Street SpiritJ U S T I C E N E W S & H O M E L E S S B L U E S I N T H E B A Y A R E A

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by Terry Messman

While serving nine months in fed-eral prison after her arrest for ananti-nuclear protest where she

planted corn on a nuclear missile silo inMissouri, peace activist Kathy Kelly had avivid awakening that she was living in “aworld of imprisoned beauty.”

In prison, Kelly met women who werecaptives in this world of imprisoned beauty,women who could just as easily have beenher sisters-in-law or her next-door neigh-bors. To this day, she cites the courage ofthe women she met in prison as a guidinglight in her work for peace and justice.

Kelly was stunned to realize that therewas no mercy for women who were cut offfrom their families for many years, oftenfor very minor economic crimes. Yet, itwas life-changing for her to witness at firsthand the courage demonstrated by thesewomen in facing years of imprisonment.

It was nothing less than a revelation ofthe beauty of the human spirit — a worldof beauty buried in the prison system. Thewomen were separated from their chil-dren, branded with a heavy social stigma,yet they found a way to carry on despitethese crushing burdens. In an interviewwith Street Spirit, Kelly said, “So youhave this world of imprisoned beauty andit is almost as though it’s erased from themindset of the rest of the country.”

This jailhouse epiphany opened hereyes to the countless precious and irre-placeable lives that our society has caged

behind prison walls, cast off into refugeecamps, banished in homeless shelters, orleft to die on remote battlefields.

It changes everything, this revelationthat all around us, in the poorest neighbor-hoods nearby, in the almost forgotten jailcells of our cities, and in the far reaches ofthe world’s refugee camps and war zones,beauty has been put on trial, imprisoned,erased and extinguished.

Kathy Kelly is one of the most respectedpeace activists in the nation. She has livedin solidarity with people in war zones, andreturned home to launch protests on their

behalf in the halls of Congress. Kelly andher friends also organized 70 delegations todeliver medical supplies to civilians in Iraq,in violation of U.S. economic sanctions.

She has spent her life trying to openthe eyes of a nation to see the beauty ofinnocent people targeted by U.S. bombsin war zones, and the sacred lives dese-crated by poverty. She has been arresteddozens of times for acts of resistance tothe high-ranking officials and corporateexecutives responsible for war crimes andeconomic deprivation — the pillars of soci-ety who are almost never jailed for their

crimes against humanity.Kelly said, “The main people that

threaten us are in the corporation officesand in the well-appointed salons at par-ties, and they really threaten us. Theymake weapons. They make alcohol,firearms and tobacco, and arms for themilitary. They steal from us, and they robus. And who goes to jail? A woman whocan’t get an economic stake in her com-munity unless she agrees to be the lookoutfor a two-bit drug transaction.”

Seeking Peace in a World of Imprisoned Beauty

See Seeking Peace in a World page 6

by Lydia Gans

It has now been almost a year sincethe Albany City Council decided toturn the Albany Bulb WaterfrontPark over to the East Bay Regional

Park District. The Albany Bulb, a formerlandfill, has been a source of controversyfor many years. State parks do not permitovernight camping, off-leash dogs andworks of art, all of which continue to hap-pen in creative abundance on the Bulb.

Homeless people started to camp at theAlbany Landfill more than 15 years ago.Ever since, they have been planting trees,clearing out debris, cutting trails, buildingshelters for themselves from salvagedmaterials, and establishing a community.

They all have little or no income andthere are no homeless shelters, and practi-cally no affordable or low income hous-ing, and no medical or social services inAlbany. Living on the Albany Bulb turnsout to be a viable alternative.

Some want to be close to nature and tohave access to the outdoors, while for oth-ers it is important to be part of a commu-nity. Some have medical or mental healthissues and can’t find a housing situationthat meets their needs. Several live withservice or comfort animals and are forbid-den to bring their companion animals withthem into the shelters.

“I feel free here, I’m happy here,” acamper said recently. “I have been health-ier since I came here six years ago,”another person asserted.

They are artists, musicians, carpentersand machinists. They build houses and

Kathy Kelly with Shoba, a young child who had just been rescued by her uncle from a deadly fire in an Afghan refugee camp.

Kathy Kelly has spent herlife trying to open our eyesto the beauty of people tar-geted by U.S. bombs in warzones, and the sacred livesdesecrated by poverty.

Albany Officials Demolish Homeless Encampment

Albany officials sent in bulldozers and haulers to destroy the camp. Lydia Gans photo

Dozens of lovingly built homeswere smashed to pieces by bull-dozers, and turned into rubble.

See Albany Demolishes Homeless page 5

May 2014ST R E E T SP I R I T2

by Stephen McNeil

On Monday April 14, more than33 local groups distributedmore than 14,000 “Move theMoney (from military to

human needs)” brochures to BART ridersthroughout the Bay Area. Calling for rid-ers to tweet or call their members ofCongress to shift spending from war andnuclear weapons to human needs, theactions were part of the Global Day ofAction on Military Spending (GDAMS).

Each spring, the Stockholm InternationalPeace Research Institute releases globalmilitary spending figures (in which the U.S.spends by far the most). While simply edu-cating the public about our obscene militaryspending won’t bring change, the actioncreated both a sense of community andmovement. Those not caught up in themorning rush to get to work took the fliers.Many times, community activists who dis-tributed fliers at the end of the workdayheard from BART passengers that they hadalready received the flier and read it.

Last year, only 15 BART stops werecovered. This year, early organizing hadover 100 activists covering 30 BART sta-tions and three neighborhood areas. BayArea New Priorities guided the coopera-tive actions. Requested actions in thebrochure included a call to members ofCongress to cut military spending, a twit-ter share, and a QR code to the NewPriorities Campaign principles. Weincluded one panel on the proposedincrease in nuclear weapons spending.

A noon press conference was enlivenedwith Chalkupy’s creation of a greedyPentagon symbol grabbing all the money.Mayors Jean Quan of Oakland, GayleMcLaughlin of Richmond, and the CityCouncil of San Pablo issuedProclamations in support of the GlobalDay of Action on Military Spending.

Women for Genuine Security’sReverend Deborah Lee said, “It’s time forthe war money to come home. Not beshifted to increased militarization in theAsia-Pacific. There are tremendous needsfor that money to be spent on jobs, hous-ing and education.”

“More than 17,000 nuclear weapons,most held by the U.S. and Russia, continueto pose an intolerable threat to humanity,”declared Jackie Cabasso, executive directorof Oakland’s Western States Legal

Foundation and North AmericanCoordinator of Mayors for Peace. “Ourgovernment should be working in goodfaith to eliminate all nuclear arms, not steal-ing more of our tax dollars to modernizethese weapons of mass destruction.”

Meanwhile, the Obama administra-tion’s FY 2015 budget request seeks a 7percent increase for nuclear weaponsresearch and production programs. Withthat, its FY 2015 budget request for main-tenance and modernization of nuclearbombs and warheads in constant dollarsexceeds the amount spent in 1985 forcomparable work at the height ofPresident Reagan’s surge in nuclearweapons spending, which was also thehighest point of Cold War spending.

Global Day Against Militarism: Move the Money Home!

Rev. Debbie Lee calls for “the war money to come home.” John Lindsay-Poland photo

by Mary Zerkel

Children of my daughter’s genera-tion have spent their entire life-time in a country at war. She is

just about to turn 12. She was born into anera of war that she and her peers rarely hearabout, but the longest war in U.S. history isquietly affecting their lives and future.

Our entire country has been frozen in abrutal cycle of human and economic loss,with more than 6,000 U.S. soldiers killed inboth Iraq and Afghanistan and trillions ofdollars spent on endless war.

But spring may finally be emerging.March 2014 marked the first month inover 12 years that there were zero U.S.casualties among troops engaging in con-flict — which should certainly be lookedupon as a milestone. We have been draw-ing down our troops from Afghanistanand looking toward most of the troopscoming home by year’s end.

It seems we could now begin to moveforward into a new era focused on a truerversion of security, one that addresseswhat we need to survive and even pros-per: investments in health, education, andother social programs that have beenstarved during this cold season of war

spending. Sadly, that seems to be far offon the horizon.

The president’s FY2015 budget pro-posal has taxpayers spending $549 billionfor military programs, a 5 percent increaseover last year — that’s 57 percent of ourfederal discretionary dollars.

And that’s not all. You might beshocked that this investment of over half atrillion dollars in military spending doesn’tinclude war activities — and that war

spending is also going up while the war iswinding down. War spending is part of aseparate budget known as the “OverseasContingency Operations” (OCO) account.This budget is not subject to spending capsput in place by the sequestration processand has become a convenient slush fundfor the Pentagon.

In fact, according to the Center forStrategic and Budgetary Assessments, inthe FY2014 budget, the Pentagon moved

$20 billion in operations and maintenancecosts from its base budget to the war bud-get. On top of that, Congress added another$9.6 billion of base spending on salariesand benefits to the OCO. This allows theDepartment of Defense to avoid cuttingwasteful pet projects such as the failed F-35, because they have transferred essentialbase costs to this uncapped account. Whilethis budget gimmickry goes on, urgentneeds at home go unaddressed, and the debt

the next generation must pay for warswaged “off budget” mounts.

By the end of this year, most of ourtroops will be home from Afghanistanafter more than a decade of war. So whyis war funding going up? Our countrymust switch its priorities to move themoney from waging wars to addressingpressing human needs.

This tax day, April 15, a diverse groupof organizations mobilized around the

Global Day of Action on MilitarySpending (GDAMS)/US Tax Day, andasked Congress to get rid of the Pentagonslush fund in the OCO. With the UnitedStates spending more on the military thanthe next 13 biggest spenders worldwidecombined, worried handwringing from thePentagon and Congress about cuts seemsdisingenuous, to say the least.

On tax day, I made visits on CapitolHill with my daughter and 66 other youngpeople from around the country whospoke out about the disinvestment thattheir generation has been experiencingover the last 13 years of war. They wantand desperately need sustainable schools,up-to-date educational materials, after-school programs, food stamps for those inneed, affordable college tuition, commu-nity centers and affordable housing — notmore wasteful Pentagon spending.

Join us. Tell Congress to end thePentagon slush fund within the OCOaccount. This tax day, let’s turn the heat upand melt this slush fund away so we canhelp this generation and their communitiesbloom, grow and thrive.

Mary Zerkel is co-coordinator of the WagePeace program of the AFSC. Copyright,Truthout.org. Reprinted with permission.

Longest War Winds Down, But Pentagon Funding Rises

Our entire country has been frozen in a brutal cycle ofhuman and economic loss, with more than 6,000 U.S. soldierskilled in both Iraq and Afghanistan and trillions of dollarsspent on endless war.

Wounds and Woundsby Claire J. Baker

Too many street sleepers,doubly wounded, earnedthe nation's Purple Heart,even the Bronze Star.Now they don't have a home,a job or a car.

Pavement for a pillowis as hard as it getsfor these so-called"residuals of war,"our vets — cast offsfrom Walter Reeddoubled over in need.

Alameda County SupervisorWilma Chan speaks out on theGlobal Day of Action Against

Military Spending “I join in the bipartisan voices to ask

President Obama and Congress to meetthe urgent local needs of our communi-ties. Several months ago, on the 50thanniversary of the War on Poverty, I ledAlameda County to declare a New Waron Poverty as persistent poverty contin-ues to plague close to 200,000 residentsof Alameda County.

“In fact, California today, when youtake into account the cost of livingindex, has the highest rate of poverty inthe nation and the highest rate of pover-ty among seniors. 29% of our childrenare poor and there are 15 neighborhoodswith child poverty rates above 50%.

“Income inequality has never beenworse with the richest 10% of Americanscontrolling 75% of the wealth. The onlyweapons of war we need to expand areweapons in the War on Poverty!Congress must reinvest in human livesand not on increased militarization!

Over the past 6 years, over $15 bil-lion has been cut from County safety netservices. While 1 in 6 families nowdepend on food banks for their primarysource of family food, the federal gov-ernment has cut from the SNAPProgram. Budget cuts have resulted inthe elimination of over 100,000 child-care slots statewide leaving manywomen with no choice but to stay athome and endure economic loss.Statewide, over one million jobs werelost during the recession.

