I took part in the demonstration tonight at 11th and Congress in opposition to the Israeli bombings of Gaza. We stood, a large crowd, around the large Christmas tree and the large menorah, all eight candles and the shammash lit. It was good to be there in the presence of many persons of Middle Eastern background, as well as others who identify as Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Universalist or non-religious. In the middle of the demonstration, there was a break when some knelt in prayer on the capitol lawn. Jay Janner's fine photos posted on the American-Statesman site give an idea of those present.
My sign read, "Cease fire - all sides - life is precious." Some in the crowd believe that armed resistance to the Israeli occupation of Palestine is justified. But, for both moral and practical reasons, I can't condone violence that takes human life on any side.
Of course, I live comfortably apart from the daily reality of life in an occupied territory. I do know that there are Palestinians, both Muslim and Christian, and Israelies, both religious and secular, who advocate and practice nonviolent forms of resistance to the occupation even in the midst of the deadly violence. Making peace does not mean passive acquiescence. It does mean addressing the conflict without resorting to revenge killing.
In groups that meet to try and reconcile differences between Israeli and Palestinian causes, the most important ingredient seems to be the willingness to walk in the shoes of the other. Everyone has their story to tell, their loss to describe, their pain to express. If these stories can be told, listened to and acknowledged, on all sides, then progress can be made.
When it comes to US relations with Israel and Palestine, there are also questions that must be answered honestly. Who holds the greatest power? Where do business interests translate into political and military power? When do business interests influence media coverage? Who benefits financially when weapons are sold and used? Who pays the cost?
I was glad to see singer/songwriter Eliza Gilkyson present among the crowd tonight because she is able, through her music, to demonstrate what empathy means. She wasn't there to sing, but many Austinites know her piece, Tender Mercies, in which she gently puts the listener in the shoes of the bomber and the bombed, the parent and the child, so that we understand more than judge. To me, this kind of empathy is a crucial part of what will move us beyond the vicious cycle of war and retributive violence.
Monday, December 29, 2008
An American Dream
photos by Sylvia Thompson
My friends, Fran Hanlon and Sylvia Thompson, were among those who took part in the vigil and toy drive at the T. Don Hutto immigrant prison in Taylor on Saturday afternoon, Dec. 20th. Here is an account Fran wrote about the event. Many thanks to Fran and Sylvia for permission to post the report and photos here:
The Hutto vigil was, as always for me, very moving. I would estimate the attendance at about 75…folks from all over the state.
One of the speakers was a woman who had been incarcerated at Hutto along with her children. She expressed (through an interpreter) how grateful she was for our presence and said that she loved us, but, she also said something like “I came to this country seeking the American dream, but, when I arrived, I discovered that it did not exist, that it is a lie.”
I spoke with her a bit afterwards. I had guessed that she was from Honduras and I was right. I told her that I had lived in Honduras and made sure that she noticed my 'Cuerpo de Paz, Honduras' t-shirt which has a map of the country on it. She smiled and pointed to Tegucigalpa, which was her home.
There were LOTS of toys brought and quite a few children in attendance, most of them very young. When it was time to deliver the toys the children were invited to carry them. The adults helped by bringing the toys part way and then handing them to the children to take to the bins that prison staff had set out in the parking lot next to a van.
It was so sweet to watch those children enthusiastically delivering the toys. Some of them were barely old enough to walk, but, they went back and forth taking armfuls of toys. Earlier it had been announced that, though a lawsuit settlement had allowed the imprisoned children to have toys, they were restricted to certain hours. The toys are taken up at 8pm each night and placed in a central location. So, no child can have her very ‘own’ toy, no child can go to sleep with a stuffed animal or doll, as my child did.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Mall freeze action on youtube
Check out the video of today's CodePink freeze action at Barton Creek Square Mall, posted here on youtube.
Thanks to Ric Sternberg of AiM Productions for filming and producing the video!
Thanks to Ric Sternberg of AiM Productions for filming and producing the video!
Freeze-in at the mall
The arctic cold front scheduled to bring plunging temperatures to Austin tonight was pre-empted by a brief freeze that blew into the Barton Creek Square Mall earlier today.
While shoppers buzzed from store to kiosk, a group of 15 of us organized by CodePink Austin stood still in an atrium area for 6 minutes to demonstrate the cold reality that the 6th year of an occupation of Iraq that continues to cost lives and dollars is being sold as the solution in Afghanistan as well.
Some of us carried shopping bags that we'd covered with bold lettering reading "Don't Buy War," " We Can't Afford War," or "Buy Toys, Not War." We wore clothing with peace messages and buttons that encouraged shoppers to read our flier. Some held mock newspapers emblazoned with the headline, "War is Over."
Our mall theatre was modeled on previous freeze actions held in New York City's Grand Central Station and other busy public centers to dramatize the "stop war" message.
The flier we made available to shoppers explained the action, urging them to not buy war toys and to not "buy into the notion that war in Afghanistan is the 'good war.'" The flier listed reasons to end the military occupation of Afghanistan and recommendations for a changed US policy, as prepared by the group, September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, an organization of 9-11 victims' family members, some of whom have travelled to Afghanistan to meet with family members of occupation victims.
Our freeze action elicited curious stares from shoppers who stopped and watched, some taking out their phones to take photos, and some asking for a flier. Coming across people standing still amidst a flurry of activity arrests the imagination.
I stood in my "Make Art, Not War" t-shirt holding a messaged shopping bag, a pocket watch and a sketch pad with the years 2003 - 2008, "$, injury and death" written on successive pages that I folded down as each minute passed. The final page read "2009, Enough!"
We did the action twice in different spots in the mall. The second time, within two minutes, several security persons arrived and told us to stop it. (But we WERE stopped!) We had decided beforehand to not press it when asked to leave. The security people ushered us out of the building and into the parking lot. When I remarked to one of them that there aren't many public spaces left for expressing our opinions, he agreed.
Some in the group were headed afterward to a demonstration and toy drive at the T. Don Hutto private prison in Taylor, where they were joining others calling for the facility that imprisons immigrant families with children to be closed.
Are we OK with privatizing our gathering places ... our prisons ... our wars? Strangely, at the same time that legislators are using public funds to prop up private companies, they are using private companies to carry out government business. Things are backward and topsy-turvy. It's time to stop and change course.
While shoppers buzzed from store to kiosk, a group of 15 of us organized by CodePink Austin stood still in an atrium area for 6 minutes to demonstrate the cold reality that the 6th year of an occupation of Iraq that continues to cost lives and dollars is being sold as the solution in Afghanistan as well.
Some of us carried shopping bags that we'd covered with bold lettering reading "Don't Buy War," " We Can't Afford War," or "Buy Toys, Not War." We wore clothing with peace messages and buttons that encouraged shoppers to read our flier. Some held mock newspapers emblazoned with the headline, "War is Over."
Our mall theatre was modeled on previous freeze actions held in New York City's Grand Central Station and other busy public centers to dramatize the "stop war" message.
The flier we made available to shoppers explained the action, urging them to not buy war toys and to not "buy into the notion that war in Afghanistan is the 'good war.'" The flier listed reasons to end the military occupation of Afghanistan and recommendations for a changed US policy, as prepared by the group, September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, an organization of 9-11 victims' family members, some of whom have travelled to Afghanistan to meet with family members of occupation victims.
Our freeze action elicited curious stares from shoppers who stopped and watched, some taking out their phones to take photos, and some asking for a flier. Coming across people standing still amidst a flurry of activity arrests the imagination.
I stood in my "Make Art, Not War" t-shirt holding a messaged shopping bag, a pocket watch and a sketch pad with the years 2003 - 2008, "$, injury and death" written on successive pages that I folded down as each minute passed. The final page read "2009, Enough!"
