I don't often break promises... In fact hardly ever... Some people resent me for it, because no matter what, if I have promised something, I will keep trying to deliver on that promise till my dying day, I never go back on a promise... I keep coming like the Terminator, with elephant memory... a nightmare to some who have moved on, can't understand why I have to take my word is my bond to such extremes!!!
But in this case I will make an exception. I made a promise to these
United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America members, that I wouldn't publish their photo rejoicing in our
Radioactive Energy drink, proudly holding these glow-in-the-dark cans, because after I snapped the picture, the head of their local chapter, and members of the NRC, approached them and explained that we were an anti-nuclear table, that the owners of the company making the drink were Rock The Reactors and Green Nuclear Butterfly sponsors, that they could lose their jobs if this picture was published.
So the men in the photograph, came back to me and asked, gently, however hinting, that they would rather we not meet again, that if I were to put this photo online, we would indeed find each other again. Now, first, I liked these guys, think they liked me... or they wouldn't have allowed I snap the photo in the first place. You know, despite what people think, I have more in common with them than 90% of the wealthy folks on the board of directors at IPSEC, Riverkeeper or Clearwater! This environmental mission has been my life. I've never gathered moss, worked in clubs selling drinks rather than don suit and tie, play their silly parlor games. To me it's not a case of Not In My Back Yard... it's a case of Not On My Planet!!! And given half a chance, we can make our case, just sit down with John Schaeffer at
Real Goods for five minutes, or Paul Watson of
Sea Shepherd... They'll tell you the score, how you're being manipulated by your Union... party to a scheme threatening millions of lives on the Hudson!
But I also don't take kindly to being threatened, however gently... the ruckus these Union guys caused on the steps outside that day, intimidating our supporters, when in fact less than 10% of these Union men ever set foot inside the Indian Point nuclear power plant, never questioned the operations there... came for the t-shirt, the cap, the over time pay, and yes the free can of Radioactive Energy drink... then the harassing phone calls started, the anonymous attack blogs intensified. Yesterday, Sherwood gets a death threat. That's how the nuclear power industry operates... Sherwood and I knew this going in, that if this is to heat up, if we are going to successfully attract attention to the issue, we are going to face the consequences tugging the tiger's tail! Sadly that's how the media reacts today, unless Paris Hilton screams or cries "Indian Point" ~ nobody is going to pay this any heed.
Let me quote the Clearwater program (page 6) this weekend: "...following conditions be met prior to accepting Entergy's application to relicense Indian Point for another 20 years." We don't want the following conditions be met... The folks we represent and work with want Indian Point closed! Period! No quarter... like in Goldfinger... "We don't want you to talk Mr. Bond, we want you to die!" Unlike Clearwater, we are not telling our volunteers to not voice their own opinion, to water down the message, round off the corners, dilute the solution, to tell the public this is a petition to make Indian Point safer, not shut it down, that we tried that and it didn't work, like that young woman I interviewed in my
Vlog on Sunday!
Unlike Clearwater, we don't have contributors with cushy jobs or connections to Entergy, who want to play good neighbor... Like that man walking around the festival with a Paramount Theater t-shirt expressing what a good citizen Entergy is for contributing so much money to the community, to local arts... When will Peekskill and its neighboring towns come to realize, that you can't have Indian Point stay open while at the same time greet Entergy as a good neighbor. Did you know not even 10% of those who work at the plant live within a 20 mile radius of Indian Point? What do Entergy workers know that we don't I wonder?
So don't threaten me, my family, my friends, my colleagues, don't call me in the middle of the night calling me a loser, you will never live half my life... Don't send me threatening emails or weird packages... get in my face at public meetings, muscling me around... I might be a stringy 54 year old... tired and beat and weatherworn... but I have more intel and commando training experience than you will ever earn, I can put you down with a kill in three moves, you won't even know what hit you... I could do that to an adult by age 12... and a sharp shooter too... my dad was nuts, OK? I became so fearful of this power, this training, I swore never to raise my hand or my fist in anger again... so don't push me... because in this fight, probably the last environmental fight in my life... you will never know how many battles I've won running the show from behind the scenes.
