Quahaug is the native term (Algonquin language) for the northern bivalve mollusk (Mercenaria mercenaria) commonly called a hard clam. The Quahaug inhabits inter-tidal waters of what’s now called the Atlantic coast of North America. This marine clam is honored by my indigenous people who are now called ‘American Indians.’ The Quahaug Clam Shell was not…
“What the hell are we doing here?” asks an old friend, who was young in years not so long ago, when I was only slightly middle-aged. “For Christ’s sake, we cut right through the fences at the Pentagon.” We were in Seabrook, New Hampshire, sitting in a parking lot outside the site of a proposed…
The sharp irony of the steel fence around Plymouth Rock makes gawking tourists of summer pilgrims; we watch from the distance our journey assigns us aware that something badly skewed begun here centuries back is clearly evident. There was no fence around Plymouth Rock autumn of 1620 or anywhere except the harsh encampment on the…
An old guy I sat next to at the counter of the Agawam Diner recently triggered a flood of memories of my dear old friend Herbie, senior member of the Last Ones Out the Door affinity group of the Clamshell Alliance. I’ve missed Herbie the seven or eight years since I last saw him; and…
The fact is, we had fought PSCo to a standstill in court, by organizing in each of the six towns within the ten mile radius in Massachusetts , to hold binding votes, yea or nay on accepting the proposed Emergency Response Plans (ERP’s). All six towns voted “no”, and it was made clear to Governor…
Non-violence is the constant awareness of the dignity and humanity of oneself and others. It seeks truth and justice. It renounces violence both in method and attitude. Non-violence is a courageous acceptance of active love and goodwill as the instrument with which to overcome evil and transform both oneself and others. It is the willingness…
All did not come together easily. No food had been stockpiled for prisoners. Upon arrival Francis Crowe looked around and said to a friend, “Let’s put up a table and share all the food we have in our packs.” The National Guard guards were grand kids compared to the 58 year-old peace activist. And…
From the industry’s proclamation of nuclear power being “too cheap to meter” in the 1950s to the reality of a major utility going bankrupt in the 1980s, nuclear power has proven to be a source of economic speculation since its inception. At the beginning of the building boom in the 1960s, reactors were estimated to…
Robbie Leppzer, in his film Seabrook 77, interviewed Seabrook residents;following are excerpts. Carlene Peruse: I have lived in Seabrook all of my life and I am all against the nuclear plant. I don’t want it; we don’t need it and we’re in hopes of stopping it. My first thought, of course, is the radiation. I…
By the end of 1979, The Clamshell Alliance seemed to have passed its zenith. Many activists within the Clamshell date the decline to the decision to accept the “Rath Proposal” ending the large scale civil disobedience “occupations” of the proposed Seabrook Nuclear Power plant site. Then-NH Attorney General Thomas Rath, who later directed the public…