We did the action twice in different spots in the mall. The second time, within two minutes, several security persons arrived and told us to stop it. (But we WERE stopped!) We had decided beforehand to not press it when asked to leave. The security people ushered us out of the building and into the parking lot. When I remarked to one of them that there aren't many public spaces left for expressing our opinions, he agreed.
Some in the group were headed afterward to a demonstration and toy drive at the T. Don Hutto private prison in Taylor, where they were joining others calling for the facility that imprisons immigrant families with children to be closed.
Are we OK with privatizing our gathering places ... our prisons ... our wars? Strangely, at the same time that legislators are using public funds to prop up private companies, they are using private companies to carry out government business. Things are backward and topsy-turvy. It's time to stop and change course.
Friday, December 19, 2008
Karl Meyer and natural rights
The annual holiday letter from Karl Meyer arrived this week, and he graciously gave permission for it to be posted here. I like what he relates...
December 4, 2008
Dear fellow creatures,
My annual letters often tell stories of being arrested and jailed for trespassing on lands or properties claimed by others, usually in the name of The People of the United States, or subordinate jurisdictions. I confess that I was not arrested anywhere, for anything, this year; yet I still return to my familiar theme with this tale of –
The Trials of the Nashville Greenlands Twenty-Two
(With a tip of the hat to my old friend, Fr. Dan Berrigan, SJ, author of The Trial of the Catonsville Nine)
In these cases the defendants were thirteen rats, eight squirrels, and one juvenile possum, detained and arrested in Havahart traps while trespassing in the vegetable gardens and orchards of our autonomous republic, Nashville Greenlands.
We admit that they were born on these lands, or in territories immediately surrounding us, and have a natural right to be here, yet we claim sovereignty and jurisdiction by virtue of the powers of possession. They ate most of our gooseberries and soybeans, and much of our tomato crop, before we could get control of the situation. Of course, we did not create these crops – we just planted seeds and plants, pulled weeds and mulched a little, and then waited for Earth, sun and rain to do the rest.
I still remember vividly the words of a Catholic priest in Herscher, Illinois, in the spring of 1965, when I walked from Chicago to the State Capitol in Springfield seeking abolition of the death penalty (a goal we reached that year, though only for awhile). He left me standing in pouring rain on the steps of his porch, as he asked me through the screen door between us, “We shoot rats, don’t we ?”
Well, no. We don’t practice capital punishment at Nashville Greenlands. Here is where the irony and the contrasts begin, between the way we treat animal trespassers here, and the experience of protesters, immigrants, homeless people and others arrested in the United States for being in places where they are not allowed to be, such as the soybean fields of Iowa, or the tomato fields of South Florida, where they might be harvesting food for us to eat.
We give each rat or squirrel a prompt hearing, almost always within twelve hours of their original detention. They squeak and squeal in languages we do not understand, but wish we could. Unfortunately, English is the only language understood by the ruling powers here. We sentence them promptly and uniformly to thirty days of unsupervised probation for trespassing and destruction of property valued at less than $1000, and we warn them sternly that they may be sentenced to as much as six months of probation if they are found again on the property here. Then we quickly deport them at least a quarter mile into the fields and woods across the street, into jurisdictions claimed by the State of Tennessee and the United States of America, whence they will have a hard time finding their ways back to us (or so we think).
I admit to being a world class recidivist trespasser myself, though arrested always on properties allegedly belonging to the people : a nuclear missile base under construction in Nebraska; the hallways of federal courthouses while leafleting against the military draft, war taxes and imperial wars; the public wharf at the Bay of LeHavre, the streets of Muhlenbeck just north of East Berlin; a public subway platform in Chicago, while leafleting against a fare increase; a sidewalk in front of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon; the steps of the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, while inviting the Ambassador to share a meal of rice and lentils equivalent to a typical Iraqi ration during the period of economic sanctions; the grounds of the infamous School of the Americas; the Nashville office of Senator Bill Frist at the start of the current Iraq War. In contrast to our treatment of the Nashville Greenlands Twenty-Two, I have waited in filthy, crowded cells as long as twenty-six hours before seeing a judge for arraignment, as long as seven days in jail waiting for trial, and twice been sentenced to six months in prison for trespassing at military reservations. Of course, this was very mild if compared to recent treatment of people who dared to fight against the invasion of their countries, without being authorized by the U.S. Government, or people who come to this country to cultivate our fields and harvest crops for us, without the right authorization papers.
This year, as usual, I traveled north to Chicago for the autumn season and worked at carpentry repairs for old customers. [...]
Responding to the Housing Finance Crisis
I returned to Nashville, pulled out the cash savings I had been parking temporarily to prop up the flagging fortunes of J.P. Morgan/Chase Bank, and invested in cash purchase of another vacant house in our neighborhood (our fourth so far), that will be restored and owned by our friends Enrique Romero and his father, Felipe, highly skilled building tradesmen from Toluca, Mexico. Thus, a Catholic Worker style, direct action response to the housing finance crisis, sub-prime loans, and the need for affordable housing.
As the year winds down we are organizing locally against a proposed amendment to the Metro Nashville Charter that would make English the only language that could be used in any official actions, communications or publications of all Metro Government bodies.
Despite the inroads of our rodent friends, 2008 has been a year of bumper harvests from our gardens. Freezer, refrigerators and cabinets are full of preserved green beans, onions, beets, radishes, tomatoes, peppers, squash, sweet potatoes, pears, peaches, cherries, almonds and chestnuts, while the garden cold frames still yield a generous supply of fresh carrots, beets, and greens.
And that’s the news from Nashville Greenlands, where all the men are good looking, all the women are strong, and all living things are held in reverence.
Fraternally, Karl Meyer
December 4, 2008
Dear fellow creatures,
My annual letters often tell stories of being arrested and jailed for trespassing on lands or properties claimed by others, usually in the name of The People of the United States, or subordinate jurisdictions. I confess that I was not arrested anywhere, for anything, this year; yet I still return to my familiar theme with this tale of –
The Trials of the Nashville Greenlands Twenty-Two
(With a tip of the hat to my old friend, Fr. Dan Berrigan, SJ, author of The Trial of the Catonsville Nine)
In these cases the defendants were thirteen rats, eight squirrels, and one juvenile possum, detained and arrested in Havahart traps while trespassing in the vegetable gardens and orchards of our autonomous republic, Nashville Greenlands.
We admit that they were born on these lands, or in territories immediately surrounding us, and have a natural right to be here, yet we claim sovereignty and jurisdiction by virtue of the powers of possession. They ate most of our gooseberries and soybeans, and much of our tomato crop, before we could get control of the situation. Of course, we did not create these crops – we just planted seeds and plants, pulled weeds and mulched a little, and then waited for Earth, sun and rain to do the rest.
I still remember vividly the words of a Catholic priest in Herscher, Illinois, in the spring of 1965, when I walked from Chicago to the State Capitol in Springfield seeking abolition of the death penalty (a goal we reached that year, though only for awhile). He left me standing in pouring rain on the steps of his porch, as he asked me through the screen door between us, “We shoot rats, don’t we ?”
Well, no. We don’t practice capital punishment at Nashville Greenlands. Here is where the irony and the contrasts begin, between the way we treat animal trespassers here, and the experience of protesters, immigrants, homeless people and others arrested in the United States for being in places where they are not allowed to be, such as the soybean fields of Iowa, or the tomato fields of South Florida, where they might be harvesting food for us to eat.
