COLORADO SPRINGS- The news from the J&P is more fund-raising. This time it’s a cute play on “P&J” with a bread pun. Basically: We have the Peace & Justice, got Bling? There’s nothing on the calendar to indicate the J&P is inviting everyone to a picnic, nor any new activities that aren’t already paid for. Do they need bread for the staff lunch? I have this like-themed response: There’s plenty of bread, so, where’s the beef?
COLORADO SPRINGS- Such an unfortunate characterization of the J&P.
In the Gazette coverage of the Air Force Academy graduation, the paper featured this teaser on the front page: “War protesters bail early.” The article on page 8 began: “Air Force Academy cadets apparently are made of sterner stuff.” We can’t deny “while the cadets and their families sat through the early morning fog and drizzle, war protesters left rather than wait for the late-arriving President Bush,” but Springs activists rarely show anything but tenacity in making their point. Why would they leave early and give the media such a predictable pot shot? Do we chalk it up exclusively to our antagonistic local daily newspaper?
While it might be unfair to compare the brawn of military officers to that of septuagenarian activists, I fear this was a test of brains, and the space cadets came out on top.
The AFA had announced that President Bush was expected at 9am. His motorcade not having turned up by then prompted diverse deductions: he might have sneaked through another entrance, he might have choppered in, or he might have been called away to emergency affairs of state. Activists might also have become discouraged by the diminishing flow of cars into the event. A lack of passersby is the surest way to take the wind out of a protester’s banner. But the number of incoming having petered to nil would have been the giveaway to Bush’s impending arrival.
A presidential motorcade along an interstate has few escape routes, and so cannot begin before all vehicles have been cleared from its course. Escorts block all on-ramps over 30 minutes before to ensure the procession will encounter nothing to threaten its pace. That the AFA gates were advertised as open to attendees until 9:30am puts to lie the suggestion that Bush was expected by nine. The path would not have been unencumbered until the later time. Indeed police did not begin emptying the interstate until after nine. The motorcade sped into the North Gate by 9:45. Bush was not due to speak until eleven.
Did the protesters lose heart and/or heat? I think what the participants forfeited was thinking for themselves. Through the PPJPC, activists let the AFA relegate demonstrations to the minimally visible North Gate, and they let the AFA misinform them about Bush’s ETA. Compound this to the lukewarm organizing effort and contradictory announcements of the action plans. It’s hard to see how the J&P could have done worse if they’d tried. Low turnout, TV interviews of unprepared interviewees, and the rag-tag bunch ultimately offering the Gazette a pithy swipe at their capitulated spirit.
These are otherwise very determined activists. Usually their self-sacrifice does not include their very mission.
Here’s the full text:
AFA graduation notebook
May 28, 2008 – 5:15PM
By BILL REED and LANCE BENZEL
THE GAZETTEProtesters miss late-arriving Bush
Air Force Academy cadets apparently are made of sterner stuff than anti-war protesters.
While the cadets and their families sat through the early morning fog and drizzle, anti-war protesters left rather than wait for a late-arriving President Bush.
By the time Bush, whose motorcade was behind schedule, passed through the North Gate, a solitary protester – carrying a sign reading, “War is not the answer” and flashing a peace symbol – was all that remained of a band of 20 people who planned to greet the president.
The rest cleared out amid slate-gray skies before the president pulled past the gate at 9:45 p.m., 45 minutes after his scheduled arrival.
South of the academy, five other protesters stood on a hillside overlooking Interstate 25 near the Fillmore exit and unfurled a cryptic message.
Their 50-foot long banner read, “Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin,” an Aramaic phrase meaning, “It has been counted and counted, weighed and divided.”
The biblical figure Daniel interpreted the so-called “writing on the wall” as a judgment against the king Belshazaar, determining that his acts had been weighed and found deficient and that his kingdom would be divided.
“We wanted to speak to him in a language he purports to listen to, which is the Bible,” said Eric Verlo. “It was a great location for the motorcade to see us.”
A couple years ago some Colorado Springs activist organizations had a chance to host a public screening of a documentary about Judi Bari and her posthumus court victory against the FBI. It turned out the Feds had planted the bomb with which they tried to discredit her, and kill her too. Judi recovered but died of cancer before she could hear a jury award 4.4 million dollars for the FBI’s trying to rob her and the Earth First movement of their First Amendment voice.
Well, the locals activists hadn’t yet seen the documentary, or hadn’t understood the headlines, and so remembered Judi according to the FBI’s slander. The locals thought Judi Bari might be a poor example for nonviolence advocates and they all but scuttled the event.
Utah Phillips recalls driving with Judi Bari the day before the bomb struck, and recounts this advice she offered him about why she believed in nonviolence.
Judi Bari on nonviolence, as told to Utah Phillips
Talking about the non-violence,
Judy Barry said: The man,
and I mean THE MAN,
can escalate the violence
from a cop on the beat with a handgun
all the way up to a hydrogen bomb
and everything in between.
He’s always saying “come up that road,
come up that road of armed struggle
because I own that road.
Come up that road and it’ll kill you.”We don’t use that road. She said
You got to take a road he doesn’t own,
a road he doesn’t know anything about,
that road of non-violence, of nonviolent direct action.Nonviolence is not a tactic, it’s not a strategy,
it is a way of life, it is a practical, practical necessity.
Beware Raytheon!, Third Friday in April, Colorado Springs.
Third Friday of May, Raytheon, Colorado Springs.
The vote is in, we send George Hutton packing. But not without a good eulogy.
Colonel George, as we liked to chide him, was known to the local peace community as a regular attendee, who usually near the end of a meeting stood up to tell us all we were wrong, and misguided, and a disgrace, we were giving aid and comfort to the enemy, etc, then he’d sit down. After long he didn’t need to say anything because his scorn, if ever soft spoken, hung over every discussion.
I recommended uninviting Mr. Hutton from the PPJPC (the planning sessions of all things!) and returning his membership fee for the benefit of un-muddling our energies, but well intended pious Netties lobbied to keep the door open, hoping someday he’d see the light. They didn’t see how their faith in George’s salvation was meanwhile sabotaging our otherwise elevated team spirit.
At a protest, I saw George, participating with us in his uniform, step toward the TV cameras and volunteer for an interview. Then, instead of speaking for us, he spoke against our pacifist message and characterized us as throwback hippie loons.
