stopthesewars.org
Exactly how I happened on the stopthesewars.org website is lost in the shallows of my aging memory. It probably branched from something like truthout.org when it first came to my attention that our country actually had a vital war protest movement dedicated to nonviolent resistance. Veterans for Peace, an organization of veterans mostly of Vietnam, but also the Gulf and current actions, were proposing a nonviolent gathering and civil resistance action for December 16, 2010, at the White House fence in front of Lafayette Park.As a young man of the '60s [babe of the '40s] I expected some coverage in anticipation of the march, as well as national coverage on the day. What naiveté. Not a hint of rumblings. The weekend came and went with barely a line of attention on NPR, much less CNN and the mainstream media. I had to go back to the website to find out what really happened.
One hundred and thirty-one American citizens, mostly military, got arrested at the White House fence and none of the major media even took notice. I couldn't believe it. OK, it's not a million man march. It's not Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, or even Glenn Beck in numbers [who that previous summer had well attended public turnouts on the mall]. But American veterans got arrested by their own government, by the same government for whom they had placed themselves in harm's way. Someone should have noticed. Either an antiwar sentiment was awakening [or my own awareness was finally developing] and this was a small beginning or the antiwar forces had dribbled down to these last few.
Something's happening here, but the media ain't making it clear
The only answer I thought satisfactory was this failure of the news was willful denial of coverage. I'm no conspiracy theorist. I find conspiracy theories--like we never went to the moon--always involve stretches of the imagination that snap the rubber bands between theory and reality, such as requiring us to believe the thousands of people working on the lunar landings were all "in on it" and no two of those thousands of lips ever slipped.Were people so tired of hearing about the wars they wouldn't care about a protest by the soldiers themselves? or did the media require larger trigger numbers before they'd muster a remote van for a four hour event? I decided then to join the Veterans for Peace in their next effort whether it was local or out of town.
Birth(?) of an activist
I beat the bushes but wasn't able to find anything on the local scene--defective search on my part, poor publicity by those active, or maybe the moon was in the wrong house. I opted against individual protest and settled on joining with the VfP for their next national action in the capitol on March 19.
As the date approached I asked the Presbytery of the Western Reserve for help in drumming up a peace advocate to accompany me on the drive. Maybe I asked too late. Presbyterians are notorious for scheduling months ahead--some even unable to squeeze in timee for their own deaths. Two days prior to departure I heard from a Ms Peggy Kacerek who related she had participated in the December 16 action and had been intending to take part again on March 19. Although she deferred on the driving she said she could help keep me awake along the way.
I was grateful. I knew I could get to DC without a map but would need help navigating the city. I welcomed her familiarity with the area since she had been at the last event. Likewise I looked forward to being filled in on the details that would make the difference between seeming a neophyte and seeming experienced.
I proposed we leave early enough on Friday to scout up a place for the night to get some sleep and be ready for the information session the next morning at St. Stephen's Church, Newton and 16th N, which was 'way north of the White House and where others arriving with sleeping bags were to crash for the night. All my family sleeping bags had been sold at garage sales or given to the children as they left for college. Peggy took on the task of getting us a place within walking distance of Lafayette Park.
I was grateful. I knew I could get to DC without a map but would need help navigating the city. I welcomed her familiarity with the area since she had been at the last event. Likewise I looked forward to being filled in on the details that would make the difference between seeming a neophyte and seeming experienced.
I proposed we leave early enough on Friday to scout up a place for the night to get some sleep and be ready for the information session the next morning at St. Stephen's Church, Newton and 16th N, which was 'way north of the White House and where others arriving with sleeping bags were to crash for the night. All my family sleeping bags had been sold at garage sales or given to the children as they left for college. Peggy took on the task of getting us a place within walking distance of Lafayette Park.
Risky business
While I drove she asked if I intended to get arrested, as she did not last time nor would she this time. I said I had considered it and would likely volunteer when the time came. Of course I was free to make up my mind. No one would judge another's dedication based on whether they did or did not participate in the civil resistance.
It was the first (but not the last) time I had qualms about the wisdom of having a 68 year old man with a chancy lower alimentary canal get dragged across the pavement and pitched unceremoniously into a paddy wagon. Little compares with the feeling of heroism trickling down your leg.
International hostelling with the youthful hordes
I wasn't feeling all that many years until a young clerk at the hostel said, "Excuse me, sir," as he passed me at the elevator. I looked quizzically at him and asked, "Do I really look that old?" He replied with a gentle friendly smile that seemed to say, "You make my middle-aged teachers look young." We laughed and I headed up to my room.