We give each rat or squirrel a prompt hearing, almost always within twelve hours of their original detention. They squeak and squeal in languages we do not understand, but wish we could. Unfortunately, English is the only language understood by the ruling powers here. We sentence them promptly and uniformly to thirty days of unsupervised probation for trespassing and destruction of property valued at less than $1000, and we warn them sternly that they may be sentenced to as much as six months of probation if they are found again on the property here. Then we quickly deport them at least a quarter mile into the fields and woods across the street, into jurisdictions claimed by the State of Tennessee and the United States of America, whence they will have a hard time finding their ways back to us (or so we think).
I admit to being a world class recidivist trespasser myself, though arrested always on properties allegedly belonging to the people : a nuclear missile base under construction in Nebraska; the hallways of federal courthouses while leafleting against the military draft, war taxes and imperial wars; the public wharf at the Bay of LeHavre, the streets of Muhlenbeck just north of East Berlin; a public subway platform in Chicago, while leafleting against a fare increase; a sidewalk in front of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon; the steps of the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, while inviting the Ambassador to share a meal of rice and lentils equivalent to a typical Iraqi ration during the period of economic sanctions; the grounds of the infamous School of the Americas; the Nashville office of Senator Bill Frist at the start of the current Iraq War. In contrast to our treatment of the Nashville Greenlands Twenty-Two, I have waited in filthy, crowded cells as long as twenty-six hours before seeing a judge for arraignment, as long as seven days in jail waiting for trial, and twice been sentenced to six months in prison for trespassing at military reservations. Of course, this was very mild if compared to recent treatment of people who dared to fight against the invasion of their countries, without being authorized by the U.S. Government, or people who come to this country to cultivate our fields and harvest crops for us, without the right authorization papers.
This year, as usual, I traveled north to Chicago for the autumn season and worked at carpentry repairs for old customers. [...]
Responding to the Housing Finance Crisis
I returned to Nashville, pulled out the cash savings I had been parking temporarily to prop up the flagging fortunes of J.P. Morgan/Chase Bank, and invested in cash purchase of another vacant house in our neighborhood (our fourth so far), that will be restored and owned by our friends Enrique Romero and his father, Felipe, highly skilled building tradesmen from Toluca, Mexico. Thus, a Catholic Worker style, direct action response to the housing finance crisis, sub-prime loans, and the need for affordable housing.
As the year winds down we are organizing locally against a proposed amendment to the Metro Nashville Charter that would make English the only language that could be used in any official actions, communications or publications of all Metro Government bodies.
Despite the inroads of our rodent friends, 2008 has been a year of bumper harvests from our gardens. Freezer, refrigerators and cabinets are full of preserved green beans, onions, beets, radishes, tomatoes, peppers, squash, sweet potatoes, pears, peaches, cherries, almonds and chestnuts, while the garden cold frames still yield a generous supply of fresh carrots, beets, and greens.
And that’s the news from Nashville Greenlands, where all the men are good looking, all the women are strong, and all living things are held in reverence.
Fraternally, Karl Meyer
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Iraq war veterans speak out in Austin
On the eve of Veterans Day, four veterans of the Iraq war spoke on a panel at the University of Texas to offer a reality check to the jingoism surrounding most November 11th commemorations. Organized by the student group, CAMEO (Campus Antiwar Movement to End Occupations), the event was designed to echo the Winter Soldier model where veterans of the wars/occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan speak from their own experience about what is happening there. In the months since the first Winter Soldier hearings were held by Iraq Veterans Against the War near Washington DC in March (patterned after the historic hearings by Vietnam Veterans Against the War in 1971), IVAW members have been speaking on regional and local panels across the country, giving Americans more opportunities to hear directly from veterans in their communities.
Are Americans listening? That is the question. The virtual media blackout in the main stream press has been at least partially offset by good reporting among independent and international media, and IVAW itself has accomplished its own publicity through effective web outreach and creative nonviolent direct action. Thanks to student groups like CAMEO and other community sponsorship, veterans’ stories are being aired, and the mainstream can’t claim ignorance. Truth has a way of finding the light of day.
The first of the four panelists to speak on Monday night was Hart Viges, one of my colleagues in the group, Nonmilitary Options for Youth. Hart has taken a strong interest in reaching out to young people who are in the position he was in when he felt the best thing he could do for his country was to take up arms on its behalf. Now, on his army shirt, he wears the Nonmilitary Options logo: a gun with its barrel twisted in a knot. “I’d rather talk to a high school kid than a politician any day,” he says, “because that politician isn’t going to join the military.”
Hart enlisted on Sept. 12, 2001 out of a deep sense of patriotic duty. He trained with the tough Army Airborne, hoping to jump into Iraq the hard way. Instead, he rolled into Iraq on the ground, conducting house raids and setting mortars for “soft targets.” He discovered that the mythical battleground was actually someone’s community. After one tour, Hart came to grips with his beliefs about war, crystallized by his experience of it, and he applied for a discharge as a conscientious objector. He was one of the lucky ones whose claim was approved, and he received an honorable discharge. Since then, Hart has been devoting much time to IVAW, Nonmilitary Options for Youth and the GI Rights Hotline as a telephone counselor. He has spoken widely in the US and abroad and was one of the veterans who testified at the Winter Soldier hearings in March. He also participates in a veterans therapy group at the VA, has taken some college courses and works full-time.
When he talks to high school students about his experience in Iraq, Hart encourages them to see not only the “ground zero effects” of war but also the larger picture, the system that perpetuates war. He talks about the tax dollars that fund it and the mindset that rationalizes it. Students listen because he has been there. “I know that my real tax dollars turn into real bullets that kill real people,” he says. “What I saw over there was a gross misdirection of resources and power.” When he shows students the pie chart showing the billions of federal tax dollars funneled into military spending – money that could easily pay all the college expenses of every college-aged person in the US - he asks them, “What would you rather have – two wars or a completely educated society?”
In some respects, Hart is continuing the mission he began when the Sept. 11th hijackingss spurred his instinct to protect his community with his life. Now, the community he wants to protect extends beyond the borders of one country and encompasses future generations. Instead of using a gun, he’s using his gifts.
Second panelist, Bryan Hannah has been stationed at Ft. Hood, TX and is in the discharge process after applying as a conscientious objector. He spoke primarily about the role of private contractors in the “war on terror,” and the exasperation he feels about the lack of accountability in so many aspects of the war, from the Bush Administration on down. He didn’t describe his own experiences in Iraq, but an excerpt from a blog he writes gives a clue to some of his feelings during a recent training exercise at Ft. Hood:
I remember the first time I waited in line for my M-16 in basic. I was like a little kid at Christmas time. Now, as I stand here to the side, as everyone draws their weapons for the field, I feel like I’m not here. Seeing people fight to gain position in a line to get their weapons sooner than the next guy, I listen in from my own little world, hearing the mutters of anxious, motivated privates in chorus with the broken vets, loathing the cold black maiden that has broken families and destroyed lives. The ball and chain wrapped around their souls and anchored into a mired existence. Due to my Conscientious Objector packet, I don’t have to carry a weapon and it almost feels like I successfully kicked a habit, or that I might actually separate from the Army one day and begin to heal.
Bryan also has written for the IVAW publication, “SIT-REP.” In their Memorial Day ’08 issue, he authored an article about soldiers who die of injuries sustained in Iraq whose deaths are not counted in official tallies. He asked, “What about the other casualties of war? The amputees, paraplegics, quadriplegics, people with brain damage and hearing loss, personalities that are permanently changed for the worse, marriages ruined (divorces among officers have risen 300% and enlisted people have a 200% higher divorce rate than before 2003), and children who are messed up by separation from their parents. Is this war worth it? Is any possible success worth the cost?”
Bryan closed his remarks on the panel by saying, “We have to remember that apathy is the dying sigh of freedom.” That’s a quote for the ages.
