That's the roughly 1000 people marching this week that didn't involve Trayvon Martin. It was more Birkenstock than hoodie, an old school protest against an old school enemy, nuclear power.
See, the Vermont Yankee plant's 40-year operating license expired Wednesday. Yesterday, protesters demanded that the collapsing, leaking facility be shut down. The problem, see, wasn't just the generating of electricity. The problem was the storage of radioactive waste at Vermont Yankee. It's actually against the law in Vermont. Entergy, the big damn energy conglomerate that bought the plant in 2002, sued to prevent the plant from being shut down and to stop the enforcement of the law. The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission gave Entergy a 20-year license for the plant. But the state's Public Service Board still gets to decide if it will license Vermont Yankee, as a federal judge ruled. Entergy, which really is just a corporation of lying, money-sucking bastards, is appealing, saying that it will sell electricity outside of the state and thus federal law should trump state. Ahh, what a sweet bind for conservatives. Nuclear power or federalism?
Meanwhile, Green Mountaineers protested yesterday, and they tried to get onto the grounds of Vermont Yankee. 130 people were arrested. More were arrested at Entergy's corporate offices in White Plains, NY, and down at its home office in New Orleans. Passions run high when a giant company is trying to profit off poisoning your air and ground and water.
Back on March 31, 1980, almost 32 years ago to the date, 75 people were arrested when another 1000 people marched on Vermont Yankee. It was the one-year anniversary of Three Mile Island, the "No Nukes" era. That accident was child's play compared to a protest in the wake of Fukushima.
Between this protest and the ones for the Trayvon Martin killing, it's depressing sometimes to think of how often we must fight the same fights.