Polite Protesters: The American Peace Movement of the 1980s By John Lofland

Syracuse University Press, 1993 - History - 321 pages - $18.00 on Amazon

In the early 1980s sociologist John Lofland became actively involved in the American peace movement. He took part in numerous peace campaigns for nuclear disarmament, the test ban, and SANE/Freeze in Europe and the United States. He has served on a variety of organizing boards and was arrested for civil resistance activities. In his latest book Lofland puts this experience to excellent use. Polite Protesters blends a unique personal perspective with his professional ability to assess the importance, and, long-lasting effect of the American peace movement of the 1980s and to present it in a cogent and compelling manner. Lofland brings his wealth of knowledge about social movements and collective behavior to this sociological study. His analyses reveal a peace movement with organization, culture, and tactics quite different from those of the 1960s and 1970s. The radicals of the 1980s were "polite protesters, " more likely to turn to the politics of interest groups and lobbyists than to that of involved demonstrations and flag burnings. Telling how this movement was both similar to and different from other movements, Lofland explores the dynamics of its dramatic surge and decline, why it both grew and withered with great rapidity. But Polite Protesters is not simply about the American peace movement as genteel protesters. The detailed analysis Lofland offers is developed with a strong concern for the comparative study of social movements and conceived with that aim in mind. In learning about the peace movement, the reader also learns a great deal about all movements, especially those that practice civil protest, a pattern that is becoming more common among the movements of our time.

• Series: Syracuse Studies on Peace and Conflict Resolution
• Paperback: 321 pages
• Publisher: Syracuse Univ Pr (Sd) (March 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0815626053
• ISBN-13: 978-0815626053
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.9 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)

Protest Brings Back The `60s, (1988)

Protest Brings Back The `60s

Antiwar Activists Rally At Nevada Nuclear Test Ground

March 20, 1988|By James Coates, Chicago Tribune.

MERCURY, NEV. — World War II veteran Bob Barns was wearing a baseball cap from his Veterans of Foreign Wars post in Santa Cruz, Calif., when officers arrested him and more than 1,800 other antiwar activists last week.

Federal officials say they believe the weeklong series of arrests of people like Barns on the edge of the Department of Energy`s Nevada Nuclear Test Site here is the largest roundup of antigovernment demonstrators since the Vietnam and civil rights protests.

More than 1,200 people were arrested March 12, and about 100 more have been handcuffed and taken away each subsequent day. The protest is to end Sunday with a rally.

It has been street theater out of the past for some of the middle-aged demonstrators, a return to the heady days of ardent rhetoric and the world-beating zeal of young adulthood.

For the forces of law and order, whom both protesters and test site officials praised for their restraint, it was a reminder that civil disobedience can pose a vexing array of troubles.

One veteran demonstrator flashed a sign paraphrasing Mohandas Gandhi, the Hindu civil disobedience leader who wrote, ``First they laugh at you. Then they harass you. Then they persecute you. Then you win.``

For others it was all new.

``I didn`t have time to get involved while my kids were growing up,`` the wiry and gray-bearded Barns said before illegally stepping across the boundary into the supersecret installation just after dawn on Wednesday.

As many as 5,000 people have gathered at the nuclear proving grounds in a single day as part of a well-orchestrated demonstration designed to provoke arrests and win sympathy for the call to end all nuclear testing as a first step toward world disarmament.

Billed as the American Peace Test and coordinated by seasoned political organizers from the Nuclear Freeze/SANE group, the weeklong ``actions`` at the test site have involved people of all ages from throughout the country.

Sometimes singly, sometimes in pairs and more often in clusters of 6 to 12-which they called ``affinity groups``-the protesters courted arrest by such acts as blocking buses carrying test-site workers, slipping through the fences that ring the Rhode Island-sized facility and disrobing before police cameras. Between ``actions`` they slept at a ``peace camp`` of about 100 tents pitched on public land across the highway from the test-site entrance at Mercury.

Stanley Belvin of Eugene, Ore., marked his 91st birthday by forcing officers to arrest him. Others detained were younger than 17, considered minors in Nevada.

Sandy Berliant, a 52-year-old grandmother from Wilmette, Ill., who said that stopping the tests is the only way her grandchildren can survive, also was among those taken into custody.

``Our only chance for the future depends upon stopping what goes on on the other side of that gate,`` said Berliant.

TV disc jockey Casey Kasem, who arrived at the test site in a chauffeured, gray stretch limo, emceed a short entertainment program before being arrested March 12.

Others arrested that day included actress Teri Garr, who told the crowd:

``If I have an image of being conservative, I want all of you people to listen up. We are in a big mess.``

Nearly all the protesters were handcuffed without a struggle, herded into buses and driven to the Nye County courthouse in Tonopah, Nev., 150 miles north of Las Vegas.

Most of the demonstrators were released without being charged, but were not given rides back to the test site.

More than a dozen people who penetrated areas of the test site deemed dangerous or secret were charged with such crimes as criminal tresspass and defacing federal property, officials said. They face fines and jail terms of up to six months.

With a population of only 14,000, the county can`t afford to jail the hundreds of activist lawbreakers, said Barbara Yoerg, spokesman for the Nevada Department of Energy office, which is coordinating the arrests.

``I think a lot of us share these protesters` wishes that they spend some time in jail,`` Yoerg added with a smile. ``It`s too bad the taxpayers can`t afford to put them up for awhile.``

Taxpayers will foot a bill likely to be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars for bringing in private guards from as far away as South Carolina and Florida, as well as overtime expenses for state and local police.

A fleet of 50 buses-leased at about $400 per day apiece-stands by to transport arrestees from the test site to Tonopah, Yoerg said, and live video coverage of the siege is beamed via satellite to the department`s headquarters in Washington.

