As a former athlete, from days of a life lived so long ago I hardly recognize them as my own past, I remember mornings like this one. I can best describe the feeling as “coming up for air.” Days following grueling competition. Where your body aches with pain and exhaustion. But your spirit, in victory or defeat, is filled with pride and accomplishment. You breathe and heal and smile. And you ready yourself to do it all again.
I have spent the last few weeks on a committee, planning for our local anti-war group’s response to the announcement that 2,000 U.S. soldiers have died for a lie – as an organizer for one protest, and the leader of a separate vigil. I haven’t crawled into bed earlier than 1:30 a.m. in these weeks, and I’ve been up before 6:30 a.m. everyday. Slogging along the anti-war trail. Organizing. And doing the life things that we all do – for me, promoting a novel, writing, some legal work, waiting on Fitz, and taking care of a family. So I’m beaten down a bit. Tired. Drained. But left with that feeling. That I’ve done something special. That feeling of coming up for air.
If you want the details of the bumps and bruises and smiles and hugs, join me after the break. Because sharing them with you is one of the best parts of the whole process for me.
I’m not going chronological here. I’ll just throw out some of the memories by topic.
Heartbreak
I am euphoric about being involved. I am glad that I don’t protest near mirrors, because I know that there would be a large, goofy grin on my face 98% of the time. The euphoria comes from connecting with humanity, I think. Something I’ve avoided most of my life, to my eternal poverty. But I’m euphoric now.
The first time I lost the euphoria was in D.C. I lost it a little when I had some realization that I was gathered to fight against a war machine that had literally killed hundreds of my fellow citizens. I lost it a lot when Cindy Sheehan and Jesse Jackson marched up behind me. Looking into Cindy’s eyes. Knowing for the first time, in human terms, the senseless loss she had suffered. I lost it completely last night.
As the leader of the vigil at U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers’ office, I was – horror of horrors – expected to lead. Seventy people gathered. Looked to me for a voice. I started with some simple, direct remarks. I called for a moment of silence. Candles were lit. Heads were bowed. Things were going as planned. Until I stepped out of my own head (where a little organizational director, dressed in a three piece suit, was frantically telling me how to stage manage this event). Outside my head, I looked around. Took in the sight of my fellow human beings. Heads bowed. Reverence. And then I saw her.
I won’t disclose her name. Or that of her son. She doesn’t need to be exploited in that way. But I learned the names, later.
She was crying. This nameless woman. Real tears. Sobbing. Drawing my attention away from stage-management. Into humanity. She wore a large white T-shirt over her cold weather apparel. On the front of the T-shirt was a picture of a soldier. The shirt told the thinking part of my brain that he was killed in Iraq, a message the feeling part of my brain had absorbed from her sobbing. Her husband wore the same shirt. Their family clutched one another and the candles they held. At the vigil I was leading. The vigil I was leading because the lying bastards running this country took us to a war of choice. A war of choice that killed her fucking son. Dead as driftwood. Not coming home. Never going to hug his mother again.
When it all set, like cement in my brain, I choked back my own sobs. I hugged my daughter. Relative silence continued. A young woman sang a beautiful song to honor Lansing’s own contribution of blood and soul to this pointless war. And I did the best thing I have ever done in my life.
I stepped forward and hugged that woman. I held her. I told her how we all felt. I don’t hug much. (I could tell you the story, but it would take years of psychoanalysis to understand it). But I was the leader. And I led. And it was right.
Later, the little suited man in my conscience – the one who was directing the organizing of the event for me as my body and I went about our business – would tell me that what I had done was cheap political theater. And I would tell him to shut the fuck up. Because he wasn’t really there in the moment. He was too busy doing other things.
Her loss is forever. And it hurts. You can feel it being near her. It is going to hurt our country forever, this fucking war. It hasn’t even stopped bleeding yet. There will be an amputation. And a gigantic scab. A permanent scar. A limp or prosthetics. Wheelchairs. Maybe a coffin. But we have to stop the bleeding now.