Mike Nordstrom, a US Marine, opened his portion of the panel discussion by informing his audience, “Today is the Marine Corps’ birthday: November 10, 1775.” Mike spoke about the difficulties that arise when one of “the few, the proud” is injured and faces the stigma associated with seeking treatment. Mike sustained physical and psychological injuries during his two tours in Iraq but was hesitant to check into the VA because he didn’t want to “take away resources” from vets with injuries that seemed worse than his. He also said that he felt embarrassed using the VA. It took pressure from his family and friends to finally get him in the door. Once there, he dealt with lots of paperwork and long waiting periods for appointments. Now, he meets regularly with a group of other vets at the VA and openly discusses the PTSD that he said is considered a “weakness issue” in the Marines.
Final panelist, Ronn Cantu, discussed in some detail the job he held during his last tour in Iraq as part of a human intelligence team. He feels he can finally speak openly about what he did in Iraq because he has just been discharged this month from the US Army.
Ronn described the process he and others in his intelligence unit were ordered to use to “make a citizen into a detainee.” The process involved capitalizing on Iraqi grudges and loyalties and their desperate need for employment and cash. He spoke about the “dual sourced” intelligence they were supposed to gather to incriminate Iraqi men of military age (documenting two information sources for every suspect). “What makes an Iraqi want to turn in another Iraqi? Money and a lot of lying,” he said. Orders would come down to “speed things up,” meaning that higher-ups wanted more detainees, so they “cast the net” wider. He said that the more they had to speed it up, the less often they found the right people. So that numbers could increase, men of military age were rounded up and detained without cause. Ronn also said that he saw evidence of detained men having been beaten, but when he asked about it, he was told that if he didn’t witness the beating, there was nothing he could do about it.
Ronn had already served an enlistment in the army when he was inspired to re-enlist after hearing Colin Powell’s presentation to the UN arguing for an invasion of Iraq. “I bought it, hook, line and sinker,” he said. But, “after the life I took in my first deployment and the deceit in my second, I was done. I wouldn’t be a part of that anymore. I decided human beings weren’t made to treat each other like that.”
Ronn did some writing from Iraq, began to speak out more publicly and filed a claim as a conscientious objector, but the military decided to use an administrative discharge. Ronn is relieved to be out, and plans to re-start his college career this spring. “As a 30 year-old, I don’t know how it will be going to school with 19 year-olds,” he says, but he is anxious to get to it. While he’s gathering intelligence in a new way, his classmates will have a lot to learn from him, too.
photos by makingpeace from top: Ronn Cantu, Michael Nordstrom, Bryan Hannah and Hart Viges at the Texas State Capitol following the Veterans Day parade
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Iraq Veterans Against the War well received in Austin's Veterans Day parade
The Austin American Statesman had some good photos from the Veterans Day parade yesterday, but they missed one of the parade entries: Iraq Veterans Against the War. Four IVAW members marched with their banner following Monday evening's panel at UT (more to come about that.)
Veterans for Peace and Iraq Veterans Against the War groups marched in Veterans Day parades around the country yesterday, although VFP and IVAW chapters were denied permission to march in some cities. In Raleigh, North Carolina, for example, the parade overseer excluded the local VFP group from marching with their flag (which simply reads "Veterans for Peace" with the peace dove on helmet image) because the flag was deemed a "political statement." The parade organizer also made the confounding statement that the parade "has nothing to do with war."
I was pleased to read that the Houston VFP group marched along with several IVAW members and other supporters. Here is a report posted at Houston Indymedia:
"Members of Veterans for Peace, chapter #12 (Houston) marched in the Houston Veterans Day parade again this year on Nov. 11, joined by other peace activists. VFP invited other peace groups to march with them, and representatives of the Progressive Action Alliance, Iraq Veterans Against the War, and the Harris Co. Green Party helped carry banners, signs, and flags. Marchers were led by banners for IVAW, VFP, and a giant one saying "Stop the War On Iraq - Bring the Trrops Home Now". Signs included slogans like "Fund Vet Benefits, Not the War", and "Support the Troops - Bring them Home Now". Marchers also carried both VFP and US flags. Jim Rine, President of the Houston area VFP chapter, said, "We were in the parade to show that war is not the answer. We wanted to offer an alternative to the usual militaristic displays."
The crowd was significantly smaller than in recent years, most likely because of the 70% chance of rain for the day's weather forecast and the fact that it had rained earlier in the morning.
Responses from the crowd were overwhelmingly positive, with at least ten positive responses for every negative one. When onlookers saw the signs and banners, many of them broke into applause and shouted "Thank You" and similar slogans, while showing peace signs, waves, and thumbs up. Some onlookers reached out to shake the hands of the VFP group or give them high fives. A few onlookers uttered negative comments, but they were obviously in a minority. Even many of the VIP's in and around the viewing stand in front of Herman Square applauded the VFP group and waved to them as the group passed by."
As I watched Austin's parade from the sidewalk along Congress Avenue yesterday, I also heard a lot of supportive hoots and applause when IVAW walked by, and a number of folks stopped to shake the vets' hands as we stood near the capitol afterward. The guys said that, as in Houston, response all along the route was overwhelmingly positive. They noticed two men turn their backs on them -- the only negative reaction they encountered. An older woman in uniform (a WAVE, I think) saw their banner and remarked, "You're against the war? Well, bless your hearts" in a strangely Sarah Palinesque sort of way.
As IVAW passed the reviewing area at 7th and Congress, it was good to hear the announcer state the name of the group along with their mission statement: troops home from Iraq, full benefits for returning veterans and reparations for Iraq.
photos of IVAW members Ronn Cantu and Bryan Hannah from Ft. Hood and Michael Nordstrom and Hart Viges from Austin on Tuesday, November 11
photos by makingpeace
Thursday, October 30, 2008
On interest
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote briefly about my views on interest -- that is, about the concept of making money with money. Wall Street news got me thinking about it again. I looked up an essay I read some time ago by one of my longtime sheroes, peace and civil rights activist and war tax resister, Juanita Nelson.
Juanita's ideas influenced my own. Here is what she wrote:
On Interest
I consider war tax refusal an essential step in the direction of a saner society, when a society is squandering its substance on war waging and preparation. But if I stop at that point I haven’t got the point. Another imperative for me is to look at economics, beyond the use and abuse of federal tax funds, and to take whatever faltering steps I can in the light of insights as I gain them.
An insight I gained many years ago concerns interest, or the ability of money to multiply, to grow, to reproduce itself. I examined the concept inside out, upside down, top to bottom, and concluded that money has no reproductive powers. A hundred pennies sealed in a jar for however many years remains a hundred pennies. It makes no difference if the jar rests on your desk or in the vault of a bank or is invested in the Sleight-of-Hand Corporation. (Experiment with the jar of pennies on your desk.)
Interest is a construct invented so that, as John Ruskin observes in Unto This Last, some can take advantage of other's distress. If I lend you a hundred dollars that I have no need of at the moment, or that I obviously can manage without, why would I demand a hundred and ten from you within a year instead of merely the original hundred? I would have done nothing to deserve the ten dollars. It would result from work you had performed and therefore, according to my calculations, I would be extracting ten dollars worth of your labor.
For a paragraph, I'd prefer to remove the discussion from the distraction of dollars or money, only a representation of the real thing. What I'm really dealing with is the product of labor applied to natural resources, the only combination I am aware of which yields wealth. (No matter how many dollar bills, of whatever denomination, are thrown to the ground, they cannot dig a hole, as one person can.) So I, having a surplus, let you use ten bushels of corn to supplement your poor crop, a supplement without which you must go hungry much of the winter. But I stipulate that the next year you must return to me not the ten bushels you had from me, but eleven. If we assume that it takes equal amounts of time to grow a bushel of corn, I would be usurping a bushel of corn's worth of your time, your labor. With what justification?
