RE-CONNECTING, RECHARGING:

RE-CONNECTING, RECHARGING: Okay, we U.S. citizens all know that our government is doing many things around the world that are highly damaging (as well as a much smaller proportion, I’d argue, that are helpful). A lot of us feel fed-up and frustrated about this.
But one problem is that, ever since the Bushies launched the war against Iraq, and then won a totally unsurprising battlefield victory against a force far, far smaller and more backward than the US/UK expeditionary force, the anti-war movement that had been building prior to March 17 has had to shift focus and direction.
No problem with that. That’s what life is, responding to new challenges… I reckon we in the antiwar movement are up to it
But the problem, as I see it, is that when we moved to the new stage, evidently the slogans we’d used until then lost their relevance.
“Stop the war”– well, yes, in a way the war is still going on, but the slogan has lost its bite since April 7.
“Stop the occupation” maybe? not bad, but also not terribly zingy.
“Bring our troops home” — that’s still a good one. In fact, one we could expand on a whole bunch. As I wrote here recently, wouldn’t it be great if everyone’s soldiers got to go–and stay–back inside their own national homeland?
But we don’t just need to re-jig our slogans. We also need to re-connect with the energy we all felt (and indeed, generated) as we took our various actions against the war in the weeks before March 17.
So here, as a gift to JWN readers from Christian McEwen, a poet from NYC and Guilford, Vermont, I’m bringing you a wonderfully lively description Christian wrote about two of the mammoth demonstrations that New York saw in February and March this year. I’m really happy to post it here, in the hope that it can help us all to re-connect with some of the excitement of those days. Thanks, Christian!
ANOTHER BUDDHIST LESBIAN FOR PEACE (#2) : NEW YORK CITY
by Christian McEwen, March 2003
There were 125,000 at the demonstration. Or there were 250,000, possibly even as many as 300,000. As usual, people fought about the figures. But no one disputed that the crowd was enormous, that under that bright spring sky the march stretched from 42nd Street all the way down Broadway to Washington Square. ‘NEW YORK WANTS PEACE,’ proclaimed the banners. And, ‘NOT IN N.Y.C.?S NAME!’
War had been declared less than three days earlier, and for most people, this was the first chance they?d had to voice their disapproval. The crowd was tough and noisy and marvellously wide-ranging. There was a group of ?Raging Grannies & their Daughters,? there was a flock of middle-aged gays dressed up as nuns. There was a young woman on stilts, with the tarnished green face and flowing robes of the Statue of Liberty. There were housewives and teachers, poets and business-people, parents with babes in arms or pushing strollers. A man in a Bush mask clutched the globe of the world with bloody fingers, bowing and cringing like Uriah Heep. Almost everyone was chanting or drumming or carrying signs. The blitz on Baghdad had started the previous night, and this was a city which knew, all too well, what it meant to be the subject of an attack. ‘9/11 SURVIVOR AGAINST THE WAR’ read one sign, and, ‘NEW YORK REMEMBERS ITS OWN SHOCK & AWE.’
Inching down into the thirties, in those first congested blocks, I rubbed shoulders with a small group of restaurant workers, each carrying an identical square sign printed both in Spanish and in English. ‘I WORKED AT THE W.T.C.,’ it read. ‘AND I SAY NO TO WAR.’ I stopped one man to thank him. Such testimony seems crucial, especially now, when 45% of Americans blame Saddam for what happened on September 11th.
‘The one thing has nothing to do with the other,’ the man said emphatically. Other banners reiterated that same point. ?’RAQ DID NOT DO 9/11,’ read one sign, clumsily printed on someone?s home computer. Throughout the march, there was a consistent effort to name and clarify the issues, in words that even the most casual passer-by could understand. ‘GET IT RIGHT,’ one sign read. ‘THIS IS NOT WAR. THIS IS A BIG COUNTRY SLAUGHTERING A TINY COUNTRY.’ And, ‘WHEN SADDAM INVADED KUWAIT, HE TOO SAID HE WAS ‘LIBERATING’ IT.’ One woman carried a picture frame encased in thick transparent plastic. ‘WE SEE THROUGH THE LIES,’ it read.
One of the most egregious lies is, of course, that with the outbreak of war, protest itself has become ‘unpatriotic.’ Demonstrators did their best to counter this, trying again and again to wrest back their own version of patriotism from the authorities. ‘PRO SOLDIER, ANTI WAR,’ read one sign. And, ‘I DO SUPPORT THE TROOPS ? BRING THEM HOME NOW!’ Sizeable numbers carried banners labeled ‘PEACE IS PATRIOTIC’ or ‘PATRIOTS FOR PEACE.’
In an earlier protest, on February 15th, would-be marchers had been penned like cattle behind the barricades, unable to reach the U.N. Plaza or to hear the speeches. Saturday?s demonstration (long planned) had an official permit from Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Nonetheless, it was clear that many still felt democracy was under seige. One young man draped himself in an American flag and gagged himself with a strip of duct-tape. Another carried a banner quoting Robert Byrd, the Democratic senator for West Virginia, ‘TODAY I WEEP FOR MY COUNTRY.’ The yearning for a leader one could admire, a Gandhi, a Nelson Mandela, was at times almost palpable. ‘ASHAMED TO BE AN AMERICAN,’ read one sign. And, ‘MY LEADERS EMBARRASS ME AND TERRORISE THE WORLD.’