Her loss is forever. My loss (the temporary interruption of my euphoria at being connected to humanity) lasted only until the end of the vigil. And perhaps now, as I write this through very watery eyes.
For those of you who’ve read my book, or will, I’d say something about the unbelievable way that life sometimes imitates art. But I don’t want to throw in a spoiler alert. So I’ll leave it at that.
New Leaders
I woke up this morning to an e-mail from Bob Alexander, the Democratic candidate who challenged Rogers (R-Michigan) in 2004, and will likely run again in ’06. (Though I live on the edge of a solid Democratic enclave, we are strategically positioned in a safely gerrymandered Republican district – but I am starting to believe that we may unseat our pro-war wing-nut who currently speaks as a voice in support of death, destruction and corporations, and against ordinary people).
Mr. Alexander is deeply involved with the anti-war community. He was at both the protest and the vigil. And he wrote me this morning, thanking me for my efforts. In his mass mailing to peace activists across our state, he gave me props. Calling me out by name as a “new leader.”
For those of you who’ve read my diaries in this series, you know that only a few short months ago, I wasn’t someone you would call a “new leader.” Though no congressional candidates ever bothered to call me anything in those days, I think the most appropriate term for me would have been “old slacker.” Aside from ranting on blogs and in the occasional e-mail or letter, I never lifted a finger (or an ass from a chair) to actually try to stop the war.
Then came Cindy Sheehan. A vigil. Washington. Involvement.
From “old-slacker” to “new-leader” in under six-seconds. Those are acceleration numbers Detroit used to tout in their gas guzzling sports cars. And for those of you reading – knowing that you want to do more – I am living proof that doing more is easy. You can make the world look like what you want it to. Your picture of the world won’t change fast, but it will change daily. And in a few months time, I think you’ll see a completely different portrait of the world around you.
Save The World Club
I got on the peace train too late to get to Crawford. But meeting up with Boo Tribbers and Kossacks in Washington D.C. was, for me, undoubtedly the most energizing part of becoming an anti-war activist. I think of all of you I met there often. To me, you are my own private “Save the World Club.” Knowing you exist. Knowing you are here writing daily. Knowing I am far from alone. It was a singularly good experience.
I want to nominate a new, honorary member to the club. Keepinon. He may be catching our peace train at a stop down the road. But he is on board. His local efforts yesterday get him a ticket. Despite huge real-world obligations, he drove over an hour to help with our war protest.
His story is much like my own, I think, only completely different. He’s been through this before. In the days of Vietnam. So he isn’t a newbie like me. And as a witness to that horrible time, he is probably more stunned than I am that history is repeating itself (and perhaps preparing to repeat itself again in Syria if we don’t stop them). But he is a Kossack who has drifted to the pond, as was I. And he is angry enough at the stupidity of this war that he is out in the world taking action, as am I. And he was kind enough, and pissed off enough at our government, to put real life on hold for an afternoon, as did I. He came up and met a hundred or so strangers in a strange city. And then joined them all in calling on their fellow citizens to stop the war.
He didn’t complain about the cold. He stood with roadside signs to mostly horns honking in support of our peace efforts. It looked like he struck up some friendships with the locals who had come together for a common cause. I was too embarrassed to break out the green Boo Tribber arm bands I had made (our group was only two, how hard would it be to keep track of one another). But it was great to have him along. Very, very heartening. And I hope to meet more Tribbers in this cause, until we can end this war.
Self-Organizing Principles
I have heard about certain theories of complexity. Something about how the natural world may not be devolving into chaos, but may be building into something complex. At least at certain levels. If I were a scientist, I would explain it to you. But what I know comes from reading the back of popular works in the aisle of the local bookstore.
But last night, I believe I unwittingly conducted an experiment on the theory of self-organizing principles. As it will never be published in a peer reviewed magazine, I might as well throw the results of my experiment in here, for you, or else see my own small contribution to this science lost.