So you three guys in the picture, I respect you, I honor you, I understand the position this is putting you in, I empathize, but we have a battle to fight, a war to win... tell your bosses to leave you the f*** alone, and to leave us the f*** alone, or this is going to escalate into a drag out, kicking and screaming mess... I don't think either side wants this, least of all Clearwater and Riverkeeper, who have been so desperately trying to keep this oh so amicable, I'm throwing up from the overdose of estrogen!
Instead why don't you ask us about all the amazing opportunities the wind and solar industry can bring you... how a friend of mine, a colleague of yours, who worked as an underwater welder at Indian Point, is now making a killing drilling wells for the geothermal industry! Instead of coming looking for me to break my legs, burn my house down, ask yourselves, are these nuclear jobs really worth all they're cracked up to be? Or are they just harping an old tired and worn technology, nobody wants, nobody wanted in the first place... everyone knows the truth except those who still buy into the messages of deception pumped out by DoE and DoD! The French, in the 60's, allowed then president Pompidou to sell out their country to Westinghouse! Look at them now, faced with horrendous nuclear waste problem... no solution, no end in site... the health and well being of their entire nation at risk.
I don't want to witness the Clearwater festival downward spiral into a green Wal-Mart... this year I noticed a sad turn... blue backstage wrist bands... creating a divide between audience and performers... it didn't used to be that way... the Blue Meanies are creeping into Clearwater's organization... is Pete Seeger aware of this? Does he know who the people are in his midst? Does he see the devil infiltrating, corrupting, as he sings NoNukes songs with his
Raging Grannies friends... does he know the wolf is not only at the door, it's already in the herd?
Bring it on guys, we're taking Indian Point down... Nobody wants a revolution, but you're going to get one anyway... just for the hell of it... because we need a good summer of get even. Frankly, if this upsets a few cocktail party goers, spills drinks as they gasp at the news a couple of agent provocateurs have snuck in through the back door, like Gary Cooper in Vera Cruz, look at me, do I look like I care? Clearwater was created to clean and protect the Hudson river... Entergy and Indian Point are killing it... killing us, producing energy we don't need, at horrendous risk and cost, no matter what they tell you, they lie... through their teeth... because their corporate culture of death doesn't know any different, it's what they do for a living, they cash the check, they feed their spawn.
The solar energy and the wind industry know that if Indian Point shuts down, it will be a boom to their business... it will be a boom to tourism in Peekskill... which is such a lovely, beautiful town, crippled by this plant nobody in their right mind would want to live next door to if they really had a choice in the matter, why the community is so depressed, half the stores boarded up... You can't pay people to live there.
Since we started using MySpace to reconnect the anti-nuclear community, revive the anti-nuclear movement, the nuclear industry is now blanketing it with ads to recruit nuclear workers... The industry can't find enough qualified young people, yet we need a new generation who loves Toxic Waste Zombies, who grew up with Garbage Pail Kids, to clean up this radioactive mess... If the focus of the industry was to close down the old plants, stop the madness, sit down with anti-nuclear scientists, work out the kinks... maybe the industry would have a future, cause right now, with the upheaval that's building up, against the tyranny of this one world nuclear order... we're not going to have a moment of peace. You want love, you gotta earn it, you gotta give a little... give us Indian Point as a token of your good will. The plant's done. Like an old dog, it had its day... nobody is going to support anything the nuclear power industry tries to do if ~ again ~ you give America martyrs like Karen Silkwood!
Peace... join the party, the party is about closing Indian Point, now, not by 2015... now, this year, as soon as possible, put this country back on the right track. Until that happens, you'll need a runaway train to stop me from organizing a revival of the anti-nuclear spirit in this country. And there's one thing I'm really good at, that's organizing. We are going to win this one, so just to save us all the long drawn out process, the waste of time, energy and resources, already 8 times more than any other nuke in the country, or so we've been told... why not just let it go... call it quits... let's create roundtables, reassess the whole of the nuclear industry... leave the good folks of the Hudson Valley out of this, give them back their river... so the state doesn't have to bring in the National Guards, soften the edges, cushion the blow, try to play nice... This is not touch football... this is rugby... it's going to escalate into a calamity if you don't use this opportunity to do the right thing, give the people of New York what they elected both Eliot Spitzer and John Hall into office for!
This is how they were posed before being NUKED.
According to Melissa Everett, the Sustainable Hudson Valley organization rarely steps into the complex world of policy, but right now they are doing that.
