At 6:30 AM on Sunday, April 15th a bus with 30 Occupy Portlanders left City Hall in Downtown Portland to travel to Richland, WA to protest the Hanford Nuclear Site.
A small but jovial group.
The first pit stop on the long drive was at beautiful Multnomah Falls.
Cascadia Superhero prepares her Cascadia flag!
It was a bright windy day. About 100 people were at the rally. The man speaking was part of a group who successfully shut down a nuclear plant. It can be done!
Note: the upside down U.S. flag is an official signal of distress. It is not meant to be, and is not officially recognized as any type of disrespect.
There were about 25-30 cops at the rally. The day before, at the same park, there was a Tea Party rally. Some of the attendees at that rally even wore sidearms (guns) and there were no police present.
This Native American woman spoke passionately about how the environment was ruined by the Hanford Nuclear waste site, the largest nuclear waste dump in the Western Hemisphere. It was a speech that made me feel very emotional.
“My great, great grandfather was murdered. After they murdered him they cut off his ears, his hands, his feet, cut strips of skin off of his back, [from that] they made buttons for the volunteer soldiers as souvenirs.
This land was holy to my people, now look at it, we cannot even eat the salmon who swim in the river.
The Peace Treaty medal, the Jefferson medal that was given to me. I wonder if it was worth it. We gave up 6.5 million acres that we never owned, but swore to take care of it and protect it, but it hasn’t happened that way.”
Walla Walla Chief Carl Sampson
Who would even think of doing harm to this sweet lady? The Seattle Police, that’s who. This is the wonderful Dorli Rainey, 84 year-old Occupy Seattle protester, pepper sprayed In the face by the Seattle Police.
Miriam German, organizer of the rally, did an amazing job.
The brilliant, life-long nuclear activist Dr. Helen Caldicott gave a truly inspirational speech.
A Dr. Caldicott fan swoons when hearing her speak… actually this man said he was a retired Hanford engineer. He believes that nuclear waste poses no threat to humans or the environment. I told him about my friend who was born there, her father was an engineer at Hanford who died from radiation when she was four years old. He had no reply to that.
It was really inspiring to see so many Native Americans at the rally.
Cascadia Superhero!
So many great caring people at the rally. Great to see the Patchwork Family!
Miriam’s Well rocked it! Fantastic event for a crucial cause.
The planning and execution of this excellent event brought together a team of people who are moving forward at warp speed to bring attention and focus to humanity’s most dire threat ever. Hanford Nuclear Reservation is a horrible mess and we’ll have a hellish time of it doing the cleanup but there is more to the nuclear nightmare
http://cuttingthegordianknot.wordpress.com/2012/05/02/houston-we-have-a-problem-no-known-technology-to-deal-with-fukushima/
Expect more from us!
What a great effort by Portlanders!
We wish we could have been at the Anti-Nuke Occupy rally because my wife’s father died in Richland where the family lived, as a result of his work as an engineer inside the Hanford Plant!
And great photos that gives one the feeling of having been along.
Thank you!