Posted on 10/12/2001 2:10:05 PM PDT by jonatron
Regional anti-war demonstration
City & State:
Topic / Issue: Peace
Location:
Description :
Sunday, October 14, 3:00 pm, Copley Square
Please join us for a somber but colorful demonstration to memorialize the victims of the September 11 attacks and oppose US military retaliation and the attacks on civil liberties and on the immigrant and Arab-American communities.
[panzy alert...] **Please bring a flower--real, paper, or otherwise--to use in a participatory memorial. To create a powerful image and event, eveeryone should have a flower.**
We will begin at 3:00 sharp at Copley Square. The afternoon will feature art, speakers, and cultural performances. If all goes well with permits, we will march to a park in the South End to conclude around 6:00 pm.
For more invormation, please write to Boston_O-@yahoo.com
I wish to ask the following questions to the pacifist and anti-war folks:
Suppose you are flying over Pennsylvania on the morning of 9/11 when four highjackers take over the plane with box-cutters and under the threat of blowing it up with a bomb in a red box.
Moments later you learned in a telephone conversation with your spouse about other planes that have flown into the WTC and Pentagon.
Your plane suddenly turns towards Washington D.C., and you are convinced that it will be flown into the Capital building where Congress may be in session and school children may be on tour.
As a pacifist or anti-war demonstrator, would you sit there unmoved because: 1) the highjakers cannot be brought to trial, and you think it would be "murder" to even chance taking their lives in an attempt to regain control over the plane; 2) innocent people may be killed were you to attempt to take over the plane--completely ignoring the fact the considerably more innocent people will die if good people do nothing; 3) you, the American passengers, and the people at the Capital, deserve to die because of U.S. foreign policy; 4) you first need to find out why the highjakers hate us so much as to be caused to do what they are doing; 5) you believe that through expressions of peace and love the circumstances will somehow be resolved to everyone's satisfaction; 6) the highjakers can be talked into giving themselves up; 7) You believe that, since Christ did not resist when his life was threatened, and he advocated turning the other cheek, as a Christian you should do likewise--completely ignoring what Christ said about what should be done when thine eye or hand offend thee, or what should be the end of those who offend even these thy children; 8) you are overwhelmed with fear and sorrow; 9) any combination of a variety of reasons you and other pacifist or anti-War folks have proffered for why we should not be moved to any sort of violent action against those who have declared war on us and who have conspired in murdering thousands of people on 9/11 and who pose eminent danger of killing countless other people throughout the civilized world?
Would you also vocally criticize (in earshot of the highjakers) and argue against those passengers (such as Mr. Beamer and others) who then are moved by a sense of right (moral imperative), justice, honor, and bravery to do what they can to correct the wrong and minimize the potential carnage?
Do you not see the clear parallels between what the brave men on flight 93 (I think that was the number) were move to do and what we as a government and people have been forced, regrettably, into doing?
Just curious. Thanks, -Wade Englund-
hehehehehe
If we can get eight people, split up into two groups of four, one group gets ahead of the marchers go for the Cameras, TV, and call back to the follow group to give the march route and then lets rock and roll, VietNam term for full auto on engagement.
Apparently, this is the line they're all using. No, they're not crying for war, they're crying for
Okay, here's what you do: click on your own name at the end of your last post on this thread. That will take you to your profile page. Chose "edit Profile" or go to the pull-down menu on the upper right and choose "My Locale". One of those should produce a form or menu for you to select your state (and you can add whatever personal info you wish to your profile page at the same time, such as your town, pictures of your kids, etc.).
After that, whenever you access the "Latest Posts" page, there will be a blue box with your state flag in the upper left-hand corner to indicate that there are new messages on the MA board. Just click on the flag and you'll be there.
Jim
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More info on the october14 anti-war demo by october 14 planning group 7:50am Fri Oct 12 '01 Boston_October14@yahoo.com
Action guidlines and asnwers to questions about Sunday's demo
Hi, friends. We hope that you are all planning on coming to the demonstration in Boston on October 14. While memorializing those killed in the horrifying attacks on September 11, we will also be voicing our opposition to the US military response, as well as to the repression we are already seeing at home, particularly that targeting the Arab-American communities and immigrants in general.