It was 11 PM and none of the ten bunks in my room was yet occupied I discovered after working up the courage to turn on the light. My bed, number ten, was an upper, close to the door and the bathroom (thank God). I would need to remember my key card to get back in. With my usual traveling foresight I had only the clothes on my back. Getting ready for bed was completed by shedding my tennies.
The young people were young but neither brash nor loud. Various non-American style clothes revealed their foreignness as did their speaking languages other than English. They were quiet and brief in using the light and it wasn't long before I awoke actually having slept some part of the night.
At breakfast we met some VsfP--Tom recognized by his tee shirt and Richard who approached us later. We rode together in my car to the meeting at St. Stephen's.
What did you go to the desert to see?
Not quite certain what as to what I expected--men in formal military dress, older, dignified in bearing, authoritative in experience, no, nor not exactly hippies either. They were a variety from ragtag to casual, all ages, both sexes, gray hairs and shaved heads, here and there some military garments, camouflage pants or jackets with the names clipped to the pockets. Lots of VfP tee shirts. I bought one to cover the black Red Cross tee I had thought to wear as a sombre note. After a few general questions came the inevitable, "Raise your hands if you're willing to get arrested." Hesitantly I raised my hand.
"No one will think you are any less committed to the cause if you decide against getting arrested," stated Elliott Adams, President of Veterans for Peace, as he stood on the stage barefoot. "But there are some things you need to know beforehand." he explained. At the December 16th event Adams had used a bicycle lock around his neck to secure himself to the White House fence. The Park Police had been very careful about removing the lock and had generally treated those arrested with dignity and respect, but Adams agreed to their suggestion that he should not use that tactic again. The permit allowed us to gather and to parade but not to refuse to move when ordered.
If we did refuse, he explained, we'd be handcuffed and taken by bus to the Anacostia jail for booking--mugshots, fingerprints, and the usual bureaucratic delay before release. And though they had been genteel the last time, Adams clarified, there were no guarantees they'd be so again. Should they slip up and be antagonistic, abrupt, or worse, we were to remember our commitment to nonviolence.
After processing we would likely be offered an opportunity to pay a fine and waive the offense--very like paying for a parking ticket--$100 cash and we would be released. Other Veterans for Peace would be waiting outside to take us back to DC. Failure or refusal to fork over the fine and we'd be assigned a court date for arraignment and maybe be released that same day, or more often, the next.
So the maximum for civil resistance was anywhere from a Franklin to considerably more for return trips and trial--if it ever came to that. For the December refusers all charges were dropped by court order on January 4, 2011. Again nothing was guaranteed. I leaned over to Ms. Kacerek and whispered, "I don't think I'll be getting arrested after all." Probably a wise choice for a neophyte activist, I thought, but I really started to feel like a schmuck.
In the end I approached Adams about how badly I felt about deciding against getting arrested. He graciously reassured me how that was a decision only the person affected could make.
I also asked about the curious absence of Black veterans in this group. Nobody's excluded, he said, and there distinctly are organizations of Black veterans. They have no obligations to join with us. If we wanted an integrated demonstration, it would be wiser for us to join them. Curious explanation I thought but I remembered I'm just a beginner, and shut my mouth.
"No one will think you are any less committed to the cause if you decide against getting arrested," stated Elliott Adams, President of Veterans for Peace, as he stood on the stage barefoot. "But there are some things you need to know beforehand." he explained. At the December 16th event Adams had used a bicycle lock around his neck to secure himself to the White House fence. The Park Police had been very careful about removing the lock and had generally treated those arrested with dignity and respect, but Adams agreed to their suggestion that he should not use that tactic again. The permit allowed us to gather and to parade but not to refuse to move when ordered.
If we did refuse, he explained, we'd be handcuffed and taken by bus to the Anacostia jail for booking--mugshots, fingerprints, and the usual bureaucratic delay before release. And though they had been genteel the last time, Adams clarified, there were no guarantees they'd be so again. Should they slip up and be antagonistic, abrupt, or worse, we were to remember our commitment to nonviolence.
After processing we would likely be offered an opportunity to pay a fine and waive the offense--very like paying for a parking ticket--$100 cash and we would be released. Other Veterans for Peace would be waiting outside to take us back to DC. Failure or refusal to fork over the fine and we'd be assigned a court date for arraignment and maybe be released that same day, or more often, the next.
So the maximum for civil resistance was anywhere from a Franklin to considerably more for return trips and trial--if it ever came to that. For the December refusers all charges were dropped by court order on January 4, 2011. Again nothing was guaranteed. I leaned over to Ms. Kacerek and whispered, "I don't think I'll be getting arrested after all." Probably a wise choice for a neophyte activist, I thought, but I really started to feel like a schmuck.