On another occasion, I saw George reduce a very gentle-hearted peace activist to tears with his spite toward anyone who would so insult the boys in uniform. Many of us tried to engage George, thinking his persistence at our events betrayed a guilty conscience about what he did in Vietnam, but George never did blink from his icy disapproving stare.
When online discussion on the PPJPC website commenced in earnest, George eventually stumbled across it and began spamming the comments with his passive aggressive vitriol. This resulted in indignant exchanges and led the goodness-gracious Nellies of the organization to ponder whether we needed such an uncivil thing as a blog forum at all. Sooner than have the disagreement-averse older crew scuttle the project I advocated banning George Hutton from the blog and we did.
But George petitioned and bent every ear, and now the PPJPC staff has overruled the board and so the pernicious troll returned. For some odd reason however, Major Hutton took the decision to mean he was sanctioned to comment on Not My Tribe too. At first I thought it best to draw his fire here, sooner than at the nascent J&P site. To his credit, despite his boorish admonitions about our “neg vibes,” George prompted wonderfully heated rebuttals. Until we became simply bothered.
Tony has stated the case plainly enough. Paid or not, George’s mission was to defend American Imperialism, re-justify Vietnam, and disrupt any antiwar talk. And frankly, he was doing quite well. Look at me, I’ve been lured into writing him a God-damned send-off!
George, this is not about Freedom of Speech. No one is entitled to disrupt the speech of others for the sake of his own. What you are doing is simply interference jamming. That’s not protected expression. You’re not interested in discussion, only keeping your opponent covered. Go find your own soapbox. Send us a link. If you make it interesting, we might check in on you.
No eulogy would be complete without a tribute. Here I excerpt George Hutton in his own nutshell:
Just so you know I had a TS, NATO, CRYPTO, ATOMIC, NSA-SI clearance. So know a bit. Was in the ASA too.
I was in the Army & Texas Guard.
I was in the Rangers (airborn) too. 3 full tours too. From 1964 – 66 & 70-71.
As for the trip to Cambodia, I was there. It failed due to comminist within the South Viet-nam military.
I went to OCS after 20 years as an enlistedman. Was E1 to E7 & O2 & finished as O4 with my military service. Skipped 2LT as I was #2 in my class. Was a NCO most of my service so I know about &*&%$# Officers too.
I did 2/3 of my time “in the field” traing Turkish & Greek military folk to advisor in Viet nam. So, do try to understand me, been there – done that.
What pearls of wisdom did Mr. Hutton offer NMT? How about this chestnut about the Greek isle of Lesbos (Lesbos is the origin of the word “lesbian,” having been home to the ancient poet Sappho who wrote about love between women.) But in George’s account:
Having been stationed in Turkey & going to Greece & islands the rumer is these folks did not like males very much. Ran the island & used the males then killed them keeping girl babies to keep the island going. Just bit of history.
Bye George.
We will all miss Elizabeth. Despite the press, the city government , and The Gazette all dragging her name through the mud last year, me and my family will miss Elizabeth because she was a loving person who gave a lot of herself for, and to, others. This was the real Elizabeth, and not the fake ‘antiwar dissident’ that the killers amongst us wanted to be portrayed to the public.
The sad truth about Elizabeth’s last days amongst us, was that she ran a foul of our pathetic US Medical System, which quite frankly killed her with its negligent and defective ‘care’ as it does millions of other older people. Like Elizabeth, these elderly that this business kills, are our friends, neighbors, and family. It makes one weep that we have to endure such a destruction of life and spirit at this sad and reactionary moment in our country’s history.
Elizabeth knew what the world was about. She, earlier in life, had been a rather conservative though nominally liberal woman cruising through life. But somewhere, she began to question what she was seeing and living, and became a true American ‘dissident’.
She hated the racism she saw around her when she was a teacher and resident in Chicago. She hated the endless and stupid wars that our government pushes with a passion. She grew to despise the American Medical System’s uncaring and thoughtless approach to the sick and aging. She grew to want a fundamental change to the society that she had had to live with all her life, and she began to work with others constantly to see that things might begin to change.
Elizabeth was always welcome in our home, and she always welcomed us to hers. We knew her as one easily to anger, but one who was just as easy to forget and forgive. In fact, she was more likely to forgive others for their differences and bad habits than she was ever likely to bear an unnecessary grudge. That was the Elizabeth we knew and grew to love. We knew a loving and kind Elizabeth. We knew an Elizabeth who cared deeply about others.
Thank you, Elizabeth, for your gifts to my daughter, who began to think of you as her adopted grandmother. In fact, you were just exactly that. And thank you for making the peace dog welcome always. This dog loved you, too. Yeah, she did. Ruf, ruf.
I remember the time when we went up to Palmer Park and I was poo-pooing your concern for this highly trained (yeah, right!) dog who was leaning out the open window. I was paying your words no attention as I rambled on about some other esoteric and stupid political point. Then lo-and-behold, Ms. Beastley did jump out of the window of our moving car and rolled over entirely once or twice after hitting the ground, then looked up stupidly at us, and then promptly proceeded to run after the squirrel! I will remember that moment between us for a lifetime, Elizabeth. You always saw what others refused to see.
My daughter will remember you for the doll you gave her, the one that has a striking likeness to you. She cherishes that doll that you so kindly gave to her. My daughter cried with the news of your death, and we are so glad that we visited you at least one more last time before you passed away so suddenly. My daughter was ready to try to get you to play a game of Risk with her. She knew you would be a good one to try to keep her from taking over the world.
At that last visit, I tried to cheer you up by saying how good you looked upon just then having escaped from the hospitals that had held you. However, you had this way of looking through others superficial chit-chat and reading the real truth in their minds. I saw it in your eyes then. I saw the despair on your face about what had been done to you by the surgeon, but by the time I realized what had been seen in your face I was already in the car.
My only regret is that I did not return to inside your apartment and give you the big hug that you needed right then, even if it was to be a hug given right in front of your other 2 friends who were with you at the moment. I thought to myself, aw… you need the rest and less people around at this time, more than the hug. I was wrong once again.
Elizabeth, we will miss you. You were a good friend, and you talked the talk, and walked the walk. You were kind and had a heart of gold most of all. They tried to tear you down, but they never did, and that spirit is what we most will remember always about you. That, and the love you gave others. You made an impact on all our lives and without you around, we will find a big void.