In addition, authorities stockpiled 10,000 pairs of disposable white plastic handcuffs and spent $33,000 building a 100-by-220 foot chain link and barbed wire corral to hold the arrested protesters, Yoerg said.

The protesters have been almost as well-prepared. Jessie Cocks, cofounder of the American Peace Test, acknowledged the group has an annual budget of about $500,000, and spent $160,000 on direct mail and phone appeals to bring the protesters to the desert to face arrest.

Protest at Nuclear Test Site; 38 Seized, 1989

Protest at Nuclear Test Site; 38 Seized

January 29, 1989|From Associated Press

MERCURY, Nev. — Thirty-eight protesters were arrested Saturday in a peaceful demonstration at the Nevada Test Site, authorities reported.

The protest by members of the American Peace Test Organization coincided with the 38th anniversary of the first nuclear test at the desert site. Members gathered in Las Vegas on Friday to mark the actual anniversary date.

Government spokesman Jim Boyer said the protesters were arrested for trespassing when they reached the cattle guard at the entrance of the test site.

He said that the demonstration lasted "for only a couple of hours" and that about 60 protesters turned out. "There was no big deal to it," he added.

438 PROTESTERS ARE ARRESTED AT NEVADA NUCLEAR TEST SITE, 1987

438 PROTESTERS ARE ARRESTED AT NEVADA NUCLEAR TEST SITE

By ROBERT LINDSEY, Special to the New York Times
Published: February 6, 1987

More than 400 people were arrested today when they tried to enter the nation's nuclear proving grounds here after nearly 2,000 demonstrators, including six members of Congress, held a rally to protest nuclear weapons testing.

In a scene that at times recalled the antiwar protests of the 1960's, 438 demonstrators, some carrying American flags, were arrested as they marched past the entrance to the 1,350-square-mile Nevada Test Site. Among those arrested were the astronomer Carl Sagan and the actors Martin Sheen, Kris Kristofferson and Robert Blake.

The protesters who were arrested were taken in buses to nearby Beatty, Nev., where they were booked and released. A spokesman for the Department of Energy said 433 of those arrested were charged with trespassing and five were charged with resisting arrest. They will face trial at a later date.

The march came after a rally protesting the Reagan Administration's resumption of nuclear weapons testing despite a Soviet moratorium on the testing of new weapons. The demonstration at the desert test site 65 miles north of Las Vegas was organized by a consortium of groups that included Greenpeace, the American Peace Test, Physicians for Social Responsibility and the Peace Committee of the American Public Health Association. Test Moved Up Two Days

The demonstration was initially called to protest the nation's first nuclear test of the year, which had been scheduled for today. But the Department of Energy rescheduled the test, in part because of the demonstration, and detonated the weapon Tuesday.

Standing beneath a banner that read ''Nuremberg Requires That We Act,'' Representative Pat Schroeder, a Colorado Democrat, assailed what she called President Reagan's ''Rambo-type foreign policy.''

She said, ''I think the President's pushing the test two days ahead of schedule when the American people didn't want to test, when Congress didn't want to test, when the world didn't want to test, was the most arrogant exercise of power I've seen in a long time.''

Five other Democratic members of Congress also attended the rally. They were Representatives Thomas J. Downey of Suffolk, Mike Lowry of Washington and Jim Bates, Leon E. Panetta and Barbara Boxer of California. They left before the demonstrators entered the test site.

''We came basically to make sure that the people protesting here know they are not alone, that their message is being heard in Washington,'' Mr. Downey said in an interview.

One demonstrator, Hugh DeWitt, a physicist at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in California, said he and other technical specialists here had concluded from seismic measurements that Tuesday's test was ''of extremely low yield, equivalent to less than five tons of TNT,'' far smaller than any other announced test.

''Either it completely fizzled or it was experimental in nature,'' he said.

Owen Chamberlain, a University of California professor and winner of the 1959 Nobel Prize for Physics, said he was puzzled not only that so small a weapon had been tested, but also that ''they had gone out of their way to make an announcement about it.'' Such a step, he suggested, was likely to goad the Soviet Union into ending its 18-month moratorium on nuclear testing. A Highly Organized Protest

Although today's protest scene at the Nevada Test Site was reminiscent of the 1960's, it was unlike the often disorganized, spontaneous peace demonstrations of that era and, indeed, was marketed with a promotional flair befitting Madison Avenue.

In recent weeks, news organizations have received numerous announcements and telephone calls about the event. Representatives of the sponsoring groups have appeared on network television shows in recent weeks, and today's arrests, which took place at 10 A.M., Pacific standard time, were timed to gain maximum publicity.

''Why do you think they scheduled the arrests at 10 o'clock?'' said Don Oliver, a correspondent for NBC News. ''So they could make the evening news.'' U.S. NUCLEAR TEST DEFENDED GENEVA, Feb. 5 (Special to The New York Times) - Kenneth L. Adelman, director of the United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, today defended the decision to conduct a nuclear test Tuesday despite warnings that the Soviet Union would end a self-imposed moratorium on nuclear testing with the first United States test of this year.

''If the Soviets want to resume tests, as I understand that they do, let them resume tests,'' he said.

Mr. Adelman also asserted that the timing of the test, which had initially been scheduled for today, was not connected with the start Tuesday of the 1987 session of the 40-nation Geneva Conference. Soviet officials implied that the test was ''cynically timed'' to coincide with the opening of the conference.

Soviet officials here echoed comments from Moscow that the Soviet Union would resume nuclear testing, but would only say that the tests would begin again at an ''appropriate time.''

Photo of Kris Kristofferson and Martin Sheen (AP)