My mate Joel sent me a picture of the streets of Little Italy yesterday. Some of you may know that the Feast of Saint Gennaro takes place on the 19th of September. The street festival in Little Italy, New York, lasts for 11 days. New Yorkers gather for sausage and peppers, zeppoles, cannolis, pizza…..
The last time I visited that festival was the 22nd of September 1979. 46 years ago, we wandered and ate and drank some beers and toked some doobies. We were in the city from Brooklyn. My mate Joel had his car in the city, parked near Battery Park, in a weekend legal parking spot. As our evening wound down, I think there were 4 or 5 of us who headed for what must have been a station wagon because we all got some hours of sleep in the car, tangled around each other.
In March of 1979, the Three Mile Island accident occurred. This was a partial meltdown of a nuclear reactor in Middletown, Pennsylvania. This was the reaction that spurred a public outcry against Nuclear Power across America. These guys definitely made you feel that nothing was wrong….yeah, right.
My friends and I, from Long Island and New York, along with many others, joined the SHAD (Sound and Hudson Against Atomic Development). This group was an offshoot of the Clam Shell Alliance from New Hampshire. We were focused on protests at the Indian Point, N.Y., facility and the facility being built in Shoreham, Long Island. We opposed nuclear power and nuclear weapons.
On June 3, 1979, over 15,000 of us gathered at Shoreham to scream NO NUKES to the world and the powers that be. We held a rally that started around 1 PM, and a few hours after Pete Seeger, Jerry Rubin, and others spoke and performed, over 500 of us headed to the fences.
With rugs and blankets to throw over the barbwired it was time for peaceful civil disobedience. Immediately after climbing the fence we were met by Suffolk County police who arrested us, used cable tie handcuffs to keep us from running away, and placed us on a yellow school bus.
It was a peaceful day of activism. I was arrested at about 4PM and was arraigned at about 10PM. We sat on that bus for a long time and as we rolled into the police station in Yaphank, NY, we were singing “We all live in a Yellow Submarine.”
We were getting a bit delirious. Tony and I knelt in front of the judge who arraigned us in a faux begging for mercy plea. He laughed anyway.
The Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant was constructed but never went operational due in part to our activism. Six billion dollars was wasted.
I awoke from a dream of the World Trade Centre this morning. I could see the towers in the sunshine. Just like I did many decades ago.
It was a day 46 years ago on 23 September. We gathered and protested for our planet's survival, and we sang and danced with joy, along with our deep conviction that the earth needs the help of all beings. No Nukes.
We had no smartphones. We had each other, conversation, connection, and community. The sails from the Sloop Clearwater could be seen over the crowd as it sailed on the Hudson. Many were lysergically charged and enjoying the speeches, music, and gorgeous autumnal weather. 200,000 strong.
Activism and protests continue. But the world has changed. Suppose you are reading this and are not active in some way. Fix your game. Take a small step, write a letter, join a group, the world and all of us beings need your help. There is an administration in the White House that needs to be taken down.
Don’t let the Right White Christian Nationalists get you down. Jesus was not a racist.
Post Script on Nuclear Power Today:
“Since 1960, the U.S. has attempted to build 250 power reactors,” said Arnie Gundersen, a chief engineer at Fairewinds Energy Education, a nonprofit that opposes nuclear power. “More than half were canceled before generating any electricity. Of the remaining reactors, not one was ever completed on time and on budget.”
Microsoft, Google, and Amazon are pushing for more Nuclear Power plants today to feed their power-hungry AI projects.
But critics of nuclear energy are skeptical. They argue that while the pitch from utilities and the tech companies may sound appealing, it does not address longstanding problems with nuclear energy. Those problems include the high cost of new reactors, construction delays and the lack of a permanent storage site for spent nuclear fuel. (New York Times-16 Oct-2014)
We need to climb more fences and make more noise!