So, the first thing to ask about interest is, what is it? And the answer appears to be: appropriation of another’s labor - though the ultimate victims of that appropriation may be many times removed from our immediate view - maybe just a polite way of saying robbery. If this sounds harsh, listen to Cicero in De Officius, 44 B.C.E.: When Cato was asked what was most profitable in the way of property, he replied, "good pasture." And when the man who asked the question said, "And what about lending at interest?" Cato answered, "What about manslaughter?" I was pleased also to be backed up by economist Maynard Keynes: "At the base of today’s acquisitive society is legalized usury, or lending money at interest."
Pioneer Valley War Tax Resisters reluctantly keeps a small bank account to enable check processing. Some years ago we agreed that taking interest on the piddling sum was contrary to all we believed in. We approached the bank to ask that we not be credited with interest. We went from a surprised receptionist to a nonplussed teller to an adamant president, who told us their charter required them to give us the interest. It was only after I recounted an experience in Philadelphia where I had been allowed to forego the unwanted sum that the president decided he could honor our request. Not only that, he consented to what we’d mentioned only offhandedly because we thought it would be too much - we could return the interest we had previously collected! Which we did. We had won permission not to take money we didn’t want.
photo of Juanita and Wally Nelson, 1986
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Soldier turned Conscientious Objector stands his ground
Nice article posted on Alternet:
How 21 year-old Blake Ivey came to see war as "flat-out murder"
By Sarah Lazare
"I believe war is the crime of our times," Blake Ivey, a specialist in the U.S. Army, said over the phone in a slow, deliberate voice.
Ivey, currently stationed in Fort Gordon, Ga., is publicly refusing to deploy to Afghanistan. The 21-year-old soldier filed for conscientious objector status in July but was ordered to deploy while his application was being processed. He is determined not to go, and as of our last phone call, was still actively serving on his base, weighing his options for refusal.
Ivey joins what appears to be a growing number of troops refusing to fight in the so-called Global War on Terror. While there is no way to tell the exact number of resisters, military statistics indicate that resistance is on the rise. Since 2002, the Army has court-martialed twice as many soldiers for desertion and other unauthorized absences per year than for each year between 1997 and 2001. The Associated Press reports AWOL rates in the Army at its highest since 1980, with the desertion rate (defined as 30 or more days of unauthorized absence) having jumped 80 percent since the start of the Iraq War. More than 150 soldiers have publicly refused to fight in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and an estimated 200 war resisters are living in Canada.
Many war resisters are conscientious objectors (C.O.s) who were deterred at early stages of the C.O. application process or ordered to deploy before their C.O. paperwork went through. Just last week, 19-year-old conscientious objector Tony Anderson at Fort Carson, Colo., publicly shared his experience. Anderson had been discouraged by his commanding officers from applying for C.O. status, and he disobeyed orders to deploy to Iraq. He now faces steep punishment at the hands of the military.
Ivey, who grew up in Augusta, Ga., just a few miles from the Fort Gordon base where he is now stationed, joined the Army willingly. After the events of Sept. 11, 2001, he felt that it was "his generation's time to stand up in defense of the country." He states, "I went to the recruiter myself. No one approached me." So, in 2005 he joined the service out of high school, despite his mother's pleas that he take more time to think it over.
Yet once Ivey was in the military, his feelings about war changed. He found it unsettling to chant "Blood, blood, blood makes the grass grow" in basic training, and he wrote a letter home to his mother describing his discomfort. When he was deployed to Korea in 2006, he started questioning the value of military service. Halfway through his yearlong deployment, he began studying anarchist philosophers and nonviolent thinkers such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi.
The refusal of close friend Ryan Jackson to deploy to Iraq led Ivey to re-evaluate his own situation. They got to know each other in Advanced Individual Training in 2005 and were in the same unit together in Fort Gordon after Ivey's return from Korea.
They discussed at length their reluctance to go to war. Ivey provided simple advice to Jackson: "I told him, you've got to do what you believe in." So, Jackson decided not to go. He attempted to gain administrative leave, but when his paperwork failed to go through, he decided to go AWOL rather than face deployment. Ivey remained close with Jackson throughout the process, giving him emotional support when he went AWOL in 2007 and was court-martialed and sentenced to 100 days of confinement. "When I talked to Jackson before he went to court-martial, that's when I decided I was going to start on my conscientious objector paperwork," says Ivey.
Meanwhile, Ivey continued to research alternatives to war, immersing himself in the texts of nonviolent philosophers. He also got involved in his local community, helping start a chapter of Food Not Bombs, a collective movement to serve free food, mostly vegan and vegetarian, to others. "I want to make a difference in people's lives," he says.
While his conscientious objector paperwork was being processed, Ivey was ordered to deploy to Afghanistan. Application for C.O. status cannot forestall deployment, but applicants are supposed to be assigned tasks that do not conflict with their C.O. convictions. However, this military directive is subject to ambiguous interpretation, and the commanding officer has considerable discretion in determining appropriate assignments. Furthermore, many conscientious objectors consider deployment to a combat zone by definition ethically compromising.
If Ivey refuses to deploy, he could be charged with "Missing Movement" -- Article 87 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice -- by a general court martial, punishable by up to two years in the stockade, loss of pay and a dishonorable discharge. There is also the danger that the military might try to pile on charges against him, such as Article 90, "willfully disobeying superior officer," and General Article 134, which covers all conduct "unbecoming" a service member.
Ivey is determined not to go to Afghanistan, and he is working with a civilian lawyer to explore his options. He has also enlisted the support of Courage to Resist, an organization that supports the troops who refuse to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan and has worked with several GIs in similar situations, including Anderson and Jackson.
Ivey's mother, who lives in Augusta a few miles from where Ivey is stationed, is supportive but worried about her son. "I am concerned because any time someone you care about is in a situation that could cause them turmoil in their life or legal charges, whether they are right or wrong, I am going to worry," she says. "But I would in no way encourage him to do anything different. He is following his moral beliefs, and he has to do that."
Despite the threat of steep punishment, Ivey remains steadfast in his commitment to nonviolence. "I am against organized war," he says. "It is flat-out murder."
How 21 year-old Blake Ivey came to see war as "flat-out murder"
By Sarah Lazare
"I believe war is the crime of our times," Blake Ivey, a specialist in the U.S. Army, said over the phone in a slow, deliberate voice.
Ivey, currently stationed in Fort Gordon, Ga., is publicly refusing to deploy to Afghanistan. The 21-year-old soldier filed for conscientious objector status in July but was ordered to deploy while his application was being processed. He is determined not to go, and as of our last phone call, was still actively serving on his base, weighing his options for refusal.
Ivey joins what appears to be a growing number of troops refusing to fight in the so-called Global War on Terror. While there is no way to tell the exact number of resisters, military statistics indicate that resistance is on the rise. Since 2002, the Army has court-martialed twice as many soldiers for desertion and other unauthorized absences per year than for each year between 1997 and 2001. The Associated Press reports AWOL rates in the Army at its highest since 1980, with the desertion rate (defined as 30 or more days of unauthorized absence) having jumped 80 percent since the start of the Iraq War. More than 150 soldiers have publicly refused to fight in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and an estimated 200 war resisters are living in Canada.
Many war resisters are conscientious objectors (C.O.s) who were deterred at early stages of the C.O. application process or ordered to deploy before their C.O. paperwork went through. Just last week, 19-year-old conscientious objector Tony Anderson at Fort Carson, Colo., publicly shared his experience. Anderson had been discouraged by his commanding officers from applying for C.O. status, and he disobeyed orders to deploy to Iraq. He now faces steep punishment at the hands of the military.
