Episode 60: Kathy Kelly, Nobel Nominee and Founder, Voices for Creative NonViolence

Kathy Kelly co-coordinates Voices for Creative Nonviolence, (www.vcnv.org) a campaign to end U.S. military and economic warfare. During each of nine recent trips to Afghanistan, Kathy Kelly, as an invited guest of the Afghan Peace Volunteers, has lived alongside ordinary Afghan people in a working class neighborhood in Kabul. She and her companions in Voices for Creative Nonviolence believe that "where you stand determines what you see." They are resolved not to let war sever the bonds of friendship between them and Afghan people whom they've grown to know through successive delegations. Kelly and her companions insist that the U.S. is not waging a "humanitarian war" in Afghanistan. Kelly has also joined with activists in various regions of the country to protest drone warfare by holding demonstrations outside of U.S. military bases in Nevada, upstate New York, and, most recently, at Whiteman Air Force base in Missouri. From 1996 - 2003, Voices activists formed 70 delegations that openly defied economic sanctions by bringing medicines to children and families in Iraq. Kathy and her companions lived in Baghdad throughout the 2003 "Shock and Awe" bombing. They have also lived alongside people during warfare in Gaza, Lebanon, Bosnia and Nicaragua. She was sentenced to one year in federal prison for planting corn on nuclear missile silo sites (1988-89) and spent three months in prison, in 2004, for crossing the line at Fort Benning's military training school. As a war tax refuser, she has refused payment of all forms of federal income tax since 1980. For more information visit: http://vcnv.org/speaker-bio/kathy-kelly