It was a given that Cindy was going to be arrested on Monday. Know many more family members of dead soldiers from Iraq will be arrested too and I have no idea how many times. Iraq Veterans Against the War and just plain old Iraq veterans against the war are going to be arrested…..they carry scars they will never be able to fully mend inflicted on them by liars and war profiteers and they happen to live in a democracy that doesn’t want to hear them. Be assured that veterans from the Vietnam War will be arrested and arrested and arrested because this country said NEVER AGAIN and now the motherfucking promise has been broken and nobody fucking cares enough to make this fucking nightmare STOP! Most of them lost everything a long time ago and the only thing they had left that lulled them to sleep at night was NEVER AGAIN and the only way they can stay sane is to go protest and be arrested! Know that most likely at some point I will be arrested because I know how soldiers are coming back from Iraq and I know that it is being ignored and I know that they are sending the broken back into combat to become irreparable and this mission is all FUCKING BULLSHIT and nobody who counts in ending it all wants to hear me or gives a flying fuck and I would rather go to jail ashamed of my country and this government than live free whispering lies to myself over and over again while I put on my Mary Kay every morning in Stepford. You could see people like Janet and Ryan arrested also because Vietnam and PTSD robbed them of a father and childhood and this nation promised them Never Again and they made the best of the lemons they were handed. It is happening again though and the children of parents with PTSD will have their childhood stolen from them. The only Never Again people like Janet can give those children is that NEVER AGAIN will it be done on their watch and people ever be able to claim ignorance to the facts that it is and will happen again, and if their voices aren’t heard they may also take that last step towards being acknowledged.
Being arrested is our final calculation because our heart and soul demands it from us and that is how calculated it all is. It is the only way left now that we can hope to be heard. If our loved one is dead we have run out of time to be heard. If our loved is in combat in Iraq or heading back to Iraq or broken from Iraq and needs some fixing we are living on borrowed time to be heard. If we carry the scars from the last morally unjust war or the wounds that are beginning to scar from this morally unjust war, time for us is haunted and a new time must arrive NOW before the boogeyman carries us away finally. We would rather scream behind bars than alone in the dark! It is like calculating the making of a tuna sandwich at noon.
I have no idea of what benefit any of it will be and the only way to know if you are meant to be one of the arrested is that you will know it. Most likely you know it as you read this. If you are not meant to be one of the arrested then you may be one of the observers that will make sure we are not forgotten and that the truth of our stories is told and told until the truth is known more than the lies they will try to tell about us all.
It is likely that we will make our best effort to be present and arrested at the most advantageous places and spaces that will show themselves to us in the upcoming days, that is as much strategic calculation as there is to us. The price of gasoline and the destruction of financial health will probably be what makes the citizens of America much more angry at Bushco than we will. They may only support us in any fashion at all because we enjoy a common enemy.
I have read the opinion of some though that Cindy Sheehan may have made a strategic error and I have to take the time to once again let everybody know that Cindy doesn’t have much of a strategy and she never really did. The facts and that simpleness makes the woman nothing but credible. She is what you see and what you hear from her lips. Cabingirl met and spoke with the FAMOUS Cindy Sheehan in the bathroom in D.C. I guess she calculated that she needed to pee and strategically those public facilities were what she deemed the best to use. She does have the courage of a lion though. She has courage and she has conviction and she has a dead son who will never rise from the grave.
I hope it doesn’t disappoint anybody that there isn’t more calculation of strategy involved in getting arrested protesting the war. Those of us about to be arrested would rather leave the deceitfulness of serious strategic calculation to Bush, Cheney, Rummy, Condi and the rest of the fucking liars from hell! You have to admit they have enjoyed a glowing success from it all so far. In the end the truth always overcomes and the truth always wins because MAN HAS BEEN INFLICTED WITH THE OVERWHELMING NEED TO SEEK THE TRUTH AND BE SET FREE!
