I hope the Rossie column that ran today in the Ithaca Journal makes it into blogtopia. It is a localish issue, The St. Patrick's Four, Ithaca Catholic Workers who protested the Iraqi invasion even before Shock and Awe by pouring their blood around a Lansing Army recruiting office. Local D.A. couldn't get a conviction so shopped it to the feds and they are being tried now in Binghamton. Destruction of government property.
I'd never heard of the case, so I did a little research. These folks are getting railroaded by the Bush Administration after New York State tried but failed to get a conviction. We're bring freedom to Iraq, President Photo Op keeps saying, but you aren't free to say war is wrong and immoral in this country. No, the government tries to put you in jail for speaking truth to power.
I grew up south of Binghamton and am pessimistic about the St. Patrick's Four's chances in front of a jury drawn from the federal pool in that area. Federal juries are notoriously conservative, being drawn mostly from landowners and registered voters. And the Southern Tier is a pretty conservative place. Plus the judge has gutted their defense by ruling out evidence of their motive. Hopefully the jury will figure out the truth that's being hidden from them by the rules which protect the rich and powerful. (Do you think that if an oil company was on trial for profiteering they wouldn't be able to say why they did it? Can you imagine? Of course not.)
Trial of the St. Patrick's Four: Defendant won't say who drew blood
De Mott held in contempt of court after cross-examination (Binghamton Press, Sept. 22, 2005)
St. Patrick's Four Trial Update (WICZ-TV, Fox40, Sept. 22, 2005)
Rossie: Not much new as demonstrators exchange cliches (Dave Rossie, Binghamton Press, Sept. 21, 2005)
For the benefit of anyone who has been vacationing in Patagonia for the last month, the four attention-seekers are better known as the St. Patrick's Four because they chose that saint's day in 2003 to enter a military recruiting office in an Ithaca suburb, where they spilled blood on walls and the American flag, to protest the approaching U.S. invasion of Iraq.
The sore loser is Tompkins County District Attorney George Dentes, who, having failed to get a conviction of the four in Tompkins County Court, persuaded the U. S. attorney for the region to file charges against them in federal court.
The others need no introduction; they're old acquaintances in a way. They may be divided philosophically, but they are united by a single objective that has become a cliche: Support Our Troops. The antiwar people want to support them by bringing them home. The pro-war people, it would appear, want to support them by keeping them in the midst of an escalating civil war, thereby increasing their chances of getting killed or wounded. Some support.
Prominent among the antiwar activists outside Binghamton's Federal Building on Monday were a number of men wearing shirts and caps that identified them as "Veterans for Peace." If there was a comparable contingent of "Doves for War," it was not apparent.
The nearest thing to that category was a gaggle of college kids from Ithaca who showed up on Sunday to whoop it up for the war -- provided, of course, that some other, non-college kids were fighting it.
If all this appears cynical, I'm sorry. The St. Patrick's Four, I'm sure, are sincere in their beliefs. They wouldn't risk going to prison if they weren't. But they made their point by doing what they did in Lansing, assuming their point was to call attention to the Cheney/Bush Gang's war against a country that posed no threat to the United States, a war preceded by a walking barrage of lies.
Dentes originally offered the four a plea bargain that would have avoided jail time, but they refused, went to trial, which ended in a hung jury -- nine for acquittal, three for conviction -- and a mistrial.
That should have been the end of it, but Dentes, apparently feeling he'd been sandbagged when the judge allowed the four to make their anti-war motivation the focus of their defense, persuaded the feds to take the case, which was then moved to Binghamton. The presiding judge, Thomas McAvoy, has ruled that the four will not be able to use their antiwar beliefs as a defense, which seems a bit odd in that they did what they did out of conviction that the war is both illegal and immoral. Apparently, that standard lawyer term: "It goes to motive, your honor" will not be allowed in this case. This case will be strictly about damaging government property.
War Protesters Ask Jurors to Heed Their Consciences (NY Times, Sept. 21, 2005)
Trial of the St. Patrick's Four: Jury selection takes 7 hours
Opening arguments set for today
Photo Gallery, St. Patrick's Four Trial
Protesters face charges from another era
Four on trial in what may be first conspiracy prosecution of anti-war activists since Vietnam (Albany Times Union, Sept. 20, 2005)
A group of Catholic activists who say their beliefs compelled them to protest the war in Iraq went on federal trial in Binghamton Monday, marking what may be the first conspiracy prosecution of war protesters since the Vietnam era.