“It is time to place priorities usingour precious tax dollars on getting peo-ple back to work, funding early care andeducation and providing food security toAlameda County residents. $10 billionof federal money is enough to create 1.5million high quality subsidized childcare slots. $100 billion would create 1.2million living wage jobs. The amountneeded to enhance these programs palesin comparison to the $682 billion cur-rently spent in the U.S. on the military.”

Time to Declare ANew War on Poverty

May 2014 ST R E E T SP I R I T 3

by Matt Werner

Every Sunday morning for thelast 17 years, Zyg Deutschmanhas gone over to JC Orton’shouse at 6 a.m. to help prepare

breakfast for homeless people inBerkeley. One morning, about a decadeago, JC opened his door to find Zygslumped over on his doorstep.

JC first thought Zyg was drunk butthen saw that Zyg’s face was gray. Hewas having a major heart attack. JC called911 and continued preparing the mealafter the paramedics arrived and took Zygto the hospital.

Years later, JC recalls how he was ableto finish getting the meal out on time thatmorning. He filled his van with oatmeal,grits, sweet rolls and fruit; arrived atPeople’s Park in time to feed the 80 or sopeople who’d gathered for breakfast; thendrove to Civic Center Park (across fromBerkeley’s City Hall), where he fed about80 more people. This was all in a day’swork for JC, who heads up the Night onthe Streets Catholic Worker.

JC lives below the poverty line. Hesuffers from diabetes. Skin cancer has leftscars below his left eye and left forearm.His wife is bipolar and recovering fromdrug addiction. Despite these odds, he andthe Catholic Worker serve breakfast in theparks every Sunday morning and soupthree nights a week. Aided by a few col-lege students and recent grads, JC distrib-utes hundreds of sleeping bags and runsthe storm shelter on cold and rainy nights.

JC is a skilled negotiator who tracksprice fluctuations of staples and dry goodson spreadsheets, and recently asked themilitary surplus store on San PabloAvenue, “In 2013, you sold me 250 pon-chos for $5.50 per unit. Could you makethat happen again this year?” The dealwent through, and the military-grade pon-chos have kept Berkeley’s homeless dryfor another winter.

FEED MY SHEEP

JC Orton looks like a street-smartSanta. He wears Bill-Gates-1980s-styleglasses, a black button-down shirt, grayvest, black jeans and worn, black tennisshoes. His trademark black Stetson hatframes his white beard.

At age 65, he owns few possessions.His only extravagances are the iMac andiPhone that he uses to keep track of sleep-ing bags, copies of Street Spirit, and themail he distributes to homeless people.For those on the street without an address,he set up a PO Box, and they can pick uptheir mail at free meals around Berkeley.

He takes pictures of the hundreds ofpeople he delivers mail to, and these pho-tos sometimes serve as a person’s onlyrecent identification record. JC holdsmemorial services for the homeless,enlarging the deceased’s photo and post-ing it in the person’s favorite spot.

JC Orton says he will continue servingthose in need until he physically can’t doit anymore. Conversation with him jumpsfrom details like who is doing the laundrythat day for the shelter, to stories from thelives of those who inspire him, includingMartin Luther King Jr., Henry DavidThoreau, Archbishop Oscar Romero, andCatholic Worker founders Peter Maurinand Dorothy Day.

JC peppers his conversation withphrases like, “We see the face of Christ ineveryone in the soup line.”

Night on the Streets Catholic Worker isan all-volunteer effort that JC coordinateswithout pay. He recruited Zyg Deutschmanand fellow volunteer David Hahn at a Biblestudy group in 1997. The group was dis-cussing the passage from John 21:15-19,where Jesus tells Peter, “Feed my sheep.”

JC chimed in that they could continuetalking about the passage or come outwith him one evening and actually feedhungry people on the streets of Berkeley.Hahn and Zyg joined him.

JC relates to people with mental-healthproblems easily. As a teen growing up inLos Angeles in the 1960s, he was apatient in the mental health system inSouthern California. He says, “We’re allwingnuts, a bit loopy for renouncingwealth and most material possessions.”

Add to that categorization the fact thatmany of his clients are aging radicalswary of organized religion, and it makessense why JC wore a hardware-storewingnut strung on a shower stopper chainin lieu of a cross for many years.

David Hahn says of JC’s efforts, “It isan understatement to say that Night on theStreets has made a difference in Berkeley.JC has actually created services for thehomeless when they did not exist.”

JC started out distributing food andnecessities, then expanded his services toinclude visiting the sick, helping peoplefind housing, and even helping withincome taxes. JC now speaks at localschools to get students involved in issuesof poverty and homelessness.

Every Monday, Wednesday and Fridayduring the winter months, JC drives his1991 Volkswagen van with over 300,000miles on it around Berkeley, handing outsoup and hot chocolate along Shattuckand Telegraph avenues. The van smells ofold chocolate milk and has the aroma ofold bread, oatmeal and grits from years ofhauling the Sunday morning breakfast.

A Night on the Streets CatholicWorker banner affixed to the side featuresa drawing of Jesus standing in a soup line.On the rear window there’s a sign saying“Providing award-winning service since1997” with a listing of all of the mealsand services available to homeless peoplethroughout Berkeley.

When JC drives the van down

Shattuck, it’s as if he’s Berkeley’s othermayor, a celebrity among the homeless.Folks lying on the sidewalk stand up,wave and smile at him. One man shouts,“Hey JC, Where’s my (Street Spirit)papers?” With his window down, JCshouts back to the man across the street,“Meet me at the Quarter Meal.”

When asked why he does his servicepublicly on the streets of Berkeley, JC said:“People watching can see what their fellowcitizens are doing, and perhaps think aboutwhat they could do to help feed and clothethose in need. We’ve called our CatholicWorker effort ‘Night on the Streets’because the streets is where we do our ser-vice. Hopefully someone will be inspiredseeing us out there to also help those inneed in our community.”

Brando Gutierrez, who drives the vanto deliver soup Monday nights, said,“Sometimes that bowl of soup is all thesefolks get that night. A gentleman may becold and on the ground, but this showshim that he’s human, that he’s cared for.It makes a world of a difference.”

LIKE COSTCO’S BACK ROOM

Out of his humble duplex off UniversityAvenue in West Berkeley, JC operates afood pantry in his garage, equipped withindustrial fridges, racks of donated cannedgoods, sacks of dehydrated potatoes. Nextto the dried goods, JC stores volumes of theCatholic Encyclopedia.

Gutierrez, a volunteer for over sixyears, describes JC’s house as being “likeCostco’s back room. He’s meticulouslyorganized. He can tell you four years agowho served corn at the MLK dinner.”

JC’s attention to detail and felicitywith numbers has kept him as the repre-sentative payee for a dozen East Bay resi-dents, mostly homeless or institutional-ized people in Berkeley. At one point theCity of Berkeley paid him to manage thefinances of people who city social work-ers found elusive due to mental illness,drug issues and jail terms.

JC said that, after the city ran out offunds to pay him, he kept at it. “The needdidn’t go away,” he says.

With JC’s organizational skills andthoroughness, if he were applying for jobsas a bookkeeper, commodities trader, orcorporate administrator, he’d be in highdemand. He holds “office hours” at Peet’sCoffee at Shattuck Avenue and Kittredge

Street from 7:30-9 a.m. six days a week.People stop by to ask him for assistanceapplying for Social Security, Medi-Cal orSection 8 housing.

JC uses his coffeehouse “office” as oneof several mail distribution points, and ifhe sees that someone is receiving a W-2,he’ll ask if they’re doing taxes to get theirwithholding back. (Sometimes a taxrefund is enough to afford housing for amonth or two.) Using TurboTax on hishome computer, he fills out 1040EZs,

Street SpiritStreet Spirit is published by AmericanFriends Service Committee. The ven-dor program is run by J.C. Orton.

Editor, Layout: Terry MessmanWeb designer: Jesse Clarke

Contributors: Keith Arivnwine, ClaireJ. Baker, Lydia Gans, Kathy Kelly,Stephen McNeil, Rafael Pepper-Clarke,Steve Pleich, John Lindsay-Poland,Judith W. Sandoval, Bradley Stuart,Matt Werner, Susan Werner, GeorgeWynn, Mary Zerkel

All works copyrighted by the authors.The views expressed in Street Spirit arti-cles are those of the individual authors,not necessarily those of the AFSC.

Street Spirit welcomes submissions ofarticles, artwork, poems and photos. Contact: Terry MessmanStreet Spirit, 65 Ninth Street,San Francisco, CA 94103E-mail: spirit@afsc.orgWeb: http://www.thestreetspirit.org

Street Spirit Vendor TeamThe Street Spirit vendor program is

managed by J.C. Orton. More than 150homeless vendors sell Street Spirit inBerkeley and Oakland. The vendor pro-gram provides many jobs to homelesspeople in bad economic times, and is apositive alternative to panhandling.

Please buy Street Spirit only frombadged vendors. If you have questionsabout the vendor program, call J.C.Orton on his cell phone at (510) 684-1892. Email: noscw@sbcglobal.net

Good Samaritan at Work on the Streets of Berkeley

JC Orton delivers mail, soup, clothing, rain gear, sleeping bags and Street Spirit newspapers out of his van. Matt Werner photo

See Good Samaritan page 12

“People watching us can seewhat their fellow citizens aredoing and think about whatthey could do to help feedand clothe those in need.”

— JC Orton, Catholic Worker

May 2014ST R E E T SP I R I T4

by Steve Pleich

Irecently read a very excellent treatiseon the concept of citizen oversight oflaw enforcement in the City of Santa

Cruz. But that work was completed in theearly 1990s, before the generalized publicpolicies and ordinances aimed at homelesspeople in our community first gainedacceptance and became local law.

The police review board that ultimatelygrew out of that concept was hamstrungby the parochial politics that persist to thisday and was disbanded amid frustrationwith the process and a lack of substantiveimpact. As I read the article, I wonderedaloud what relationship that model ofcivilian oversight had to present-daySanta Cruz, to our common interest in theprotection of individual rights, includingthose of people experiencing homeless-ness, and to the pursuit of public safety. Ifound some interesting answers.

In my time as a Santa Cruz resident, Ihave seen a growing concern for publicsafety, coupled with an expanding publicmandate for law enforcement to use what-ever means and methods they think best tocurb the perceived uncontrolled growth ofthe homeless community.

Indeed, one does not need to be a socialscientist to understand that the dynamic bal-ance between the presence in our communi-ty of homeless individuals and the duty tomaintain public safety has shifted dramati-cally over the past few years.

I have watched our elected officialssupport a marked and noteworthy increasein the number of sworn officers serving inthe police department, while seeming littleconcerned about the chilling effect thatheightened police presence inevitablybrings on those considered to be lessdesirable members of the community, i.e.,the homeless people.

But it is not the expansion of the policedepartment or the overarching presence oflaw enforcement in our city that concernsme most — or for that matter, even theeffect such presence unarguably has uponthe homeless. Rather, it is the almost com-plete lack of citizen participation in thedevelopment of these policies and the com-plete absence of civilian oversight of thisever-expanding aspect of our communitythat prompts these observations.

And no segment of our community ismore profoundly affected by this absence ofoversight than the homeless community.

It is often observed that police officertraining is almost entirely devoted to intelli-gence gathering, weapons proficiency andpolice procedure. They are only tangential-ly trained in nonviolent conflict resolutionand community relations, and particularlytheir interactions with homeless persons.

And here I will say that this is notentirely their fault. The officer on thestreet is only as good as the training he orshe receives. And clearly, they are notreceiving the kind of training and inputthat would create not only an enlightenedpolice force with a clear understanding ofthe challenges of homelessness, but amore efficient one as well.

Every incoming police administration inrecent times has called for a policy of posi-tive engagement to bridge the perceiveddivide between law enforcement and thehomeless community. In point of fact, ifthis chasm were not real and existing, therewould be no need to call attention to it as amatter of departmental policy.

