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An Oral History of the No Nukes Movement - By Al Giordano
If you have (or someone you know has) memories about these events (or related ones from 1973 to 1982), we’d like to be able to include them in the final version of this work. Please contact Al Giordano at narconews@gmail.com to arrange an interview, or write your answers to those of the “45 questions” at this link that pertain to your own experience.
He's put together a sample chapter about the Clamshell Alliance:
http://narconews.com/Issue67/article4739.html
Clam Magic: The Birth of a National Anti-Nuclear Movement
A Chapter from the Oral History of How the No Nukes Movement (1973-1982) Saved the United States and Maybe the World
By Al Giordano
No Nukes Oral History Project
May 8, 2014
“The year 1973 was the worst year for nuclear power,” Bill McGee, a retired nuclear industry spokesman, told us when he agreed to be interviewed for this book. “It’s just astonishing when you look back on it..."
<snip>
For the past couple of years, I have traveled to their homes and turned on an audio recorder to preserve their memories for history. I was a “teenage Clam,” one of the children of the movement, arrested as a minor of age at Seabrook but able to remain incarcerated a bit longer after lying about my age to the authorities. I, too, have never gotten over it. In the years since, I’ve painfully watched and reported so many other struggles that went down to humiliating defeat against the same kinds of big-money forces that the No Nukes movement triumphed over. Once one knows that victory is possible, defeat is unacceptable. From that came the motivation to document the stories of the people who did organize and win over and over again, and the stories of how they did it. My hope is that people today who want to change the world but are frustrated with today’s dominant models of ineffective “activism” will find in these stories the tactics, strategies and ways of thinking and doing things that will help them on the path to winning the present-day battles, so vital to the future of the earth and its inhabitants.
<snip>
As with any oral history, people have different and sometimes conflicting memories about what happened. Only when we listen to the many voices together can we have a wider context for understanding what really happened. That’s what makes oral history, in my opinion, superior to reports that carry only one author’s spin. Although these interviews were conducted across a wide geography over various months, my goal was to give the reader a feeling as if he and she are invited to sit in on an informal conversation between these diverse people.
As each voice is introduced, I’ve included the year of his or her birth next to the name, to underscore the multi-generational nature of this movement, and how elders and youths learned from working with one another. Some of the testimonies come from audio and film recordings made at the time these events were happening – in this chapter, 1976 – and in those cases the year of the interview appears after the name.
What follows on this page is a sample chapter, about the first steps taken in and around the Seabrook nuclear power construction site. It wasn’t the movement’s biggest moment, nor its most noticed. But it was the birth of so much that followed it.
<snip>
If you have (or someone you know has) memories about these events (or related ones from 1973 to 1982), we’d like to be able to include them in the final version of this work. Please contact Al Giordano at narconews@gmail.com to arrange an interview, or write your answers to those of the “45 questions” at this link that pertain to your own experience.
<snip>
Clam Magic: The Birth of a National Anti-Nuclear Movement
A Chapter from the Oral History of How the No Nukes Movement (1973-1982) Saved the United States and Maybe the World
By Al Giordano
No Nukes Oral History Project
May 8, 2014
“The year 1973 was the worst year for nuclear power,” Bill McGee, a retired nuclear industry spokesman, told us when he agreed to be interviewed for this book. “It’s just astonishing when you look back on it..."
<snip>
For the past couple of years, I have traveled to their homes and turned on an audio recorder to preserve their memories for history. I was a “teenage Clam,” one of the children of the movement, arrested as a minor of age at Seabrook but able to remain incarcerated a bit longer after lying about my age to the authorities. I, too, have never gotten over it. In the years since, I’ve painfully watched and reported so many other struggles that went down to humiliating defeat against the same kinds of big-money forces that the No Nukes movement triumphed over. Once one knows that victory is possible, defeat is unacceptable. From that came the motivation to document the stories of the people who did organize and win over and over again, and the stories of how they did it. My hope is that people today who want to change the world but are frustrated with today’s dominant models of ineffective “activism” will find in these stories the tactics, strategies and ways of thinking and doing things that will help them on the path to winning the present-day battles, so vital to the future of the earth and its inhabitants.
<snip>
As with any oral history, people have different and sometimes conflicting memories about what happened. Only when we listen to the many voices together can we have a wider context for understanding what really happened. That’s what makes oral history, in my opinion, superior to reports that carry only one author’s spin. Although these interviews were conducted across a wide geography over various months, my goal was to give the reader a feeling as if he and she are invited to sit in on an informal conversation between these diverse people.
As each voice is introduced, I’ve included the year of his or her birth next to the name, to underscore the multi-generational nature of this movement, and how elders and youths learned from working with one another. Some of the testimonies come from audio and film recordings made at the time these events were happening – in this chapter, 1976 – and in those cases the year of the interview appears after the name.
What follows on this page is a sample chapter, about the first steps taken in and around the Seabrook nuclear power construction site. It wasn’t the movement’s biggest moment, nor its most noticed. But it was the birth of so much that followed it.
<snip>
If you have (or someone you know has) memories about these events (or related ones from 1973 to 1982), we’d like to be able to include them in the final version of this work. Please contact Al Giordano at narconews@gmail.com to arrange an interview, or write your answers to those of the “45 questions” at this link that pertain to your own experience.
<snip>
Via https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10152203538174543&id=7014589542