NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Today, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee celebrated the groundbreaking on a Multi-Agency Law Enforcement Training Academy (MALETA) at Cockrill Bend in Nashville. The $415 million campus will include training facilities for state and local law enforcement, housing and dining for cadets and in-service staff, and a new administrative headquarters building for the Tennessee Department of Correction and the Tennessee Department of Safety & Homeland Security. The vast majority of law enforcement officers across the state will receive training at MALETA.

https://www.tn.gov/governor/news/2023/9/27/gov--lee-champions-multi-agency-law-enforcement-training-academy-.html

This is not a pie-in-the-sky plan for Tennessee to build its own militarized Copy City like Georgia, the Republicans have actually broken ground on the construction site:

https://www.tiktok.com/@thetnholler/video/7283710944721571115

TAKE ACTION

1.  Forward this email to at least one friend who shares your concern (multiple friends would be even better) about fascistic, militarized police tactics and encourage them to get worked up about Georgia's Cop City and Tennessee's prospective Cop City / MALETA / Cockrill Bend facility.

2.  Call your state representative and state senator and voice your opposition to using taxpayer funds on this militarized police facility.  If you type in an address (your residence, your business address, your doctor's address, an address where you vacationed in Tennessee) the following website will tell you who are the state representative and state senator for that address along with their email addresses:

https://wapp.capitol.tn.gov/apps/LegislatorInfo/directory.aspx?chamber=H

If you prefer to do things by phone, you can find your state rep and senator above and then use the general number for the legislature.  All legislators may be reached at 1-800-449-8366. That number will get you connected to both your state representative and state senator's office.  If no one is in the office, you can leave a voice message.

Out-of-state friends of the TN Green Party who subscribe to this list to stay in touch can contact our legislators and tell them you were thinking about vacationing in Tennessee, but you don't want to travel to a place with militarized, fascistic police.  All Tennessee license plates on passenger cars contain "TNvacations.com" at the bottom -- so the state legislators really care about tourism and getting all those tourist dollars spent in Tennessee!

3.  Reply to this message and tell us whether you feel strongly about police brutality and fascism on display in these news stories. The Green Party of Tennessee Organizing Committee does not have a monopoly on good ideas.  If you have any other strategies or suggestions for what we can do to stop or reshape the intent of the Tennesse MALETA facility, type us a reply message.

I hate to leave you on a dark and foreboding note. Therefore, I would like to share a musical gift with you.  I just recently came across the singer-songwriter Laura Nyro who wrote such classics from the 1960s as "Eli's Coming," "Stoney End," "Stone Soul Picnic," "And When I Die," and "Wedding Bell Blues / Marry Me Bill."  Here is a link to one of her live TV performances and the song SAVE THE COUNTRY

We could build the dream with love
And I got fury in my soul
Fury's gonna take me to the glory goal
In my mind I can't study war no more
Save the people! Save the children! Save the country!
Save the country! Save the country! Save the country!