But what the police department hasfailed to recognize is that the homelesscommunity itself knows a few thingsabout public safety and the protection ofindividual rights.

It knows that law enforcement alonecannot make the community safe. Itknows that true public safety can only bedeveloped and sustained in an atmosphere

of trust, accountability and inclusiveness.It knows that individual liberties are abedrock value that must be honored andpreserved. And it knows that communityengagement is the foundation of wise andforward-thinking public safety policy.

So the question becomes: If we acceptthese statements as true, how are we toactualize them in ways that best benefitour community, including citizens whoare experiencing homelessness?

I respectfully suggest the creation of anine-member Civilian Police ReviewBoard composed of representatives ofneighborhood groups, homeless andbehavioral health advocates, and socialservice providers who would be chargedwith review of police policies and proce-dures and tasked with oversight of ourpolice department. Understand that when Isay “oversight” I do not mean control.

Such a board would be committed toensuring that Santa Cruz has a policedepartment that acts with integrity andadministers justice fairly and evenhandedlyfor all of its residents. However, to insurethe independence of such a body, the boardwould consult directly with the policedepartment and would pass along advisoryopinions to the Santa Cruz City Council forinformational purposes only.

That is the only way to depoliticize theprocess while creating a clear line ofaccountability between the communityand the police department. This is particu-larly important in light of the fact that ourCity Council has historically worked tocriminalize homelessness in Santa Cruzand continues to enact ordinances thatsubstantially abridge even the most basichuman rights of our homeless residents.

What powers would this new, modernCitizens Police Review Board have? If, aswe say, the board is to be composed ofcitizen representatives, it cannot, forexample, be restricted to consideration ofalready completed internal police investi-gations into allegations of police miscon-duct toward homeless people.

A truly reformist board must be giventhe power to conduct parallel investiga-tions to supplement and inform those con-ducted by Internal Affairs. Although ulti-mate decisions would continue to be theprovince of the department and its chainof command, a civilian review board with

independent investigative authority wouldhave the power to make recommendationsto the chief of police concerning disposi-tion and discipline.

This model would create a direct andsubstantive review process that wouldprovide a voice to a homeless communitythat is often ignored and marginalizedwhen their basic freedoms are abridged bypolice procedure.

On issues of operational policy andcommitment of resources, any such boardwould need to have direct input to achieveany degree of real effectiveness. The obvi-ous benefit of this input would be thatresource allocation and policing prioritieswould more accurately reflect the commu-nity’s concerns, providing a more inclusivebase of opinion about how best to makesafe our city while giving equal weight tothe preservation of civil liberties.

For example, if the board felt that publicsafety would best be served by spendingmore money on gang suppression and lesson petty theft investigations, resourcescould be allocated accordingly. If the boardrecommended more money be devoted tothe investigation of sexual assaults and lessto enforcement of the so-called “quality oflife” ordinances such as the camping banthat exclusively impact the homeless com-munity, then that policy could drive funda-mental reallocation of resources.

These are matters upon which reason-able minds will surely differ and will ulti-mately be the product of a long public inputand review process. But it is a conversationwe must have if a truly effective oversightprocess is ever to become a functional partof protecting the civil liberties of personsexperiencing homelessness both individual-ly and collectively.

Finally, I will say this. I have alwaysfound some considerable fault with theidea that “those who do not learn fromhistory are doomed to repeat it.” Rather, Ibelieve that we must let go of the excessesand omissions of the past and make ourown history, taking from it the lessons welearn along the way. This is the only sureway to chart a future that ensures thepromise of life, liberty and the pursuit ofhappiness for all our citizens, the home-less and the housed alike.

Steve Pleich directs the Homeless PersonsLegal Assistance Project in Santa Cruz.

Civilian Police Review Could Help Homeless People

The Santa Cruz Police Department responds to the nonviolent occupation of a vacant bank building. Bradley Stuart photo

A Civilian Police Review Board is of critical importance in Santa Cruz. The City Councilhas historically worked to criminalize homelessness and continues to enact ordinancesthat substantially abridge even the most basic human rights of our homeless residents.

Urban Springby George WynnAfter the church mealin the Fillmorehe tells me he often feels like he's in a silent movie.

When people see himcoming down the streetcarrying duffel bagsand so weary-eyedalmost on the brinkof falling asleep on his feetthey never make asound, they only frownas if they're sore at him for being around.

“My self esteemcomes when I dream:Mama's face beams witha delicious smilethen a big hugIt's my respite fromthe real world.”

He rises to leave.“Happy Spring,” I say.

“Spring,” he laughs“Spring is only moreurban madness.”

“I'm on my way.”He flips out hiscardboard signhighlighted in black:MT. SHASTAand walks out the door.

A Good Manby George Wynn

Homelessness only makessense when you live ithe tells me downaround the Cal Train Station

It's his 80thand we share asunny afternoon beerand before he departshe folds his handsin prayer, “Thankyou God. I'mstill alive,” and waves, “Thank you pal.”

May 2014 ST R E E T SP I R I T 5

plant gardens. And, as can be seen fromthe homes they built for themselves out ofconstruction debris, scrap materials anditems retrieved from dumpsters, they aresuperb scavengers.

Albany officials announced that the firststep in carrying out the transfer to the EastBay Regional Park District would be toevict all the campers and dismantle theencampment. Not surprisingly, there wereloud protests, both from the campers andfrom activist supporters in the community.

City officials then brought in OperationDignity to set up trailers to provide tempo-rary shelter for six months and BerkeleyFood and Housing Project to help thecampers find housing. After that, thecampers would be on their own. The citywould do nothing more to help them.

The whole thing was a crashing failure.Nobody stayed in the trailers, and practi-cally nobody got housing. The camperswere not moving, because there wasnowhere for them to go.

Instead, they filed a civil rights lawsuitasking for a restraining order to preventAlbany from evicting the campers untilthe city found adequate shelter for them.

Meanwhile, the police put increasing

pressure on them. A 10 p.m. curfew wasimposed and citations were issued withthreats of court actions. A camper report-ed being harassed in the middle of thenight by a police officer. A policemanshot and killed another camper’s dog.

The campers’ appeals failed and ulti-mately they negotiated a settlement totake effect Friday, April 25. In the settle-ment, 30 people were offered $3000 eachto cover relocation expenses. A total of 28accepted, and two people refused as amatter of principle.

In accepting the money, they had toagree to stay away from the entire area —all of Albany city property west of thefreeway — for the next 12 months. Theycannot even come for a visit with friends.

City spokesperson Nicole Almaguer saidthat “the settlement agreement allows theCity to continue assisting people, connect-ing them with human services and housingthrough the city’s service provider,Berkeley Food and Housing Project.”

It need hardly be said that $3000 can’tgo very far for people with little or noincome, since rents and living costs are sohigh throughout the Bay Area.

A few people finally found housing,but it is not clear how many campers wereleft out of the settlement and how many

remain in the camp at the Albany Bulb.Everyone was required to move out byFriday, April 25, when the bulldozerscame and began to demolish the housesand dump trucks hauled away whateverthe people may have left behind.

But some people did not leave. Theyhad nowhere to turn, and no home insight. They had only what they couldcarry with them and no place to go. Onecamper felt terrible having to keep his catconfined to its carrier, another worriedabout how he would take care of his dog.

Being evicted from one’s home can betraumatic for anyone — even more so ifthey have built it themselves and nowhave to see it destroyed.

The house that Sharon and Luis builtunder a protecting tree with an upstairsbedroom that looks out through thebranches on a spectacular view of the Bay— gone. Stephanie’s house that she spentmore than a year building, and the careful-ly laid out garden guarded by pink flamin-gos — demolished. Jimbow’s free lendinglibrary and dozens more homes —smashed to pieces by the bulldozers, andall turned into rubble.

The Albany Bulb has evoked strongfeelings. What is to happen on that littlepiece of land since it was created is con-troversial. There are those who feel thatnobody has the right to occupy public

lands, and others who had an unpleasantor frightening encounter with a camper’sdog, or simply disapprove of the campers’lifestyle. On the other hand, many peopleappreciate the eco-consciousness of thecampers, their reuse of discarded materi-als to construct their homes. Hikers anddog walkers have become friends withsome of the campers.

Over the past few years, the campershave been gaining increasing supportfrom people and organizations in the com-munity. A weekly pizza was brought tothe encampment from Solano CommunityChurch, and sandwiches and juice weredelivered by Food Not Bombs. Volunteersproviding for medical needs or a ride toapply for social services are evidence ofwidening community support.

Several filmmakers have made docu-mentaries about the Albany Bulb. A web-site, SHARE THE BULB, has been creat-ed to tell the story and solicit support.

Albany has been trying to turn theBulb over to the state for many years andit appears to still be a long way from hap-pening. The campers may have been offi-cially evicted, but the dog walkers areresisting the prospect of losing a favoriteplace of recreation. And the art loversdeclare that they are determined to protectthe art works that mean so much to somany people.

by Rafael Pepper-Clarke age 9, Rosa Parks School, Berkeley

Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Ourlives begin to end the day webecome silent about things that

matter.” That’s why I’m writing aboutmy own dream. My dream is for animalsto have rights and for us to respect them.

First of all, understand that withoutanimals we’d all die of starvation. Theyare the top of the food chain but belowus. They help us because they supply uswith food and keep the world balanced.

Bees pollinate flowers and give ushoney. Actually, we take it from them.The bees don’t give it to us, we steal it!Like we stole land from the NativeAmericans.

Ants also get rid of extras which wedon’t realize and we kill them. So dodung beetles, which we think are grossbecause they are rolling a ball of pooparound and we kill them even thoughthey’re getting rid of extras. Killing them

is dehumanizing/deanimalizing. Also, animals get rid of pests like

weeds, flies, locusts, etc, to help us stayalive. Animals also can warn us ofstorms like tornados, earthquakes andhurricanes. They’re also adorable.

But animals don’t have a voice. That’swhy we can hurt, kill and torture animalsand nobody stops us.

What would you do if you were ananimal? Put yourself in their paws,hooves, or fins. I believe that animalshave the same emotions as humans, likefear, pain, sadness and joy.

Animal rights groups believe “thatevery creature with a will to live has aright to live free from pain and suffer-ing.” This is why we should help ani-mals and give them a voice and I hopeyou agree after reading this. All we needto do is start.

Animals are awesome.“Sì se puede!” “Once social change

begins, it cannot be reversed,” said CésarChávez.

My Dream Is for AllAnimals to Have Rights

Service dogs are trusted companions for disabled children. Lydia Gans photo

by Susan Werner

St. Mary’s Center presents “On OurWay Home,” a photo documentaryby homeless and formerly home-

less elders. These elders used disposablecameras to bring to public awarenessconditions that face homeless people.

Taryn Evans, the artist who conceivedand funded the project, said, “By provid-ing each artist with a medium to tellhis/her own story, I expect and hope thatthe forgotten issue of Oakland’s home-less senior population will be looked atwith renewed hope. I’d like to get peopletalking about what we can do to improvetheir lives.”

These artists offer understanding andideas about what we can do to end agrowing epidemic. The exhibit opens forFirst Friday, May 2, 2014, from 6 to 9p.m., at Uptown Body and Fender, 40126th Street, Oakland, near Telegraph.The exhibit remains open on weekdaysuntil May 16, 8:30 am to 5:00 pm.

All the photographers involved in thisdocumentary found their way to theWinter Shelter program of St. Mary’sCenter. For many, the tragedy of home-lessness became an opportunity for somekind of magic to unfold in their lives.

Charles Ford explained, “When I washomeless, I often felt very bad and with-out hope. I did not see a way out. I need-ed some help. At St. Mary’s, I began tofeel better about myself and about build-ing a more fulfilling, productive life.”

Keith Arivnwine reported that, aftersquatting in vacant homes for severalyears, he felt “a desire for change fromwithin. I started making changes in mylife. At St. Mary’s, I was around positivepeople who also wanted to do somethingdifferent with their lives.”

