Burglar For Peace , livre ebook

Ted Glick s Burglar for Peace tells a story that very few people have heard, and they should. The activities of the Catholic Left during the Vietnam War played an important role in bringing that war to an end. Glick s inside history of that sector of the anti-war movement is history that needs to be learned widely. This is especially true today when we are facing Trump and a Republican Party that harkens back to the worst days of the Nixon Administration, which was taken on, very much to their credit, by the Catholic Left.
-Ed Asner (U.S. actor in numerous TV shows, plays, and movies since the 1950s, former president of the Screen Actors Guild)
Ted Glick s story of his experiences taking risks to end the Vietnam War, his political trials, and his time in prison fifty years ago makes for compelling reading. Prison was a turning point in my life, and Glick s story reveals something similar. His story and the commitment that resonates throughout it are witness to a piece of the American soul all Americans share-we love democracy, we honor truth, we despise lies and dictatorship, and we call upon ourselves to dig deep into our hearts for that courage to take the first step outside of our comfort zone, then another step out the door, to greet the world open-armed, embracing all that is good about our humanity and lives and fighting with every ounce of faith we can summon up for our right to be happy and just and fair and to call each other, regardless of skin color, ethnicity, or religion, brothers and sisters!
-Jimmy Santiago Baca, award-winning American poet and author of A Place to Stand
This is a book from a movement veteran who has made history and helps us learn lessons on how we can make history that is more just, sustainable, and democratic. This is a book from the heart, to move our minds and hands to action.
-Heather Booth, chair of the Midwest Academy
In Burglar for Peace , Ted Glick uses his remarkable personal story to capture a pivotal moment in the history of U.S. social movements. His journey embodies many of the values and practices we urgently need now: courage, humility, and an abiding faith that our different struggles can unite in common purpose.
-Naomi Klein, author of No Is Not Enough and This Changes Everything
Burglar for Peace is a blessing, a hope, and a way of acknowledging the sacredness of those we encounter, why this journey is difficult, the hills we must climb, and the reasons we dedicate our lives to justice. What makes Ted such an important author and pivotal leader is his understanding that we need an environmental movement that includes everybody, and we must be willing to sacrifice everything for future generations.
-Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr., president of the Hip Hop Caucus

To my wife and soulmate Jane Califf, whose love, support, and constructive criticism continue to make me a better person.
Burglar for Peace: Lessons Learned in the Catholic Left s Resistance to the Vietnam War Ted Glick
This edition 2020 PM Press
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced, used, or stored in any information retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher.
ISBN: 978-1-62963-786-0 (print)
ISBN: 978-1-62963-815-7 (ebook)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019946103
Cover by John Yates / www.stealworks.com
Cover image Rochester Democratic and Chronicle , September 7, 1970
Interior design by briandesign
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
PM Press
PO Box 23912
Oakland, CA 94623
www.pmpress.org
Printed in the USA
Contents
INTRODUCTION by Frida Berrigan
PREFACE
CHAPTER ONE
The Draft Resistance Movement, 1965-1968
CHAPTER TWO
My Personal Transformation
CHAPTER THREE
From Catonsville Onward
CHAPTER FOUR
Taking on the FBI Too
CHAPTER FIVE
Changing Hearts and Minds in the Courtroom
CHAPTER SIX
Prison
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Harrisburg 8 (Minus 1) Trial
CHAPTER EIGHT
A Fast unto Death
CHAPTER NINE
Anti-War Burglar Culture
CHAPTER TEN
After Harrisburg
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Resigning from the Catholic Left
CHAPTER TWELVE
Lessons Learned
NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Introduction
Frida Berrigan
They say that those who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it. That was the line my history teacher drilled into me back in Baltimore. The random dates and facts we memorized didn t really add up to a strategy for shaping a new future, but the sentiment makes sense.
Reading the book that you are now holding in your hands, I thought: What if repeating history isn t something we are doomed to but something we are called to? What if we need to be repeating history? Not following the exact same recipe but moving in the same contours and with the same spirit of the Ultra Resistance Ted Glick makes vivid.