If you are reading this then you are a player in some fashion. I don’t know if you are a recordkeeper (couldn’t help using that) or a fighter for the justice of those jailed or both. Perhaps your destiny lies in being arrested for your own sanity’s sake. What is most important is that we desperately need each other through all of this, and where ever you find yourself in this struggle just follow your calling, do your best, and we will overcome together!
The arrest… they were prepared for that. And they prepared others for it as well to ensure no one was hurt and that is was done in a non-violent manner.
Most of you know that it weighed heavily on me all weekend. To go or not to go. I had been ready for it, hell even my husband got the call from CodePink-Tracy (not to be confused with Our-Tracy) about the probabilty of arrest, civil disobedience… blah blah on the phone.
Rob and my dear friend Mrs. Ski knew that I wanted with all my heart to be with the protestors. That is why I’m not in the big dKos photo pre-march. I had to go do the intro march with my pink ones. Because I know that after this weekend, I will be called up with another “high probability” – “high status risk” blah blah.
I know how not to put my hands up to block a hit – so it doesn’t appear that I”m resisting… blah blah…
I know that it will take ARRESTS after ARRESTS of mothers and daughters and wives and sisters and sons and grandmothers and uncles and nephews – for the people and the media to wake the fuck up.
Last night I got to holler to a freeper that I felt caged up with on a flight from hell.. that “they can feel safer now that they are arresting mothers”…
Monday was fucked up for me… on so many levels. 9/24 Rob and Ryan saw me launch myself into CodePink… Monday as I was calming my nerves at the airport… I saw Cindy and others had been arrested. I should have been with them. I first felt sadness for Cindy a “how dare they!” and then straight into… a full-fledged self-flogging of feeling like a coward as I had only gone to be a witness and still didn’t manage to break through.
But as Wayne, my husband, reminded me… my family could not have supported that arrest from such a distance nor the trial dates afterwards.
California CodePink or next time I’ll have my schedule better laid out.
It’s going to take peace in ourselves and to others from ourselves AND non-violent civil disobedience to stop the war and the killing and lies.
The ladies of Booman, as well as the ladies of Codepink; ROCK. As does the fearless leader Cindy Sheehan. Hats off to the ladies. Hats off to the men that were involved as well. Civil disobedience coming to a cell near you, times are a changing.
It’s not a cold calculated plot… it’s more of a preparedness. My time will come, I know that.
It’s much like how the weekend went for some us. We went where we felt like we needed to go. Many of us wandered off, rejoined, left again, took time off and took time to help others.
I think that is why some think of Liberals as flighty undisciplined drifts. At least I am… 🙂 Because we go where our hearts tell us to. We go where we are need to be. We find ourselves exactly where we are supposed to be with the people and loved ones we are supposed to be with. … and sometimes we need to be alone. But… we are prepared to do it with passion, conviction and determination… and as you all tried to show me – with love and peace.
(sorry for the monopoly in your diary Tracy)
Maybe BrotherFeldspar can place that photo of you and I about mothers and war “I hate war” photo from the memorial – that said it well, too. I’m stumbling with my words today. xxoo
DJ, your words show a river of passion and compassion that obviously guides you. Extreme emotions often have no name and yet you’ve managed to allow us to feel your emotions and what drives you. Thanks for the peek. 🙂
and thank you for the comments over the weekend. I wasn’t always able to respond or I was very… subduded or just drop dead tired. But I did read and it really helped this weekend.
We found alot of brothers and sisters – as odd as that sounds.
Now I just have to try and teach my kids to “do not engage” with each other LOL
Tracy, your rock-steady vision amazes me. You always seem to cut through it all and remind us of what’s important. You keep your eyes trained on where you’re going and I so admire that. You’re right, we all have to find our place in this struggle and we will find a way to overcome.
I know that they will bring me strength and comfort too if and when I am called to do what I must do.