Pedro del Norte said, “At St. Mary’sCenter, I felt a sense of belonging. Weshared experiences and collaborated inovercoming adversity.”

A growing number of seniors inOakland are caught in the housing crisis.The Census Report tells us there are moreseniors living in poverty in Oakland thanany other urban area in the state.

As the title suggests, this exhibit is alsoabout hope. “On Our Way Home,” cele-brates the wisdom of elders as they offer apersonal look at life on the street and whatwe can do to help create change.

For information contact Susan Werner510-923-9600 x 231, www.stmaryscenter.org

“On Our Way Home”Photo Documentary by Homeless Elders

May 2 — May 16Uptown Body and Fender, 401 26th Street, Oakland

“A Way to Survive.” (Oakland man with shopping cart.) Keith Arivnwine photo

Albany Demolishes Homeless Campfrom page 1

May 2014ST R E E T SP I R I T6

RECLAIMING THE RADICAL HISTORY

OF NONVIOLENCE

Two of the most meaningful aspects ofKathy Kelly’s lifelong experiments withnonviolence are the passionate commit-ment that gives rise to her solidarity withvictims of war and poverty, and thediverse dimensions of her resistance.Passionate and multidimensional.

The daringly radical and imaginativehistory of nonviolence has been forgottento such an extent that our present-day con-cept of civil disobedience often consists ofthe staging of a strangely passive andbloodless drama. Activists politely submitto arrest, and then the powers that be carryon business — and warfare — as usual.

Yet, the history of nonviolence is filledwith unforgettable images of rebels andagitators who passionately resisted injusticeas though their lives were at stake. If we areto build a movement that fights for a betterworld — a world where beauty is no longerimprisoned — it is imperative to reclaimthis legacy of truly radical resistance.

Our heritage of resistance was passeddown to us through the breathtakinglybrave acts of Harriet Tubman and theUnderground Railroad, Alice Paul and hersister suffragists staging hunger strikes injail, and the women of Greenham Commonpeace camp in their never-say-die protestsof U.S. cruise missiles in England.

Our guiding lights are housing activistswho defied the police and put evicted fami-lies back into their homes, anti-nuclearactivists who sailed their boats directly intothe path of nuclear submarines, and theAlabama schoolchildren who found thecourage to march for freedom and refusedto turn back, even when confronted withattack dogs and police clubs.

Our reckless blueprint for action wasdrawn up by the Catonsville 9 whoburned hundreds of draft records duringthe Vietnam War and Plowshares activistswho hammered nuclear warheads.

And our course ahead into a morehumane future was navigated by KathyKelly and Voices in the Wilderness whenthey delivered medical supplies to thechildren of Iraq, in fearless defiance ofU.S. economic sanctions.

FULL SPECTRUM OF NONVIOLENCE

At its heart, nonviolence arises from adeep reverence for life that leads us toconfront the masters of war and the archi-tects of poverty, and also provide food,housing and healthcare to the poor.

That is one of the most striking thingsabout Kelly’s lifelong journey into nonvio-lence. Along with passionate acts of anti-war protest that were often costly on a per-sonal level, she has constantly tried to reachout personally to assist the victims of warand poverty. That has often meant living inwar zones with people in Iraq andAfghanistan targeted by U.S. bombs.

Her activism reveals the full, multidi-mensional spectrum of nonviolence, rang-ing from war-tax refusal, to planting cornin nuclear missile silos, to protestingdrone surveillance, to delivering medicalsupplies to Iraq, to working with AfghanPeace Volunteers in an effort to help poorpeople survive economically.

Yet, even in light of all of her outwardlymore dramatic acts of resistance, one ofKathy Kelly’s nonviolent vigils that mattersthe most to me was her decision to becomea full-time caregiver for her wheelchair-bound father for several years until hisdeath in 2000. This quiet vigil reminds usthat compassion on a personal level is at thevery heart of nonviolence.

In August 1988, Kelly was arrested andimprisoned for climbing the fence around anuclear missile silo and planting corn as

part of the Missouri Peace Planting todemonstrate how the earth should rightful-ly be used to serve life. It speaks volumesabout her long-lasting commitment topeace that this year, fully 25 years after theMissouri Peace Planting, Kelly was thekeynote speaker at the anti-nuclear vigil atLawrence Livermore Laboratory on GoodFriday, April 18, 2014.

AT THE GATES OF LIVERMORE

At the gates of the holocaust laboratoryat Livermore, Kelly urged on the faithfulactivists, such as Carolyn Scarr and theEcumenical Peace Institute, who havekept the Livermore protests alive for over30 years. Kelly spoke passionately aboutthe urgent need to “stop the menacing,horrible message that the nuclear weaponsspread all over the world: If you do notsubordinate yourselves to serve U.S.national interests, we are prepared toeliminate you, to slaughter you.”

In 2003, Kelly was arrested for trespass-ing at Fort Benning in Georgia at an armytraining center originally called the Schoolof the Americas. She spent three months inprison for protesting a “school” where theU.S. taught military officials how to utilizetorture, assassinations and death-squadmassacres of unarmed civilians to prop upright-wing Latin American dictatorships.

Kelly reminded her fellow protesters atLivermore Laboratory this year that FatherRoy Bourgeois had once been jailed afterclimbing a tree at Fort Benning and using aloudspeaker to broadcast Archbishop OscarRomero’s impassioned plea for the soldiersof El Salvador to lay down their arms andstop slaughtering their own people.

Then Kelly delivered the exact samemessage to the weapons designers atLivermore who are designing the U.S. arse-nal of nuclear warheads. She said,“Invoking the words of Oscar Romero, inthe name of God, I order you, I beg you:stop the slaughter, stop the repression!”

Her Good Friday address was indeliblycolored by the years she spent in solidaritywith people targeted by war in the MiddleEast. She said, “I’ve been carrying with methe sense of horror of remembering all the

little lives snuffed out in Iraq, those chil-dren that we witnessed dying in hospitalbeds because of economic sanctions againstIraq. They should have been teenagers now.We’ve lost all of their lives.”

KEEPING THE FAITH

There was a sense that she was keepingfaith with the children she learned to careabout in Afghanistan and Iraq. Keepingfaith with the anti-nuclear activists shewas arrested with 25 years ago at a missilesilo in the American heartland. Keepingfaith with Father Roy Bourgeois who wasarrested at Fort Benning for keeping faithwith Archbishop Romero, assassinatedwhile saying Mass after asking the sol-diers to lay down their arms.

Keeping Romero’s words alive, KathyKelly asked the weapons designers atLivermore to lay down their nuclear arms.Her presentation was, above all, passion-ate, as befits an observance of the PassionPlay that is Good Friday. Nonviolencemeans passionate resistance because toomany innocent lives have already beenlost, and too much blood has been shed.

THE ABOLITION OF WAR

In inviting people to step across the lineinto civil disobedience at Livermore, Kellyexpressed a hope that may sound utopianin the present moment, but may somedayturn out to be essential to survival itself.

“We want to abolish war,” she said,“and we’ll hang onto that claim for dearlife. Yes, we want to abolish war. Wewant to stop the wars!”

Where does one even begin on such afar-off journey as the abolition of warfare?For 40 activists who were arrested at GoodFriday this year, only the next step was cer-tain — a single step across a white line.

“So we gather together,” Kelly said,“shoulder to shoulder, arm in arm, believ-ing in nonviolence, believing that, yes, weshall overcome. And so we gather togeth-er, ready to say that we will not let incon-venience get in the way of acting inaccord with the deep, profound desire toend war. Let us step across the line. Let usget arrested today. Let us say together,‘We shall overcome.’”

Seeking Peace in a World of Imprisoned Beautyfrom page 1

“I’ve been carrying with me the sense of horror of remembering all the little lives snuffedout in Iraq, those children that we witnessed dying in hospital beds because of economicsanctions against Iraq. We’ve lost all of their lives.” — Kathy Kelly, speaking at Livermore Laboratory

Kathy Kelly (center, at top) lives with members of the Afghan Peace Volunteers during her frequent stays in Afghanistan.

Kathy Kelly (third from left) and her fellow protesters re-enact thestations of the cross at Livermore Laboratory on Good Friday.

Photo by JudithW. Sandoval

May 2014 ST R E E T SP I R I T 7

Interview by Terry Messman

Street Spirit: You just returned fromAfghanistan last month where you wereliving with the Afghan Peace Volunteers.Many people, even in activist circles, areno longer focusing on that war-tornnation. Why does Afghanistan remainsuch a critical focus of your work?

Kathy Kelly: I have a friend, Milan Rai,who had coordinated Voices in theWilderness in the U.K. and is now the edi-tor of Peace News. Mil once said, “One ofthe ways to stop the next war is to continueto tell the truth about this war.”

So how do we tell the truth about ourwars? I think if the U.S. public under-stood the choices that are being made intheir name — and if the public understoodthose choices outside the filter of theforces that are marketing those wars —eventually there might be a hope of non-cooperation with the wars.

So Afghanistan is still very, very impor-tant in terms of the choices confronting thepeople of the United States. But also, juston the purely ethical matter of not turningaway from people who are dying, we owereparations to the people of Afghanistan forthe suffering that has been caused.

Spirit: You wrote recently that thou-sands of Afghan children have no home andare forced to live on the streets or insqualid refugee camps, and that povertyand hunger are widespread. For those whohave not been to Afghanistan, can you giveus a picture of the conditions faced by civil-ians after all these years of war?

Kelly: On a recent trip during the win-ter when it’s very cold in Kabul, a young-ster came in the door. The child’s namewas Safar and he was shaking so convul-sively, I put my arm around him, just try-ing to calm him down. When he turnedtowards me, I could see that he had a weltacross his cheek. He was a shoeshine boy.He was wearing plastic slippers with nosocks. He had no earmuffs. He had thinpants, and was completely inadequatelydressed for this weather.

Because he’s a shoeshine boy, he hasto thaw his hands out because it’s so cold.So he had gone to a barbecue spot andstarted warming his hands over the fire. Ithink, understandably, the owner of theshop who was making the kabob thoughthe was trying to steal something. But,unacceptably, the man hit him over theface with a hot skewer and that’s whathad caused this bright-red welt.

Safar is one of 60,000 children who arerelied upon to support their families. Thefamilies do not want to send their kids outinto the streets to shine shoes or sellchewing gum, but they have no choice.

And they don’t really want to come andlive in Kabul when they’ve been living inthe provinces. But if a United States droneis flying over your area, you’re at risk evenif the drone doesn’t shoot a missile,because the Taliban might say, “Somebodyin your compound must have given infor-mation to the United States.”

And maybe it’s not the Taliban. Maybeit’s another armed group, another armedmilitia. The United States has been pour-ing weapons into Afghanistan and othercountries have been pouring weapons in.So a tribe will say, “We’re not safe here.”And they’ll pick up and run, and the over-crowded cities can’t accommodate them.

Spirit: There have been news reportsabout civilian deaths caused by all therockets, shells and grenades the U.S. hasleft on the ground, undetonated.

Kelly: Recently in the WashingtonPost, Kevin Sieff wrote very movinglyabout how people who normally would goout and graze their animals in the fields,can’t go because they might get blown upby the unexploded ordinance that theUnited States has dropped on the firingranges where they’re just practicing, andthe shells and explosives just fall on thegrounds. It’s made the land unusable.

Their farming lands are not any longerusable, so the people can’t plant crops,and they can’t graze their sheep and theirgoats, so what are they going to eat? Theycome into the already overcrowded citiesthat have never been structured to accom-modate them and they live in the mostsqualid, awful refugee camps. It just getsworse and worse there. There’s even achance of a reoccurrence of polio now.There’s no way health care workers canfollow nomadic refugees being bouncedaround from camp to camp.

Spirit: You have charged that, whileAfghan civilians live in terrible poverty,the U.S. is spending $2.1 million per yearfor every soldier stationed in Afghanistan,according to a 2014 report by the Centerfor Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

Kelly: On this last trip, I was in a campwhere fire had broken out. Mercifully, thewomen just kept repeating, “No one waskilled, no one was killed.” But all of theirbelongings, what little they had, weredestroyed, and they’re freezing out in thecold with nobody to come and help them.