In the end I approached Adams about how badly I felt about deciding against getting arrested. He graciously reassured me how that was a decision only the person affected could make.
I also asked about the curious absence of Black veterans in this group. Nobody's excluded, he said, and there distinctly are organizations of Black veterans. They have no obligations to join with us. If we wanted an integrated demonstration, it would be wiser for us to join them. Curious explanation I thought but I remembered I'm just a beginner, and shut my mouth.
A perfect day for a hanging or worse
Brisk but getting warmer, the day was marked with a clear blue sky and the promise of moderate temperature. I told Peggy how much the weather reminded me of September 11th and of my daughter's narrow escape from disaster in lower Manhattan that day.
Emily worked in a building adjacent to the World Trade Center. She was ascending from the subway a little late for work when she saw one of the towers in flames high above. Noting the spectacularly clear skies she concluded that an airplane striking it was probably not an accident. Not a good day for work either, she thought as she began running away from the area with the rest of the crowd.
Some of the victims had already jumped from the windows. A few people on the street stopped to buy cheap disposable cameras to take historic pictures as they fled.
Then the second plane hit and the ground shook below them as they ran screaming. Still trying to outrace the dust thrown up by the towers' collapse eventually she reached a friend's office in midtown. She told me later that she was unable to sleep for about two weeks after.
Remarkable, I thought, not every horror occurs in darkness and wintry gloom. I had no idea what to expect.
Not every heartfelt cry is eloquent
True to the protocols of organizational behavior the addresses scheduled for noon began at 12:20--not at all bad as these things go. I thought the crowd thin for a national level complaint. I estimated about two thousand at the most--the website later pegged it at 1,500.
Each speaker identified themselves, the group represented, and how the wars affected them particularly. CodePink, a women's protest movement, stressed how the wars were draining money from the nation's critical needs for schools, families, and children. Veterans from VfP and other veteran groups appealed to stop the unwarranted killing and dying and urged bringing the soldiers home now.
Some called out stridently to the White House, this weekend serendipitously vacant, and placed the blame for the wars' continuation on the Obama administration. (Ms. Kacerek pointed out that because the Obamas were not at home during this protest the White House rooftop was free of sharpshooters who had been stationed there during the December resistance). Initiated by the Bush-Cheney lies, the wars had been too easily adopted by President Obama who, despite his campaign rhetoric, had done a sorry job of pulling out of Iraq and had left thousands of technical and contractual workers who continued to fight and die. No one raised the issue of Candidate Obama's campaign promises to revive the fight in Afghanistan.
Several spoke in defense of Bradley Manning and likened him to patriots like Nathan Hale who was labelled a traitor by the British.
I must ask the reader to forgive my inability to cite statements accurately to each speaker in turn. While I listened to the words I was visually distracted by the numerous petition appeals circulating among the crowd, along with miming clowns, lefties of every stripe--Revolutionary American Communists to Libertarian Ron Paul devotees passing out handbills--and audibly distracted by children behaving as they would at a picnic, and others who, like those irritating folks at the movies who think they're in their own living rooms, chatter continuously through the entire production. And by lots of people (FBI, maybe?) who wandered amongst us recording faces with their cellphones and video cams.
Each speaker identified themselves, the group represented, and how the wars affected them particularly. CodePink, a women's protest movement, stressed how the wars were draining money from the nation's critical needs for schools, families, and children. Veterans from VfP and other veteran groups appealed to stop the unwarranted killing and dying and urged bringing the soldiers home now.
Some called out stridently to the White House, this weekend serendipitously vacant, and placed the blame for the wars' continuation on the Obama administration. (Ms. Kacerek pointed out that because the Obamas were not at home during this protest the White House rooftop was free of sharpshooters who had been stationed there during the December resistance). Initiated by the Bush-Cheney lies, the wars had been too easily adopted by President Obama who, despite his campaign rhetoric, had done a sorry job of pulling out of Iraq and had left thousands of technical and contractual workers who continued to fight and die. No one raised the issue of Candidate Obama's campaign promises to revive the fight in Afghanistan.
Several spoke in defense of Bradley Manning and likened him to patriots like Nathan Hale who was labelled a traitor by the British.
I must ask the reader to forgive my inability to cite statements accurately to each speaker in turn. While I listened to the words I was visually distracted by the numerous petition appeals circulating among the crowd, along with miming clowns, lefties of every stripe--Revolutionary American Communists to Libertarian Ron Paul devotees passing out handbills--and audibly distracted by children behaving as they would at a picnic, and others who, like those irritating folks at the movies who think they're in their own living rooms, chatter continuously through the entire production. And by lots of people (FBI, maybe?) who wandered amongst us recording faces with their cellphones and video cams.