What if 300,000 of us occupied the city of Washington D.C. and sat down. That’s it. Just sat down. How many of us could they cart away before the corporate elite politicos began to secretly shake in their boots?
civil disobedience. If that many of us become so disgusted with the situation and were to do such a thing…..we can’t be ignored any longer….we have become a human hurricane disrupting the flow and course of our deaf illegal government and we cause chaos and power disturbances and loss of power in some areas. On Saturday a frustrated very intelligent soul who inhabits this blog also dared to ask out loud that if we decided to storm the White House how many people the snipers on top of the White House would kill before they just couldn’t handle doing it any longer and put their weapons down, another version of the sanity that encompasses the insanity of civil disobedience! People would only commit to doing such a thing if things were really really bad. Because some would even consider speaking the idea out loud or give the notion a moment of fancy indicates that things are pretty damn bad right now.
I’ll be sittin’ right there with you and Janet and Duranta…
Storming the WH in the face of snipers might take more commitment…
Ghandi said that the Third Reich could have been stopped, or minimized, the slaughter of Jews and others minimized if….
Everyone had just sat down when the soldiers came to take them away. There wasn’t enough manpower to physically carry every person to the car, then onto the train, then into the camp, and so forth.
Amazing point.
Tracy, you were the one that made me realise that I was fighting with myself and my intuition when I was trying to decide if going to Crawford was the right thing for me to do. But there was a pulling, a nagging feeling that pushed me to Crawford. Will any of what will do make a difference? We do not know yet. I do know though that we do need each other and that every time we come together is an opportunity to strengthen the circle. I hear the drumbeat in my ears comstantly. I hear Scott’s words in the middle of the night what he went through before during and after his tour in Iraq. I know in my deepest heart that I must keep trying to be the change I want in the world. ANd we all can inspire each other to keep on contributing in anyway that fits for each of us. If that means blogging or talking to each other on the phone or helping each other get to rallies and marches and sign petitions and write our leaders. We CAN do this I am sure. It may take longer than we like but we can make a difference. Just look what one woman in a ditch has accomplished.
our nation and retrieving our military from hells unproductive and immoral, we will carry it all with us forever and we will pass onto our friends, family, children and grandchildren. None of us here will ever be same and though I have bitched and moaned that this had to all happen on my citizen watch I have finally come to embrace the darkness. I am preparing for the test of character and strength and the rebirth of everything that makes America the land of Americans.
That way, those who are arrested can contact a friendly face with bail money… 🙂
Keith O. had a great comment on yesterday’s show (I watched it earlier today on the DVR); in reaction to Cindy’s arrest, he mentioned that she’d pretty much fallen off the front page with the coverage of Katrina and Rita, and Keith summed it up by asking Howard Feinman of Newsweek: “What the HELL were they THINKING???” And I wonder now, with the revelations of incompetency at home in the Katrina debacle, whether the American public might listen even closer to Cindy’s message and wonder about incompetency abroad as well.
Keep preaching, Tracy, Janet, and all our modern-day prophets…
Satyagraha
It is a factual little essay, but it reads like a psalm to me today. I remember looking at the awesome crowd in D.C. of every sort of person you could imagine. I remember us all turning on the television from time to time to see not much at all about the march and a very calm gentle realization settled around me and it felt comforting and almost loving. It had been talked about at Crawford, but Crawford turned out to not be the moment for it. Looking back everybody was really amped at Crawford too….just full of energy as this thing kicked off. We organized and road that whole kick off out and now the next step of civil disobedience has settled around my shoulders like a mantle that protects me from the scary icy cold and I know that I am warm and safe and I go very gently into this.
The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders…tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.
~Herman Goering
Winter Soldier to be re-released this year…
The public needs to be reminded.
often takes a very long time getting to the table. Sometimes it feels like too long. I love you for putting this up there and I pray that this is the time that America will watch Winter Soldier and finally come to terms with what daily 24/7 combat does to the average human being. I am so sick of patriotism that brings war and justification for atrocities and death to innocents while the fireworks explode and we wave our little flags and dance around in our monkey brains.
MTracy –
Godammit, we CARE! I’m an elderly ’60’s protester, blowin’ in the wind. The horrible crux we are confronting now, this minute, is unbelievably attrocious. It is BEYOND outrageous…it is BEYOND criminal…it is BEYOND inhuman. It is death in the name of “PROFIT.”