Nearby, there’s a U.S. military basethat is huge and sprawling. You coulddrive for 20 minutes and not reach the endof the base. The trucks are going all daylong, bringing food and fuel and waterand supplies. Now, of course, you can’tleave the troops hungry, but how can it bethat U.S. troops are in a situation where itcosts 2.1 million dollars to keep one solid-er in Afghanistan for one year?

Spirit: The obvious question is why theU.S. continues to spend that amount onthe military instead of trying to create a

lasting peace by helping the people ofAfghanistan rebuild their country.

Kelly: We could have, over all theseyears, said to people in Afghanistan, “Weare sorry for what the soldiers did. Theyshould never have destroyed yourorchards. Let us help you plant saplings.Let us help clean your irrigation ditches.Let us help you plant crops so you won’thave to import food. This is something we,as a people, want to do.” We could havesaid, “We’re sorry that your land gotruined by planting poppies for opium, andwe want to help you plant other crops.”

Instead, 93 percent of the world’sopium is now coming from Afghanistan.You’d think that the drones flying over-head might happen to notice convoys car-rying many truckloads of opium. Theroads are controlled by Taliban drug lordsand warlords, and even with U.S. dronesflying overhead 24-7, 93 percent of the

world’s opium comes from Afghanistan.[Editor’s note: The United Nations

Office on Drugs and Crime has reportedthat 93 percent of the world’s opiumcomes from Afghanistan, and the money isfunding Taliban military operations.]

Spirit: You stay with the Afghan PeaceVolunteers during your trips to the region.What is the nature of their work?

Kelly: Part of their work involves liv-ing together inter-ethnically. These areyoungsters who have every reason to feelhigh levels of retaliation and to feel a highdesire for revenge. Reasons like: “Myfather was killed by the Taliban.” Or,“While our family fled the Taliban, yourfamily looted our household.” Or, “Mybrother was killed right before my eyes bymembers of your family.”

It cuts that close. So they have been

The Street Spirit Interview with Kathy Kelly“We crucify the poorest andneediest among us on thecross of military spending.We have a responsibility toclaim our right not to kill.”

Women and children at the Chaman e Babrak refugee camp in Afghanistan where a fire destroyed 70 homes in January 2014.

Kathy Kelly with Safar, an Afghan child who arrived with a red welt on his cheek.

See Interview with Kathy Kelly page 8

May 2014ST R E E T SP I R I T8

struggling to learn one another’s languagesand cultures and live together inter-ethni-cally, and it’s difficult. They also want tosay to people who live in countries — likemy country — that are part of the warmak-ing: “We would like to be in touch withyou. We want to have a dialogue withyou.” So they welcome us right into theirhomes and we live together.

They also try to channel to otherswhatever resources have been made avail-able to them. So the Duvet Project hasbeen very, very important — the makingof heavy blankets by groups of women.

The women of the sewing cooperativeare paid as well by the project, and thathas been very important to them. This lastyear, they made 2,000 duvets and thoseare distributed free of charge to the needi-est people, because these kids are like lit-tle social workers. They bring theseduvets to the women who are the leastcared for, who are neglected because theydon’t have anyone to get an income forthem. Especially the young women havebeen brilliant in organizing this. It’s beenso edifying to see.

Spirit: You’ve described harsh condi-tions facing women in Afghanistan, yetHillary Clinton and Madeleine Albrightclaim that the U.S. has created better con-ditions for women and children there.From what you’ve seen, is that true?

Kelly: One out of every 11 women inAfghanistan dies in childbirth, a torturousway to die. The lifespan for an Afghanwoman is between 42 and 47 years of age,on average. And then they talk about howthey’re educating girls! Only six percentof Afghan young women are in a schoolby the end of the year. What kind of atrack record is it when you can say thatsix percent of girls were in school by theend of the year?

The U.S. subsidized the Taliban and theU.S. exacerbated the war just by its verypresence. There doesn’t seem to be a limitto the availability of new recruits, bothwithin Afghanistan and, quite likely, fromPakistan. Even General McChrystal, for-mer head of the International SecurityAssistance Forces, said that the arroganceof the drone attacks jeopardizes the securi-ty of people in the U.S. because it increasesthe likelihood that people will fight back.

[Editor’s note: General StanleyMcChrystal, the former commander ofInternational Security Assistance Forcesand U.S. Forces Afghanistan, said, “Whatscares me about drone strikes is how theyare perceived around the world. Theresentment created by American use ofunmanned strikes is much greater thanthe average American appreciates. Theyare hated on a visceral level, even by peo-ple who have never seen one.”]

So when they want to fight back, theycan join the Taliban or any of the otherfighting groups. But it doesn’t secure foodor water or warm clothes for women andchildren in Afghanistan. If anything, thebreadwinners are off and running and pos-sibly coming back maimed or killed —and then there is no breadwinner.

But you can get U.S. soldiers stationedover in Kandahar, Afghanistan, havingthese Skype phone calls with sixth-gradegirls in Baltimore, Maryland, covered bylocal newspapers in their Military Lifesections, and these guys can make theclaim that at least we’ve made things bet-ter for girls in Afghanistan. Well, thesixth-graders in Baltimore aren’t going tobe able to confront them on that. And the

people in the United States who are mak-ing money because they’re creating heli-copters for combat brigade units flyingover the mountainside with their protrud-ing weapons killing people in cold blood— they’re not going to contest that claim.

Spirit: Who is going to contest it?Kelly: We try. And the Afghan Peace

Volunteers are, because they get on ourSkype phone calls and they put out theirvideos and they host internationals andthey really do their best to keep on tryingto put things out that the world might nototherwise understand.

Spirit: They’re finding that computertechnologies are an effective way to maketheir voices heard around the world?

Kelly: Yes, they are using Skype andthe Internet and Facebook. I find it allkind of an annoyance, to be honest,because there’s so much sports and enter-tainment and distractions available, but Ifind that on what limited Internet usagetime they have, they do try to use thateffectively. I guess you have to keep up.

Spirit: Can you describe how AfghanPeace Volunteers are helping childrenattend classes by providing oil, rice andclothing to their families, so the kids canreduce their working hours on the street?

Kelly: It’s so heartwarming to see littleboys, as proud as can be, wearing a blueshirt with a crease in it because it has justcome out of a new package. It’s also veryheartwarming to see kids like Safar, whois shivering from the cold, wearing socksand a jacket and gloves.

It’s good to see the young kids comeover and get a huge can of oil and a bigbag of rice for their families to make upfor what the children might have earnedout on the streets selling, and it’s good tosee them starting to learn two times two isfour and starting to catch up because theyall need remedial help with studies inorder to be able to enter school.

So it’s a whole new life of hope anddignity for the entire family, really.

Spirit: How did the Afghan PeaceVolunteers respond to the Martin LutherKing Center’s “Choose Nonviolence”campaign? The King Center recently askedpeople to ring a bell to show their resis-tance to poverty and discrimination.

Kelly: Seamstresses and students andAfghan Peace Volunteers and some of theyoung women that were coordinating thevarious projects all thought together aboutwhy this call was issued. They knowabout Dr. King and they care about him.

So we got a lot of paper and markersand started to write down the circum-

stances of killing that had just gone on inthe past week. It was across the board.There were Afghan policemen that hadbeen killed, there were U.S. civilians thathad been killed, there were Europeanskilled, there were Taliban fighters killedand there were Afghan civilians killed. Itwas just a bloody, bloody week.

So they assembled that list. Theydidn’t have a bell and it really would betoo expensive to go out and buy a bell, soZekerullah got an old paint bucket andmanaged to bore a hole in the lid of it, andthen he suspended a piece of rope with theheaviest spoon he could find so it sort ofmade a “thud” rather than the peal of abell. We formed a circle. With each clunkof the spoon in this makeshift bell, thenames of those who had died were read.

Spirit: You said that the young peopleyou work with in Afghanistan know andcare about Martin Luther King. Howwere they influenced by Dr. King?

Kelly: The first time I ever got the hangof who these kids really were was inJanuary 2010 when we were fasting inWashington, D.C., with the WitnessAgainst Torture. Bob Cooke, who is promi-nent in Pax Christi, asked us if we realizedthat there were young people fasting withus in Afghanistan, living on a mountainsidein a tent in the cold, and they wanted verymuch to be in touch with us.

So we all sat down to a Skype phonecall and it was a wonderful call. Wereached them on their cell phone. CarmenTrotta of the New York Catholic Workerasked me, “It’s Martin Luther King’sbirthday on January 15. Do you think Ishould tell these kids about King?”

I said, “Yeah, go ahead.” So asCarmen starts to tell these kids aboutMartin Luther King, there was a commo-tion because they had been trying todecide which one of them would deliver amemorized quote from Dr. King’s speech-es — by candlelight in the dark in the lit-tle tent. I thought then that I really wantedto meet these young people.

Spirit: That’s an amazing demonstra-tion that the words and example of MartinLuther King still have such an impact onyoung people in Afghanistan today.

Kelly: Well, in 2014, they now havean entire shelf of their library in theirhome dedicated to King, Gandhi, NoamChomsky, Barbara Deming and DorothyDay. They get it right away that peoplewere taking significant risks in order tostand up to people that were abusing theirbasic human rights.

So they’ve watched videos on the civilrights movement and they’ve benefited

from the “A Force More Powerful” videoson nonviolent social change that DavidHartsough and others have sent over.They’ve had discussions and tried to sharethe knowledge that they have gained withother groups, and, of course, they’re ableto make the connection with the MuslimGandhi, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan.

So it’s a very exciting time in thatregard because the Skype technologyallows them to connect with young peopleat Jeju Island [off the coast of SouthKorea], who are having demonstrationsevery morning trying to prevent construc-tion of a U.S. military base.

Spirit: Do you feel that the insightsand strategies of nonviolent movementsare being replicated all around the globe,maybe more than ever before in history?

Kelly: It’s a very interesting timebecause, I think, as people begin to con-nect and unite their various struggles, theidea of the 99 percent and the 1 percentbecomes more tantalizing. As people startto see that if we only focus on our part,which is only a tiny fraction of the 99,then we aren’t the 99. But if we really findways to link ourselves, there could actual-ly be some greatly needed change in thedistribution of resources and the socioeco-nomic disparity.

Those who have lived under the bomb,those who have cowered while they hearthe gunshots and the battles raging, whenpeople in that situation can say, “I don’twant retaliation and I don’t want revenge,”then we start to see nonviolence teachingthe rest of us because of the courage peopleare catching from one another.

Spirit: We’ve been told that the U.S.military plans to leave Afghanistan at theend of this year, in December 2014.Should we believe that is going to happenor do you think that the U.S. military willremain entrenched?

Kelly: Well, I think we have to beginto learn about the 21st century military,and let go of the idea of reliance on bigsprawling bases. With the kind of retool-ing that involves combining the drone sur-veillance and the Joint Special Operationscommandos — these are the Navy Seals,the Green Berets, the Army Rangers andMarine commandos — then, that group-ing can, with the drone surveillance,achieve the kind of control that the UnitedStates wants in order to have geopoliticalinfluence in the region and, if they areable to accomplish it, build pipelines andrailways and roadways that would func-tion for the extraction of resources.

This would mean that the U.S. would

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The Street SpiritInterview withKathy Kellyfrom page 7

Youth in Afghanistan respond to the “Choose Nonviolence” campaign by ringing a bell for justice, next to a photo of Dr. King.

May 2014 ST R E E T SP I R I T 9

then control the pricing, and control veryprecious resources. Underneath the HinduKush mountains in Afghanistan are lithi-um and rare earth elements used in ourcell phones and our computers. And sur-rounding the Caspian Sea basin is a veryrich supply of natural gas and fossil fuel.

