Washblog

I would estimate the count at just over 2,000. The event could have been improved if the permit had included a walk up to the Capitol steps where speeches could have been made. Dorry I did not see you there Noemie.

by Particle Man on Sat Jan 27, 2007 at 10:47:45 PM PST

---

The reports from Olympia with the photos showing people representing a great mix of regional community coalitions is energizing!  I don't see the 'usual' big national coalitions represented in the photos, and I have to say I'm relieved that I don't.

Strange thing for me to say, I know, since I represent a national organization (Military Families Speak Out).  Seeing photos of citizen activists coming together with a common message focused on stopping Iraq occupation is far more powerful for me to see than had I taken part in it.  Why?  

I was a novice and new citizen activist back at the time of the invasion of Iraq by the United States.  I have learned much over four years that I didn't know when I began to speak out as a military family with two deployed loved ones. Perhaps it happens in the peace/activist movement that after a period of time it becomes the same faces, the same voices, the same groups, the same coalitions, the same 'choir'.   I have learned about many of the larger national organizations and something about their differing ideology.  I can just about predict which groups and coalitions have sponsored or endorsed the latest rally/demonstration/protest.

Not in any way to diminish the outstanding efforts of the national level organizations - that is not my intent.  Yet, I am coming to believe it will need to be regional communities across the nation, ordinary citizens from all walks of life, taking up the mission and visibly registering their displeasure.  Not only their displeasure but their committment to action, their willingness to disrupt their daily schedules to demand an end to the crippling of our integrity as a country in an unjust 'war' in Iraq.  

Thank you to each and every one who turned out in Olympia today.  And I appreciate the report and photos.  I really appreciate the banner that reads

Mr President - If you love Jesus, stop the war

.  This is indeed,

Bush's War, not the people's war

.  And if Congress does not act immediately, it will be not only Bush Administration war but the war condoned by the 110th Congress with a Democratic party majority   who refused to use the power of the purse to bring an end to Bush's war.  

What might be missing in the photos is more of a presence of the young people who will be inheriting 'the sins of the fathers'....

The latest discussion I had with Andy Himes of Voices in Wartime - Education Project this weekend was a bit of a brainstorm in recognition that a missing element may be what the children have to say. He shared with me that the 7:30AM classes being offered by Voices in Wartime have a continued high attendance where other classes might have attendance dropping off.  

He shared with me the new endeavor of a the creation of a Museum exhibition designed by the students. I said why not a traveling museum that travels from school to school - kids talking to kids.  We explored that with enthusiasm with a certain recognition that we can learn from the kids.   Not the talking points of politics(on either side), not what the adults tell them, but what the children have to say after four years of war in Iraq.

I'm thinking also of Bert Sacks, who lives in Seattle, who humanitarian that he is, took medicine to Iraq for Iraqi children and was fined $10,000 for doing so. Bert's courageous long effort to call attention to what could be identified as a slow genocide of Iraqi children over the past 12 years of U.S.Sanctions in Iraq; Gulf War 1 and now Iraq war - OIF/OEF. (blog - Bert on Iraq) What would our children say to us if they knew, if they could?

 

"and a child shall lead them"

Often times when I am speaking out and I listen to myself recite a personal story in my family, I am continually startled when I reach the part about how my children were not taught anything about the Vietnam war in their schools.  The history of U.S. initiated wars seems to end with WWII in the history books. I surely don't want to shift blame for what we as parents neglected to teach our children, but neither do I want to let the educational system off the hook on the matter of absent history.  So why didn't we, the parents, provide the space for our children to discuss and learn what their father thought of his deployment in Vietnam?  

When he returned, people didn't have much use for returning Vietnam veterans.  We shelved that experience and part of our lives and did our best to get on with what was considered 'normal' at that time.  I was sure that as my children grew up and wanted to know more, they would ask.  I was sure by the time they got to Jr High and High School ages they would be exposed to the 'history' of Vietnam in their school curriculums.

There is something about shelving and storing away trauma memories, like an old dusty trunk you might find in the attic.  We know the trunk is there, and somehow conveyed to the children a message of 'do not open' that trunk.  Now my children are adults with children of their own.  What my children did NOT learn about Vietnam war may not be singular to them.  What 'safe spaces' over the decades have been provided for parents and children to discuss and process Vietnam?  

Without 'education', without permitting the children to discuss their feelings and thoughts, are our new generations destined to repeat the ghost of Vietnam, newly wrapped in a cloak of Iraq? Some veterans would go further and take it back to the ghost of Korea, newly emerged as Vietnam - the ghost of Vietnam, newly emerged as Iraq - the ghost of Iraq, newly emerged as ___

I don't think I'm suggesting hauling kids off to demonstrations, protests, rallies, but surely there can be a 'safe space' made at the 'educational' level that permits our children to learn how to process and begin the journey of age-appropriate critical thinking on matters so serious as 'war time'  --  especially in that this President and Administration has cited the 'long war' as lasting a decade or more.  That is yet another generation of children coming of age to serve their country in the ranks of the military.

Thank you Olympia and all the communities who made the trek to Olympia, making your displeasure visible.  Thank you to those who made the journey to DC to join those tens of thousands making their displeasure visible.  Thank you to Dwight Pelz and I have to acknowlege that it is a somewhat startling surprise to me to see he was involved. Noemie, can you say more about his role, presentation and objective in this particular gathering?  And thank you to Noemie for her continued faithfulness in blogging factual accounts of situations as she experiences it.
 

On the Surge in Iraq "--we have set the bar so low it's buried in the sand at this point." - Barack Obama

by Lietta Ruger on Sat Jan 27, 2007 at 11:28:36 PM PST

---