Ivey, who grew up in Augusta, Ga., just a few miles from the Fort Gordon base where he is now stationed, joined the Army willingly. After the events of Sept. 11, 2001, he felt that it was "his generation's time to stand up in defense of the country." He states, "I went to the recruiter myself. No one approached me." So, in 2005 he joined the service out of high school, despite his mother's pleas that he take more time to think it over.
Yet once Ivey was in the military, his feelings about war changed. He found it unsettling to chant "Blood, blood, blood makes the grass grow" in basic training, and he wrote a letter home to his mother describing his discomfort. When he was deployed to Korea in 2006, he started questioning the value of military service. Halfway through his yearlong deployment, he began studying anarchist philosophers and nonviolent thinkers such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi.
The refusal of close friend Ryan Jackson to deploy to Iraq led Ivey to re-evaluate his own situation. They got to know each other in Advanced Individual Training in 2005 and were in the same unit together in Fort Gordon after Ivey's return from Korea.
They discussed at length their reluctance to go to war. Ivey provided simple advice to Jackson: "I told him, you've got to do what you believe in." So, Jackson decided not to go. He attempted to gain administrative leave, but when his paperwork failed to go through, he decided to go AWOL rather than face deployment. Ivey remained close with Jackson throughout the process, giving him emotional support when he went AWOL in 2007 and was court-martialed and sentenced to 100 days of confinement. "When I talked to Jackson before he went to court-martial, that's when I decided I was going to start on my conscientious objector paperwork," says Ivey.
Meanwhile, Ivey continued to research alternatives to war, immersing himself in the texts of nonviolent philosophers. He also got involved in his local community, helping start a chapter of Food Not Bombs, a collective movement to serve free food, mostly vegan and vegetarian, to others. "I want to make a difference in people's lives," he says.
While his conscientious objector paperwork was being processed, Ivey was ordered to deploy to Afghanistan. Application for C.O. status cannot forestall deployment, but applicants are supposed to be assigned tasks that do not conflict with their C.O. convictions. However, this military directive is subject to ambiguous interpretation, and the commanding officer has considerable discretion in determining appropriate assignments. Furthermore, many conscientious objectors consider deployment to a combat zone by definition ethically compromising.
If Ivey refuses to deploy, he could be charged with "Missing Movement" -- Article 87 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice -- by a general court martial, punishable by up to two years in the stockade, loss of pay and a dishonorable discharge. There is also the danger that the military might try to pile on charges against him, such as Article 90, "willfully disobeying superior officer," and General Article 134, which covers all conduct "unbecoming" a service member.
Ivey is determined not to go to Afghanistan, and he is working with a civilian lawyer to explore his options. He has also enlisted the support of Courage to Resist, an organization that supports the troops who refuse to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan and has worked with several GIs in similar situations, including Anderson and Jackson.
Ivey's mother, who lives in Augusta a few miles from where Ivey is stationed, is supportive but worried about her son. "I am concerned because any time someone you care about is in a situation that could cause them turmoil in their life or legal charges, whether they are right or wrong, I am going to worry," she says. "But I would in no way encourage him to do anything different. He is following his moral beliefs, and he has to do that."
Despite the threat of steep punishment, Ivey remains steadfast in his commitment to nonviolence. "I am against organized war," he says. "It is flat-out murder."
Monday, October 27, 2008
Texas Senator gets the pink slip
Say, was that a giant pink slip displayed across the street from US Senator John Cornyn's office on Friday morning? I believe it was!
At about the same time the pink slip was flying downtown, the Austin American Statesman was running a Cornyn ad on its home page.
Strangely, the AAS editorial board endorses the senator, even while admitting that he has been "little more than an agent of the Bush administration."
Rather than giving the Senator another term to "move to the center," we think he should keep following the Bush administration right out the door.
The CodePink delivery service reported that the message was well received by morning commuters with many honks and waves, even though parking garage security were soon on the case, ordering the slip team to roll it up and threatening to "cut it down with a knife." Notta lotta drama in the parking garage most of the time, I'm guessin.
After being kicked out, the pink slippers decided to walk the banner to another garage and unfurl it again. All together, the pink slip flew for about an hour.
I wonder how much the Cornyn campaign pays to run a Statesman ad. The parking garage cost $4 -- and a little strategery.
photo by Deborah Vanko
Monday, October 20, 2008
Camilo Mejia: private rebellion, public resistance
When Camilo Mejia walked into the auditorium of UT's Garrison Hall where he was to speak last Thursday night, his first reaction was to shake his head at the large book-cover images of himself that were projected onto screens in front. He's a humble guy, and self-promotion is not his leaning.
But, he's on the Resisting Empire speaking tour with the new Haymarket Books publication of The Road from ar Ramadi: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Camilo Mejia: An Iraq War Memoir, so he was in Austin to promote both the book and the mission of his fellow Iraq Veterans Against the War: immediate and unconditional withdrawal of occupation forces from Iraq, adequate care for all veterans and reparations for Iraq.
With his youthful good looks, casual attire and backpack slung over his shoulder, Mejia could have been one of the many students in his audience. But, when he began to speak, his seriousness revealed a deeper level of experience. He invited the five other members of Iraq Veterans Against the War who were present to join him in the front and take questions from the crowd, creating an instant IVAW panel that personified the variety of membership within the rapidly growing organization.
As chair of the board of IVAW, Mejia reported that from 7 original members who organized the group in July 2004, IVAW membership has expanded to about 1400, including the most quickly growing contingent: active duty soldiers. One of the newest chapters formed at Ft. Hood this year.
Mejia stressed the importance of the camaraderie that he and other vets experience through their involvement with IVAW. The sense of shared purpose and belonging mirrors an aspect of military life they value. He also said that in his role with IVAW, he has learned a new sense of what leadership entails: "respect, communication and shared ideals," rather than leadership based on fear and punishment that he was trained to demonstrate as an army staff sergeant.
Mejia's primary message is that conscience, not combat, is the source of our freedom. When a soldier is in the midst of combat, it is very difficult to think about moral implications. "You're under so much pressure; there's so much fear, so much fatigue." Soldiers can't be expected to weigh right and wrong in the middle of a firefight. Drilled in reflexive fire training and armed with powerful weapons, they don't have to get an order to kill civilians; they're just thrown into situations where they do it. Mejia said that in the five months he was in Iraq, his unit killed 33 civilians. Only 3 were armed.
Mejia talked about following orders to abuse Iraqi prisoners. He describes this also in the new film, Soldiers of Conscience, a documentary that happened to air in Austin the same night that Mejia spoke here. While in Iraq, Mejia felt conflicted about what he was doing, but it wasn't until he was home on a two week leave that he had the time and distance to really think about it. "Some people say, 'once a soldier, always a soldier,'" he says in the film. "Well, once a human being, always a human being."
Through his interviews, his appearances in documentaries like Soldiers of Conscience and The Ground Truth, his speaking tours and in his own incisive writing, Mejia has modeled what IVAW has been aiming to do as a group through the "Winter Soldier" hearings and panels. As he said in the concluding remarks of the initial Winter Soldier hearings held in March '08 -- now transcribed in a new book (also published by Haymarket Books), Winter Soldier, Iraq and Afghanistan: Eyewitness Accounts of the Occupations,
"Iraq Veterans Against the War has become a source of stress to the military brass and to the government ... We have become a dangerous group of people not because of our military training, but because we have dared to challenge the official story. We are dangerous because we have dared to share our experiences, to think for ourselves, to analyze and be critical, to follow our conscience, and because we have dared to go beyond patriotism to embrace humanity."
Winter Soldier testimony from the March hearings can be seen on the IVAW website, and the book can be ordered there, too.
As terrible as it is to hear the testimonies of these veterans, it is even more terrible to have lived the stories, either as a soldier or as an Iraqi or Afghan civilian. As US Marine veteran Anthony Swofford writes in his foreword to Winter Soldier, "Do not turn away from these stories. They are yours, too."