Whoever controls the pricing and flowof those resources gets an economic edge.The United States does not want China orRussia to have that economic edge. Sothink about the Lawrence of Arabia stories.If somebody is trying to build a pipeline,and somebody comes out and blows it up,then that’s a problem. But if you’ve gotdrone surveillance, and if you’ve got peo-ple giving you information about whomight be moving where with a weapon orwith an intent to blow up what you’re try-ing to construct, then you can get thatupper hand. And I believe the UnitedStates is remaining in Afghanistan withnine bases, three major airfields, severalbig prisons, interrogations, night raids,assassinations, and death squads.

They can do that with mercenaries.And the former Blackwater, now calledAcademi, is building a huge camp calledCamp Integrity just outside of Kabul. Sothey won’t need the big bases. Almostcertainly, whoever wins the runoff in theelection will sign the bilateral securityagreement and there are elites fromAfghanistan, Europe and the UnitedStates who will benefit handsomely, andthe warlike situation will go on. It’s pre-posterous to think that the warlords andthe drug lords are saying, “We’re donewith our control over Afghanistan’sresources and people.

Spirit: When you go to Afghanistan,Iraq and Palestine, why is it important foryou to live with people in the war zones?

Kelly: The truism we’ve been taught isthat where you stand determines what yousee. I could point specifically to Gaza. Iwas there in 2009 during Operation CastLead. [Editor’s note: Operation Cast Leadwas a three-week battle between Israeli andPalestinian forces in the Gaza Strip fromDec. 27, 2008, to Jan. 18, 2009.]

A bomb was exploding once every 11minutes, from 11:00 at night to 1:00 in themorning and again from 3:00 until 6:00.Once every 11 minutes, a big explosion.

Now, I know nothing about ballistics.Zero. But I started to recognize when it wasa Hellfire missile fired from an Apachehelicopter or when it was a 500-poundbomb dropped from an F-16. The way Ilearned that was because the childrentaught it to me. Children — they weren’teven teenagers yet — taught me how toidentify the bombs falling over our heads.

Then, after the ceasefire was declared,I was in the hospital with a doctor whosehands are shaking while he’s taking a callfrom a farmer who is saying, “Ouroranges are covered with some white,sticky substance, and we don’t know whatit is, but it makes our hands itch.”

The doctor is trying to calmly tell him,“Don’t touch those oranges again. Washyour hands. And don’t sell the oranges.”

Then he takes me to visit a womanwhose arms are bandaged up, and she hasactually been hit by a tank-fired missilethat was firing white phosphorous into herhome. It was so nightmarish I didn’t quitebelieve it, but I asked a taxi driver to takeme to her home and I could see the horrif-ic damage. I got my notes to someone atthe L.A. Times and they wrote a brilliantarticle on their front page.

So it is important to go and try to learnwhat you can. The disproportionate use offorce against the civilian population is awar crime, a crime against humanity, andI think it should be reported.

Spirit: You helped organize delega-tions that brought medicine to civilians inIraq as a way of nonviolently resistingU.S. economic sanctions. How did youbecome involved in organizing that cam-paign in defiance of the sanctions?

Kelly: George Lakey was doing apeace training in Chicago in 1995 atChristmas time. Most of us at that traininghad been to Iraq in 1991 as part of a GulfPeace Team. So we knew a lot, comparedto most Americans. We also knew thatSister Anne Montgomery and SisterEileen Storey and Jim Douglass had beengoing over to Iraq and coming back andsaying that it was really bad over there.They were telling people about the conse-quences of the economic sanctions.

I’m not proud of this at all, but some-times Sister Anne or Sister Eileen wouldcall me and I would be afraid to answerthe phone because I knew they were goingto tell me about Iraq when I was takingcare of my aging Dad and I was supposedto be a part of these actions about nucleardisarmament. And I’m not keeping myhead above water about anything, so howcould I take on more?

At this time, we also had the GeorgeLakey workshop asking us to record our-selves talking about what we would do ifwe took action about a serious problem inthe world. So Anne Montgomery and Iand a few others took on the issue of thesanctions against Iraq.

On January 15, 1996, 12 of us wrote tothe Office of Foreign Assets Control ofthe U.S. Treasury Department saying ourplan was to break the economic sanctionsas often as we could, and that we woulddo this openly and publicly, and that wewould bring medicine and medical reliefsupplies to Iraq. By that time, we had 300additional signers.

Boy, we got a letter back right awayfrom the Office of Foreign Assets Controlsaying, “You keep this up, and you will risk12 years in prison, a million-dollar fine, anda $250,000 administrative penalty.”

So then, we sent that letter out to our300 signers and asked them to let us knowif they were still on board, and 80 peoplewere still on board. So those 80 peoplewere the beginning, really, of Voices inthe Wilderness. We gave ourselves thatname, and we opened a bank account.

In March 1996, the first five-member

Voices in the Wilderness delegation trav-eled to Iraq. We stuffed in our duffel bagswhatever medicine, antibiotics, vitaminsand medical relief supplies that peoplewould donate to us.

Spirit: Since you had told the U.S.government in advance that you weregoing to take medicine to Iraq, did theytry to prevent you from going?

Kelly: No. We went to Jordan by planeand nobody’s going to stop you fromgoing to Jordan because you’re not violat-ing any laws. We held a press conferencebefore we left every time we went and weheld a press conference when we cameback. We were always open and public.They can’t stop you from going to Jordan.Then we traveled by vehicle to Iraq.

At that time, it was always a very, verydifficult kind of interaction. We didn’twant to be at all subservient to the aims ofa cruel and brutal dictatorship. But at thesame time, we couldn’t walk away fromthe bedsides of dying children, and say,“Well, it’s really too complicated. Wecan’t do anything.” So we did our best. Ifyou wait until you’re perfect, you’ll wait avery long time. It was always a campaignwith an inherent flaw.

Spirit: The stated purpose of the eco-nomic sanctions against Iraq was toweaken Saddam Hussein’s hold on power.Since you refer to Hussein as a cruel andbrutal dictator, why were you acting inresistance to the sanctions?

Kelly: We could see clearly that thesanctions actually strengthened the govern-ment of Saddam Hussein. That was true. Ifyou want to isolate a cruel and abusive dic-tator, then strengthen the country’s socialservices, strengthen its education, andstrengthen the possibility of civil societystaying in touch with people outside thecountry. But the sanctions isolated civilsociety, ended education for all practicalpurposes, and cut off any kind of social ser-vices so that people became more depen-dent on the cruel and brutal dictator.

So we could see all that. We didn’tcome out and say publicly, “SaddamHussein is a cruel and brutal dictator.” Wewould never have been allowed into thecountry and anybody that helped us wouldhave been killed.

Spirit: Did the U.S. government everpress charges against Voices in theWilderness for violating the sanctions?

Kelly: They would bring us into courtwith some regularity. It was curiousbecause at one point there was a $50,000fine. I thought, “What are you going to

take — my contact lenses?” I just had tolaugh. I mean, I haven’t paid a dime oftaxes to the U.S. government as a war taxrefuser since 1980. So there is nothingthey could take from me. The people thatwould go over were in the same boat. Sogood luck collecting from them!

Spirit: But as it turned out, they didfine your group $20,000, didn’t they?

Kelly: Yeah, they finally took us intocourt. And I think Condoleezza Rice inad-vertently might have saved us. This isspeculation on my part, but this much istrue. Chevron settled out of court,acknowledging that they had paid moneyunder the table to Saddam Hussein inorder to get very lucrative contracts forIraqi oil. Condoleezza Rice was the inter-national liaison for Chevron while it waspaying money under the table to get theselucrative contracts. So when we finallyhad our day in court, Sen. Carl Levin’sstaffers were still digging up this informa-tion and it was beginning to become publicevidence that Chevron, Odin Marine Inc.,Mobil and Coastal Oil had all been payingmoney for these oil contracts under thetable to Saddam Hussein.

So there were big fish in the pond thatbroke the sanctions and there were littlefish in the pond that broke the sanctions. Ithink some of the big fish said, “That isone hot potato. You drop that hot potatoas fast as you can, and don’t make a bigdeal because those people are little fishbut they’re mouthy little fish.”

So they never tried to collect a dimefrom us. The money was sitting there.

Spirit: Well, what exactly did happento you when the U.S. government took youto court for violating the sanctions?

Kelly: We were found guilty and fined$20,000. Federal Judge John Bates wrotein his legal opinion that those who dis-obey an unjust law should accept thepenalty willingly and lovingly.

Spirit: Unbelievable! A federal judgelectures you about lovingly accepting thisunjust fine using the words of MartinLuther King?

Kelly: Yes. We said to Judge Bates,“If you want to send us to prison, we willgo, willingly and lovingly. We’ve donethat before already. But if you think wewill pay a fine to the U.S. government,then we ask you to imagine that MartinLuther King would have ever said,‘Coretta get the checkbook.’ We are notgoing to pay one dime to the U.S. govern-ment which continues to wage warfare.”

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from page 8

The Street SpiritInterview withKathy Kelly

The Chaman e Babrak refugee camp was destroyed by fire. People endure danger, hardships and destitution in these camps.

May 2014ST R E E T SP I R I T10

At that time, supplemental spendingbills appeared every year, sometimes twoor three times a year, and congressionalrepresentatives and senators continued tovote yes on those spending bills for themilitary. So we said, “No, we won’t pay adime of that fine.”

Spirit: Why did you change your namefrom Voices in the Wilderness to Voicesfor Creative Nonviolence?

Kelly: We were Voices in theWilderness and we had not ended the eco-nomic sanctions. That was the greatestdisappointment of my adult life. We triedhard but we didn’t succeed. So we beganto question continuing to use the name ofa campaign that didn’t succeed.

Voices in the Wilderness was a cam-paign to end military and economic war-fare against Iraq. We had begun doingother work for peace in other countries,and we started to think that maybe weshould think about a name change.

Spirit: A name that would reflect yourbroader focus?

Kelly: Yes, there was a lot of discus-sion of a lot of factors and we came upwith a new name: Voices for CreativeNonviolence. And people decided to goahead with it.

Spirit: Now, many years later, there isalso a Voices for Creative NonviolenceUK and they say they were inspired byyour example.

Kelly: Maya Evans has been a goodfriend for many years. She came as an 18-year-old intern to work with us one sum-mer. She and I have lived everyDecember for the past three years with theAfghan Peace Volunteers. They’re a won-derful group. There are wonderfulactivists over in England.

Spirit: How does it feel to know thatyou helped plant the seeds that inspiredpeace work in England?

Kelly: It’s all mutual. It was nice ofMaya to say that we encouraged them, butit’s all mutual.

Spirit: Long before you ever formedVoices for Creative Nonviolence, you dida creative nonviolent action in 1988 whenyou were arrested for planting corn at aU.S. nuclear missile silo, as a symbol ofconverting swords into plowshares.

Kelly: Well, 150 IntercontinentalBallistic Missiles [Minuteman ICBMs]surrounded Kansas City and there were1,000 buried in the Midwest, the heartlandwhere grains are grown. A number ofpeople from Milwaukee, Madison,Chicago and Kansas City got togetherover the course of a year, very much guid-ed by a very talented facilitator, BrotherBob Bossie and his brother Paul.

We felt that we couldn’t any longerwatch what was happening to Plowsharesactivists who would get very long prisonsentences, and not try to take someaccompanying action, so we decided totry planting corn at the missile silos.

Spirit: It was a great symbol. The earthcan be used to plant corn to feed people orplant missiles to threaten massive death.

Kelly: It was a great symbol. And assoon as they let us go, we’d go right backout and do it again.

Spirit: Would you climb over thefences surrounding the missile silos andthen wait for arrest?

Kelly: Sometimes we’d go over thefences and sometimes we’d pick a lockfor elderly people who couldn’t make itover. We would always tell the media,“Meet us at Hardee’s restaurant and we’lltell you where to go next.” But we alwaystold Whiteman Air Force Base that we’re

definitely going to keep doing actions.We’d go into the silos and wait for

arrest. We’d sing songs and say to the sol-diers, “We’re not going to cooperate withthis arrest, but we certainly mean you noharm.” They were very polite and they’dhandcuff us and haul us into the vehicle.

