All the News
Preparing for the Big Event (lodging options)
As many of you know, the big event for Stop the Bombs has been moved from August 06 to April to enable more local students to attend while the colleges are in session. For those traveling here from outside the area, Kim Joy Bergier of the Michigan Chapter of Stop the Bombs has prepared a list of area accommodations.
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Flyer for April Protest Event
courtesy of Kim Joy Bergier and the Michigan chapter of Stop the Bombs
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Recap: Young People Speak Out at DOE Hearing
Friends,
Want to see what young people had to say at the DOE hearing on
nuclear weapons in Oak Ridge? Check it out at www.knoxtube.com
peace,
ralph
Public Hearing on Using Y-12 for Building Nuclear Weapons
Stockpile Life Extension
Name "Complex 2030" has been changed to "Complex Transformation"
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
11:00am-3:00pm | 6:00pm-10:00pm
New Hope Center, 602 Scarboro Road (Corner of New Hope and Scarboro Roads)| Oak Ridge, TN
[outside gates of Y12 Plant]
Public Comments on Draft (PEIS) Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement
All four proposals in the draft envision the continued production of nuclear weapons and the maintenance of an enduring stockpile. The only question appears to be how many weapons to build and where to build them.
It is crucial that the public show up to this hearing and make their standpoint known on the record. However, if you are unable to attend, the link below and attached document (pdf) contain information regarding where to send your public comment.
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February Stop the Bombs Newsletter
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What Militarism Costs our Communities
7:00pm, Beck Cultural Center, Dandridge Avenue, Knoxville
The second annual community conversation sponsored by the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance in celebration of the birth of Martin Luther King, Jr. This year’s symposium, cosponsored by other organizations in the community, will be a panel presentation focusing on the economic, moral and human costs of militarism to our communities. The panel presentation will be followed by a community discussion.
For more information, contact OREPA at 865 776 5050.
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Guest Speaker: Takashi Teramoto, survivor of Hiroshima bombing
Events at Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church
10:00am Forum
5:00pm Peace Vigil at Y12 Nuclear Weapons Plant
7:30pm Reception
Takashi Teramoto was 10 years old in Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 when the United States destroyed the city with the first atomic bomb. Teramoto is an official witness of the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation. Hibakusha (survivors) bring to the world a unique perspective on the power of the bomb. They tell their stories in the hope of preventing further use of nuclear weapons of mass destruction.
Takashi will be a guest at TVUUC and will be the speaker at the 10:00 Forum on Sunday, January 13, 2008, in the Lizzie French Crozier Room at the Church on Kingston Pike in Knoxville.
Takashi will also visit Oak Ridge for the weekly Sunday vigil of the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance at 5:00pm at the gates of the Y12 Nuclear Weapons Plant. Y-12 enriched the uranium for the Little Boy bomb which destroyed Hiroshima.
An evening reception for Takashi-san will be held at TVUUC at 7:30pm on Sunday, January 13.
Takashi’s visit coincides with the presentation of Witness to History, a poster exhibit from the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation at TVUUC from January 7-28, 2008.
Witness to History: Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation poster exhibit
Where: Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church
The Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation has prepared an exhibit of posters which document the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan in August 1945; the exhibit will be mounted in two locations in each of the fifty United States during 2008.
Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church will host the poster exhibit from January 7-28 in the Lizzie Crozier French room at the Church. A special reception will be held on Sunday, January 13 at 7:30pm in conjunction with a visit from Takashi Teramoto, who was 10 at the time of the bombing and is an official witness for the Peace Culture Foundation.
Teramoto’s Knoxville visit is sponsored by the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance; he will be accompanied on his Knoxville visit by Steve Leeper, Chairman of the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation.
The exhibit is available for classroom visits by arrangement with TVUUC. To discuss arranging a visit for your class, contact Ted Lollis at 865 609 8742 or at geovisual@comcast.net.
2008: Celebrating a Year for Nonviolence
The Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance will begin the celebration of its twentieth anniversary with the declaration of a Year for Nonviolence on January 7, 2008 at a press event at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church on Kingston Pike.
The announcement will coincide with a reception for the opening of Witness to History, an exhibit of documentary evidence of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki imported from the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation.
In 1998, the United Nations declared the years 2000-2010 a Decade for the Culture of Peace and Nonviolence. The tenth anniversary of this declaration is also the twentieth anniversary of the founding of the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance.
There are countless acts of nonviolent action across East Tennessee every day as individuals and organizations work to create strong, secure, healthy communities. These people and groups are often “unsung heroes” in a culture that is saturated by violence. During 2008, OREPA will work to raise the profile of groups, organizations and people working nonviolently for social change in our communities.
For more information, including the time of the January 7 declaration, call 865 776 5050.
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Dear Santa: Please Stop The Bombs (ABC News)
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Here's what Karrar Haider, a 10-year-old Shi'ite boy at a school in eastern Baghdad, told Santa he wants this year for the holidays:
"I have one wish to ask Santa Claus. Please bring peace to my country. Stop the bombs so I can play with my friends again."
