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Diary of a sleepy activist em(bed)ded with the peace movement
Wednesday, March 19, 2003:
Noon. On my way to the WAMM office, I see fifty children outside Field Elementary School holding homemade peace signs. Their earnest faces light up each time a car passes and the driver honks in support. They shout in unison, “Peace, peace, peace, peace,” while far away in the Persian Gulf U.S. troops ready for war, war, war, war. At the WAMM office volunteers take calls about demonstrations, sell lawn signs, and sign up fourteen new, paid members.
4:30 p.m. I join a stream of protesters gathering on the Lake Street/Marshall Avenue Bridge. By 4:45 p.m. we fill the sidewalks on both sides. It begins to rain, and then to sleet. A car with a “Liberate Iraq” sign on its roof and four young men within circles the bridge. One leans out of his warm, dry car, shoves a middle finger in my face and shouts words I would rather not see in print. Most cars honk in support of the peace activists.
Thursday, March 20:
Morning. I watch Anti-War Committee leader Jessica Sundin on TV. She explains that now that the war has begun, the anti-war movement will grow in determination and numbers. Later, on Minnesota Public Radio, I hear Alan Dale of the Iraq Peace Action Coalition explain how this may be only the beginning of a string of U.S. wars, and how we have to protest against all of them. Secure that the peace movement has taken over the airwaves, I proceed with my day.
Afternoon. Children and youth walk out of school for peace all over the Twin Cities area. At Anthony Middle School 200 walk out for one period and thirteen stay out all day talking earnestly with their school supervisor about their hopes for a peaceful world. At Barton Elementary School fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth graders form a protest line during recess and vow to give up their playtime every day to protest the war until it ends. Four hundred students at South High march to the University of Minnesota for a rally and then walk on to downtown.
By 4:30 they have already walked seven miles in the rain. “There are fish swimming in my shoes,” says one young woman, standing amidst a crowd of 10,000 in front of the Minneapolis Federal Courts Building. The crowd fills the street and then, with perfect discipline, begins to move slowly, taking over the streets of downtown Minneapolis. We march all the way to the Walker Art Center and back—a three-hour march and rally. We are strong, united, determined, and muddy.
Saturday, March 22:
I’m up at 6:30 a.m. to make coffee for WAMM’s annual meeting. Three hundred people sit through a four-hour business meeting in Minneapolis, then head over to Macalester College in St. Paul to join with more then 8,000 others for a neighborhood march for peace. Demonstrators fill Summit and Grand Avenue with their humanity. One man holds a sign that says, “End the war so I can go home. I hate crowds.”
Back at Macalester two hours later, half the crowd stays for a rousing rally. Macalester history instructor and activist Mahmoud El Kati reminds the crowd that “the struggle is its own reward” and that “the people haven’t always got what they fought for, but they have fought for all they got.” A young Iraqi woman stands up with her infant daughter and says, “This is what the victims of U.S. bombs look like.”
Saturday, May 10:
The Mother’s Day Rally is today. Neda Walker tells the small crowd that she feels like she is living a nightmare. I know what she means. While I was asleep, embedded in the peace movement, the war “ended” and the military occupation of Iraq began. If Bush were a doctor he would lose his license for failing to “at first do no harm.” Minnesotans gear up to carry and conceal. I want to go back to sleep.
Monday, May 12:
Glad I stayed awake. Kathy Kelly tells it straight to a capacity crowd in the St Joan of Arc Church gymnasium. No liberation. No jubilation. The huge sign behind her says, “No to Endless War.” The peace movement is ready to oppose the U.S. empire and war in Iraq and anywhere else.
Monday, May 19:
Neda Walker’s nightmare has come true. The Minnesota legislature has abandoned responsibility for all that makes a society good: quality education, health care, transportation, safety, and welfare when we need it.
Meanwhile Bush continues to bring “allies” (21 so far) to his Texas ranch to negotiate their fee-for-services: military aid. The next war could be Korea, Syria, or Cuba. I want to go to sleep again, but I remember the words of Mahmoud El Kati.
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The Cost of War
Organizations monitoring the short-term cost of the war in Iraq estimate a total cost of around $100 billion. This figure represents not just money that goes to the Pentagon, but also to the departments of Homeland Security, Energy, State, and so on. It also represents money that comes from the ordinary defense budget ($396 billion in fiscal year 2003) and part from the supplemental Defense Emergency Response budget for the Iraq war (the President asked for $74.7 billion; Congress gave him $78.5 billion).
So the $100 billion covers not only military expenses (weapons, the cost of moving thousands of troops to Iraq, the tanks protecting the Iraqi Oil Ministry), but also domestic security money, money for reconstructing Iraq, and foreign aid for our allies.
It is easy to become swamped by the huge numbers involved in American defense spending. (Try $900,000 a minute.) What is obvious to the peace and social justice community, if not to the wider population, is that these defense “appropriations” damage economic and social welfare both here and in the countries we “help” destroy.
—Frieda Gardner, WAMM
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