Actions
Other actions followed. As of 2000, some 71 such actions happened on several continents, sharing these elements: 1. absolutely nonviolent to people, 2. each actor claimed personal responsibility for her or his actions, never fleeing the scene but rather standing accountable, 3. making some effort, big or small, real or symbolic, to turn swords into plowshares. There have been several more such actions in the new millennium. Over the years, some of these have resulted in acquittals and the vast majority end in prison time for the actors, the longest of which were those meted out to the 1984 group, the Silo Pruning Hooks (after the Biblical verse admonishing people to turn swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks—both Micah and Isaiah), two of whom earned 18 years in federal prison. The "swords" have included live nuclear weapons, components of the nuclear arsenal, and even armed forces personal field weapons.
Read more about this topic: Plowshares Movement
Famous quotes containing the word actions:
“The principal office of history I take to be this: to prevent virtuous actions from being forgotten, and that evil words and deeds should fear an infamous reputation with posterity.”
—Tacitus (c. 55–c. 120)
“History by apprising them [students] of the past will enable them to judge of the future; it will avail them of the experience of other times and other nations; it will qualify them as judges of the actions and designs of men; it will enable them to know ambition under every disguise it may assume; and knowing it, to defeat its views.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“Throughout my life, I have seen narrow-shouldered men, without a single exception, committing innumerable stupid acts, brutalizing their fellows and perverting souls by all means. They call the motive for their actions fame.”
—Isidore Ducasse, Comte de Lautréamont (1846–1870)