After Action Report. Bangor Maine Stop the War 2006 Rally.

Bangor Maine had a large antiwar rally today on the waterfront. By saying large we are talking about around 250 people, it is a small city. The Peace and Justice Center of Bangor had announced they were expecting hundreds if not thousands to attend. It will be interesting to see what numbers they report.

AMD and I were both bummed the entire morning just thinking about a protest going on with no plans to counter protest. We couldn't stand the thought of at least not going down to check things out. Maybe just maybe we would run into group of kindred spirits if we drove down just to look. We took our camera just to go and take photos of protesters if we couldn't find anyone else.

We drove around the block where the protest was taking place on the waterfront. Low and behold if we didn't find a counter protester standing on the corner. He was standing on the grass behind the sidewalk with a beautiful sign that said "Support Our Troops and Their Mission". We quickly stopped the car just in order to get a photo with a promise to return.

We headed off to the grocery store across the street and fashioned our own signs. AMD had a sign that said "Caution Anti-American Supporters of Terrorism Around the Corner". My sign said "3 Sons Serving and I support Them". We then joined the lone troop supporter to start our own three person counter protest.

We got a surprising number of thumbs up from people who passed and fewer one finger salutes than we expected. Before too long we had two young men stop by who were high school students from Bangor High School. They stated they were going to be back after they gave another check of what the protest had planned. They proudly announced they had their own signs.

Behold the students who joined us also showed up in one of our random group photos that we took when we had arrived .

We were soon confronted by a Sunni with a horrible speech impediment. He appeared to be American but left his Middle Eastern wife across the street on a bench while he took part in a long discussion. Nix the one on one girl talk. The guy proceeded to give us all a revisionist version of history and just wouldn't shut up. We were nice and tried to have a discussion with him but he proceeded to tell us that Shia aren't Muslims, Spain invited the Muslims to rule, etc, etc, etc. Thankfully the high school students showed back up with an SUV and told us that the protest was going to march from the waterfront to the front of the Federal Building. We left the Sunni guy to pile into the SUV in order to be seen by the entire crowd in front of the Federal Building.

The students had large support the troops signs and a tall staff for an American Flag. When the protesters arrived we were not a welcomed site! A woman decided to have a looooong drawn out discussion on what we watch for news. She seemed determined to think that we were only misinformed and not up on our news. Her big concern was human rights for everyone in the world. What was ironic is that she wanted rights for the world but only spoke about defending her country if trouble knocked directly on her door. Typical of the left her entire discussion was predominantly ME related.

When the marching crowd began to thin out we all piled back into the SUV and went back to where we started in order to wave out the crowd that was leaving the protest. Surprisingly we only received a few one finger salutes from the protesters who were leaving. Mostly we received the peace sign and quite a few thumbs up from motorists who were stuck in traffic with the lefties. The highlight came when some wacky woman incised by AMD's sign actually stuck her thumbs in her ears and gave the neener neener sign while sticking out her tongue. She then yelled that she loved American but hated the war. Our first response was to only laugh which really ticked her off. A motorist who was stuck in traffic between the nut job woman and us had a wide eyed look of disbelief at the woman's childish antics. I finally yelled back that it was after all a free country and she and I were both entitled to our own opinions. I also added "but you sure are a nut!" The exchange brought a fit of laughter to the stuck motorist.

Just as things were winding down we picked up two more supporters. One just got off of work and has a daughter in the Military and the other was a Veteran. We exchanged cards and promised to get together for future counter protesting.

War protest leads to 11 arrests in Bangor

By Doug Kesseli

Friday, September 22, 2006 - Bangor Daily News << Back

BANGOR - Eleven protesters were arrested Thursday after refusing to leave the Bangor office of U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe, whom they were pressing for an end to the war in Iraq and to bring American troops home.

The 11 peace activists were part of a larger group of about 60 protesting the continued U.S. military presence in Iraq. The protesters also were marking Thursday as an International Day of Peace.

Most left Snowe's third-floor offices and hallway at One Cumberland Place shortly after 5 p.m. when told to do so by the building's owner and then the police.

Those who remained behind were arrested, charged with criminal trespass, and escorted down the stairs by police. In the lobby, they were identified, photographed, placed in plastic handcuffs and walked past applauding activists to waiting transport vans that took them to the Penobscot County Jail.

But for nearly 90 minutes before that, activists camped out in Snowe's office, with about 30 of them filling the office and more spilling out into the hallway. Inside the office they sang songs such as "I'm Declaring Peace" and "We are a Gentle, Angry People." They invoked the teachings of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi.

"The world stands aghast at the path we have taken," Dan Lourie, 69, of Bar Harbor said, drawing upon a King speech in 1967 protesting the Vietnam War. Lourie said the speech could have been written that morning, it was so pertinent.

The International Day of Peace marked the deadline for Congress to sign the national peace movement's Declaration of Peace, which among other things calls for developing a plan for withdrawing all American troops next year and redirecting resources away from the war effort to benefit needs at home such as education and veterans service, organizers said.

"The U.S. war in Iraq is an endless fire consuming lives, resources and the fragile possibilities of peace," Chris Stark, 52, a Spanish teacher at Hampden Academy, said Thursday, reading from the statement of intent from the Declaration of Peace.

The activists had sent Snowe and other delegates a copy of the declaration to sign three weeks earlier, but had not received a response from Snowe.

Although the activists held a brief vigil earlier outside the Margaret Chase Smith Federal Building, where U.S. Sen. Susan Collins' office is located, Snowe is up for re-election and was the focus of their attention.

Snowe was in Washington, D.C., and Gail Kelly, Snowe's state director, listened and greeted the activists with handshakes, smiles and occasionally hugs, but could only offer a promise that she would forward the concerns and messages to Snowe.

"I will make sure that every piece of this gets to the senator," Kelly said.

Last December, 19 war protesters were arrested for refusing to leave Snowe's Bangor office. One served time, the rest were required to perform community service.

Some of the emotion-filled messages Thursday came as tags attached to infants' shoes, tiny footwear intended to represent the fact that before the war, children accounted for half the Iraqi population and therefore were many of those who were in danger, injured or killed.

Nancy Hill, 53, a fishmonger from Stonington and mother of two adult children, presented Kelly with a small denim sneaker with "Pooh" written on the bottom and a design of Tigger on the side. She asked that Snowe and Americans try to understand the Iraqi people and "emotionally walk in their shoes" and accept what people have in common.

"As a mom, I can almost imagine an Iraqi mom's terror at having a child threatened or killed," she said. "It's the universal parents' nightmare."

Doug Keselli

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