If there is a heaven, I have no doubt that you have already spoken to Jesus and have begun to argue politics with him right as I write. Give him Hell, Elizabeth! Somebody needs to hold him and his dad accountable, and you are the one with the spirit to do it, too.
Our love…
Some pictures of Elizabeth Fineron in action.
Not only is America fighting illegal wars oversees, Elizabeth pointed out that our country had declared war on its own people, by declining to provide them with health care.
Here Elizabeth brings that message to a protest on Academy Boulevard.
Will someone tell Elizabeth about her sign?
Not yet.
Elizabeth gets it right for a RADIO interview.
KRCC’s Western Skies interviews the grandest dames of the local peace effort: Pat, Elizabeth, Phyllis and youngster Harriet the Peace Dog.
And Layla.
Dear friend and peace cohort Elizabeth Fineron has died. She was found this morning in her apartment. Elizabeth had been suffering complications from recent surgeries and was released from the hospital Monday. Arrangement details to follow.
This is my favorite photograph of Elizabeth, in the aftermath of the 2007 St Patricks Day Parade ordeal. But obviously I like that it shows her steely determination. I’ll be posting more of her near-always smile.
COLORADO SPRINGS- Johann of First Affirmative Financial Network, asked me to relate my experience at the now notorious PPJPC meet-up to discuss Economic Sustainability. Though Tony wasn’t able to attend, he’s initiated a debate here: is there such a thing as “economic sustainability?” Since I was there, perhaps I could elucidate, because I believe I heard the answer.
I was quite impressed by the questions brought to the event by the audience, who proved to be no shrinking violets. The interests ranged from some who wanted to indict the Fed, to those who questioned economic growth as being sustainable. The housing market for example is predicated on real estate increasing in value. Must it? Should it? Can it? Successful investing is inherently about your investment growing, otherwise you are losing money. Can investment be done without growth? When posed this question, our intrepid investment-biz guest braved an answer: “I don’t know.”
I supposed as much, hence my initial skepticism about the subject of the talk. But I expected to hear about options, not to hear my foregone conclusion foreclosed. What then does FAFN, our fellow sustainability boosters, have to offer? It turns out it is the usual green investing. Working Assets was so 90s, “sustainability” is the eco catch-phrase of the new millennium. It’s still about the 3Es, as Johann told us they say in the greening biz, or the 3Ps: people, planet and profit.
Johann’s employer’s concrete claim to “sustainability” was a novel certification of a green office remodel. No small task, although the pitch from Johann is that it requires a surprisingly small expenditure. So, small task. And FAFN is all about giving recognition for setting a good example. Here’s how this works in their business model: Chiefly their portfolio is comprised of only green stocks, plus stocks you might want to encourage to be green. General Motors is decidedly not green, but you could recommend them as an incentive for GM to show some eco-thinking. That’s an actual example from our discussion. I’m hoping if Monsanto issued a press release that they would be recycling their break-room Dixie cups, our sustainability cheerleaders wouldn’t jump tp award the bold step with a buy recommendation.
I came to the PPJC meeting with an even more hardcore question. How can someone who makes a living from the interest earned on money, consider themselves sustainable? Our guest’s response was “there certainly are plenty of us around.” But is that an answer? Economically sustainable, yes. Environmentally? Hardly. I believe that is the crux of what Tony raises as a paradox.
Charging interest for the loan of money has presented an age-old moral dilemma. The function of money was to facilitate barter, as one good or service was exchanged for another. Religious thinkers have most often concluded that a person should not profiteer from the exchange of money itself, adding as they have, no value to the equation. Jesus was certainly against it. Although Johann interpreted “go forth and multiply” to mean you should multiply your money.
Whether it’s moral or not, how can money lending be environmentally sustainable? If you are producing no good or rendering no labor, what should you be taking out of the system for your consumption? Can a negative-contribution be sustainable?
When I first moved to UCLA, and saw the mass of wealth built around the west side of Los Angeles, the opulence seemed to me built on an intangible cloud of finance. I wondered what kind of bank vacuum lay behind the scene, sucking from the natural and human resources of the world to sustain the decadence beyond imagination of LA’s suburbs, foothills and ridge-tops. I concluded something then. The arbitrary financial arrangements, probably no more legitimate than royal lineage, or less usurious than a loan shark, were the only grip the owners had on the victims of their exploitation. Short of militarized enforcement, it would become tenuous at best, and certainly will not be sustainable, economic or otherwise.
Reprinted from vol 30, no 2
Active For Justice:
As one on the receiving end of a rather abrupt truncation of free expression in last year’s St. Patrick’s Day parade, and having participated this year with a toned-down message calculated to least offend, I don’t offer healthy prospects for Freedom of Speech as this nation progresses forward.
Even as the populace gets excited about a potential Obama victory, the candidate himself has been aligning with the disasterous policies of the current administration. Indeed Barack Obama has voted with Bush thus far. I predict therefore that voices for social justice will still feel the call to protest, and likewise the government’s need to silence dissent will continue.
More and more headlines tell of Americans deprived of their voice. Most recently a man was denied entry to a shopping mall on account of his t-shirt, despite courts deciding people have that right. Such indignant citizens are regularly arrested and detained, to be released without filing charges. The pattern has become to keep activists from public view until after whatever they are protesting has passed. Municipalities weigh the risk of incurring civil suits against the imperative to obfuscate criticism.
The PPJPC will have an interesting opportunity to test its members’ First Amendment protection with the 2008 Democratic State Convention coming to Colorado Springs. This will be no mere protest of a visiting dignitary, nor a picketing of a military facility. The convention will bring thousands of delegates together to the World Arena on May 16 and 17, where they will formalize the platform for their state party. The delegates will be skirting a panoply of issues, all of them relevant to the populace outside, many dear to us. Social justice groups from all over will be well served to take this opportunity to communicate with these delegates on the sidewalks and in front of TV cameras.
Citizens expect the Democratic Party to be more responsive to their constituents than Republicans, but the Democrats certainly haven’t
shown it. The state convention will be exactly the place to address such representative responsibility loud and clear.
The Colorado Springs city manager and CSPD have already begun expressing what they’d like to see, or not see, by way of public
demonstrations. They approve of the minimal turnout for the Bush protest of 2005, where activists were kept to Venetucci Boulevard. The
city is offering to host a forum to listen to public opinion while the convention continues without interruption. As yet there has been no
public mention of restrictions.
