Tomorrow morning, April 7th in Knoxville, Tennessee three people will go on trial for demonstrating to the American public what a bunch of incompetent assholes the Department of Energy has amassed under its banner. The trio faces 20 years in jail. A ludicrous sentence, considering the insignificance of their crimes.
About nine months ago, Sister Megan Gillespie Rice an 83 year old Nun, drifter Michael Robin Walli and house painter Gregory Irwin Boertje-Obed walked into the Y-12 National Security Complex and got all the way to the most sensitive parts before they gave themselves up. This is the super secret home of the famous Oakridge Facility where the atomic bomb was built and where it now resides. They are being charged under the sabotage section of the US Criminal code which might have some validity if they had carried anything but a small snack, a pair of bolt cutters, a bottle of blood, a can of spray paint and a rosary. Actually that rosary looked pretty lethal.
Their intention was to demonstrate against nuclear warfare and whether or not that intention was successfully carried out, their short hike made one other massively important fact blindingly obvious. We can’t take care of our own shit.
If the justice department could get their heads out of their asses for even a brief second it should be obvious to even the dullest of them that these three people are American heroes. They have inarguably demonstrated that security, at probably the most dangerous national facility, is pathetically inadequate. Try them hell, we should give them a medal of honor. If those two kids in Boston had gotten a shot at this place we’d now be missing about four states.
Of course the government is pissed at our trio. Two old codgers and an ancient nun just showed them up for the over paid, incompetent boobs that they are.
One of the horrible crimes of which they are being accused is destroying government property. Can you imagine how much government property they could have destroyed if they’d been bombers? As it is they cut a hole in a chain link fence big enough for them to walk through. Big deal. Fuck you Eric Holder, send me the bill.
Oh yeah, Y-12 fired Kirk Garland, the guard that found them. Yeah, you read right, the guard, the lowest guy on the totem pole. He got fired for stumbling onto them. They didn’t fire, Rodney Johnson, deputy general manager for security operations. His title is too long and he kissed the right asses so no one wanted to fire him, even if he’s supposed to be where the buck stops. They didn’t fire Security officer, Sgt. Chad Riggs. How come Chad? You married to ole Rodney’s sister or something?
Nobody seems to be firing Steven Erhart the guy who runs the whole operation. I guess Erhart, Johnson and Riggs got together and decided that it was easier to just fire Garland, even though he’s not the one responsible for the whole complex. I mean after all he did find them. What a pathetic bunch of losers.
Of course that’s the way it always works. Bradley Manning is on trial for exposing atrocities committed by our soldiers in Iraq. Nobody puts the soldiers or their commanders on trial. All those Iraqi kids killed. It must have been Bradley’s fault. Let’s crucify him.
I don’t understand the morons that are running our country. People of good intention, people who are exposing the incompetence, immorality and illegality of what is going on are put in jail and the criminals, torturers and just plain scum are applauded by those in power. Bradley Manning is on trial and Julian Assange is hiding from one while those who committed the atrocities that they reported and those who gave them the okay to do so are free and being promoted. Would Woodward and Bernstein be in jail if they had done today what they did at Watergate?
Would Sister Megan or Greg or Mike be on trial in 1968 or would those blunderers whose incompetence allowed them such easy access to such a sensitive facility be in custody? Have we completely lost any sense of right and wrong? Those in our government long ago lost their collective conscience, the question is, did they retain any of their brains?
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A follow-up after the first day of trial: It gets better and better. During the opening arguments the US government claimed that the trio had put national security at risk by breaking into Y-12. Sure they did, if you fail to consider the fact that the management of Y-12 may even now be putting our national security at risk by their inability to keep three old codgers with only a bolt cutter and a rosary from breaking into what is supposed to be one of our most secure installations. How about applauding the trio for pointing out the flaws in managements insecurity.
Then Steven Earhart, the head of this failed operation claimed on the stand, that the break-in had harmed US credibility abroad. The break-in merely pointed up a flaw in the security system, Stevie boy. Your inability to prevent it is what’s embarrassing.
It came out that when Kirk Garland, the guy who got fired, found the trio, he held them and called his boss Chad Riggs. I’m leaving off the titles because none of these fools deserves one. Heroic Chad got all bent out of shape and forced the old folks down onto the floor. I mean, after all, a rosary wielding, 82 year old nun can be really scary.
The surveillance tape showed our brave security offices separating the trio, just to be on the safe side. Riggs actually stated on the stand that;
“Through my experience as a law enforcement officer, I had a feeling he (Walli) was the most dangerous one.” A keen observation as Walli was probably the only one not covered by Medicare. The defense attorney then asked Riggs if the trio had attempted to flee or if he had seen any bullet holes. And he did it with a straight face.
When Garland, the guy who got fired was questioned he noted over 21 years of experience doing the same job at the Rocky Flats plant in Colorado. He explained that they had demonstrations at that location and that he recognized the trio as peaceful demonstrators and didn’t feel the need to use deadly force. You can’t make this shit up, but his refusal to shoot the trio was obviously the reason he was fired.
This will continue because neither the Department of Energy nor the U.S. Government can see what fools they are making of themselves and neither of them ever knows when to stop, but I want to thank both organizations and their employees, involved in this farcical situation for making this column possible. IT isn’t easy to find good material between elections or wars but they are doing their best to help me out.
The rosary is really scarry.it good of been bugged.