The period of U.S. history that radicalized Ted Glick is not so unlike our own moment: implacable, unaccountable leadership; costly, bloody war far from our shores; an insidious effort to create an internal enemy and menace-then hippies and communists, now immigrants and socialists.
This toxic soup and other people s stand against it woke up young Ted, who was in college with a vague notion of becoming a lawyer and jumpstarting a career in politics. Once awake, Ted set off on a new course.
This book is full of bold actions with big consequences and long prison sentences. Occasionally, you can hear his marvel and surprise at what his younger self felt and accomplished. In Ted s account of the Rochester trial of the East Coast Conspiracy to Save Lives, what struck me most is the hope that was embedded in the action. The group set out to destroy draft records-but also to touch other people, to move them, to challenge them, to change them. This is part of the strategy of nonviolent direct action-provocation and conversion not just of the powers that be (we should be so lucky) but of the uninvolved and the uninformed.
The actions weren t just directed at the general public or the mainstream media but toward a much more intimate audience-the jury, the judge, the prosecutors-and we can see this hope repeated in decades of nonviolent direct actions. draft card burning statue toppling tree sitting flag removing water protecting war tax resisting plowshares beating weapons dismantling pipeline cutting sanctuary offering wall dismantling refugee harboring valve turning
Nonviolent direct action, civil disobedience, divine obedience-whatever you want to call it-is a set of tactics designed to right the wrongs, remove the harm, protect the victim, raise the alarm. But those who engage in this Ultra Resistance want to do more than that. As one of Ted s codefendants said to the jury at the end of their celebrated East Coast Conspiracy to Save Lives trial, Hope it makes a difference in your lives.
We hope our action makes a difference in your lives. In this case, it is not the draft card or the oil pipeline or the nuclear missile that is the ultimate object of the action-the action extends into the courtroom, into the public square, into the hearts and minds of everyone it touches, and into jail.
This classic set of tactics is harder today than it was when Ted Glick and his codefendants stood in front of an older, more Christian, more conservative jury of twelve war supporters in Rochester, New York, in November 1970. They were able to question police officers and FBI agents. Father Daniel Berrigan was allowed to hold forth from the witness box college lecture style for what must have been hours. And while they were all convicted, the activists moved individuals on the jury to think about the war critically. One juror told the newspaper, Not one person on the jury wanted to send those kids to jail.
Ted and his friends did go to jail though. And handfuls of people continue to go to jail for similar actions today, fifty years later.
Today, because of the legal precedents that allow prosecutors to limit testimony to the facts of the case, speaking truth and motivation and intention and the ways in which the facts moved an activist to act can all be ruled inadmissible and irrelevant. But there are still windows and cracks that creative activists can wriggle through.
When five valve turners went to trial in Minnesota in 2018, they planned to mount a case of the necessity defense for actions that disrupted the five pipelines that carry Canadian tar sands crude oil into the United States. They faced ten years in jail if convicted. The necessity defense was denied in other cases like theirs, but their judge allowed it. The activists planned to present evidence that they trespassed to shut down the pipeline, because it represents a direct and immediate climate threat. They hoped to convince the jury that their actions were their best option to confront the peril.
But they did not get the chance. In October 2018, they were acquitted, not because the judge or jury decided their criminal actions were justified and necessary, but because the judge determined that the government had not presented enough evidence to convict them.
Emily Johnston, one of the five, said afterward:
While I m very glad that the court acknowledged that we did not damage the pipelines, I m heartbroken that the jury didn t get to hear our expert witnesses and their profoundly important warnings about the climate crisis. We are fast losing our window of opportunity to save ourselves and much of the beauty of this world. We turned those valves to disrupt the business-as-usual that we know is leading to catastrophe, and to send a strong message that might focus attention to the problem. We will continue to do that in every peaceful way we can; the stakes are far too high for us not to. 1
The stakes are too high to not act. To not continue to act. Is the history