The World Arena sits on land stewarded by the El Pomar Foundation. Certainly the facility was built with participation from the city. The
street which connects Cheyenne Meadows Drive to Frontage Road, though it is marked “private,” has city curbs, signs and culverts. Whether the grounds are public or private could bear to be challenged in court. But as trends go, the police could feel safe in designating Free Speech Zones at certain areas of the grounds.
We don’t have to push it that far. The World Arena parking area is surrounded by several well situated public egresses from which to
demonstrate a message. We can choose to be seen by cars entering and exiting, or by pedestrians walking to and from their nearby hotel accommodations. There are places to hand out fliers and places visible to the convention doors. There is even a location prominent to where a national candidate, or two, could arrive, if the party deems it strategic to make a show for the Colorado delegates.
Efforts are underway to coordinate activist groups from Denver and Boulder to join us, to push the convention goers toward more
progressive, and in our case, moral ideals. This should prove a good measure of what Coloradans retain of their Freedom of Speech, and will be a good exercise for refining a message if we choose to participate in Denver demonstrations planned by our national colleagues at the Democratic National Convention this August.
peter sprunger-froese writes: Comrades. . .
Without belittling the positives of our parade experience, Saturday’s potluck discussion of it suggests to me we are in danger of overlooking important negatives. Irony beckons us to see at best a “mixed bag” in our part of the parade. Otherwise our own learning stops and history becomes meaningless. Details aside, over-arching and most troubling in my mind was the presence of the “Honor the troops…” banner on each side of the bus. Not wanting to be an individualistic sourpuss on our group, i continued to walk, yet how tempting it was to exit. As soon as i saw the banner i knew our peace message would be as non-controversial and without substance as that of the billions in this world who imagine peace and national primary loyalties can stand side by side.
That says not merely that everybody is for peace, including every tyrant there is or ever was. Logically –because of the nature of any provincialistic loyalty– that is also to say it is somehow valid to have peace on our terms, even at the expense of someone else’s life. In the U.S. this patriotic mindset has reached proportions far exceeding all other countries precisely because of its empire status. It has become the equivalent of narcissistic adolescents desperately scampering for an identity by comparing each other, using the familiar”I’m better than you” game. The near-sacrosanct role that U.S. national documents often play for us is but one example of this self-righteous comparing syndrome. Whatever their relative value, these documents’ inherently non-universal character and focus continue to be a severe blinding force for even the progressive segment of the U.S. public.
Yes, i know people’s typical reaction to this: peace is a stepping stone process; we must begin where people are at so as to avoid being offensive; therefore leave national symbolism intact. My immediate question to this liberalism, as applied to Saturday is, at what point does the quest for mainstream respectability contradict our message? Look, eg, at the word “Honor” on our banner. Core to its meaning in Saturday’s context was that we endorse, support and give moral approval to the troops’ behavior! So i ask, did we forget that troops are human, that regardless of how extensive the “economic draft” is, they are choice-capable human beings? They are fully capable of and responsible for applying moral scrutiny to the question of signing up for Uncle Sam. If we believe there are options –with our assistance as the public– for our “lazy bum” friends to get jobs and contribute to society, the same perspective surely applies to those considering the military. The question then becomes, why didn’t the banner instead say something true to who i believe we are: “Support the troops who dissent;” “Ware is never the answer;” “Convert the troops to non-violence;” or –in line with the primacy of world citizenship that the peace position inherently requires– “Stop the genocide of our Iraqi sisters and brothers.” You obviously could come up with more and better messages.
Correct me if i’m wrong… I think we were so “caught off guard” in being asked by officialdom to be in the parade this year that we quite forgot to discriminate between patriotic peace and universal, or true peace. The patriotic peace on our banner represents the always fictional “peace through violence!” It’s the Constantinian, Brady Boyd type of peace at the New Life Church that relies ultimately on violent security guards to “protect” their congregation. It’s the kind of peace that gains our mayor’s and the rest of officialdom’s approval. At last year’s press conference we stood up to this mindset. We declared that neither the Justice and Peace Commission (J&P) nor the Bookman broke any parade rules –nor intended to– and that the parade in fact contained myriad other social issues besides ours. This year, once we learned social issues would be accepted, we apparently became so compliant with parade organizers and the police as to seem apologetic for last year and for our non-patriotic peace stance.
First, we apparently forgot the injustice behind the Bookman’s not being invited, but only the J&P, to participate in the parade. The Bookman was as much maligned by the public and by officialdom last year as was the J&P. The matter, i assume, could have been easily settled with an upfront meeting of the permit issuers and representatives of our two entries.
Second, somehow –whether through the courtroom of a largely conservative public opinion and/or through officialdom’s court– we got derailed from our earlier sense of injustice by the police at last year’s parade. Meetings with them seem not to have reminded them that their professional ethics contain no valid reason or circumstance whatsoever that could justify their behavior –whether in the treatment of six of our parade friends, or more generally of our many mentally ill, often obstreperous and inebriated friends.
To prevent potential misunderstanding here, let me footnote, i am not necessarily expecting an official apology (tho perhaps City Councilman Larry Small did?) i assume –with probably most of you– that officialdom’s invitation for at least the J&P to participate in the parade, was an “olive branch,” an oblique, face-saving attempt to apologize and “make peace” with us. In the same way Mayor Rivera’s informally greeting us on Saturday can possibly be understood as a closeted apology for his claim last year that the police acted appropriately. We know that apologies, especially among leaders of countries, systems, traditions and ideologies are quite in vogue today. They generally follow delay, the usual fate of inconvenient truths (whenever outright concealment or else “psychological distancing” is impossible). That is, they mostly emerge when wrongs are already publicly abhorred and impossible to avoid.
In our case, whether or not to give local officialdom the “apologetic benefit of the doubt” at this point is discussable, in my opinion, as long as it does not amount simply to an atrophied “wishing the problem away” on our part. More critical in the long run, I believe, is that our nonviolent witness keep the human concern before the system. Partly that means, i believe, for us to promote accountability, that which comes not through coercion tactics, but through forthright truth-telling, remembering and forgiving. It is a step against the system’s domination, impersonalization, and patriotic self-righteousness. i can well imagine, with such violent persistence, that individuals –eg, police officer Paladino– can, just like anybody else in this world, come forth voluntarily to apologize, receive forgiveness from us, recognize the error of his and the system’s ways, and even begin working for either improved systemic change or else to withdraw from policing employment out of reasons of an enlarged conscience.