One time after an arrest, I was left bymyself in handcuffs with one young sol-dier in a jeep. I don’t last very long insilence. So I asked him, “Do you think thecorn will grow?” And he said, “I don’tknow, ma’am, but I sure hope so.”

Spirit: Did you get much jail time forthese actions?

Kelly: I was sentenced to one year inprison but I only served nine months of itin a maximum-security prison inLexington, Kentucky.

Spirit: Nine months is a long time tospend in a prison.

Kelly: It was very educational. I wasable to learn Spanish. And it suddenlychanged the way I would ever be ateacher. I could never walk into a class-room and say, “I’m the teacher and you’rethe students and I hold authority over youlike I’m the warden or something.”

It took the warden out of me. And itgave me more backbone than I’d hadbefore.

Spirit: Why did it give you more back-bone?

Kelly: I think because I felt at times,“I’ve got nothing to lose. I’ll stand up tothis warden. What is she going to do,shoot me?”

I found myself standing up to authorityfigures and raising my voice. What arethey going to do? I’m already in prison. Ifthey put me in solitary confinement, I’llbe happy. I thought that if I can’t makephone calls or can’t have visitors, or can’thave a pen and a pencil, I’ll read books.

Spirit: You didn’t miss your freedomand your life outside the prison?

Kelly: No, not really. It’s all a matterof your attitude. If you go in saying, “I’vegot nine months ahead of me so I’m goingto learn as much as I can, and forget aboutthe outside world.” It’s true that duringmail call, your heart can jump sometimes.No matter how hard you try to say, “I’mhere where I am,” there’s always the pullof the outside world.

But what I learned from the otherwomen, I could never, never have learnedif I had been a chaplain or a social workerinside the jail. What you learn when you’resitting on the bench next to someone whohas a jail number just like you have a num-ber is very, very important, and it helpedshape my views for a long time.

Spirit: Could you explain a little aboutwhat you learned in prison?

Kelly: Well, I learned that the prisonwas a world of imprisoned beauty. I wasmeeting people who could have been mysisters-in-law, my next-door neighbors,my colleagues. I learned that there is nomercy and that people get these lengthy,lengthy sentences and they’re cut off fromtheir families.

The main people that threaten us are inthe corporation offices and in the well-appointed salons at parties, and they real-ly threaten us. They make weapons. Theymake alcohol, firearms and tobacco, andarms for the military. They steal from us,and they rob us. And who goes to jail? Awoman who can’t get an economic stakein her community unless she agrees to bethe lookout for a two-bit drug transaction.And maybe her life is so out of controlthat she starts to take some drugs. But theremorse and the desire to make a betterworld for their children are so palpable.

So you have this world of imprisonedbeauty and it is almost as though it’s

erased from the mindset of the rest of thecountry. And what I learned to my greatshame is that I forgot too, when I left. Istarted to forget about the women. Youdrive past that prison, and you know. Butthe urgency starts to wear down.

Spirit: When I went to jail the firsttime, I wished that the judge would besentenced to serve time in his own jail andthe media would report on the conditionsso the average person would find outwhat hellholes exist in their quiet littletowns. But it’s all out of sight and out ofmind, and people don’t see the suffering.

Kelly: George Fox, the Quaker, wouldchallenge the political authorities and thepeople who were running religious ser-vices. He thought they were contrary tothe teachings of love your enemies, andlove your neighbor, and care for the poor.So George Fox would stand on the benchin the court, and he would challenge it,and he’d start screaming and writhing.That’s why they called them Quakers.

I thought that, one of these days, Iwant to get on the bench inside a court-room and raise my voice like George Fox,and say, “Could we look at what color thepeople are that are making money off ofthis prison every day? And what color thepeople are that are going to jail? God,could you help us understand this?”

Spirit: In 2004, you were arrested fortrespassing at Fort Benning at what usedto be called the School of the Americas,but activists called it the School ofAssassins. What is it called now?

Kelly: The Western HemisphereInstitute for Security Cooperation.

Spirit: An innocuous name for an“Institute” that trained death squads andtorturers. Why led you to trespass at thisArmy training base?

Kelly: Graduates of the WesternHemisphere Institute for Security havebeen indicted and convicted of death-squad massacres and assassinations,including assassinations of figures we’veknown including Archbishop OscarRomero of El Salvador, the six Jesuitpriests whose brains were blown out, andfour missionaries, including three reli-gious women who were tortured, rapedand buried in a shallow grave.

These killings were a way of saying topeople all across Central and SouthAmerica: “If you mess with us, look atwhat we’ll do to your Archbishop. Lookwhat we’ll do to your women missionar-ies. Look what we’ll do to your Jesuitpriests. You think you have a chance?”

The rivers were running red with bloodfrom the various massacres that have beencarried out by the people who have gradu-ated from this school. And that just beginsto touch the surface of all the ways thatthe U.S. military and State Department

have said to people in Central America:“You are to subordinate yourselves toserve our national interests or we will tor-ture you and eliminate you.”

We can’t look the other way!

Spirit: Recently, you’ve acted in resis-tance to drone warfare in Nevada, NewYork State and Whiteman AFB inMissouri. Why has it become so importantfor you to protest drone warfare?

Kelly: It’s important because the 21stcentury military is morphing and chang-ing. I think the combination of usingdrone surveillance, drone attacks, andhaving advanced special operations com-mandos in place allows the United Statesto get the upper hand in critical areas thatthe U.S. wants to continue controlling. Itmeans that they’re not going to try toemphasize negotiations and diplomacy.They’re not going to try to use words.And they’re going to keep pouring moneyinto military solutions and not put thatmoney into what we really need.

So the drones are a means of gatheringso-called intelligence. But, the drones arenot sending the intelligence we reallyneed, because the drones will never tellyou what it’s like to be a widow inAfghanistan trying to make your way upthat mountainside carrying water. Thedrones will never tell you what it’s like tobe a mother carrying a bundle that is thedead body of your starved child.

The drones have no way to tell us that.They just give us this cartoonish notion ofthose bad boys. And somehow, the badguys, the high-value targets, are surmisedto be people that might pose a threat, butthere aren’t any questions asked.

The mother of a son killed in Iraq saidto me, “They do not ask ‘Who is this?Who is that?’” She knew you’re at leastsupposed to ask questions before bombingpeople. She said, “They killed my son,and now I am an old poor woman. Whowill bring bread into this house?”

Spirit: Can you describe the protestagainst drone warfare at Hancock FieldAir National Guard Base in DeWitt, NewYork, in April 2011?

Kelly: I went out to Hancock Field andmet with a wonderful group of people —so active, so much singing, so muchcamaraderie and good will. They’dalready done long marches and they haddone their homework. We walked from apark to Hancock Field and we crossed theline and laid down as part of a die-in.

People put white sheets and roses onthose that were lying down. Then we werearrested and taken to the DeWitt CountyJail. The arrests at these actions have nowcaused the entire DeWitt County jail andcourt system to say that this has got to stopbecause it’s costing a great deal of money.

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Street Spirit Interview with Kathy Kellyfrom page 9

Kathy Kelly with children who come for tutoring with the Afghan Peace Volunteers.

May 2014 ST R E E T SP I R I T 11

It so rattled the military people that thecommander of the Air National GuardBase has taken out an order of protectionsaying that he is at risk — if any of theseprotesters come anywhere near the base,it’s a personal threat to his safety.

So Cynthia Banas, who is 79 years old,said, “But I don’t even know what helooks like!” [prolonged laughter]

Spirit: Voices for Creative Nonviolenceorganized the Occupation Protest in 2007.Activists from 25 states were arrested foroccupying congressional offices. Why didyou take the protest to Washington, D.C.?

Kelly: We were very respectful of themany vigils that people engaged in acrossthe country to protest congressional fund-ing of the war in Iraq. But we thought,what if we take those vigils right insidethe congressional offices and said, “We’renot going to leave until you assure us thatyou’re not going to continue to exacerbatethe war in Iraq, and put your boss on thephone with us.”

So people across the country did thatand it was a very, very good thing. TheU.S. Constitution says that Congress shallmake no law to abridge the right of peopleto assemble peacefully for a redress ofgrievances. So we assembled peacefullyfor a redress of grievances inside the placewhere the grievance is being perpetuated.

There were many arrests, and of thosewho changed their votes in the U.S.Congress and Senate, every single one ofthem was from a place where these nonvi-olent activists had peacefully assembled.It was a good experiment.

Spirit: You have also been a war taxresister for a long time.

Kelly: I’m a war tax refuser. I don’tgive them anything.

Spirit: Oh, you’re not a 50 percentwithholder, like many war tax resisters.You’re a 100 percent withholder?

Kelly: Yes, I’m a 100 percent with-holder. I think war tax resistance is impor-tant but I happen to be a refuser. Theyhaven’t got one dime of federal incometax from me since 1980.

Spirit: Why did you begin refusing topay federal taxes entirely?

Kelly: I won’t give them any money. Ican’t and I won’t. I won’t pay for guns. Idon’t believe in killing people. I also don’twant to pay for the CIA, the FBI, the cor-porate bail-outs or the prison system. Butparticularly, I began as a war tax refuser. Iwouldn’t give money to the Mafia if theycame to my door and said, “We’d like youto help pay for our operations.” I’m cer-tainly not going to pay for wars when I’vetried throughout my adult life to educatepeople to resist nonviolently.

Spirit: How have you gotten away withnot paying federal taxes since 1980? Doyou keep your income low?

Kelly: Many years I have lived belowthe taxable income. But in 1998, someonefrom the IRS came to my home. I had insome years claimed extra allowances onthe W-4 form. And I just don’t file. Ihaven’t filed since 1980. Now, that’s acriminal offense and they could put me injail for a long time for that.

If I was earning over the taxableincome, I would just calculate how manyallowances I have to claim so that nomoney is taken out of my paycheck. Itsays in the small print on the W-2 form toput down the correct number ofallowances so that the correct amount oftax is taken out. Well, that’s easy. Thecorrect amount of tax to take from me iszero, so I just do the math.

Spirit: Why do you think they haven’tcome after you?

Kelly: Well, they have come to collecttaxes. But I don’t have a savings account,and I don’t own anything. The IRS is likemy spiritual director [laughs]. I don’tknow how to drive a car, and I’ve neverowned any place that I’ve lived in. I justdon’t have anything to take.

Spirit: So has the IRS given up on eventrying to collect?

Kelly: Once they came out to collect in1998 when I was taking care of my dearDad, who was wheelchair-bound, and abit slumped over in the chair. Dad liked tolisten to opera and I had a really awful oldrecord player playing a scratchy record.

I had been in the back of the house andI didn’t know she was coming, so I randown to answer the door while the recordplayer was making such a horrible noise.The apartment was fine but it only had afew sticks of furniture.

The woman asked me if I was going toget a job, and I told her I couldn’t leavemy father. Then she asked if I had a bankaccount, and I said no. She said, “And youdon’t own a car?” And I told her I didn’teven know how to drive. Then she justkind of leaned toward me and said, “Youknow what? I’m just going to write youup as uncollectable.” And I said, “That’s avery good idea.” [laughs] They’ve nevertried to collect since. There was just noth-ing to take! Zero. Nothing.

Spirit: You were the keynote speakeron Good Friday at Livermore Laboratorythis year. Why was it important for you tojoin in resisting Livermore Lab’s role inescalating the nuclear arms race?

Kelly: I greatly admire the people whohave never swerved from drawing atten-tion to Livermore Lab. They have givenunstintingly of their time, and many arepart of a faith-based perspective.

I think that we crucify the poorest andneediest among us on the cross of militaryspending. We care more about our bombsand our bullets and our capacity to havemore nuclear weapons than anybody else.We care more about that than we careabout people’s ability to have housing andfood and education. We will pursue ourattacks against enemies, even though wesay we’re a Christian nation, and that’sthe dominant religion.

But I think the real religion in thiscountry is shopping, and the ability tokeep acquiring goods at cut-rate prices.One of the ways we can do that is by aim-ing our nuclear weapons at other countriesand saying, “Look what we’ve got. Youthink you can stand up to us. You thinkwe won’t use our weapons against you.”

