Women’s Encampment for a Future of Peace and Justice, 1983, Artemis Press, NY, 1984.

2. Athena - Greek goddess of wisdom, war, the arts, industry, justice and skill. She was the patron goddess of Athens. Her symbol was the owl. She was originally the Great Goddess in the form of a bird. By the late Classic, she had come to be regarded as a goddess of wisdom.

3. Comiso Air Base – located in the Italian municipality in the Province of Ragusa in Sicily. The United States Air Force deployed ground launched cruise missiles (GLCM) to Comiso Air Base in June 1983. The missiles were eventually dismantled after the Intermediate-Range and Short-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty was signed by the former Soviet Union and the United States on 8 December 1987. The last 16 GLCMs left Comiso Air Base in 1991.

4. Vassar - a private, highly selective, coeducational, liberal arts college situated in the town of Poughkeepsie, New York. Founded as a women's college in 1861, it was the first member of the Seven Sisters to become coeducational (1969).

5. Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp – an ongoing nonviolent protest outside the U.S. Air Force base at Greenham Common in England, 1981-2000. On August 28, 1981, 40 women marched 110 miles to the U.S. Air Force base at Greenham Common, the proposed site of 96 U.S. cruise missiles. Eight days later, four women chained themselves to the air base fence. From this direct action a women’s peace camp was born. On March 21, 1982, 10,000 people demonstrated at the base. 250 women engaged in a 24-hour blockade – 34 were arrested. On December 12, 1982, 300,000 women linked hands to embrace the 9-mile fence encircling the base. Although the last of U.S.’s 96 cruise missile were removed in 1991, women stayed on at Greenham until 2000 to ensure that the base was closed down. In March of 1997, the land was purchased by the Greenham Common Trust and returned to a variety of civilian uses.

6. Bobbies – popular name for British police. The London police force was created in 1829 by an act introduced in Parliament by the home secretary, Sir Robert Peel (hence the nicknames “bobbies” and “peelers” for policemen). Bobbies wear a uniform that is nonmilitary in appearance. Their only regular weapon is a short, wooden truncheon, which they keep out of sight and may not employ except in self-defense or to restore order.

7. Gwyn Kirk – co-author with Alice Cook of Greenham Women Everywhere: Dreams, Ideas and Actions from the Women’s Peace Movement, South End Press, London, 1984.

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NEWSPAPER 2008 - Three arrested in Berkeley protests

Linci Comy of Oakland said she was there for future generations.
"I don't want my kids and grandkids to go to another war of occupation," she said. "We have to set a standard, we have to tell the world that military recruitment is no longer acceptable."


THREE ARRESTED IN BERKELEY PROTESTS OVER MARINES
San Francisco Chronicle , Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Downtown Berkeley became a battleground of its own kind today as about 500 anti-war and pro-military protesters faced off in a public plaza over the Marine Corps' recruiting center in the city. Three protesters - a man and two teenagers - were arrested in separate scuffles, police said. The City Council is scheduled to decide tonight whether to revoke a letter it approved two weeks ago telling the Marines they are "unwelcome intruders" and should leave. The council's action provoked widespread debate.

In anticipation of the meeting tonight at City Hall, anti-war protesters lined up on one side of Martin Luther King Jr. Way while pro-military groups took control of the other side. Things were peaceful for most of the morning. But by early afternoon things heated up as more than three dozen police with batons and riot gear formed a line to separate the two sides. About 1 p.m., a man supporting the Marines' presence in Berkeley ventured into the encampment of anti-war group Code Pink and drew a knife.

Police arrested 49-year-old Keith Donald Salvatore of Rocklin (Placer County) for allegedly brandishing the weapon. Salvatore told police he had drawn the knife in self-defense after anti-war protesters wrapped him in a pink banner, said Sgt. Mary Kusmiss, a police spokeswoman. A Code Pink activist from San Ramon said the man threatened to kill her, Kumiss said.

About 250 people showed up on each side. They included dozens of students from local schools, including Berkeley High, who chanted "One, two, three, four. Berkeley High against the war." Police warned the students not to antagonize the other side, but two boys on skateboards got into a yelling and swearing match with the Marine supporters. Fists flew, and some witnesses claimed the pro-Marine side struck the two students with a flagpole. The boys, 13 and 15 years old, were arrested.

A large group of students and adults gathered outside the police station, demanding that the teens be released, prompting police to order them to clear the area. When they didn't respond immediately, officers in riot gear held their batons horizontally in front of them and pushed the crowd back.

Maya Nadjieli, a 19-year-old Berkeley City College student, said she was hit in the stomach with a baton and punched twice in the face. "No matter how far we were moving back, they kept hitting us," Nadjieli said. Other protesters came from outside the city. One of them, Mary Mankowski of Portland, Ore., said she paid $350 to fly in Monday. "It kills me to pay full fare but this is important," said Mankowski, who claimed that every generation of her family has served in the military since the American Revolution. "(This is an) outrageous erosion of our constitutional privileges."

Diane Britto of Lafayette and her friend Elynne Allen of Pleasant Hill vowed they would never spend another dollar in the city of Berkeley. Britto, whose son is in the Navy, said she would keep her season tickets to Cal football games but will have dinner in Oakland on game days from now on. Berkeley's treatment of the Marines, she said, was "despicable to the rest of the nation." Allen, whose husband served in the Marine Corps in Vietnam, said she would push her car outside the city limits if it runs out of gas while she's in Berkeley.

Anti-war protesters gathered on the other side of the street, as Code Pink sold T-shirts, waved flags and sang "We Shall Not be Moved" through a loudspeaker.
"I'm here to thank the city council for dis-inviting the Marines," said Berkeley resident Tim Modok, who was attending with his schnauzer, Susie. "I'd rather have a porn (outlet) two blocks from an elementary school and a high school than I would a Marines recruiter; they're telling kids lies to get them into this war. These are very dangerous people. They're lying to their children, talking them into becoming killers."

Linci Comy of Oakland said she was there for future generations. "I don't want my kids and grandkids to go to another war of occupation," she said. "We have to set a standard, we have to tell the world that military recruitment is no longer acceptable."
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