Meanwhile, none of this dare demure the fact that empires can’t be humble. Whether old or current, the are remarkably callous in the exercising of their power, and equally paranoid about any challenges to it. We probably all recall, almost fatuously were it not so real and sad, when a recent debate ran in the local Independent about a system possibly requiring police officers to wear patriotic yellow ribbons on their cruisers. (Whatever sliver remains of the First Amendment today actually ended that controversy in our favor.) I say this just to reinforce how deeply the imperial monster is tied also to the police office. Behind their facade of being servants to the public and “interested in working more with local groups,” the officers in fact are and must be declared our natural adversaries. Why? Their vows of commitment are to a value-system in which violence is the only trusted bottom line of effective problem solving (the myth of redemptive violence). The officers are required to be spies ad control-freaks for the empire. i’ve heard they’ve already asked what the J&P has “up its sleeve” for the Democratic Convention in Denver in August.
If we fail to identify the police officers as first representing a violent system, we will get snared by a “wold in sheep’s clothing.” In that subtle trap we’ll then get enticed to volunteer information to them and even request their permission for our planned protests. The net effect becomes a nearly unconscious Faustian pact on our part with what our “Honor the troops” banner symbolizes: a violence-driven peace commitment unable to discriminate between police and soldiers as individuals versus their role as robotic capitulators to a system we inherently oppose.
The nonviolent alternative we try to be and teach is troubling to this system. Partly that is because our analysis of it runs far beyond that offered by its administration or the myopia of partisan politics. More specifically, the system considers violence and control pivotal to its existence. Hence we are perceived as a type of loose cannon. That is because, contrary to our banner’s message, we don’t even believe in their system; the spirit of nonviolence defies any ultimate control mechanisms and seeks no security in any such systems as long as they are limited, flawed and made unreliable by their violence. Part of the consequence of this counter-position, from the system’s standpoint, as we noted, is the latter’s embarrassing difficulty projecting an apology to a group like ours. For ourselves, an obvious consequence of our position is that we must expect ostracism –not ontologically but sociologically. That means for us not withdrawal but ongoing critical engagement of the system, yet without ever expecting respectability for it. Kindred spirits from yesteryear have taught us the viability of such a road because deep convictions, when sincerely owned, have a way of preservation and growth not dependent on popular palatability.
With this in mind, it concerns me less (if I heard correctly), that some “Pied Piper” pressure probably underlay the presence of the two patriotic banners on the bus. Much more of a concern is how it happened. Not aware how the planning meetings somehow came to accept this (my apology for having been able to attend only one), i ask now: Was it a vote that decided our banners? Was it timidity on the part of some people at the meetings who i;m sure would have raised my concern too? Was it an inadvertent over-ruling of a dissenting perspective? Was it “ideological sloppiness” resulting from the weight of logistical detail in our parade preparation process? Was it insufficient overlap of meeting attenders? Was it the sway of postmodernism’s “diversity and tolerance” absolutism? Was it bits and pieces of all of the above?
If those banners were somehow the unintended conclusion of the meetings, let’s find ways to improve our collective thinking and planning. If they were intended, then i must at least cast my contrary vote now, belatedly: whether we come to our peace stance from a secular or religious grounding, i can se any and all construals of patriotic peace only as fundamentally contradictory. The non-negotiable first premise of peace –in both the educational and action components of the J&P– is surely the well-being of all human beings as equal agents of life on this beautiful, needy planet. Anything less mires us into a provincial loyalty, a tribalism. i implore us to disown this civil religion because its commitment –as our banners symbolized to the mainstream (part of who we seek to communicate with)– is an unambiguous loyalty first to nation state. Overall, the banner controversy reminds us that we are unavoidably all creatures of language. Therefore, according to my complaint here, attaching anything other than universalist-connoting words and symbolism to the peace message is not only its dilution but its negation; it’s to say the call and respect of the status quo is priority. i know we know ad can do better.
Is promoting the First Affirmative Financial Network actually promoting real ‘economic sustainability’? The reason I ask this, is that tonight the Justice and Peace group here in Colorado Springs is hosting the message of this FAFN group in the PPJPC offices downtown. The host (a paid PPJPC office staff member) is somebody that keeps pushing something he calls ‘sustainability, but has never defined what he means by this.
It seems now, that his idea of economic sustainability is having and/ or pushing a stock investment portfolio in so-called ‘green’ companies. Read The Gazette about this outfit Certified green
Yes, Yes. The Gazette is certainly a great champion of environmental causes, right? This color green keeps coming up with the PPJPC, does it not? So now it arises that the PPJPC is championing ‘green investment’ as the idea of how capitalism can solve earth’s problems. Wow! It’s great to have common cause with The Gazette on this one, for sure. That is sarcasm now.
The point is that there is a big difference between championing the environment and the championing the green washing of a certain sector of the corporate world. That is what the First Affirmative Financial Network is more about than anything else, but is the world going to be saved by pushing for people to make nicer investments? That is a totally doubtful idea, and is a simplistic strategy to help save the environment for future generations.
Is the Justice and Peace Commission to be nothing more than green-washing huggers for the city, the military, and a certain sector of the corporate world? I hope not, but that seems to be the direction that some in the PPJPC want to push the group, while keeping out real discussion about what saving the environment for future generations would actually entail.
Around the world, activist organizations are uniting in steadfast protest of war without end. Beneath Big Ben a Stop The War Coalition demonstration decries OUT OF IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN. Other signs feature a peace sign in relief over TROOPS OUT OF IRAQ. What direct and unapologetic exclamations. What concise and dramatic graphics.
Some people in Colorado Springs express surprise that locals are bypassing the Justice & Peace Commission to take up the cause. In the absence of an organized PPJPC event to commemorate the 5th anniversary, newcomer Roots To Power planned the interfaith peace witness at CC’s Shove Chapel.
The argument has been put strongly and with sufficient documentation that my friend Tony is divisive. And I’ll be the first to agree.
I would also add that even an organization whose tenets are cohesion, consensus and agreement, needs stimulus.
You need divisiveness when you want expansive discussions of controversial matters. How else do you spark innovative thinking but by asking the unorthodox questions? In a meeting meant to galvanize resolve, I prefer truth to soft-pedaling, although like anyone, I’m more comfortable with the latter.
