“…Jesus did get in the way of empire…”
–Mary Anne Grady Flores, Ithaca Catholic Workers Movement

As I’ve mentioned here a few times (May 26, May 28, July 1), I support the direct-action activist effort to block weapons shipments from the United States to Israel. These shipments conscript our complicity in Israeli aggression, occupation, and war crimes, and also conscript (and are embedded in) civilian commercial networks for military purposes. They turn all of us into accomplices of and human shields for atrocity, a status that I think we’re obligated to resist and refuse.

Some version of the block-the-bombs campaign is taking place all around the United States and all around the world, but I happen to be connected to the part of the movement where I live and work in New Jersey. The central transit hub for weapons around here is Port Newark-Elizabeth on the outskirts of those cities. Port Newark-Elizabeth is in fact the principal container shipping facility in the northeastern United States, from roughly Maine to Virginia, responsible for a significant volume of weapons shipments.

POEM Supporters at 1 Police Plaza, Elizabeth, New Jersey

Last October and then this past May, activists from the Port of Elizabeth Movement (POEM) put their bodies on the line to shut the port down, which they successfully did for hours, causing miles of backups. Four members of the October group were arrested, and were scheduled for trial in July, only for the trial to be canceled once they arrived at court. The trial was then re-scheduled for just yesterday, only to be canceled yet again on short notice. I went up to 1 Police Plaza in Elizabeth to intercept anyone who hadn’t gotten word of the cancellation. A handful hadn’t. It may superficially seem like a “wasted trip” to north Jersey, but time spent with these comrades is never wasted. Nothing’s cured my perennial misanthropy like standing shoulder-to-shoulder with people like this.

Some of the arrestees and their supporters were interviewed by Mimi Rosenberg’s show on Pacifica Radio (99.5, WBAI-FM). Here’s a link to the show. The Port Elizabeth segment comes first, followed by an equally valuable (but topically unrelated) one on the loss of TPS status by Haitian migrants.