We MUST inform the populace that we are fighting for more than a political stance – that we are fighting for our lives and the survival of this oh-so-fragile-and-beloved Earth.
Peg C, you hit the nail straight on the head with that comment.
If I could I’d give you 10 4s.
Why can’t I edit my comment? I DO know how ro spell “atrocious.”
We need to be arrested. We need to take the next step. To raise the consciousness of all American people. So they too can think and feel what all of us who were there this weekend thought and felt.
I was proud to see Cindy arrested. And, I do not care if she was arrested because she is a deeply feeling mother, following her heart on how best to protect other mothers from this loss, or if she was arrested because she is a wise genius who has run the numbers and knows that the American people will react in a politically positive way to her acts. She is joining the ranks of Mahatma Ghandi. Martin Luther King, Jr. Civil disobedience to unjust authority. And if we Tribbers feel moved, and are privileged enough to add our names to this list, we should be proud.
I keep hearing Howard Zinn’s voice in my head. And I know he’d be saying, “We who block this sidewalk. We are not the real criminals, here. The men and women who have lied to the community of nations, and to their own people, and taken us into the unjust war are the criminals. Our crimes are petty infractions that pale in comparison to their historic crimes.”
We have to be arrested. This cry for peace and justice can not be made timidly. And we can’t let the “moralists” try to cast shame on us for disrupting their orderly society. Our protest needs to be louder. We need to comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable (thank you Clarence Darrow).
I’m changing my tag line to “Have soap box, will prattle.” Sorry Tracy. Great, great diary. If you don’t have the right — nay, the need — to be arrested for this cause, with the stake you have in this unjust war, then no one does. You go. I hope I can go with you.
I hope one day there is so many of us everything will have to be Coed and I can sit with you side by side! I really loved meeting you this weekend and Supersoling is right on about how sharp your intellect is!
They’ll have to let out all the really horrible prisoners such as those Patients they imprison. The little old ladies who ate brownies to help with their MS… those evil prisoners… Let them out to make way for something more evil… Mommies.
🙂 BostonJoe, I miss you already. 🙂
Maybe a diary about what one can expect for CD arrest???
We can all add to it. I do know that they tend to delay dates. You arrive in VA for your court date only to find it’s been postponed, you go home, fly back later to find… delay. The COSTS can be horrific.
But we need to be educated and prepared so that it doesn’t seem so scary to newbies.
and in “training” for everything under the sun since 9/11. For three years I had only spent about three months with him until recently. I have such patience when the government has done things that make my life stressful. I have such huge patience and such a flexible problem solving framework I live in, they have no idea what they mess with!
To mention. Read in the NYTs the other day about a group of protestors from upstate NY who were just convicted for pouring blood on something, as a protest. They got off on felony, were convicted of misdemeanor.
I don’t know anything special about the criminal process as it relates to acts of civil disobedience. It is almost always illegal, by definition. I’d start by trying to make sure my act was a misdemeanor not a felony, on the reasoning that you want the arrest, but not necessarily the felony rap and sentence. I’ve read that the process can be used as an extension of the act itself. A chance to publicize your elevation of the moral over the legal through your guaranteed right to an open trial. Even some people who refuse to sign bail forms, choosing to sit in jail to publicize their cause. Hunger strikes, anyone? I would love to try a few cases like this. To subtly argue for acquittal based on jury nullification on moral grounds. Fun stuff.
It was a flag and they tried to get them on “destroying government property” — forget the rest of the details, but this seemed pretty out of line to me, did they steal the flad from a govt. building? What was the misd. that they ended up being charged for?
I don’t know where I read it — do you have a link?
it in the NYTs and didn’t save copy. I think yesterday’s edition. Perhaps Monday. Somewhere in the middling pages of Section “A”. I forget the details too. The journalist made it sound like they got off light. The charge they were convicted on didn’t sound so good though. Sorry I can’t remember better detail. Maybe you can find it at NYTs site. (I never go because they make me register — and I have being registered.)