Open Letter to Attorney General Eric Holder

July 28, 2010

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. This is the kind of leadership I hoped for with President Obama’s election and your subsequent appointment.

However, the subject of this letter is less optimistic. I write to you as a nonviolent activist with a long history of nonviolent protest against war and weapons, the death penalty and present prison policy, and other justice issues. As a result, I have found myself as a defendant or supporter in a number of courtrooms since my first arrest at the White House during the last major demonstration against the Vietnam War in March of 1975, mentored that day by Daniel Berrigan, Jim Peck, Dick Gregory, Liz Macalister, Ladon Sheats, and others.

While I always enter the courtroom with the hope that somehow truth and justice might prevail, I have seldom left feeling optimistic. A few times when juries have been allowed to consider International Law and Treaties, I have been acquitted. Most of the time, however, I see the courtroom as a place to continue my witness for nonviolence, truth, and justice despite the outcome. I consider it an honor to have been a prisoner for reasons of conscience several times over the past 35 years.

So my recent experience in Knoxville on July 6, 2010 shouldn’t have shocked me - but it did. Please allow me to set the stage for you. Along with 200 + others, I attended a Conference for a Nuclear Free Future at Maryville College over the 4^th of July weekend which concluded with a nonviolent protest at the entrance to the Y-12 Nuclear Weapons Plant (now called the Y-12 National Security Complex since the 9-11 attacks in an attempt to further obscure the dirty secret of our continued production/modernization of nuclear weapons in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) on Monday morning, July 5^th under the banner reading “Independence from Nuclear Terrorism”. 23 of us chose to peaceably block the state road entrance to the facility with the banner (the road had already been blocked by Oak Ridge Plant security) and were arrested and charged with “obstruction of roadway”. That, being a state/local matter, is not the focus of this letter.

13 others, with two in their 40s and most in their late 60s, 70s, and 80s, chose to risk Federal Trespass charges by ducking under a barbed wire fence and then sitting in a circle singing, praying, and sharing poetry prior to their arrest. Most anticipated spending the night in jail although with at least three of the arrestees in their 80s, I wouldn’t have been surprised if they would have been cited and released with a court date. All were jailed overnight.

The following afternoon, many of us crowded into the Howard Baker Federal Courthouse in Knoxville to witness the first appearance of our friends under these Federal charges. They all knew of the possibility of up to 1 year in prison for their act of conscience but it was still shocking to me to see 83 year old Jean Gump, 82 year old Brad Lyttle, and 73 year old nun, Sister Mary Dennis Lentsch enter the courtroom with leg irons and hand cuffs attached to waist chains. This for a nonviolent protest offense! (I’ve written at greater length about this in my blog (http://mennonista.blogspot.com/2010/07/obscenity-in-courtroom.html ).

After overcoming the shock and disappointment that these defendants weren’t even released from these ridiculous shackles during this entire court appearance (for which I hold both your US Attorney, the US Marshalls, and the Federal Judge accountable) I was further taken aback when the Judge asked your Assistant US Attorney to read the charges and legal consequences for the offense. (I’m sorry I did not hear her name. She is a blond-haired woman in her 30s.) I almost fell out of my bench in the back of the courtroom when she replied that the defendants not only faced “up to one year in prison with supervisory release of not more than a year and a $100. assessment” but they were also subject to “a fine of up to $100,000.”

That’s correct. I didn’t accidently add a couple of zeroes. One hundred thousand dollars! For a nonviolent offence! For people of conscience intent on peaceably demanding that our nation live up to International Laws and Treaties (and the ruling of the International Court) which clearly identify nuclear weapons as illegal. For such an absurd (and obscene) penalty – even if only threatened and never meant to be carried out – I hold both you and the President to account. Those Assistant US Attorneys are acting under your jurisdiction and supervision.

Neither you nor President Obama can pretend to take the high road by lofty speeches calling for the abolishment of nuclear weapons like he did early in his term in Prague or more recently with the signing of the New START Treaty while at the same time threatening and intimidating men and women of conscience who should be your allies in this struggle for a world with fewer threats of annihilation.

Setting aside the “criminal trespass” offense itself, do you really wish to convey a message with such outrageous threats of hundred-thousand-dollar-fines for nonviolent protest? Have you learned nothing from the legacy of Rosa Parks and Martin King, from Susan B. Anthony and Cesar Chavez, from Dorothy Day and AJ Muste? (The list, as you well know, could go on and on. … ) President Kennedy presciently said, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable.”

Frankly, I expected such reckless and calloused threats and charges from some of your predecessors like Ashcroft and Gonzales, John Mitchell and Dick Kleindienst. But from Eric Holder and Barack Obama? Surely we can hope for real change – but so far, it hasn’t been too much in evidence.

Please, Mr. Attorney General, use your position and office to help our nation realize and appreciate the valued contribution that civil disobedience has played in our history and instruct your US Attorneys to adjust “punishment” to “fit the crime”.

