I guess it works both ways. Journalist Bob Koehler quoted lawyer Robert Hager in his oped piece 'Used Razor Blades' as saying: 'People need to know that protest is not going to stop this government. They need to get into court and focus on stopping the government there. That's where the rubber meets the road.'

Apparently the pro-nuclear elements (be they government or industry) have learned to use the same tactics to their advantage and stop activists via the court. For Alternate Energy Holdings Inc (AEHI), the Idaho nuke-developer, the strategy is  working and its critics are tied up in litigation, possible jail-time, etc... Yesterday, its first critic fell. Peter Rickards, an Idaho anti-nuclear activist, wanted to go to an invite-only 'public meeting' in June to inform residents about the dangers of AEHI's proposed 1,600 megawatt nuclear power plant in southwest Idaho. When Rickards tried to re-enter the meeting room after being asked to leave, a staff member from the nuke company prevented Rickards from easily getting through the doorway. Rickards described the situation as follows: 'The doorway is probably three feet across and Doug's about two-and-a-half feet across so our bellies touched when I went by.' A short time later, when Rickards was seated in the assembly, a sheriff deputy approached him, handcuffed Rickards and escorted him from the building.

A jury earlier this week found that Rickards, who has no prior record, was guilty of trespass and battery. He faces a fine and possible jail time. There's also the case of Andrea Shipley of Snake River Alliance, who the company also sued. AEHI claims she slandered them when she called them 'scammers.'

I have concluded, after following the Divine Strake lawsuit and the Rickards lawsuit, that Hager is wrong: you can't rely on a system of justice because the people who serve on the juries or as justices, more often than not, have blinders on. If on the weekends people don't want to accept that the government or industry doesn't care about hurting us, then why would they be any different when called for jury duty or to the bench during the week?

Justice cannot be forged through courts and precedents and processes and appeals. Justice is as corruptible as the people who serve it. Look, for instance, at the federal government. Innumerable impeachable offenses have occurred in the past eight years in our federal government and those that hold the power to impeach in Congress didn't exercise their duty to impeach. It is THEY who should be impeached. Yet WE elected them BACK to office. And it is US who have ultimately wronged.

Justice, like our government, is by the people, not by any other 'system.' We think of justice as a system-in-place that needs little maintenance. But justice became corrupt because we have forgotten that justice is corruptible. We created a system of justice and what happened is that we got lazy. If we as people become corrupt, then justice will not restore order. If we see injustices persist that no one speaks of, no one litigates against, no one protests against, then it is us who needs to rise up. We need to rise up and pull from our toolbox of human values the wrench of justice to begin to fix things ourselves. We need to rally the cause, to put out information and hand out those info-packets and flyers at public meetings even when we are lied to at the doorway that they're not public meetings.

That is what grassroots activism is. It is not about breaking the law. It is about fighting against corruption when corruption has disabled all checks and balances. It is when good people discover that the system has failed and they need to, without being asked, or funded, or assisted, seek to right the wrongs starting with themselves.

Peter Rickards was trying to do this. Whatever happened in that doorway that day in June is known only by him and the nuclear consultant. But I believe Rickards  was trying to fix the system when virtually no one else was trying to. I believe he didn't intend to do and did no harm.