Occupy Beale Day 1

 Good Chico-Red Bluff-Bangor folk met back at the Doolittle Gate at Beale Air Force Base yesterday while mostly Nevada City folk held down the Main Gate and mostly Bay Area Code Pink occupied the south gate for the afternoon shift change.

 Then about 20 of us met for dinner and a Teach-In on Jeju Island (http://www.savejejuisland.org/Save_Jeju_Island/Welcome.html) and were joined by three of the young military police, which we relished. Jeju Island, a world heritage site at the southern tip of South Korea is part of the expansion of U.S. militarism even though the island is an environmental gem. We were all strongly encouraged to join the Korean people and to get involved in protecting this priceless wonder of the natural world.

As most people know who have been reading the Veggie Voyagers blog-- we've been going to Beale monthly to protest the Global Hawk Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Surveillance Drone which identifies and targets for the Killer and Reaper Drones like the one animated above by Nevada City artists-- those that terrify and kill innocent civilians in Pakistan, Yemen and soon to be other countries.

 The sunset was brilliant over the Sutter Buttes as we waved goodbye to some of our Occupy Beale family as we hunkered down for the night in wait of the morning shift change at the Main Gate. With our songs and in our thoughts we leave you with this question from one of the new www.occucards.com-- Do the Pentagon and private defense corporations serve the American people or do they serve one another at our expense? Certainly most of the people coming in and out of Beale are workers, trapped in jobs by multiple factors. They do not totally represent the evil of the military industrial system, in this case the collusion between Northrup Grumman and the Air Force. They are our fellows and the Best we can do is to use whatever means we can to communicate with them --which is what we try to do with gusto, compassion and creativity.