What few were ready to hear
Ralph Nader attributed the war to corporate domince of politics and to the virtual destruction of our democracy. Surprisingly for me he counseled that the solution lay not in demonstrations before the imperial White House but rather in defunding the wars through convincing another 150+ congressmen to vote as 67% of the citizens think as shown in recent polls--that these wars are not worth it. He suggested antiwar groups pattern themselves after "the most effective lobbying group in the country--AIPAC," the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
They were in the congressional offices in DC and their local offices back home. They were at their dinners and all over their mail, email, and phones. The message was the same everywhere: "You, honorable congressperson--could soon not be in your vaunted office without the votes we can deliver or withhold." Compliant representatives would reply, "Sure, I'll vote as you wish. Just get off my back."
While sufficiently cheering and appreciative of the effort before him, Nader told us we've got it all wrong. This isn't about ethics, or good judgment, or reasonable foreign policy, or the blood shed in vain by our sons and daughters, or the crimes against the victims, or the right or wrong of war. It's about making politicians shake in their boots about their vanity. Corporations can offer them endless campaign dollars, but only real grass roots organizations can give them the votes they need to stay in office.
I knew enough about community organizing to know what a tough slog it is to muster up a block of votes and see they get up off their butts to face the rain on election day--or even just to complete absentee ballots. Heroism replaced by tedium. The wars might just be over by the time the momentum's built. And that's just the election. We'd have to hold their feet to the fire to get a defunding vote in the majority.
Maybe the Tunisian was right. Maybe it would require somebody flammable.
Where were the churches?
I've admired Chris Hedges' writing since I first read War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning several years ago. I felt he would be a powerful and eloquent voice for this event. While the noisy in the crowd squealed like swine before pearls, the rest of us were taken again by Hedges' proclamation of the power of hope against the madness of war.For me his speech this time stressed the notable absence of the churches' opinions and efforts against the crushing, enduring evil of the wars, the horror they have inflicted and continue to inflict in the victim countries. "Far more deserving of respect, reverence even," Hedges went on to say, "were the soldiers who stand up to say, 'Stop! No more! Not in our name!' today and every day until the killing ceases. Every resistance counts toward that day whether note is taken or not. Good will call unto good until hope, so often unreasonable on its face, succeeds and evil succumbs."
I saw one lady in a collar. Maybe a few pastors were there in plainclothes. As for today's Mertons and Berrigans? Nowhere to be seen.
Solemnly we stroll along
Then we were instructed to line up in ranks of four and to proceed solemnly to the beat of a single drum and to follow the parade route--Pennsylvania to 17th to I Street to 15th and back to Pennsylvania where those to be arrested would separate from the rest of us and take positions along the fence.
Peggy and I were too far back to hear the drum but we tried to keep in fours and silent. Police barricades kept the traffic away. Again the noxious cameras and cellphones proliferated--but not one shoulder cam with an NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, or PBS logo emblazoned on its side. Willful denial of coverage?
I watched the teenagers ahead of us reverse-kick each other as they walked and talked. Could they define solemn? I thought and realized what an old fart I had become. American kids couldn't understand. Their house had never been broken into in the night by soldiers who shot up their family. Pray God it should never happen. Their little brothers were in no danger of being killed from a helicopter while picking up firewood for their mom's campfire. Pray God it never happens. But it does. Miles away. Does it matter how many miles away if your father or brother or son is the one with his finger on the trigger or even if just your tax dollars are paying for him to be there?
The young men who do the shooting come home. Some of the best witnesses to the madness and the horror come home in body bags, and we can only speculate what they'd say of how they died or what they'd seen or what they'd done. Some of the others come back with their brains mashed against the inside of their skulls so powerfully and so often by IEDs that they will never be as before they first left home.
Still others come back and say the wars are pointless. No one listens to them because their left breasts are not bannered with brass and ribbons of every hue and stars do not limn their epaulets. They are the ones marching ahead of us and why I kept silent.
I watched the teenagers ahead of us reverse-kick each other as they walked and talked. Could they define solemn? I thought and realized what an old fart I had become. American kids couldn't understand. Their house had never been broken into in the night by soldiers who shot up their family. Pray God it should never happen. Their little brothers were in no danger of being killed from a helicopter while picking up firewood for their mom's campfire. Pray God it never happens. But it does. Miles away. Does it matter how many miles away if your father or brother or son is the one with his finger on the trigger or even if just your tax dollars are paying for him to be there?
