eileen fleming

Sr. Ardeth Platte smiling with joy at the empire's minions

[July 5, 2010: Oak Ridge, Tennessee] Priests and nuns, atheists, anarchist and one clown were among the 23 arrested by the State and 13 by the Federal Government for nonviolently resisting Nuclear Weapons at Y-12 in the morning of July 5, 2010.

Those facing State charges were arrested for obstructing the road way, one for failing to obey a police officer and Federal charges are for trespassing.

Before the nonviolent action that lead to the arrests the crowd made commitments to bear witness every Sunday at 5:55 PM at the site for a vigil and sing Keep Your Eyes on the Prize and the names of all who offered themselves against the insanity of nuclear war will be named out-loud until every one of them has been freed.

Freedom's name is mighty sweet
And soon we're gonna meet
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on

I got my hand on the gospel plow
Won't take nothing for my journey now
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on

Hold on, hold on
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on

Only chain that a man can stand
Is that chain o' hand on hand
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on

Now only thing we did was wrong
Stayin' in the wilderness too long
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on

The only thing we did was right
Was the day we started to fight
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on

Hold on, hold on
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on

The action topped off a weekend long celebration of 30 years of The Nuke Resister and Nukewatch which had gathered 200 nonviolent activists who came as far away as Australia, from the California coast to New Hampshire, Canada and this lone voice from Florida;

However a Georgia State Government vehicle with two police officers in plain clothes watched this morning's happening from inside their air-conditioned van, and the one on the passenger side did flash me the Peace sign as I passed them by.

The Declaration of Independence from Nuclear Weapons at Y-12, was read just prior to the arrests:

The Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776 indicted a government that engaged in barbaric conduct contrary to the laws of Humanity that included "works of death, destruction and tyranny unparalleled in the most barbaric ages" until the Age of Now!

Current Law requires an end to all planning, preparation, production, threat, or use of nuclear weapons and we the people have gathered here today, July 4, 2010 at Y-12 to demand this Government adhere to the fundamental rules and principles of Humanitarian Law.

These rules and principles require that civilians never be the object of attack. Consequently we must never use weapons that are incapable of distinguishing between civilians and military targets.

Whereas, all W-76 and W-76-1 thermonuclear secondaries produced at Y-12 are designed and produced to unleash 100 KT of uncontrollable and indiscriminate heat, blast and radiation, six times more than the Hiroshima Bomb,

Whereas, the International Court of Justice found that the destructive power of nuclear weapons cannot be contained in either space or time, and that the potential to destroy all civilization and the entire ecosystem of the planet,

Whereas, citizens have both rights and duties we the people of conscience must ensure future generations their right to life,

Whereas, under the principals of democracy we the people of conscience demand this government to fulfill its promise and responsibilities to pursue and achieve nuclear disarmament,

We the people of conscience therefore exercise the right of every citizen of this republic and this planet to peacefully resist the nuclear threat; attacking as it does every core concept of human rights.

Whereas it is a basic human right to be free of threat or violence, and it is our duty to protect children and future generations we call on this government to use our tax dollars that are now being used to wage permanent war unequivocally demand they be used to pursue a nuclear free world and clean up all chemical and radioactive contamination.

"No government, not even the most democratic, can force us to live under this threat. No state in the world can offer any kind of security against this menace of a nuclear holocaust, or guarantee to prevent it…Any country, which manufactures and stocks nuclear weapons, is first of all endangering its own citizens. This is why the citizens must confront their government and warn it that it has no right to expose them to this danger. Because, in effect, the citizens are being held hostage by their own government, just as if they have been hijacked and deprived of their freedom and threatened…when governments develop nuclear weapons...they are violating the basic rights of their citizens, the basic right not to live under constant threat of annihilation." Mordechai Vanunu, 1987 from Ashkelon Prison.

Photos of the July 4, 2010 weekend @ http://www.flickr.com/photos/36469283@N02/

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Eileen Fleming, Producer "30 Minutes with Vanunu" and "13 Minutes with Vanunu" Founder of WeAreWideAwake.org Staff Member of Salem-news.com A Feature Correspondent for Arabisto.com and Dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/ Author of "Keep Hope Alive" and "Memoirs of a Nice Irish American 'Girl's' Life in Occupied Territory" and BEYOND NUCLEAR: Mordechai Vanunu's FREEDOM of SPEECH Trial and My Life as a Muckraker: 2005-2010 | www.youtube.com/user/eileenfleming Only in Solidarity do "we have it in our power to begin the world again."-Tom Paine