If you think Tony is a contrarian, naysayer, or malcontent, I’d say you are likely on the wrong side of the fence. Even as you might protest you are sitting evenly on the fence, that’s wrong side enough, for you are sitting. Argument can be tedious, agreed, and seems unnecessary when a group is otherwise of one mind. But if that mind is complacent, or befuddled, or misguided, what better thing is there to do but mix it up?
Somebody’s got to be divisive when it comes to sorting wheat from chaff. It may seem horribly un-idealistic to separate when we aspire to unite, but is there room for everyone at the table if the table is a political agenda that requires effort and temerity? I’ll assert there is not. If the average disposition is inclined away from audacity or resolve, why lead it to water?
Everyone follows their own drummer, but if the march is on, those who hear a slower drummer have to be spun unto a side street to let the movement past.
How many times must well-intentioned pacifists debate the Darfur intervention issue? The Genocide Intervention Network is a creation of the Israeli lobby to push for Western colonial intervention in Africa. On the GIN website, they’ve expanded their “areas of concern” to include Iraq and Ceylon, but the adjustment amounts to lip service considering they advocate no action but Darfur.
The GIN actually stands in the way of antiwar movement. Iraq is named as an area of concern, due, it’s explained, to the region’s susceptibility to sectarian violence. The inference is that a continued US occupation of Iraq is the only responsible option.
The GIN curiously will not take issue with ethnic cleansing AGAINST Arabs or Muslims, in Palestine, Indonesia, Chechnya, Afghanistan or the Philippines. And though the GIN presumes to be global, it doesn’t express any concern for genocidal policies against indigenous peoples in the Americas. In fact, the GIN is uncritical of all US and Israeli policy except where Western intervention is deemed insufficient.
As has already been mentioned, the executive director of GIN is visiting Colorado Springs, beating what kind of drums, you’ll have to decide. The PPJPC is being asked to join the event’s supporters, on the basis that the NAACP is on board. It is true that the NAACP’s mission is shared by those interested in social justice. But where the NAACP might stray, people against war and imperialism needn’t.
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Reprinted from PPJPC.ORG: These little peace flags were such a hit at the parade. And they came together without too much fuss. This being an election year, perhaps others will be seeking to make these affordable 6 x 7 inch flags on 12 inch dowels. You’ll need one yard of fabric for every 36 flags. Dowels of 3/16 inch diameter come 20 to a bag. You’ll expend one glue stick for every 10 flags. |
For equipment, you need an inexpensive glue gun and a quilter’s fabric cutting ensemble which includes the standard 18in x 24in cutting mat, 6in x 24in acrylic ruler, and 45mm rotary cutter. This method of cutting the material will prove indispensable. I’m not kidding. At every cut, you’ll be unable to contain yourself from audibly expressing how easy it is.
If you plan to print an image on your flags, the silk screen process will be far and away the cheapest. In such case, a common screen used for t-shirts will accommodate 4-up, aligned horizontally. This means you’ll get four flags per screen pull. Take note that the heat-drying process used in silk screening will require that you choose a predominantly COTTON fabric.
For the silk-screening, you’ll need first to cut your fabric into 12in x 14.6in panels. This can be done in TWO CUTS. Take the material you’ve purchased, leave it folded as it came off the bolt. For the uninitiated, a fabric yard represents 36in by 44in which folded in half means a 22in length. Using the cutting mat to measure the fabric, cut a 12 inch strip. This will produce a 12in x 44in piece. Leaving it doubled over, make the second cut at 14.6in which effectively divides it into 3 equal pieces.
Repeat until you’ve got a tidy pile of near-squares ready for printing. You may find it much easier to cut all the strips first, then make the dividing cuts.
You’ll note that as a result, 2/3 of your panels will have a factory hem on one side. Since you’ve no intention of hemming these flags, it will be of interest to exploit that single protected edge to forestall fraying. Sort your panels so that the factory edge is on the same side in the pile. Again you can keep this in mind right after you’ve cut the panels. This is explained out of order in the interest of clarity. You’re doing this to be helpful for when the printer handles the panels.
The printer will want to set the screen to offset the image to the right of the center, to allow for the fabric needed to wrap around the stick. This calculation will have to be made when you create your printed image. Since the stick will be glued to one side of the flag, it will be best to position the factory hem on the opposite side to achieve the maximum benefit, thus, the right side.
Once the panels are printed, you can cut them into individual flags. This will require another TWO CUTS, and this time you can cut them four panels at a time, depending on the sharpness of your blade. Just make sure your panels are all oriented the same direction, then cut them into equal quarters.
Next, with the printed image facing down, apply a bead of hot glue in a strip 1.5 inches inside the post edge, you can do this with two squeezes of the gun, then apply a third squeeze in a squiggly line between your first bead and the edge.
Quickly place the wood dowel against the middle of the squiggly glue and rotate it such that it draws the edge of the material up and around the dowel to meet the thick line of glue. Press the fabric together for a couple seconds to feel the glue making contact. You’re done.
Cost per flag: At $2.99/yard, fabric for each flag costs 8¢. Dowels were 5¢ each. Figure the glue at 2¢ per flag. Depending on your printing costs, probably you can calculate each impression to cost 25¢. Which means, not counting your labor, the flags cost $0.40 a piece. If you are thinking to make several thousand, perhaps this cost still appears prohibitive. But imagine you’ll end up with a very finished looking product which your recipients will take home as keepsakes.
What they didn’t want you to see last year… no thrown bottles, no jeers, but crowds cheering for peace! Channel 11 reported “their message was still not received well by everyone” but interviewed only a single detractor who asserted that we weren’t supporting the troops. One out of thousands of friendly waving peace signs. A statistical lie.
Other coverage from KRDO-13, KVOA5/30 and Fox21 was more even handed. The peace message came from others like Kat Tudor with the Smokebrush toaster and its peace toast:
And perhaps a new voice, now that the parade allows social messages:
Here’s the usual advanced notice: JOIN US TOMORROW AT THE 2008 StPATRICK’S DAY PARADE! The Justice & Peace will be staging at Monument between Tejon and Cascade, anticipating no trouble. Gathering at 11am, parade starts at noon, probably we’ll be setting off about 1pm. PEACE NOW. We’re slated to march 87th in the procession, several units behind the inflatable marine. Now that social issues ARE allowed, neither the junior soldiers nor Hooters are on the roster this year.
Apparently the music at Give Peace a Dance was terrible -in the opinion of those over 50 who excused themselves early because they thought the noise was deafening and/or cacophonous. Had the PPJPC targeted the dance to younger people, I’m sure critical reviews would have been favorable.