We have a right, and a responsibility,to claim our right not to kill. So I go toLivermore to study the scriptures, and lis-ten to the hymns, and be in solidarity withpeople who claim their right not to kill.

Spirit: Some see nonviolence as apolitical tactic or strategy, while otherssee it as a way of life. What does nonvio-lence mean to you?

Kelly: I think it means every day, try-ing to do your best to live more simply, toshare the earth’s resources, to find ways tobe of service rather than to be part ofdominance, and always to either be insupport of, or active with, campaigns ofnonviolent resistance to evil and injustice.Sometimes it means going to court andjail, sometimes it entails going into a warzone. But there are many, many ways toengage in nonviolent direct action.

Spirit: You’ve been involved in deliv-ering medical supplies to Iraq, plantingcorn on a nuclear missile silo, doing wartax resistance, caring for your ailingfather, and living in war zones in theMiddle East. How did your understandingof nonviolence lead you to be involved inthese very diverse kinds of actions?

Kelly: I think the first question wemust ask is something Gandhi pointed usto: How does our action affect the mostimpoverished person in the world? If thatis our rudder or guideline, it becomesmuch easier to make decisions about howto act in solidarity.

Spirit: I agree that Gandhi’s questionabout how our actions affect the poorestperson is the very heart of it all. How didit guide your decisions in taking stands?

Kelly: If you’re wondering whatyou’re going to do, and you’re askingabout people who are hungry and cold orat risk of being tortured, imprisoned,bombed, marginalized, then it will reallyaffect how you decide to act and usewhatever resources you may have. That isso important. Also, to whatever extent wecan choose service over dominance —especially coming from the privilegedplace that we come from — this can helpus nonviolently interact with our world.

And we need to have, as sort of thespiritual tone of our movement, a delightin not letting inconvenience get in the wayof acting in accord with our deepestbeliefs. I think most people deeply believethat killing is wrong. And most peopledeeply believe in caring for children,including their own grandchildren.

So how can we make sure that incon-venience won’t get in the way of acting inaccord with our deepest beliefs? If peopledeeply believe in caring for their grand-children, and they’d like their grandchil-dren to have a planet to inhabit, they maybe inconvenienced as a grandma or grand-pa being involved in peace movementactivism. It might even take away fromsome of the time they can be with theirgrandchildren. But it makes sense in thatlonger vision of creating a better world.

Spirit: In looking back now at a life-time of activism, who were your inspira-tions? Who helped get you involved inworking for peace and justice?

Kelly: Karl Meyer was certainly cru-cial for me as a mentor. He was the loveof my life who I married. We were mar-ried from 1982 to 1994, but we are stillvery close. Karl was someone who wouldput his life in line with his deepest beliefsand unhesitatingly practice what hebelieved in. He radicalized a whole gener-ation of us in his small neighborhood inChicago and also had a more widespreadinfluence on activists.

Spirit: Who else was an inspiration orformative influence?

Kelly: All the Catholic Workers thatI’ve been privileged to be close to havemade a big difference in my life. TheCatholic Workers are willing to find gentleways to live simply, to share their resourcesand to work very hard to embrace the teach-ings of peace and justice.

I’ve been very fortunate to know peo-ple for many years, from the Gulf PeaceTeam and up to the present, who havebeen part of peace team experiments.David Hartsough has certainly been a life-long exemplar of experimenting with thepossibilities of developing nonviolentpeace teams.

I’ve also been very impressed by thewomen I’ve met in prison because they’refacing the remainder of the long days andyears of imprisonment. And even thoughthey’re isolated and have a stigma thatthey’re coping with, many of them, theyhave a kind of courage that I’m not sure Ihave. They’ve shown that to me.

I have great thanks for Amy Goodman.She is like a national heroine to mebecause she has never stopped trying toeducate the U.S. public and she has doneit in a way that has been very life-givingfor movements all around the world.

I am quite grateful for the medical doc-tor who is the mentor for the AfghanPeace Volunteers. We call him by thename that was given to him by villagers inAfghanistan — Hakim. He has certainlypracticed Gandhian nonviolence by livingsimply under Spartan circumstances, andhe has a belief that nonviolence canchange the world. He has been dedicatedand rugged in upholding that.

Spirit: Are there any books on nonvio-lence that have impressed you lately?

Kelly: I’m very, very impressed byThe Lizard Cage by Karen Connolly, anovel about circumstances inside a prisonin Myanmar (formerly Burma). I just fin-ished Moshin Hamid’s How to Get FilthyRich in Rising Asia and Sea of Poppies byAmitav Ghosh. I’ve been reading AmitavGhosh all my life.

Spirit: What about books that wereformative when you first began your workfor peace and justice?

Kellly: David Dellinger’s From Yaleto Jail: The Life Story of a MoralDissenter. That was one of the mostimportant books I’ve ever read because hetold about his personal life without dodg-ing some of the questions that are boundto rise up in a person’s life choices if youwant to make a commitment to nonvio-lence and activism.

Spirit: You attended the ChicagoTheological Seminary. How important areyour spiritual values in guiding this workfor peace and justice?

Kelly: I like Thomas Paine’s line: “Mycountry is the world. My religion is to dogood.” And I’m very grateful for the twoextra years to grow up that I had in keep-ing myself out of commission by being astudent at the Chicago TheologicalSeminary. I was very grateful for theexcellent scripture scholars at the JesuitSchool of Theology.

But probably the best thing was that Ifinally started to realize that I talk a greatline about the preferential option for thepoor. But I’m in Hyde Park in Chicagoand I’m not seeing any poor people.

So I finally said that to a very closefriend of mine, a professor. As he walkedaway from me, he said over his shoulder,“Kathleen, why don’t you go to that soupkitchen on the north side?”

And I said, “Oh, why don’t I?” So Idid. And that made a huge difference.

Spirit: How would you characterizethe relationship between spirituality andpolitical engagement in your life?

Kelly: I do think falling in love helps.It’s what sustains you for the long haul.There are many different ways of fallingin love. I’ve fallen in love with theAfghan Peace Volunteers, and before thatI fell in love with a group of Iraqi chil-dren. I fall in love easily and I think that’sreally important for the long haul.

I think we can become kindred spiritswith people who have made altruisticchoices and who have learned to makethose choices very attractive and veryvaluable. You can have a passion andbelieve it, and then find ways to put yourlife in line with it. It’s really a huge gift.

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Street Spirit Interview with Kathy Kelly “I won’t give them any money. I can’t and I won’t.I won’t pay for guns. I don’t believe in killing peo-ple. I also don’t want to pay for the CIA, the FBI,the corporate bail-outs or the prison system.”

— Kathy Kelly, describing why she is a war tax refuser

May 2014ST R E E T SP I R I T12

brings them back for signatures, suppliesenvelopes and postage, and walks eachclient to the mailbox. If someone’s inprison, rehab or a psych ward, he holdsonto their mail until they return. He freelygives out his cell number. On the first ofeach month, he routinely receives over100 phone calls inquiring about checks.

Before he began volunteering with theCatholic Worker full-time, JC studied inGreece, studied computer programming,raced motorcycles down “The Snake” onthe Mulholland Highway in SouthernCalifornia, collected coins, and worked ata lumber yard in Millbrae.

He held this last job until he wasn’trehired after serving time in prison in2003. JC was arrested when he protestedat Fort Benning in Georgia.

The annual School of the Americasvigil, attended by over 10,000 Catholics,honors the six Jesuit priests who werekilled by Latin American commandostrained at the U.S. base. JC said that, afterhearing the peace activist Fr. John Dearspeak, he felt compelled to join the nonvi-olent demonstration.

“It was as a direct action of civil dis-obedience showing our opposition to theU.S. government teaching torture,” JCsaid. He was cited with trespassing onto aU.S. military base along with 84 othermarchers. He was fined $1,000 and served90 days in federal prison.

In addition to protesting against vio-lence, weapons and war, JC advocates onbehalf of those without medical coverage.He’s been in their shoes as an uninsuredpatient seeking surgery for skin cancer atHighland Hospital.

A homeless man, who asked not to beidentified, outside the Canterbury House onBancroft Way said, “If it wasn’t for JC, Iwouldn’t be alive today.” A man namedLawrence said he calls JC a friend who“goes above and beyond the call of duty.”

JC himself barely scrapes by. He tookout a home equity loan on his house andrelies on the generosity of friends to keepNight on the Streets operating on less than$30,000 per year. His only income besidesSocial Security is $6,000 a year from thecity of Berkeley for running the shelter, and$750 a month from the American FriendsService Committee for coordinating the dis-tribution of 20,000 copies per month of thehomeless newspaper Street Spirit to ven-dors in the East Bay.

At a Presidents Day meal in February,JC said a prayer: “We need to treat thehomeless as human, as our brothers, as chil-dren of God. We need to see that spark ofdivinity within each and everyone we meet.We need to see the living Christ in the soupline. Only then can we be radically trans-formed by love and kindness.”

GIMME SHELTER

When it rains in Berkeley, JC and theCatholic Worker go into high gear. JCruns the Emergency Storm Shelter, whichopens up for 65 homeless people on espe-cially cold and wet nights betweenThanksgiving and Easter. If rain is fore-casted that evening, he creates a flier onhis computer titled “Gimme Shelter!” (areference to The Rolling Stones song) andsends an email to 140 addresses, includingthe Berkeley Fire Department, HighlandHospital, John George PsychiatricHospital, and many social service organi-zations throughout Alameda County. Hedrives around Berkeley posting the flier atshelters and parks.

He arrives at the shelter at DurantAvenue and Dana Street around 8:30 p.m.and hands out printed tickets numbering1-65. These tickets guarantee a bed for the

night inside the First CongregationalChurch. JC tells people to find a place totake cover from the rain and return at 9:45to be admitted at 10. On nights when thechurch hall is being used for a concert, theshelter is closed.

JC said that, since the City of Berkeleyincreased the number of beds from 50 to65 this year, he’s only had to turn awayfive people total in 25 nights. Looking atthe stats, he said that nearly 15 percent ofthe shelter occupants are veterans, and thepopulation is aging. There’s been anincrease in the number of people over 55in the shelter.

Roberto, who frequently stays at theshelter with his wife, Alicia, said of JC, “Hedoes a lot for us. He does it all. He’s reallygood at helping homeless people out.”

Some nights the homeless patrons willask JC to say “the prayer” before bed. JCOrton will stand up and give a traditionalIrish blessing: “May the Lord support youall the day long, ‘til the shadows lengthenand the evening comes, and the busy

world is hushed, and the fever of life isover, and the day’s work is done. Then inHis mercy may He give you a safe lodg-ing, a holy rest and peace.”

JC walks laps around the space, gradu-ally turning the lights down. He makessure people are settling in and turns thelights completely off at 11. He bids good-night to the shelter workers and headsback home.

Why do the volunteers keep comingback? Hahn says JC Orton inspires andchallenges him. Zyg figures that, since hehas enough to get by and others don’t,he’s compelled to give back. For Brando,“It’s a state of mind. These people aren’tthings to step over when going to themovies, but they are human beings anddeserve to be cared for.”

Matt Werner, 30, has been a volunteer withthe Catholic Worker for 10 years. Visit itswebsite to learn more about Night on theStreets Catholic Worker. This article was firstpublished on April 24 on Berkeleyside,Berkeley’s independent news site.

from page 3

JC Orton gives a Street Spirit bundle to a vendor. JC coordinates distribution of the paper to 150 vendors. Matt Werner photo

Volunteers from Night on the Streets Catholic Worker serve food to homeless people in Berkeley. Matt Werner photo

Good Samaritan atWork in Berkeley

“Sometimes that bowl of soup is all these folks get that night. A gentlemanmay be cold and on the ground, but this shows him that he’s human, that he’scared for. It makes a world of difference.” — Brando Gutierrez, Night on the Streets Catholic Worker

Remembering a Vet on the Streetby George Wynn

A tall manwho handed out coffeesandwichesand a smileon the streetand neverspoke of war onlyto saywar is stupidityrun by menall of themincapable of tellingthe truth