Not surprisngly, hundreds of marchers focused on George Bush. Their banners ranged from the rueful, ‘AND WE THOUGHT BUSH WAS PRO-LIFE’ to the joyfully outrageous, ‘GEORGE, IF I SAY YOUR DICK IS BIGGER THAN SADDAM?S, WILL YOU CALL OFF THE WAR?’ But most were punchy and antagonistic. ‘DROP BUSH, NOT BOMBS!’ read numerous signs. Others read simply, ‘GEORGE BUSH = WAR CRIMINAL,’ ‘SAVE THE WORLD, IMPEACH BUSH’ and (over and over) ‘REGIME CHANGE BEGINS AT HOME.’ One, with handmade papier-mache masks depicting Ashcroft, Cheney and the President, denounced all three as ‘ASSES OF EVIL.’ Another, showing a small tree laden with fruit, read, ‘THE BOMBS DON?T FALL VERY FAR FROM THE BUSH.’ Yet another carried a large photograph of the President, along with the statement, ‘I REGRET I HAVE BUT 250,000 LIVES TO GIVE FOR MY COUNTRY.’
The sense of urgency and outrage was very strong. IF YOU?RE NOT OUTRAGED,’ read one bumper sticker, which many people affixed to their shirts or jackets, ‘YOU?RE NOT PAYING ATTENTION.?’ But this was New York after all, where even political correctness is not permitted to be boring. The Statue of Liberty stalked down Broadway, wearing a sign that read plaintively, ‘IS MY VISA UP YET?’ A group of young people carried a banner urging us all to ‘FRENCH KISS FOR FREEDOM.’ The gay nuns swayed back and forth with the crowd, laughing and chanting in unison. They wore white veils and glittery gold eye-shadow, with peace and star-signs scrawled around each eye. ‘HEY HO! THE POPE SAYS NO!’ Their signs were fiercely legible and to the point. ‘WHAT PART OF ?THOU SHALT NOT KILL? DON?T YOU UNDERSTAND?’
I gave them the thumbs-up as I passed, and one, seeing my own sign (‘ANOTHER BUDDHIST LESBIAN FOR PEACE’) exclaimed delightedly,?Oh a dharma sister!? and gave me a smacking kiss on both my cheeks. It was a sweet, giddy moment, rising like an irridescent bubble to the surface of the river, and replaced almost immediately by another encounter, in this case by a blizzard of brilliantly printed dollar-bills, descending like green manna from the sky. Looked at closely, it appeared they had been issued by ?The Untied States of Aggression,? and were worth precisely ?One Deception.? A short paragraph explained that ?This note contains websites which reveal tender, public and private truths about 9/11 and the War on Freedom.? Among those listed were globalresearch.com, truth-now.com and whatreallyhappened.com.
My feet were sore by then, and I felt hungry and tired. But the sky was still blue overhead, and the chanting and drumming never faltered. ‘MONEY FOR PEACE, NOT FOR WAR!’ ‘FUCK BUSH, PEACE NOW!’ and (again and again), ‘THESE STREETS ARE OUR STREETS!’ As we arrived at Union Square, I walked alongside a new mother carrying her four or five month old child; she was bouncing and kissing him as she marched. Ahead of me were golden-skinned young men (and a handful of young women too) their naked backs covered with signs and slogans printed in red lipstick and black marker. Someone was blowing bubbles into the faces of the crowd. The chanting and drumming had reached a new crescendo.
We turned into the narrow canyon of Waverly Place, our numbers massed and concentrated between the tall dark buildings, and for a moment it seemed impossible to imagine we would not be heard. Surely this torrent of urgent, kindly people would be listened to. Surely our clarity would prevail, our warnings reach some interested ears.
‘OSAMA KNOWS. ORPHANS MAKE GREAT SUICIDE BOMBERS.’
‘BOMBS DROPPED IN BAGHDAD WILL EXPLODE IN AMERICA.’
‘IRAQ TODAY, WHERE TOMORROW?’
Not everyone agreed with us, of course. At the corner of Washington Square, a man stood on his own, holding up a brightly colored poster, ‘VOICE OF THE NEW YORK MAJORITY. WE SUPPORT OUR PRESIDENT & TROOPS AND PROTEST THE PROTESTORS.’ Next day there?d be a pro-war rally at Times Square. It would draw only 1,000 people (a miniscule number, in comparison to the peace demo), but the media would give it lots of coverage. Signs would be unabashedly vindictive. They would say things like, ‘GIVE WAR A CHANCE!’ and ’12 YEARS OF DIPLOMACY IS ENOUGH.’ One man would carry a picture of the twin towers burning, with the slogan, ‘KILL OR BE KILLED.’
Our own march had been peaceful, all along its route. But less than half an hour after arriving at the park, an ugly confrontation took place between the police (anxious to clear the streets now that the permit had expired) and some youthful protestors (newly empowered and keen to keep on marching). Two mounted officers were knocked off their horses, eight policemen were pepper-sprayed, and several others injured. 91 demonstrators were arrested. It was a tawdry end, for both sides, to a march that had been so warm and purposeful and open-hearted.
Back in Washington Square Park, a small circle was sitting quietly in meditation, and children were chalking peace-signs on the asphalt tiles. People were eating or smoking, or talking on the ubiquitous cell-phones. Discarded signs stood propped up against the thin wooden lattice of the fence.
‘THIS LAND IS OUR LAND, THEIR LAND IS THEIR LAND.’
‘IF BOMBS WERE SMART, THEY WOULD REFUSE TO FALL.’
‘WAR IS EASY, DO THE HARD WORK OF PEACE.’
Other banners reiterated that same point.