The demonstration will begin at 3:00 (sharp!) at Copley Square, and it will continue with speakers, performers, and a march, ending around 6:00. Speakers from a wide range of communities will address a number of topics, including the political situation in the Middle Easts and Central Asia, the backlaash against Arab-American and Muslim communities, restrictions on immigrants' rights, the economic effects on workers, general civil liberties, and much more. The event will end around 6:00 pm.
Below is information in response to some questions we've received--we' hope that it is helpful. For more information, contact Boston_October14@yahoo.com
Thanks!
------------
FLOWERS: You probably saw in the initial announcement that everyone is asked to bring a flower. Please do so! In an effort both to create good visuals and to make the demonstration more engaging than a stand-and-listen-to-speeches kind of passive thing, there's going to be a march, and at the end of the march, we'd like everyone to lay a flower on a memorial we're making for the vicitims of September 11 and the victims of our country's response. It should be a powerful image and ritual. The flowers can be real or fake. But if each person can bring at least one, and ideally more for those who forget, it will help to make this a stronger event.
ART: Please bring it! While we do want this demonstration to have something of a somber tone, we also hope to have as much beauty as possible. For those who will be in Boston a day early for any reason, there will be an artmaking session in Boston that Saturday, October 13, from about 1:00 to 5:00 pm at MIT Building 5, room 134.
ACTION GUIDELINES: After some discussion, the group organizing the October 14 demonstration has come up with action guildelines that we ask all participants to adhere to. Some may feel that this is unnecessary, but we want to avoid miscommunications. We want this to be a demonstration with a tone that recognizes the enormity of the September 11 attacks and the trauma that people are still dealing with. At the same time, we seek to make very clear our opposition to the deadly military response, as well as to the repression we are already seeing at home, particularly that targeting the Arab-American communities and immigrants in general. We call on everyone participating to be nonviolent. We specifically ask that people not use drugs or alcohol during the demonstration, and that there be no destruction of property. We also ask people to refrain from independent acts of civil disobedience during the demonstration. We also call on all who participate to respect the diverse range of opinions and political orientations of those involved in this demonstration. By laying out these guidelines, we are not seeking to make value judgments, but to lay set out what we feel will make this demonstration safest for all who participate, including those from targeted communities, while getting our message out as clearly as possible.
http://www.justicewithpeace.org/
Jim
an article from the SF Chronicle.....
And our flag was still there
Barbara Kingsolver Tuesday, September 25, 2001
MY DAUGHTER came home from kindergarten and announced, "Tomorrow we all have to wear red, white and blue."
"Why?" I asked, trying not to sound wary.
"For all the people that died when the airplanes hit the buildings."
I fear the sound of saber-rattling, dread that not just my taxes but even my children are being dragged to the cause of death in the wake of death. I asked quietly, "Why not wear black, then? Why the colors of the flag, what does that mean?"
"It means we're a country. Just all people together."
So we sent her to school in red, white and blue, because it felt to her like something she could do to help people who are hurting. And because my wise husband put a hand on my arm and said, "You can't let hateful people steal the flag from us."
He didn't mean terrorists, he meant Americans. Like the man in a city near us who went on a rampage crying "I'm an American" as he shot at foreign-born neighbors, killing a gentle Sikh man in a turban and terrifying every brown- skinned person I know. Or the talk-radio hosts, who are viciously bullying a handful of members of Congress for airing sensible skepticism at a time when the White House was announcing preposterous things in apparent self-interest, such as the "revelation" that terrorists had aimed to hunt down Air Force One with a hijacked commercial plane. Rep. Barbara Lee cast the House's only vote against handing over virtually unlimited war powers to one man that a whole lot of us didn't vote for. As a consequence, so many red-blooded Americans have now threatened to kill her, she has to have additional bodyguards.