(Still) Hopefully and Respectfully yours,

Steve Clemens

2912 E. 24^th St.

Minneapolis, MN 55406-1322

steveclemens@gmail.com

[Another] Miscarriage of Justice

[Another] Miscarriage of Justice by Steve Clemens. July 10, 2010

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. It is an appropriate target for political and moral dissent due to its continued role in producing a new generation of nuclear weapons.

OREPA, the Oak Ridge Environmental and Peace Alliance, has held a weekly Sunday vigil by the entrance to the large facility for several years. Committed to active nonviolence, the group has occasionally encouraged activists to engage in conscientious civil disobedience in opposition to the continued role Y-12 has in threatening the rest of the world with nuclear death and destruction while squandering financial and scientific resources which are desperately needed to address needs in our own local communities.

A pernicious combination of hatred and fear of government, especially on the federal level but now creeping ever and ever closer to local governmental expressions as well has been growing ever since President Reagan opined in his grandfatherly way that “government IS the problem” [rather than the solution]. “Tea Party” members are merely a louder, more visible manifestation of this philosophy.

“Philosophy’ is maybe too strong a word since it implies a well thought out position rather than a knee-jerk reaction. But one constant theme of these reactionaries is to “cut taxes” – to “starve the beast”, to downsize the government so it is small enough to “drown it in a bathtub”. [However, most notably, at the same time increase the military budget (which has less and less to do with “defense” and more and more to do with projecting empire/domination over others) and local police forces and private “security” outfits like Xe (formerly Blackwater), Wackenhut, and other mercenary types.]

This downsizing, coupled with a persistent economic recession, had led to a crisis in many areas of both federal and local governments. Although the federal entities can run a deficit and borrow from our grandchildren to pay the debt later, state and local governments are forced to balance their budgets and often find novel means to accomplish it. It is particularly evident in the criminal justice system.

How does this manifest itself in Oak Ridge, TN? For one, Anderson County now charges inmates (often those with the least ability to pay) $50/day for their use of the jail while incarcerated. To add insult to injury, the jail is grossly over-crowded with about 1/3 of the inmates sleeping on the floor, some even without a mattress, at any given time. Maybe the motto “crime doesn’t pay” needs to be adjusted if it comes to mean that one needs to subsidize ones own captors. (I think the term for that used to be “being held for ransom” or kidnapping; now it is fiscal solvency). But apparently (as I discovered last week), the “per-diem fee” doesn’t accrue until after one is sentenced – pre-trial time is courtesy of the taxpayer.

But getting to sentencing and thus contributing to ones own “room and board” expense comes also with other charges. When activists are arrested for “obstruction of a highway” for blocking the entrance, nonviolently, of the Y-12 facility (which had already been blocked by the Wackenhut security so no vehicular traffic could enter while the demonstration was taking place so the protest is primarily symbolic), the normal sentence for a first offense has been a fine of up to $50, the legal limit set by the State of Tennessee. However, coupled with the fine are “court costs” now in the range of $240 – much more if one seeks ones constitutional right to a jury trial. So even if a principled civil disobedient agrees to expedite the case with a guilty or no contest plea, taking up very little of the court’s time, the disproportionate court costs are levied.

If the true penalty for obstruction of a highway should be a fine of up to $50 (along with up to 30 days in jail for truly criminal offenses), then there should be a mechanism where one could take responsibility, pay the fine, and avoid taking up the time in the court system. However, we were told no such option exists. We were given the ultimatum of staying in an illegally overcrowded jail for 8 days before seeing a judge and being told to pay a $50 fine (and court costs) as first-offenders of this law or returning to court after release from custody-upon-arrest and booking 8 days later only to be socked with court costs of $240 and the fine. So, no credit is given for one’s 8 days in the Anderson County Jail.

One of the purposes of civil disobedience has been to create an [artificial] crisis in the judicial system in order to draw attention to the injustice they wish to address. What happens when court costs become punitive is essentially a tax on one’s conscience. One remembers President Kennedy’s warning: “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable.” Fortunately for Anderson County officials, those arrested at the “Declaration of Independence From Nuclear Weapons at Y-12” event are committed to nonviolence. But the growing divide in the US between the haves and have-nots is increasing at an alarming rate and the more desperate a people becomes, the greater the variety of responses they may choose.

The Bomb (and its protection by the judicial system) does not make us more secure – it breeds fear (occasionally) but mostly contempt and consternation from the world community. The blatant hypocrisy evidenced in our crusade (yes, that is a deliberate choice of word) against Iran for trying to get what we already possess in spades is mostly ignored by Americans because of their acceptance of the doctrine of American exceptionalism.

The fact that any President is held hostage by militarists in both political parties makes “change we can believe in” very unlikely in this area. We are captivated by (and captive to) the Bomb. Back in the 1980s, some religious leaders used the term idolatry to describe the relationship between Americans and “national security”. Since 9-11, many of those voices have been stilled or grown weak – precisely at a time when they are most needed.

I suspect we will have to decide if filling the jails to create a crisis (or expose the conflict that has been below the surface for decades) is the way to go. We could be at an historic turning point – or once again, by our inaction, we may fail to act in a timely fashion.