Another "Great Moment in Catholicism"...
These days, Sister Jackie Hudson is packing away her things in her Bremerton home, visiting friends to say thank you and goodbye. She is preparing for prison.
Susan Sarandon. Could this role be your next Oscar nomination?
Last October, Sister Hudson, 68, and two fellow Dominican nuns cut down part of a fence at a nuclear missile silo in Colorado, painted crosses on the silo cover with their own blood, and hammered the cover and railroad tracks leading to the silo hatch. It was similar to actions they'd taken before â spray-painting a bunker at a Michigan Air Force base, hammering on a fighter jet and pouring blood on a satellite dish at an air show in Colorado. It was, Sister Hudson said, a symbolic act to "point out and expose the crime of our government" in storing nuclear weapons.
Looks like it might be time for the good sisters to do some chilling out in the the Federal hoosgow.
The government â and a federal jury â saw it differently.
After six months in jail awaiting trial, Sister Hudson, Sister Carol Gilbert, 55, and Sister Ardeth Platte, 67, both of Baltimore, were convicted in April. A federal-court jury in Denver found them guilty of two felonies â damaging government property and obstructing national defense, crimes that carry a maximum sentence of 30 years. The three nuns will return to Denver for sentencing July 25. Prosecutors are asking for five to eight years. "These were highly sensitive government installations," said Jeff Dorschner, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Denver. "They've shown blatant disregard for the laws. Because of that blatant disregard and their prior histories, they're facing a fair amount of prison time."
Looks like the government has lost it's sense of humor lately, eh, sisters?
But others have taken up the nuns' cause, saying their convictions were the result of patriotic fervor spawned by the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001, and the recent war with Iraq. Their story has garnered national media attention and letters from around the world. "Individual citizens have a right to call their government to accountability" for crimes against humanity, Sister Hudson believes.
Yep, everybody's a bunch of patriotic crimes against humanity facists now. Except for the good sisters. Must be that Evil Bush again.
Her small house in Bremerton has been home since she came in 1993 to work with the Poulsbo-based Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action, an anti-nuclear-weapons group. Small wood plaques with the words "resist" and "action" adorn the walls; a black bracelet with "Free Jackie" spelled out in rhinestones (a gift from a friend) rests on a bathroom counter. On a recent day she wore a small cross over a T-shirt emblazoned with the word "Truth," a biblical quote â "You will learn the truth and the truth shall make you free" â and the statement: "Warning: Truth seeking may be hazardous to your religious denomination."
Who gave you that one? Bernie Law?
Several decades ago she was living in a convent and was a music teacher in Grand Rapids, Mich. Then the vast changes of Vatican II and the civil-rights movement of the 1960s and '70s spurred Sister Hudson to become an activist for civil rights and farmworkers issues. At a religious retreat in Michigan in the 1980s, she came to believe that Christianity had lost its sense of Christ having come to Earth to "change the economic, political and religious structures of the day. He put people before the law," she said. Inspired by the words of another Dominican nun to "live the rest of our lives in the best of the struggles," Sister Hudson took up the fight against nuclear arms. She can't remember how many times she's been arrested but she's been in jail about five times, once for eight months.
Remember when nuns used to be just... nuns?
The three nuns work with Plowshares, an international anti-war movement. Basing their actions on the biblical injunction to "beat swords into plowshares," Plowshares activists typically demonstrate at military installations using hammers and blood. On the morning of Oct. 6, the three nuns, dressed in white inspection suits bearing the initials CWIT (standing for Citizens Weapons Inspection Team), clipped a link in a chain locked onto a fence surrounding a Minuteman III missile silo in northeastern Colorado. They then cut down three sections of a fence to symbolically "expose (the site) to the world and invite people to bear witness," Sister Hudson said.
If I'm on that Security detail after 9/11 and I come upon 3 folks screwing around near a nuke, the only thing people would be bearing witness to would be three bullet riddled nuns.
They poured their own blood, stored in baby bottles, to form large crosses on the walls of the silo. Using ball-peen hammers, they pounded on the silo cover and the railroad tracks on which the cover slides open and closed. Then they sat, knelt, sang hymns, recited Scripture and prayed. Sister Hudson said their intent that day was "not to do physical damage. It was symbolic," she said.
So sending you to jail. How's that for heavy symbolism?
The April convictions shocked the nuns and their attorney. "These are women of peace," said attorney Walter Gerash of Denver, who attributes the convictions at least partly to a post-Sept. 11 intolerance of government criticisms, especially in the midst of the Iraq war. "This was what you call symbolic free speech. They didn't destroy anything."
Surprise, surprise, surprise!!!
But Dorschner, the U.S. Attorney's Office spokesman, says that "during a time of war, during a time of heightened state of alert, an alarm goes off that the perimeter has been breached at a nuclear weapons silo. When the military responds to that alarm, they see three unknown people wearing chemical-weapons suits. Through a loudspeaker they gave instructions to the unknown individuals. Those instructions were not followed."
Whistle a few rounds past their ears next time. See if that gets them to follow instructions.
The five- to eight-year sentence his office is seeking is dictated by sentencing guidelines that were in place before Sept. 11. "No other country on Earth provides as many avenues for peaceful and lawful protest as does the United States," said U.S. Attorney John Suthers in a statement.
Sound like another one of them patrotic fascists to me.
"It is our hope that this prosecution and conviction serves as a deterrent not only to these defendants, but to others inclined to bypass peaceful and lawful means of protest to commit similar crimes."
Attention all asshats! No more games! Please keep your nobility and goodness to yourselves! Thank you!
Asked if she regrets her actions, Sister Hudson is defiant: "I would do it again today."
...or in 5 to 8 years, whichever comes first.
She is buoyed by news that some anti-nuclear groups are planning demonstrations at missile sites around the country July 26. "They will find on July 26 that not only is the sentence not a deterrent but that it has ignited people all over this nation to be at the nuclear sites in their neighborhoods calling for an end to nuclearism."
That's fine. I'm sure the Federal pens can find room for them. If not, we'll make more. 
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