Patriotism seems to be falling to whoever claims it loudest, and we're left struggling to find a definition in a clamor of reaction. This is what I'm hearing: Patriotism opposes the lone representative of democracy who was brave enough to vote her conscience instead of following an angry mob. (Several others have confessed they wanted to vote the same way, but chickened out.) Patriotism threatens free speech with death. It is infuriated by thoughtful hesitation, constructive criticism of our leaders and pleas for peace. It despises people of foreign birth who've spent years learning our culture and contributing their talents to our economy. It has specifically blamed homosexuals, feminists and the American Civil Liberties Union. In other words, the American flag stands for intimidation, censorship, violence, bigotry, sexism, homophobia, and shoving the Constitution through a paper shredder? Who are we calling terrorists here? Outsiders can destroy airplanes and buildings, but it is only we, the people, who have the power to demolish our own ideals.
It's a fact of our culture that the loudest mouths get the most airplay, and the loudmouths are saying now that in times of crisis it is treasonous to question our leaders. Nonsense. That kind of thinking let fascism grow out of the international depression of the 1930s. In critical times, our leaders need most to be influenced by the moderating force of dissent. That is the basis of democracy, in sickness and in health, and especially when national choices are difficult, and bear grave consequences.
It occurs to me that my patriotic duty is to recapture my flag from the men now waving it in the name of jingoism and censorship. This isn't easy for me.
The last time I looked at a flag with unambiguous pride, I was 13. Right after that, Vietnam began teaching me lessons in ambiguity, and the lessons have kept coming. I've learned of things my government has done to the world that made me direly ashamed. I've been further alienated from my flag by people who waved it at me declaring I should love it or leave it. I search my soul and find I cannot love killing for any reason. When I look at the flag, I see it illuminated by the rocket's red glare.
This is why the warmongers so easily gain the upper hand in the patriot game: Our nation was established with a fight for independence, so our iconography grew out of war. Our national anthem celebrates it; our language of patriotism is inseparable from a battle cry. Our every military campaign is still launched with phrases about men dying for the freedoms we hold dear, even when this is impossible to square with reality. In the Persian Gulf War we rushed to the aid of Kuwait, a monarchy in which women enjoyed approximately the same rights as a 19th century American slave. The values we fought for and won there are best understood, I think, by oil companies. Meanwhile, a country of civilians was devastated, and remains destroyed.
Stating these realities does not violate the principles of liberty, equality, and freedom of speech; it exercises them, and by exercise we grow stronger. I would like to stand up for my flag and wave it over a few things I believe in, including but not limited to the protection of dissenting points of view. After 225 years, I vote to retire the rocket's red glare and the bullet wound as obsolete symbols of Old Glory. We desperately need a new iconography of patriotism. I propose we rip stripes of cloth from the uniforms of public servants who rescued the injured and panic-stricken, remaining at their post until it fell down on them. The red glare of candles held in vigils everywhere as peace-loving people pray for the bereaved, and plead for compassion and restraint. The blood donated to the Red Cross. The stars of film and theater and music who are using their influence to raise money for recovery. The small hands of schoolchildren collecting pennies, toothpaste, teddy bears, anything they think might help the kids who've lost their moms and dads.
My town, Tucson, Ariz., has become famous for a simple gesture in which some 8,000 people wearing red, white or blue T-shirts assembled themselves in the shape of a flag on a baseball field and had their photograph taken from above. That picture has begun to turn up everywhere, but we saw it first on our newspaper's front page. Our family stood in silence for a minute looking at that photo of a human flag, trying to know what to make of it. Then my teenage daughter, who has a quick mind for numbers and a sensitive heart, did an interesting thing. She laid her hand over a quarter of the picture, leaving visible more or less 6,000 people, and said, "That many are dead." We stared at what that looked like -- all those innocent souls, multi-colored and packed into a conjoined destiny -- and shuddered at the one simple truth behind all the noise, which is that so many beloved people have suddenly gone from us. That is my flag, and that's what it means: We're all just people together.
Barbara Kingsolver is the author of nine books including "The Poisonwood Bible," (Harperflamingo, 1999).
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