|
LIBBY JOHNSON'S Prepared Statement to the Court Anderson County Sessions Court Oak Ridge, Tennessee The Honorable Judge Ronald Murch August 17, 2004 |
|
My name is Elizabeth McLaren (Libby) Johnson, and I stand before you, your Honor, out of a deep and joyous experience of God as Love and with an unyielding refusal to separate a public and nonviolent witness on Sunday, August 8, 2004, from my wholly response of love, amazement and protection for all that God loves. Mine was a strong faith-based decision to join hundreds of others in a nonviolent protest to close the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, and to say NO to the continued manufacture, assembly, maintenance and threat of nuclear weapon, "the most colossal of all evils," Martin Luther King, Jr. declared to the world. I believe all life is sacred, both human and non-human life; and professionally work under an oath daily as a health care provider/family nurse practitioner, that I should do no harm and do everything to heal and offer hope. I believe that violence in any form, including the insidious oppression by social and political systems and by intentional falsified information and lies to spread and perpetuate fear, undermines democratic processes, creates untold suffering among the world's poor, and denies everyone of the redemptive possibilities of living in a world of peace, peace that is nonviolent and just. The bombs at Y-12 represents violence in the highest form of expression imaginable and puts the world at the risk of annihilation. As a mother, grandmother, and Christian I choose not to remain silent when my government continues to violate signed international treaties, World Court decisions, and continues to remain in denial of the part we play as "terrorists" in this global village, especially the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 59 years ago, August 6 and 9, 1945, killing hundreds of thousands Japanese civilians. I am deeply troubled about what the world will look like for the future for all the Ava's, Ethan's, and Allison's (names of my grandchildren) of the world and their children, and their children's children. I am so frightened by how easily the world rationalizes the use of "redemptive" violence and how we talk so freely about revenge and human lives as collateral damage. I continue to pray, as Congresswoman Barbara Lee said just before we started bombing Afghanistan, "we do not become the evil that we deplore." I pray for a change of heart for those who unleash such weapons and prepare for their unleashing. Your Honor, I have exhausted all the means that our US constitution allows, including the right to dissent and protest. My heart, soul and body are all I have left. I continue to seek what the will of God is for me in this troubled world. I continue to hope that the God of justice and peace will reign in this world and that all the weapons produced at Y-12 will be eliminated. What would the world look like if we started dismantling our weapons of mass destruction, beginning here at Oak Ridge Y-12 weapons plant? What if Congress established a Department of Peace and banned the Department of Defense, freeing young men and women to be taught skills in international negotiation and cooperation, program planning for self-development of people, and community organization with emphasis on empowerment of people to direct their lives in the things that makes for peace: health, education, recreation…There are alternatives to militarism and war. We, the people of the United States, do not have to be held captive to a "redemptive," "national security" violence; we can live with Divine Obedience, which demands that we work for peace with justice, love and respect for all life. I chose to remember on the weekend of August 6-9, 2004, the horrible devastation and suffering caused by my government's choice of dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in hopes that our government, and we as strong, courageous people will say NEVER AGAIN, and remain truthful to this conviction. I chose on August 8 and choose now not to remain silent, to act nonviolently to resist the violence of the bombs of Y-12 plant, and to remember and hope in what is possible through the power of love. I choose Life. |
|
To download a .doc copy of this document right click here |
|
|