As I walked home from Mejia's presentation, I passed the brilliantly burnt orange-lit UT tower, on which is inscribed the new testament passage, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." I passed the Cesar Chavez statue that includes several Chavez quotes, such as "You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore," and "You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride."
We don't turn away from civil rights stories, from freedom movement stories, because they are our stories. Veterans who are using their voices and actions to try to stop war are joining this proud legacy, exchanging weapons for the power of truth. The freedom they are gaining is ours, too.
But, he's on the Resisting Empire speaking tour with the new Haymarket Books publication of The Road from ar Ramadi: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Camilo Mejia: An Iraq War Memoir, so he was in Austin to promote both the book and the mission of his fellow Iraq Veterans Against the War: immediate and unconditional withdrawal of occupation forces from Iraq, adequate care for all veterans and reparations for Iraq.
With his youthful good looks, casual attire and backpack slung over his shoulder, Mejia could have been one of the many students in his audience. But, when he began to speak, his seriousness revealed a deeper level of experience. He invited the five other members of Iraq Veterans Against the War who were present to join him in the front and take questions from the crowd, creating an instant IVAW panel that personified the variety of membership within the rapidly growing organization.
As chair of the board of IVAW, Mejia reported that from 7 original members who organized the group in July 2004, IVAW membership has expanded to about 1400, including the most quickly growing contingent: active duty soldiers. One of the newest chapters formed at Ft. Hood this year.
Mejia stressed the importance of the camaraderie that he and other vets experience through their involvement with IVAW. The sense of shared purpose and belonging mirrors an aspect of military life they value. He also said that in his role with IVAW, he has learned a new sense of what leadership entails: "respect, communication and shared ideals," rather than leadership based on fear and punishment that he was trained to demonstrate as an army staff sergeant.
Mejia's primary message is that conscience, not combat, is the source of our freedom. When a soldier is in the midst of combat, it is very difficult to think about moral implications. "You're under so much pressure; there's so much fear, so much fatigue." Soldiers can't be expected to weigh right and wrong in the middle of a firefight. Drilled in reflexive fire training and armed with powerful weapons, they don't have to get an order to kill civilians; they're just thrown into situations where they do it. Mejia said that in the five months he was in Iraq, his unit killed 33 civilians. Only 3 were armed.
Mejia talked about following orders to abuse Iraqi prisoners. He describes this also in the new film, Soldiers of Conscience, a documentary that happened to air in Austin the same night that Mejia spoke here. While in Iraq, Mejia felt conflicted about what he was doing, but it wasn't until he was home on a two week leave that he had the time and distance to really think about it. "Some people say, 'once a soldier, always a soldier,'" he says in the film. "Well, once a human being, always a human being."
Through his interviews, his appearances in documentaries like Soldiers of Conscience and The Ground Truth, his speaking tours and in his own incisive writing, Mejia has modeled what IVAW has been aiming to do as a group through the "Winter Soldier" hearings and panels. As he said in the concluding remarks of the initial Winter Soldier hearings held in March '08 -- now transcribed in a new book (also published by Haymarket Books), Winter Soldier, Iraq and Afghanistan: Eyewitness Accounts of the Occupations,
"Iraq Veterans Against the War has become a source of stress to the military brass and to the government ... We have become a dangerous group of people not because of our military training, but because we have dared to challenge the official story. We are dangerous because we have dared to share our experiences, to think for ourselves, to analyze and be critical, to follow our conscience, and because we have dared to go beyond patriotism to embrace humanity."
Winter Soldier testimony from the March hearings can be seen on the IVAW website, and the book can be ordered there, too.
As terrible as it is to hear the testimonies of these veterans, it is even more terrible to have lived the stories, either as a soldier or as an Iraqi or Afghan civilian. As US Marine veteran Anthony Swofford writes in his foreword to Winter Soldier, "Do not turn away from these stories. They are yours, too."
As I walked home from Mejia's presentation, I passed the brilliantly burnt orange-lit UT tower, on which is inscribed the new testament passage, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." I passed the Cesar Chavez statue that includes several Chavez quotes, such as "You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore," and "You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride."
We don't turn away from civil rights stories, from freedom movement stories, because they are our stories. Veterans who are using their voices and actions to try to stop war are joining this proud legacy, exchanging weapons for the power of truth. The freedom they are gaining is ours, too.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
If candidates won't discuss war costs, veterans will
During the final presidential debate, the candidates and the moderator prodded one another to explain how they would pay for particular programs and policies they believe will help the US recover from its economic crisis.
Yet, with all the talk about taxes and scarcity of federal funds for what America needs, the candidates and the moderator avoided discussing the primary reason that funds for education, health care, alternative energy and civic infrastructure are in such short supply: war spending. In fact, even apart from the huge costs of the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, the US uses approximately half of it's federal tax revenue, excluding trust funds like Social Security, to fund the military budget.
Whether or not one approves of this federal spending priority -- and I obviously don't -- the fact of its effect on our economic crisis should be faced squarely, not swept under the table.
If candidates won't talk about the war's costs, there are war veterans who will.
Austinites have the opportunity tonight to hear Iraq war veteran, Camilo Mejia speak about his experience, which has been referenced on this blog in previous posts.
And, if you can't make it out to UT, Camilo is coincidentally featured in a film that will be aired tomorrow (Thursday) night at midnight on KLRU's Point of View (POV) program. The film documentary, Soldiers of Conscience is highly recommended.
Here's the info about Camilo's UT appearance as sent by the student group sponsoring his talk, Campus Antiwar Movement to End Occupations (CAMEO):
Camilo Mejia
Thursday, October 16, 7:00 PM
Location: UT Campus, Garrison 0.102
(map: http://www.utexas.edu/maps/main/buildings/gar.html)
Camilo Mejía grew up in Nicaragua and Costa Rica before moving to the United States in 1994. He joined the military at the age of nineteen, serving as an infantryman in the active-duty army for three years before transferring to the Florida National Guard. After fighting in Iraq for five months, Mejía became the first known Iraq veteran to refuse to continue to fight in Iraq, citing moral concerns about the war and occupation. He was eventually convicted of desertion by a military court and sentenced to a year in prison.
Mejía currently serves as the chair of the board of Iraq Veterans Against the War, and is the author of Road from Ar Ramadi: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Mejia: An Iraq War Memoir (new edition, Haymarket Books 2008). In Road from Ar Ramadi, Mejía tells his own story, from his upbringing in Central America and his experience as a working-class immigrant in the United States to his service in Iraq - where he witnessed prisoner abuse and was deployed in the Sunni triangle - and time in prison. In this stirring book, he argues passionately for human rights and the end to an unjust war. Camilo will be introduced by Hart Viges, president of the Central Texas chapter of IVAW.
Friday, October 10, 2008
Challenging market economy assumptions
Regarding the Wall Street crash, here's one of my thoughts:
To a certain extent, I think all investors, from the big players on down, share some responsibility for what is happening.
The market system encourages speculation. It's based on the presumption that making money with money is the wisest use of one's financial resources, even when it's a gamble.
But, inevitably, this leads to the concentration of wealth in fewer hands, to greater disparity between rich and poor and to individual investors losing sight of exactly what their money is being used for. It leads to inflated prices for goods whose intrinsic value does not increase.
The thing is, money doesn't make money all by itself. Money plus labor makes money. Is it right or fair to accrue wealth through someone else's labor?
I decided some years ago that it didn't seem fair to me to benefit from the labor of others by obtaining money from investments. Folks talk about "earning" interest, but I don't think interest is earned by the person holding the bank account. Someone else is doing that work.