Outreach to community subgroups different from your own, might by definition, require stepping outside your comfort zone. Catering to youth might mean a buffet at odds with your palate. So what? Don’t go. But if you admit the need to embrace age diversity into your organization, perhaps you have to tolerate some of their ways.
Likewise if you’re thinking to reach out to “the internets,” there’s a chance the language and discourse of that world might be too coarse for your sensibilities. Send internet emissaries to do your courting. That’s the principle behind ambassadors. Send someone who can speak to the natives. Don’t venture where you might be fainthearted.
Courting diversity and different strokes is paramount to building a broader community consensus. It may be a compromise of your particular taste, and it may feel like one hell of a compromise, but it shouldn’t mean compromising your fundamental principles.
Covering your ears to bear the discord is a far cry from disparaging your own ideals in order to ingratiate yourself with potential recruits. I’d sooner speak in another language to reach people foreign to my cause, than speak English but repudiate my origins in order to find agreement with erstwhile opponents.
There might be something honorable in cozying up to your enemy to show them you are flesh and blood like them. If they agree with you on one thing, perhaps they will become acclimatized to consider another. It’s a fitting long term goal, but in the meantime, what? Do you grab knives and partake in the crimes you are against?
The PPJPC has a group of members interested in the cause of sustainability. Our opponent, the war machine, has a PR department that has glommed unto “sustainability.” On one side you could call that green-washing the business of death and destruction. Neither death, nor destruction being sustainable. On the other side of the argument, you could say that the mother of all budgets being splurged on promoting sustainability cannot but help. Both sides can be true.
So death might be portrayed as fertilizing the soil for new life. Feeding the cycle of life, TM Disney. Do we no longer hold sacred the sanctity of each life span individuated from the cycles?
Killing is wrong, no matter how much fertilizer you are able to make. Reaching across to the sustainability crowd, by minimizing anti-war ideals as merely differences of opinion, is to compromise not just taste, but substance.
Once upon a time the PPJPC met in an old firehouse. Coincidence.
I’m thinking about a little fire department, getting along just fine, no major fires to deal with, and community support ebbing for lack of concern about fires. The firehouse has to organize bake sales and fundraisers to keep itself going, and before long they get pretty focused on bake sales. And then there’s a fire.
You might think that everyone would agree you call firemen in the case of fire, except for the fire department staff which had situated itself best for baking cookies and raising money. They don’t have the constitution for fighting fires, and so it becomes up to the volunteers to assemble themselves for the task. They undertake the work, trying not to resent the paid firemen now cookie sellers. But the fund-raising activities are now so well-oiled that they can’t spare their buckets for the brigade, nor their water for the fire. And some complain about the firefighters’ boots getting the floors too muddy, or the wet coats making others wet. And there’s even grumbling about the amateurish performance of the firefighting, worrying that it will impact negatively on cookie sales.
Of course another adverse impact on cookie sales, has to do with the people who originally supported the fund-raiser. The volunteers now manning the hoses are the people who would be the regular bake sale patrons, but have come to see that the fireman funds no longer go toward the firefighting.
And then there are the ideological divides, about how fires must be fought or not fought. Directly, or metaphorically, arguing between applying fighting and non-fighting skills. Some believing that you can fight the core of what causes fires, by holding bake sales. There is something undeniably hopeful about the idea that everyone can come together over a plate of homemade cookies.
Of course we can argue all day about the conspiratorial theory that some fires are set deliberately, or that similar elements find it beneficial to cultivate a culture which glamorizes fires, accepts them as inevitable, or at the very least, becomes incapable of putting them out. Those elements promote an attitude which disparages the uncool, traditional values of calling for fires to be put out, and by wile or guile, sabotage the preventive infrastructure assembled by the community, leapfrogging the common wisdom which had led the community to build the firehouse and hire the firemen in the first place.
The Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission is not a real community group at all. Real constituent organizations hold membership meetings from time to time, but the Justice and Peace Commission doesn’t. Instead, worse than a Stalinist organization, the group holds one supposed general meeting per year, where a small clique presents ‘board’ decisions as fait accompli to any who are suckered into watching the show.
The Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission structure is that of a small business board, whose principle concern is always to raise funds. The funds are principally to be used to maintain a managerial staff who take a proprietary view of the organization. The organization is seen as theirs to be run for others, which is exactly what they proceed to do. Actually, the others are most often seen to be mainly themselves, as the office staff constantly fight to continuously keep an income flow moving to help guarantee their continued employment.
Over the head of all this, is now a minister who runs ‘the board’ as if he was running a church. Churches are small businesses and despite the pious manner of the pastors, most often pastors act like small business owners. Originally, it was a group of nuns who set the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission into operation, modeled along the lines of a semi-liberal church group. Despite the pretense of the group to be representative of ordinary people, the group has maintained the same undemocratic mode of ‘business’ managing that currently exists, over several decades now.
The Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission board sees itself as a wheeler and dealer with the local power establishment. As such, it does not want to appear to be too confrontational in any way, but rather to appear as a responsible element of the community. It constantly embraces ‘communication’ with the military, police, and city council as a result. In addition, it fears anything and anybody that might impede this ‘communication’.
The PPJPC is not truly an antiwar group or justice group at all, but has taken on many characteristics of being a ‘new age’ organization. That’s a pretty safe way of maintaining some semblance of appearance of being different, without ever having to defend much substance or real opposition to the established order at all.
The real problem is that many small semi-alternative businesses and churches in the community give backing to this sort of thing. Plus, like a company union, the PPJPC is something that the mainstream Power Establishment would rather deal with than the real thing, which would be a real community organization run in a more democratic manner
Southern Colorado deserves better than this as it would be much better to have a pro-Peace organization that is not run from top down like a small business. That’s what we should strive for.
All around America there are bleeding hearted liberals running small businesses… small social service businesses. As a general rule, too, liberals don’t run businesses very well. They’re too damn dumbly soft and sweet, that’s why. So we can begin to understand why all these ‘reform groups’ (like the local area’s Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission.. for just one example) don’t make much profit for the people they claim to be serving (even as they keep them out in droves from their social advocacy groups, run as small ‘businesses’).