Walk for Non-Violence
2nd annual 10k WALK FOR NONVIOLENCE
Saturday, November 10, 2007 • 9:30am
Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church
Kingston Pike, Knoxville
concluding at Noon with
Awards, refreshments and A Celebration of Nonviolence
Everyone talks about the problems of violence in our culture—now you can DO something about it.
The 2007 Walk for Nonviolence will:
• raise awareness in our community about efforts to build alternatives to the violence that saturates our culture
• connect you with other people who believe in nonviolence
• celebrate the powerful history of nonviolence movements
• raise funds to support organizations and groups working for nonviolent social change in our community
Who should walk?
Individuals • Youth groups • School groups
Anybody and everybody!
You can raise money for your organization and get a great T-shirt celebrating nonviolence!
for more information: 865 483 8202 or 865 466 5915
organized by the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance
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Women Peacemakers past and present
7:00 - 9:00pm
St. John’s Episcopal Cathedral • downtown Knox ville
Dr. Peter Van Den Dungen
Bradford University, England
“one of the world’s leading experts on the history of peace,
nonviolence, and the Nobel Peace Prize.”
Dr. Van Den Dungen’s presentation
will be followed by an open discussion
everyone welcome
co-sponsored by
Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance | Episcopal Peace Fellowship
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White Light Black Rain - Viewing at Barley's Taproom
White Light Black Rain
Stephen Okazaki’s Hiroshima documentary
includes never before seen footage kept secret
more than 60 years by the US government
Thursday, September 20, 2007
7:00pm • Barley’s Taproom
200 E Jackson Ave
knoxville, tn
presented by the knoxville voice
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Report on Hiroshima/Nagasaki Peace Events in Oak Ridge and Knoxville
Even before the dust had settled, we began getting calls. From Baton Rouge, Shelley’s parents called to find out if she was in jail. “There was a picture in the paper here, and an article.” From Toledo, Ali reported to Betty and Larry, “I heard it on Michigan public radio.” When Tom arrived for his trial on Tuesday he said, “It was in all the Detroit papers. First time it was in all of them.” They were talking about the celebration of peace that marked Hiroshima Day in Oak Ridge, Tennessee on Saturday, August 4; it was one of a half dozen events stretching over nearly two weeks and involving hundreds of people in the work for peace. This report will try to do the impossible: to tell you what happened, briefly.
People began arriving earlier in the week to build puppets and help prepare for the Saturday events; by Friday evening there were thirty or forty people at the nonviolence workshop/ peacekeeper training/puppet rehearsal at Church of the Savior in Knoxville. When it was over, we were ready for Saturday.
We have grown spoiled at our actions in Oak Ridge by our amazing puppetistas whose performances have become a centerpiece of our peace actions; once again, they did not disappoint. A crew assembled at the Riverside Nonviolent Community house in Knoxville for a weeklong puppet build. The result? A Japanese folk tale was spun into an allegory starring elaborately costumed mice—entertainment and message rolled into one.
After two and a half hours of music punctuated by some speakers—Ralph Hutchison on the morality of nuclear weapons; Motoko Huthwaite on the current national nuke scene; Shelley Wascom on what’s happening at the Y12 plant in Oak Ridge today—and a recognition of the peace walkers, runners and bikers who converged on Oak Ridge for the peace rally, we set out on a hot march to the bomb plant. Police stopped traffic as we made our way along Oak Ridge’s main drag in the blazing August sun, nearly two hundred intrepid peace marchers, led by Buddhist chanting and followed by a giant dove, cloth wings flapping high above our heads.
Along the way, we spread sunflower seeds—international symbol of the movement to abolish nuclear weapons— the hope of peace; next year we may see Mother Nature herself offering her dreams of peace. When we arrived at the Y12 Nuclear Weapons Plant, we found the road barricaded. Demonstrators tied peace cranes to the fence and scattered sunflower seeds, massed in the road and sang and chanted, stood at the barricades and witnessed to life in the face of death. And four protesters began to chain themselves together and, eventually to the fence where they were joined by a fifth. After half an hour, police cleared the road—except for the five at the barricade. Mary Dennis Lentsch was the first to be arrested. She was hauled to the police van while the others were being cut out of their cables. Then it was Mary Ellen Gondeck, Beth Brockman, and Bill and Billie Hickey. One from Tennessee, three from Michigan, one from North Carolina.
By the time it was all over, we were worn out and headed for the jails. Mary Ellen was released on her own recognizance; Beth and Mary Dennis were held because of prior offenses; Bill and Billie refused to sign papers and stayed in jail in solidarity with the other two. Charged with obstructing a highway, they were taken to Anderson County Jail to wait for their day in court.
Meanwhile, as the news of Oak Ridge’s events rolled off printing presses around the world (we got a report from Britain of articles in the paper there), Saturday rolled into Sunday in Tennessee. Bishop Tom Gumbleton arrived fresh from a trip to Haiti to join us for the Sunday vigil and a larger-than-usual crowd gathered to hear him and to join in the vigil. He offered words of encouragement and optimism as we celebrated the work of peace together. The vigil ended with our traditional singing of “Keep Your Eyes on the Prize—” we sing it whenever members of our community are in jail.