So, I do what I can to stand aside from the market-driven bandwagon. I have a non-interest bearing bank account and don't invest in the stock market. I don't buy on credit. I realize the bank invests my funds in ways that I may not approve, but my compromise is to not accept the interest on that investment.
These views are not shared by many, I know, but given the current state of affairs on Wall Street and Main Street, maybe some are questioning the basic assumptions underlying the economy, too.
To a certain extent, I think all investors, from the big players on down, share some responsibility for what is happening.
The market system encourages speculation. It's based on the presumption that making money with money is the wisest use of one's financial resources, even when it's a gamble.
But, inevitably, this leads to the concentration of wealth in fewer hands, to greater disparity between rich and poor and to individual investors losing sight of exactly what their money is being used for. It leads to inflated prices for goods whose intrinsic value does not increase.
The thing is, money doesn't make money all by itself. Money plus labor makes money. Is it right or fair to accrue wealth through someone else's labor?
I decided some years ago that it didn't seem fair to me to benefit from the labor of others by obtaining money from investments. Folks talk about "earning" interest, but I don't think interest is earned by the person holding the bank account. Someone else is doing that work.
So, I do what I can to stand aside from the market-driven bandwagon. I have a non-interest bearing bank account and don't invest in the stock market. I don't buy on credit. I realize the bank invests my funds in ways that I may not approve, but my compromise is to not accept the interest on that investment.
These views are not shared by many, I know, but given the current state of affairs on Wall Street and Main Street, maybe some are questioning the basic assumptions underlying the economy, too.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Daniel Ellsberg speaks at UT
When I attended the presentation at UT on Tuesday evening by Daniel Ellsberg, the concept of freedom of conscience was already on my mind.
A few days prior, I had gone to a special commemoration of Gandhi’s birthday, where conscience was posed as a religious freedom issue by one of the speakers, a local war tax resister. Souvenir bookmarks containing Gandhi quotes were distributed around the tables, and the one I happened to pick up read, “In matters of conscience, the law of majority has no place.”
Then, over the weekend, an inaugural conference was held in Austin, organized chiefly by the pastor and congregation of the Austin Mennonite Church. The National Assembly to Honor Freedom of Conscience featured guest speakers Walter Wink (noted theologian and nonviolence trainer), Gene Stoltzfus (former director of Christian Peacemaker Teams) and Ann Wright, whose book, Dissent: Voices of Conscience was published this year and includes a foreword by Daniel Ellsberg. Conference panelists included conscientious objectors and GI resisters whose stories parallel those in Wright’s book.
Ann Wright spoke also at a book signing event at BookWoman on Monday, where matters of conscience, government, law, risk, family and the military were discussed by those present, including, again, several conscientious objectors. The week seemed to come full circle with Ellsberg’s Austin appearance the following evening.
In conjunction with a UT conference planned for the coming weekend, Ellsberg was asked to compare what was happening in 1968 with what is happening now. He packed a lot in – dates, names, places and people – while his primary message echoed what I had heard all week: truth can free us from war.
Ellsberg did not talk much about the tragedies and tumult of 1968, but rather focused on what he saw and experienced as a government insider. “1968 is a year I don’t like to relive,” he admitted. He spent most of his time describing events leading up to that year, beginning with the Gulf of Tonkin resolution in 1964 and the tangled web that was spun from it and later documented in the Pentagon Papers. Ellsberg also recounted something about the less tangible factors that led to the escalation of the Indochina War – the human strengths and frailties of the political and military actors at that time, including him.
Ellsberg spoke with an intense clarity of memory, recounting the details of who said what when, what they probably meant and what they probably did or didn’t know at the time. I sensed that in spite of the strange mix of pariah/hero status he attained following the publishing of the Pentagon Papers, he still is proud of the insider position he once held and perhaps even misses the feeling of closeness that resulted from being loyal to powerful people and knowing their secrets. In fact, he said that being called a traitor is something he has never gotten used to.
In his talk, Ellsberg didn’t fully explain his inner change of heart, the private crisis of conscience that led him to shift from personal loyalty to the president and joint chiefs of staff to a more abstract loyalty to the Constitution and international law. But, as he wrote in an article in Harpers in 2006 (quoted by UT’s Evan Carton during his introduction of Ellsberg),
“I had long prized my own identity as a keeper of the president’s secrets. In 1964 it never even occurred to me to break the many secrecy agreements I had signed, in the Marines, at the Rand Corporation, in the Pentagon. Although I already knew the Vietnam War was a mistake and based on lies, my loyalties then were to the secretary of defense and the president (and to my promises of secrecy, on which my own career as a president’s man depended). I’m not proud that it took me years of war to awaken to the higher loyalties owed by every government official to the rule of law, to our soldiers in harm’s way, to our fellow citizens, and, explicitly, to the Constitution, which every one of us had sworn an oath ‘to support and uphold.’ It took me that long to recognize that the secrecy agreements we had signed frequently conflicted with our oath to uphold the Constitution.”
More about the role of conscience in Ellsberg’s moral conflict can be found in a passage I read about ten years ago in Daniel Hallock’s collection of writings and interviews, Hell, Healing and Resistance: Veterans Speak. The book includes an interview with Ellsberg in which he recalls these pivotal personal events in 1968 and ’69:
“Now, two things affected my life at that point. I’d been reading Gandhi since the spring of ’68, when I happened to meet people from the Quaker Action group at a conference in Princeton. I had gone there to study counter-revolution, and they were there as nonviolent revolutionaries. So I started reading MLK, Stride Toward Freedom, and Barbara Deming, who wrote an essay called Revolution and Equilibrium. I read and reread many times a book by Joan Bondurant called The Conquest of Violence, on Gandhian thought, which converted me very strongly, very impressively.
Then, in late August 1969 I went to a conference of the War Resisters League – they were founded by World War I CO’s; Einstein was once their honorary president – and in the course of this conference I was induced to go to a vigil for somebody who was going to prison for draft resistance, which was a very unusual thing for me to be doing. There I was, standing in the street outside the Philadelphia post office, passing out leaflets. This was not the sort of thing the GSA Team did. It seemed, you know, rather undignified – giving away your influence and your access in such a ridiculous way, just handing out leaflets like a bum.
Then, at the end of this conference, I met another young man, Randy Kehler, a Harvard college graduate who had gone on to Stanford but then stopped his studies to work for the War Resisters League. He gave a talk and at the end he announced that he was also on his way to prison for refusal to cooperate with the draft. And this came to me as a total shock. It just hit me that it was a terrible thing for my country that the best he and so many others could do was go to prison. I went to the men’s room and just sat on the floor and cried for about an hour and thought, ‘My country has come to this? We’re eating our young. We’re relying on them, to end the war and to fight the war?’ And I felt it was up to me. I was older. I was thirty-eight. It was up to us older people to stop the war.”
Ellsberg feels we are in a similarly critical time now. It’s a time that calls for greater risk-taking. He said that Obama, for example, could risk standing against an escalation of the Iraq war into Iran, Afghanistan or Pakistan. Links ought to be made between the economic crisis and the war. “Can we afford to murder people at this cost indefinitely?” is the question we must ask, he says. He pointed out that in the five years after 1968 – when the Indochina war had lost almost all popular support, four times as many bombs were dropped in Southeast Asia as were dropped prior to 1968. He fears the same kind of enlargement of war could easily happen again. “Power doesn’t learn from history,” he said. “Power follows its own dictates; power doesn’t give up its power.”
Ellsberg concluded, “This country needs to advance in another direction.” Directed by conscience and moved by the acts of conscience of others, people can change course. His life is a case in point. Truth can stand up to power, and a bum with a leaflet can change the course of history.
photo from Wall Street action by arts group, "The Critical Voice," Oct. 7, 08. Photo courtesy of CodePink
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