The young men who do the shooting come home. Some of the best witnesses to the madness and the horror come home in body bags, and we can only speculate what they'd say of how they died or what they'd seen or what they'd done. Some of the others come back with their brains mashed against the inside of their skulls so powerfully and so often by IEDs that they will never be as before they first left home.
Still others come back and say the wars are pointless. No one listens to them because their left breasts are not bannered with brass and ribbons of every hue and stars do not limn their epaulets. They are the ones marching ahead of us and why I kept silent.
Anticlimax
We separated at the fence. I thought, "Wheat to the right. Chaff to the left." The police adjusted barricades to enclose those who did not move fast enough. For a moment it was hard to tell which side you were on, but if we asked they calmly told us. The mounted police moved in. Horses--God love 'em--did their horsey thing, and although I had great affection for horses, this was the first time I experienced the fear their bearing down on a crowd could rouse.
Why do police uniforms always have to make them look like Mussolini? These guys weren't Bobbies. They had guns and batons. Guns in holsters, yes, but they had them. We had signs. What kind of threat did signs pose? Some crudely hand drawn, some printed by union printers, and many not even stapled to sticks. They were wire-tied to light cardboard tubes. Preteen boys might slap each other like clowns with the weapons we carried.
Who was so threatening? The CodePink ladies with gray hair? The old guys clearly too tired from the march to put up any kind of fight? The singing protestors? For this crowd you needed guns? Well, you never know. Nobody misbehaved. A few slumped on being touched who had to be dragged to the incarce-mobiles. Was it resistance? No, it was gravity and just not helping police get them to the buses.
By now the afternoon sun was quite direct and warm and I could feel its energy on my face. I was feeling wobbly. I really didn't want to be at any scene where my pusillanimity could be documented. I suggested to Peggy we could leave before the last of the volunteers was arrested. Then we could be home by 11 and sleep at last in our own beds.
On Monday the 21st I found the count of those arrested at the White House fence: 113. There had also been on Sunday a demonstration at Quantico in support of Bradley Manning; arrested there: 31. None of this was in the papers or on the major channels. Democracy Now! had its story ready to go that Monday. Stopthesewars.com had the facts on its website the same day.
I thought a lot about the significance of the policy of willful denial of coverage. What kind of event would force the American public's nose into the truth about our wars? Maybe if we got Charlie Sheen to immolate himself in Tahrir Square? Maybe.
Love, Peace, and Hope,
James Manista
[Post-note: Looking back on these comments today, November 27, 2013, it's quite apparent just how naive I was. This was after all my first adult, public act as a war resister, and it's hardly a document of heroism.
In college I had read a lot about the immorality of our use of population bombing in World War II even before we dropped the atomic bombs. I couldn't accept the justifications given for killing non-combatants, not just because it breached the niceties of the rules of war, but because it could never be anything other than needless, vengeful slaughter. Remember, I was often cautioned, nothing in war can be moral. Every rule must be set aside until you finally triumph. Then you could safely go back to all your queasy morality.
A couple of years later I had to appear for the draft for the war in Vietnam. I prepared to make a case for conscientious objection not to war in its entirety but to what I maintained were again morally unacceptable methods which were known to be in wide use--free fire zones and torture. As described, the case would not qualify for CO status and I'd have to go to jail. At my medical exam, though, they "weighed my glasses" and found me unfit to be given any sort of weapon until the enemy came to my house.
My relative pacifism had become moot procedurally without any suffering on my part. I turned to making my life and staying away from the politics of war and peace until after my wife had died and my children had all moved on.
My hope today is that it is never too late to work against war.]
[Post-note: Looking back on these comments today, November 27, 2013, it's quite apparent just how naive I was. This was after all my first adult, public act as a war resister, and it's hardly a document of heroism.
In college I had read a lot about the immorality of our use of population bombing in World War II even before we dropped the atomic bombs. I couldn't accept the justifications given for killing non-combatants, not just because it breached the niceties of the rules of war, but because it could never be anything other than needless, vengeful slaughter. Remember, I was often cautioned, nothing in war can be moral. Every rule must be set aside until you finally triumph. Then you could safely go back to all your queasy morality.
A couple of years later I had to appear for the draft for the war in Vietnam. I prepared to make a case for conscientious objection not to war in its entirety but to what I maintained were again morally unacceptable methods which were known to be in wide use--free fire zones and torture. As described, the case would not qualify for CO status and I'd have to go to jail. At my medical exam, though, they "weighed my glasses" and found me unfit to be given any sort of weapon until the enemy came to my house.
My relative pacifism had become moot procedurally without any suffering on my part. I turned to making my life and staying away from the politics of war and peace until after my wife had died and my children had all moved on.
My hope today is that it is never too late to work against war.]
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