Monday was August 6, the date of Hiroshima’s bombing. We assembled quietly in the pre-dawn hours at the bomb plant. As workers arrived they passed by a circle of readers and listeners—the names of Hiroshima victims were being broadcast over the loudspeaker. They drove past barbed wire fences dancing with peace cranes. First hand accounts of the destruction of Hiroshima were read. The bell tolled after each name and each reading, and another crane was tied on the fence. The Names and Remembrance ceremony keeps the spirit and message of hibakusha before us: Never Again.
On Tuesday we went to court. Our criminal friends came before Judge Murch in General Sessions court in Oak Ridge. Judge Murch accepted pleas of “best interest,” from Mary Ellen, Bill, Billie and Beth. He fined them each $25 and court costs (total $232); he sentenced Beth to five days in jail; she’d already served three. The others got no jail time, though Bill and Billie had been in jail since Saturday. Mary Dennis asked for a bench trial in order to make a statement to the court. After her brief trial, she was sentenced to twenty days in jail; her statement was entered into the record.
It was Mary Dennis—” The nun? They put her in jail?”—that seemed to particularly capture the media’s attention. She has accumulated a bit of a following with her multiple arrests, and the idea that our justice system finds itself required to incarcerate her in the name of…of what? public safety? rehabilitation? justice? punishment?…has captivated some in the media. This is how nonviolence works. So the Associated Press in Tennessee put the story on the national desk—thanks to arrestees from Michigan and North Carolina!—and from there it went out on the international wire. Local coverage was unusually good as well—TV covered three events, there were four articles in the paper covering activities and trials, there were radio interviews with several stations.
We ended Tuesday evening with a Festival of Hope for the Wednesday jury trial; good food, music and quiet, serious talk on the front porch at Riverside.
Wednesday we traveled back in time—three of last year’s August civil resisters had their day in court—a jury trial in Clinton, Tennessee. Pam Beziat, Erik Johnson and Tom Lumpkin all testified to their opposition to nuclear weapons before a jury which eventually found them guilty of blocking a road that the government had already barricaded. They were fined $50 and will have a sentencing hearing on October 5. The wheels of the court system grind slowly, but they do grind— people, lives, hopes—all this and more is crushed under the relentlessly punitive system we call “justice.”
Thursday was our finale—peace lanterns to mark Nagasaki. In the waning daylight we gathered on the bank of the Tennessee River in Knoxville—four year olds, eighty year olds and just about everything in between. We held in our hands a piece of melted, twisted glass from Nagasaki. We watched an amazing shadow puppet presentation that told us the story of Oban, the Japanese lantern festival that has been adopted and adapted to mark Hiroshima and Nagasaki’s destruction. The shadow puppets delighted everyone (especially Utsumi Shonin who was seen later with a flashlight in his mouth, sitting behind the screen manipulating the puppets.)
As darkness fell, we began to slip the lanterns into the water, encouraging them with a bamboo pole, watching as they slowly drifted to the middle of the river and began to move downstream, a choreographed troupe of dancers on the water, light and hope and prayers for peace illuminating the night and the world, and for a moment, in the stillness of the evening, watching them pass, we knew peace.
This report prepared by the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, sponsor of the August events in Oak Ridge and Knoxville,TN
You can be part of the work of OREPA and stand in opposition to continued nuclear weapons production in Oak Ridge, TN with a tax deductible contribution to
OREPA
P O Box 5743
Oak Ridge, TN 37831
for more information, contact us at
865 483 8202
orep@earthlink.net
[See photos in attached pdf]
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DOE ANNOUNCES MAY RELEASE Y12 DRAFT EISMASS PUBLIC RESISTANCE TO NEW BOMB PLAN
PEACE RALLY, MARCH, ACTION FOR ABOLITION IN OAK RIDGE, TN
OREPA's Hiroshima/Nagasaki commemoration will take place over several days this August. The mass peace rally, march to the Y12 Nuclear Weapons Plant and Action for Abolition will take place on Saturday, August 4.
The Rally for peace, with music, speakers and puppetistas, will begin at 10:00am at Alvin K. Bissell Park in Oak Ridge, TN.
A March to the Y12 Nuclear Weapons plant will depart Bissell Park at 12:30pm.
***Preparations for Saturday activities, including peacekeeper training for volunteers, affinity group meetings, and puppet rehearsal, will be Friday, August 3 at Church of the Savior, 934 Weisgarber Rd in Knoxville, beginning at 6:00pm.
Annual Names/Remembrance ceremony will begin at 6:00am, Monday, August 6 at Y12 Plant in Oak Ridge.
Trial for Erik Johnson, Pam Beziat and Tom Lumpkin on charges from 2006 Hiroshima Day action scheduled for Wednesday, August 8 in Clinton, TN.
Annual Peace Lantern ceremony in Knoxville will be held at 8:15pm on Thursday, August 9.
A brochure will listing event will be posted soon.
Documents
- 2006 Hiroshima-Nagasaki Event brochure
- 2006 Hiroshima-Nagasaki Event Poster - color
- 2006 Hiroshima-Nagasaki Event Poster - bw
- 2006 Puppet Workshop flier
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