Open letter to Attorney General Eric Holder

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Attorney General Eric Holder
US Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001


RE: US Attorney in Eastern Tennessee District


Dear Mr. Holder,


Let me begin by saying “thank you” for challenging the recent Arizona law seeking to intimidate immigrants. Continue Reading

[Another] Miscarriage of Justice

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Oak Ridge, TN is the site for the Y-12 Nuclear Bomb Plant, renamed “Y-12 National Security Complex” after the attacks in NYC and Washington, DC on 9/11/2001 – a day that led to hysterical power grabs and a multitude of retrenchments on civil and human rights around our nation. Continue Reading

FREE SPEECH ZONE | An Obscenity in the Courtroom

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July 7, 2010  – I spent most of Tuesday afternoon sitting in Courtroom 3A of the Federal Courthouse of the Eastern District of Tennessee as my friends were hauled before Judge H. Price Guyton. The Courtroom was packed with supporters of the 13 defendants who had been arrested the previous day protesting at the Oak Ridge Y-12 Nuclear Weapons Plant. We stood out of love and respect as three women shuffled into the room, shackled at the feet, waist, and hands. If not so absurd for their clearly nonviolent offense, it would have been comical as the Clerk asked them to raise their right hands to “swear or affirm that you will tell the truth” – they could only raise their right arm a few inches due to the waist chain’s attachment to the handcuffs. Jean Gump, an 83 year-old mother of 12, Sister Mary Dennis Lentsch, a 73 year-old nun who teaches basic literacy skills to economically challenged Appalachian residents, and Brad Lyttle, 82, an activist for peace, disarmament, and civil rights who was part of the 1961 San Francisco to Moscow Peace Walk, the first integrated disarmament walk from Nashville to Washington, DC in 1962, and the Canada to Cuba Peace Walk in 1963, were the first defendants brought before the Federal Judge on criminal trespass charges after having spent the previous 27 hours in jail. Continue Reading

FREE SPEECH ZONE | Two Minnesotans Arrested For Declaring Independence

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37 anti-nuclear activists were arrested this morning at the entrance to the Y-12 Nuclear Weapons Plant outside Oak Ridge, TN as part of a group under the statement “Declaration of Independence from Nuclear Weapons at Y-12”. Twenty-three people were arrested for blocking the highway entrance to the plant with a banner inscribed with “Independence From Nuclear Terrorism” while 14 others went under the barbed wire fence and nonviolently entered the property. The former group faces state “obstruction of highway” charges, a misdemeanor; the latter group faces federal trespass charges. This more serious charge can result in up to one year in prison and a fine of up to $1,000. The group arrested included Steve Clemens from Minneapolis and Pepperwolf from Red Wing. Continue Reading