Impeach For Peace Picnic

This afternoon we hung out at the Washington Monument. 

Jay Marx of WPC, who came with us even with a bad ankle, was righteous in his use of the bullhorn.  Reminded me of Mario Savio, which inspired me a little later. 

This woman read in the sun near our grassy knoll for the full 2.5 hours we were there, but pretty much ignored us. 

More below, as usual...

Mostly people supported us, including a number of vets, but some like this guy who served in Iraq got very mad at us for exercising the rights they said they were defending (more on those logical gymnastics in a bit). 

Most people who told us to leave the country refused our offer to speak their minds with our megaphone, but this kid stood up (more on him below). 

Liz did this a lot and was, as always, active and engaged.  Lots of people talked to her, and she was even interviewed by some British folks doing a documentary. 

Then Preacher George joined us.  

Presenting the Ground Zero Players. 

While we'd gotten some good stop-bys early on, Preacher George and the Rapturists really snared them. 

Toward the end of the picnic, I helped Andy from VFP fly a kite. 

There wasn't a lot of wind. 

But we did get air for a little while. 

I'm too wiped out and scattered to put together a cohesive narrative of this afternoon's event, so here are some brief hits in a rough timeline:

• The first two vets who yelled at us:
  • "If you don't like the system, why don't you get the hell out?"
  • "My dog [a big, lovely German shep] is a better American than you are."
• Most of the reaction from passersby was detached bemusement, but lots and lots of taking pictures and video, asking to have pictures taken with us, smiles, peace signs, waves, and even elbow bumps.
• Two little girls separately engaged when Jay was on the megaphone:
  • "Did you vote?"  Not only did Jay answer affirmatively, but he got a chance to go off on one of my favorite topics and started talking about our duties beyond the voting booth.
  • "Have you talked about the innocent children in Iraq who are getting hurt?" She didn't want to talk on the megaphone, but stood by Jay as he addressed the issue, basically owning her question and the reality behind it.
• A Parisian ex-pat named Sabine, now living in NYC, chatted with us about what we were trying to accomplish.  Laughed about how Americans poured out French wine in the sewers, why France stayed out of Iraq (memories of war's destruction at home and their own imperial wars abroad).
• One dude walking by let go of his daughter's hand to give us a dismissive wave.
• In quick succession two contrarian views:
  
  • The Iraq vet pictured above was pissed that we were "mocking him and his Commander in Chief" and he lamented watching buddies die for some asshole (meaning Jay).
  • The young lad who took the megaphone told us that we elected Bush and should support him for "stopping Saddam Hussein, who killed 200 [sic] Iraqis."  When Jay asked if he wanted some more information, he said no.
• Some moments I thought were especially funny during the GZ Players' guerrilla theater:
  • Defining 'rendition' in terms of "rendering unto Caesar."
  • Comparing "pulling out of Iraq" to the story of Onan.
• Not really funny, but Preacher George was drowned out multiple times by the noise from the bikers in town for Rolling Thunder, who made Bush an honorary member.
• Another Iraq vet proclaimed that he loved his tour.  When sarcastically asked why he was home if he loved it so much he said it was his turn in the rotation, then countered, "if you love America so much why do you do this [dissent]?"  I'm not entirely sure that's an apples and apples comparison.
• Someone shouts, "who should we put in Washington?"  I reply...
• A college-aged kid from MA visiting for the weekend and holding a pink frisbee applauds, asks how he can get involved.
• For the first time ever in an action, I took the megaphone and left my comfort zone:
  • Since Jay reminded me of Mario Savio, I brought up my favorite part of his speech at Sproul Hall in 1964 on my phone and read it with as much Savio-esque anger as I could: There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part; you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!
  • Getting some momentum from that, I carried on "unless the Iraqis are really free..."
  • To prevent the machine from working: strikes, boycotts, war tax resistance.
  • How comfortable are we?  How comfortable are the Iraqis?  How might we give up a little comfort to save their lives and give them back their country?
  • 1.2 million dead, over 4 million refugees...how can we take part in the odious machine?

The biggest puzzles for me were the meme "you elected Bush," which came up multiple times and of course isn't true, as well as the anger directed us by some vets for dissenting in a system that allows--demands--dissent and they take an oath to defend.  Those brain teasers aside, it was an afternoon of very positive interaction with our fellow citizens.

And now a pop quiz.  What Methods of Nonviolent Action were used today?

ntodd

PS--Liz posted some pics, too.

Comments

[hecatedemetersdatter@hotmail.com]

I love you. Thank you for doing this.

[e]

hecate said it best.

[skiddie]

The biggest puzzles for me were the meme "you elected Bush," which came up multiple times and of course isn't true

I think it's probably because everybody's disowned responsibility for him now, so people who did actually vote for him (and thus have more personal responsibility than the rest of us) have internally shifted the blame to make everybody responsible for their own votes.

It's an "I couldn't have been that stupid; so everybody must have been stupid" mindset.