Here is the type of thing I am talking about,
…from an article appearing in The Nation…
‘Check off the boxes, copy the paragraph from two years ago, mail it in. As an election year approaches, I again face the piles of questionnaires that progressive organizations use to evaluate public officials. Environmentalists, feminists, campaign finance reformers, housing advocates and labor unions have all come to rely on these lists of our positions–often on issues that never even come up for a vote. It should come as no surprise that, for the most part, all we get out of this cumbersome process is a long line of “checklist liberals” who answer correctly but do little to advance the progressive causes that underlie the questionnaires.’
The rest of this article can be found on the liberal’s very own Nation Magazine at Transforming the Liberal Checklist
OK, OK! So the rest of the article is not very good, much like the liberal organizations themselves, and The Nation Magazine is not very good, either. It was still a good and insightful first paragraph of an article at least!
And the commentary reminded me of all those fund raising letters, free stamps with animal pictures on them, and ‘surveys’ to find out my learned opinions, etc. Reminds me of all the wasted time sitting in meetings where bleeding hearted liberals talk about running THEIR small businesses. You see? The bleeding hearted liberals are most always the ‘owners’ of small socially aware businesses calling themselves community’ groups, which these groups having small office staffs then try to run the group like it was a church or tiny corner store of some sort.
Yes, the small office staff always begin to behave as if they were real owners of the store, much in the same way that some convenience store minimum wage workers will try to stop a robber of some sort or other, by risking their own lives over pennies that supposedly belong to the stock owners instead. These small would be owners can snarl and bite quite hard if given an opportunity to do so. They often overpower the petty ‘robbers’ of their unit with their forceful indignations than can border on madness of sorts. Some times they get popped for being so dimwitted, too.
So what to do about all the PEACE and GREEN and SOCIAL JUSTICE groups’ ‘leaders’ acting in our name? They operate much as the Democratic Party does, which is to impede rather than progress the people forward.
The runners of these small businesses calling themselves ‘peace and justice’ outfits, most often see themselves not as an elected group of leaders for exploited workers struggling for justice and peace, but as a group of independent networkers and business operators, forcefully headed for making more profit for their own personal businesses, the social groups. They spend more time being angry at any of the lower levels of the ‘co-ops’ managed by themselves than at the power elites that cause the social injustice they are supposedly fighting against. When angered by the lower elements, their faces can become quite bulldog-like.
Recently a certain word has come into great popularity with this sort of manager owner of social cause… that word being the word SUSTAINABILITY. Why so popular this word, and with these people? It is because it strikes a chord with the small manager/owner and his small manager/owner mindset. They want to know if their small business is SUSTAINABLE and if their position as head of the operation is SUSTAINABLE most of all? SUSTAINABILITY is their biggest goal of them all. And now of course, corporate America wants to help them become SUSTAINABLE.
This sort of group run as a small business with paid staff who think themselves owners is a very huge impediment to any real social action taking place. The main technique of ‘the owners’ who are salaried is simply to eat up other people’s time. They know that they can out last them in energy by simply doing this, and can come out on top when actual decisions are to be made. In other words, they are well positioned to stifle.
Like owners of any corporation, ‘the owners’ of supposed social groups get paid real money for their time while the volunteers do not. Is this the model of a social action group that will get things done? Most certainly not. Unfortunately though, it is the model structure for liberals and their do-nothing liberalism everywhere today in America…. small groups with a paid ‘leader’ or two, spouting ‘good things’, and doing next to nothing besides appearing to be seeminglygood people.
At the recent meeting of the executive board of the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission, it was totally noticeable that nobody there had anything of a working class background. In fact, the idea of justice for workers is totally absent from this group with ‘justice’ in its name. Being so church-like, this group throws the word in as if it were a bone to the lower classes so next to being sweet dogs in the eyes of these nice people. They were about as working class in composition as the ACLU is!… to give an idea of what the meeting was actually like. Nobody was ‘angry’, just sad. Or happy when seemingly a crumb from real power is thrown in their direction. And at this meeting it had been.
The City of Colorado Springs was going to let the group march in the St Pat’s Day Parade! All Hallelujah, Jesus! But that is about more than this little essay can talk about for the time being. Just let it be said, that liberals running small businesses that should be action groups make my heart bleed. Bleeding hearted liberals make poor businessmen and the conservative business men will tear them to part. Antiwar groups should not be run like they are small businesses. Probably enough said at this point.
I just got back from an invigorating Iraq Moratorium street- side demonstration. The cold wasn’t so bad, the IVAW boys held down a corner, one participant traveled a ways to be here, a Gazette reporter came with a photographer, and we were deluged with the usual honks of support. Then two supervisors from the nearby Post Office visited to tell us whichever of us had parked in their lot better move our cars or expect to be towed.
I stepped forward but noted the parking lot was only a third full, plus by coincidence I had a time-dated receipt from their counter. No matter they said, the parking was private, and/or you can’t protest on government property. They incorrectly asserted plenty more, finishing with “sue me” but wouldn’t give their names. One called out for security as I entered the post office to stand in queue, shouting to everyone that I was likely to cause a scene. The clerks volunteered the info I needed: Jim Hickle and Bill Schafner, big-for-their-britches USPS supervisors of customer relations, wannabe feds.
I’m always perplexed by the politics of the postal worker. I regard a number of them as my friends actually, whom I see everyday, including the late John S, about whose horrible political ethics I’ve already written. Why are workers, who benefit mightily from the APW Union, and who more likely than not are veterans, stand so passionately behind the right-wing? Postal workers are losing their jobs to privatization, their jobs are as blue collar as any, they come face to face with so much of the local community. Why would their personal opinions be so regressive?
UPDATE: After I left, another activist of our group was sitting in his car, having taken medication which called for a pause before he could begin driving. He was parked, as I had been, at the extreme north of the lot, far from any customer traffic. The same two postal authorities, Jim and Bill, approached his window and insisted he had to leave. My friend explained that we was quite willing, but that he was required to wait until his medication permitted it. They insisted he leave immediately or they would call the police. My friend complied, in a hallucinogenic state, and thankfully he made it home safely.
It’s time again, February 15th, to meet at the intersection of Academy and Fountain Blvds, where US tax dollars meet the military industrial industry. Join UFPJ, PPJPC and CSA on Friday at noon. We’ll assemble at all corners with banners, flags and chants to remind the major war profiteers that the American public would appreciate another line of work. It is the war merchants who stand between humanity and peaceful co-existance. It is they who dictate what our politicians offer America as its options. It is they who work in pools of the blood of millions of innocent peoples. Wear boots.