I was disappointed, but not surprised, to see members of the community ready to throw the youthful activists from Mountain Justice Spring Break and their Knoxville colleagues (UMD) "under the bus." (see post-"Not Supported by TNCASN) Their crime it seems was to get arrested while conducting a peaceful protest in front of TVA HQ in Knoxville on Saturday.

I have posted many comments about "Speaking Truth to Power" on this site, and how Power responds when spoken to truthfully. Having been arrested numerous times for peacefully exercising my first amendment rights, including a severe beating while handcuffed, because I was a "community activist leader," or in the eyes of law enforcement-head troublemaker, I feel I can lend some perspective to this issue.

These young college students from Mountain Justice Spring Break, came from many different schools, Chapel Hill, VA Tech, James Madison, etc. and spent the week camped out at the Boy Scout Camp nearby. During the week, different groups of students visited our farm to learn about sustainability, energy efficiency, and to help out with work projects. Altogether, at least 20 students participated here on the farm, some came numerous times. I found them to be inquisitive, eager learners, intelligent and well informed, and willing workers. (Yes they dug post holes and hand plowed, two grueling activities). Our discussions were stimulating, and ranged from population overshoot, to mountaintop removal, to sustainable agriculture. I was impressed by their idealism and grew quite fond of them and even invited a couple back to intern here on the farm this Summer.

These young people are inheriting a world that is in economic and environmental collapse. They understand that the "gravy train" their parents and grandparents got to ride on has left the station without them aboard. They have no illusions about the mythical "American Dream," and how it is undergoing a fundamental change that will usher in a whole new paradigm. In short, they know the generations preceding them have created a mighty big mess as a result of narrow focused self-indulgence. And to their credit, they are not bitter, but optimistic and excited about the role they might play in the changes occurring.

Roane County, along with East Tennessee in general, has been asleep at the wheel for a long time. It was only with a disaster of catastrophic proportion that the community began to question lifelong held assumptions about TVA and coal fired electric generation. People seemingly flip on the switch with little awareness of the destruction being caused by that innocuous gesture. Our fellow citizens have been put through hell as mountainsides of "overburden" (the blown up tops of our mountains) slide down into hollows and crush homes and families who have called these valleys home for generations. Coal companies, operating under contract for TVA, have poisoned wells, springs, and creeks that have nurtured our kinfolk since colonial time. Finally some of that pain has now come to the other end of the coal cycle. What these protesters attempted to do was to link the two ends of a non-stop disaster together. The coal ash catastrophe is not the property of the citizens of Kingston or Roane County. It is an environmental assault against every living being on this planet.

People claim to not be environmentalists, as if that were a bad thing. Yet each of us requires, no actually demands, clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, and healthy food to eat. This doesn't happen by magic, it happens because we make a conscious effort to do what it takes to provide the environment where those things can happen.

If we are going to throw someone under the bus, how about we start with Troy Beets and TVA?