NEWFANE — In a cynical move calculated to take advantage of all of the power and perks that large American corporations currently enjoy and abuse in this country, Entergy Nuclear of Louisiana has decided to go to the federal courts to ask to be relieved of its duty to obey the laws of the state of Vermont.
Strident, dismissive commentary by nuclear shills calling themselves attachés notwithstanding, this is nothing more than Entergy flipping off Vermont and its citizens while counting on the U.S. Supreme Court to give them the victory that has been denied them because of their untruthful, careless, and callous operation of the Vermont Yankee reactor in Vernon.
The Vermont legislature clearly understood that it could act only on questions about the reactor's reliability and future costs to the state when it prevented Entergy from getting a Certificate of Public Good from the Public Service Board.
Campaign statements about the safety of Vermont Yankee - a legitimate concern, considering the lies and leaks there, not to mention the nuclear catastrophe under way in Japan - have no bearing on the question of whether the legislature acted within the parameters allowed it by federal law.
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Entergy never thought that it would come to this. Its leaders are used to Louisiana, where the legislature is in the pocket of big energy and the governor has to go along to get along.
What a surprise for them to discover a citizen legislature that knows how to ask questions and is unwilling to countenance false testimony. Even worse for them, the voters elected a governor who would reverse the state's policy of working in Entergy's interest and instead work to protect the people of Vermont from corporate abuse.
Smugly, Entergy CEO Jackie Wayne Leonard has dismissed our state and its laws, calling upon his army of lawyers and public relations firms to turn reality on its head and convert a dangerous boondoggle into a green dream. And since he believes that the issue is no longer in the hands of the Vermont government, he need not concern himself with us any longer.
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He is in for another big surprise, because Vermont has a history of standing up for itself when dealing directly with threats to our collective well-being, whether they come from insidious cankers like slavery, or from misdirected, over-reaching central government power.
In 1775, when the British Crown, as represented by the New York courts, was about to nullify the legitimacy of Vermont properties acquired thorough New Hampshire land grants, Vermonters from Westminster occupied the courthouse to ensure that the hearing could not be held.
The Crown's sheriff gathered a posse and attacked the courthouse, capturing and jailing those inside while wounding several and killing one. The Crown had spoken: There would be no more insubordination from the rabble in Westminster.
But the rabble responded, and within a few short days, 400 men had rallied to free the prisoners. The sheriff and his posse were in jail, and the New York court would never again be held in Westminster.
This incident was the first bloodshed of the American revolution. It led directly to Vermont becoming free of New York domination, and to the formation of the Vermont Republic, which lasted until we joined the United States in 1791.
More recently, in 1968, Vermont outlawed billboards. Some advertisers thought that they could ignore the ban, but on the first morning that it went into effect, virtually all of the billboards still standing found themselves chainsawed and chopped into pieces.
We take our civics and our rights very seriously in this state. We are no more ready to stand idly by and suffer J. Wayne and Entergy's depredations than our Westminster predecessors were prepared to suffer at the hands of the Crown and New York.
While we may have been among the first Americans to rise up and stand for our rights, we also recognize when others are taking the lead.
Vermonters in 2011 have been encouraged and inspired by people across the globe standing up for their rights, and peacefully toppling corrupt and militaristic governments. We have learned how nonviolent protest writ large can rekindle a collective consciousness in a seemingly slumbering populace, leading to revolutionary change.
And we are building that consciousness now, in order to stand up for ourselves if the courts decide to abrogate Vermont law.
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What J. Wayne doesn't understand is that we will see to it that Vermont Yankee closes on March 21, 2012, just as it has been scheduled to do in its operating license.
By next March, we will know how many people will be needed to prevent the plant from continuing operation, and we will have recruited sufficient numbers of volunteers to maintain a presence around the plant for as many days, weeks, or months as it takes for Entergy to finally pull the plug.
This action will not be a symbolic effort by the state's environmentalists. This struggle will be supported by Vermonters of all stripes, because it is about much more than the question of why we should run a leaky reactor for 20 more years to generate hundreds of tons more radioactive waste that cannot be made safe for tens of thousands of years.
No. This struggle is also one in which commonsense folk are saying “No” to insatiable corporate greed and to federal government overreach.
In this struggle, informed Vermonters are asking why so many other industrialized countries are rethinking or ending their nuclear power programs, while our officials blithely plow forward, hand in hand with their corporate sponsors, intoning a mantra of wishful thinking passed off as official wisdom.
In this struggle, Vermont Tea Party and Progressive types will work hand in hand to rid ourselves of the scourge of parasites like Entergy, and to get to the job of living together and building a sensible future for our state.
In this struggle, we will act in defense of our state's sovereignty and our own safety in a way unseen in this country in decades.
We have acted together as a state in a legal and responsible manner. Our Vermont politicians have done their jobs. The governor and the attorney general are still working for us, but we will be there to do what they cannot if we are betrayed by the federal courts.
There will be a reckoning, and just as happened in Westminster in 1775, the people will prevail.