The case, which is drawing national attention, raises questions about the right to protest, the true measure of faith and government control.
Four members of Ithaca's Catholic Worker movement admit they entered a military recruiting center in the Cayuga Mall outside Ithaca on March 17, 2003, and poured small vials of their own blood in the vestibule. They say they knelt, read a statement and prevented no traffic in or out. The self-described "The St. Patrick's Four" used blood to symbolize the effects of war and the sanctity of the Eucharist.
Daniel Burns, 45, sisters Clare Grady, 46, and Teresa Grady, 40, and Peter DeMott, 58, all of Ithaca, face up to six years in prison and $250,000 in fines if convicted.
What will they say 30 years from now? (Dave Rossie, Ithaca Journal, Sept. 19, 2005)
And sometimes war causes casualties without ever leaving home. That is what has happened to four young people whose friends and supporters have dubbed them The Saint Patrick's Day Four, because their protest was staged on March 17, 2003 ... St. Patrick's Day. The four were among a group of about 20 anti-war activists who gathered outside a military recruiting office at the Cayuga Mall in Lansing, near Ithaca, days before the Bush administration launched its invasion of Iraq. The four: Clare Grady, Daniel Burns, Teresa Grady and Peter De Mott, then entered the office where they sprinkled a small amount of blood, which they said was their own, and were consequently arrested.
They were charged with third degree criminal mischief, but not convicted. Their trial in Tompkins County Court ended in a mistrial when the jury was unable to reach a verdict. The county district attorney then dropped the charges, but for reasons best known to himself persuaded a U.S. Attorney to charge the four under federal statutes. Now the four face a September trial in U.S. District Court in Binghamton. The charges: Injury and damage to government property; entering a military station for unlawful purposes, and then re-entering the property after being removed. If convicted they could face prison time and fines. The federal judge should toss the case after opening arguments.
William Rivers Pitt: The Blood of the Righteous
During the Vietnam war, a number of anti-war activists were prosecuted and jailed for taking direct action against recruiting stations and draft board offices. Files were burned and blood was poured on records. Few activists during this time were as dedicated, or as prosecuted, as the brothers Daniel and Philip Berrigan.
In 1967, Philip Berrigan poured his own blood on Selective Service records in Baltimore, and handed out Bibles while waiting to be arrested. In 1969, Berrigan used home-made napalm to incinerate 378 draft files in Catsonville, Maryland. In 1980, the Berrigan brothers entered a General Electric nuclear missile factory in Pennsylvania, hammered on the nose cones, again poured their own blood, and again were arrested.
In every instance, the Berrigan protest actions were grounded in their Christian beliefs. Both brothers were Roman Catholic priests. After the 1969 Catsonville action, Philip Berrigan said, "We confront the Catholic Church, other Christian bodies, and the synagogues of America with their silence and cowardice in the face of our country's crimes. We are convinced that the religious bureaucracy in this country is racist, is an accomplice in this war, and is hostile to the poor."
As the American people grew more and more hostile towards the Vietnam war, actions of conscience taken by people like the Berrigan brothers became more and more threatening to those in government who wished to see the war continue. Punishments became harsher, threats became more dire, all in an effort to derail a popular wave of resistance against the war, and against those who pushed the war.
The wheel has come around again.....
"War is bloody," said the four protesters in a statement they read after their action in Ithaca. "The blood we brought to the recruiting station was a sign of the blood inherent in the business of the recruiting station. Blood is a sign of life, which we hold to be precious, and a sign of redemption and conversion, which we seek as people of this nation. The young men and women who join the military, via that recruiting station, are people whose lives are precious. We are obligated, as citizens of a democracy, to sound an alarm when we see our young people being sent into harm's way for a cause that is wholly unjust and criminal. Blood is a potent symbol of life and death."
"Blood is the sacred substance of life," they continued, "yet it is shed wantonly in war. As Catholics, when we receive the Eucharist, we acknowledge our oneness with God and the entire human family. We went to the recruiting center using what we have - our bodies, our blood, our words, and our spirits - to implore, beg, and order our country away from the tragedy of war and toward God's reign of peace and justice."
After Hung Jury, 4 Who Poured Blood at Upstate Army Center Face U.S. Trial (NY Times, Sept. 18, 2005)
You can also follow the case and other Ithaca-area issues on the Ithaca Action Network blog.
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