Though I’m getting a fair amount of praise this morning from the local anti-war group for my efforts at pulling together last night’s vigil, I have to make a confession to you. I didn’t really do much of anything. The event actually organized itself. We live in a miraculous world.
Our committee needed a leader to coordinate a MoveOn vigil, after MoveOn got on board with the whole 2,000th U.S. death thing. I was the least tasked member of the committee, so I got the job. My total contribution, as the leader, was to fill out some on-line forms for MoveOn.
I bought a couple hundred candles (activists have to dream) really cheap, threw them in a box of used candles that another anti-war activist gave me, and showed up. And the thing just kind of happened. I set the candles down. Several dozen really pissed-off and saddened people showed up. I said a few simple words. We had a moment of silence with lit candles. We all cried and mourned a bit, to varying degrees. A wonderful singer offered to do a song that she’d written for the Lansing soldier who had been lost. She brought her own music. Far better than any Super Bowl Halftime performance I’ve ever seen. It was amazing. We read the names of Michigan’s war dead. And the names of an equal number of Iraqi citizens. We chanted for Peace. A friend and fellow activist (wearing a tri-corner hat) recited a beautiful anti-war poem from memory. Another moment of silence. And we all basked in the glow of prospective peace and human fellowship, not wanting to leave right away. Christ. It was a fucking three act play, and I didn’t script anything.
I wish the self-organizing principle would help me write novel number three.
Fucking MSM
I learned more about the media in the last few days than I have in my previous decades on this planet. I guess I shouldn’t curse them. They are what they are. I’ll just tell you the facts. You decide if they are worthy scribes of history.
I am coming to grips with the idea that the real world in which we all live, and the television/media world that is constructed for us, are two entirely different universes. Anyone who was in D.C. knows this. The manifestation of the peace movement in that city was phenomenal. Almost beyond description. But only to those who were there, or those who may have been told about the event by someone they know and love who was there. Because in the television/media constructed reality, the D.C. protest barely happened, wasn’t a big deal, and really wasn’t all that large. Being there, I’m left with a kind of a psychotic break of these two realities. When I talk about the event, I’m all emotionally charged and raving. And looking into the face of those whose reality of the event has been provided only by the television/media construct, I can see that they think I’m a lunatic.
Yesterday’s events in Lansing were like that. We had a really nice turn-out. Though I didn’t count the actual bodies, I’d say it’s a very safe bet that we had a little over one hundred people at the protest, and I know we got at least seventy for the vigil that followed. For those of us there, these were powerful moments. I mean, it wasn’t D.C., obviously. But you can feel the tide turning. In the honks of cars. In the peace signs, the thumbs up, and the fists of power that people driving by are flashing to you. Even the vocal wing-nuts – and there were few of them willing to voice their support for pointless and continued death and destruction – seem to be uncertain and knowing that they are fighting for a losing cause. They are hollow.
But even the local newspaper account halves our numbers. Shit. When you are talking a hundred people, and you are a reporter covering the story, how hard is it to count. My five year old gets well past a hundred these days, and she’s been able to do it for a couple of years, I think. (Note: Those yellow signs in the photo are the ones my daughter and I painted in the last installment of the Accidental Activist – and the guy holding the sign is really cool and has a “peace dog” named Monk who was born on September 11, 2001 and is the only dog who protests with us weekly at the state Capitol).
More than a hundred. Or fifty. Solemn protest. Or feel-good peace movement. It’s just another brick in the wall that divides my reality from the television/media construction of reality.
An even larger brick was cemented in place with the 11:00 p.m. news. I gave my first ever television interview at the vigil. And I think I kicked ass. I took a good shot at Rep. Rogers. Talked about the tragic and senseless loss. And the need to come together and make our leaders stop it. I looked like hell. Four hours in the cold. A really fucking goofy hat and sweater combo. And I’m no beauty to start with. But it was a rush. I won’t lie.
So my eight year old daughter played to my ego in an effort to stay up well past her bed time. She is a clever one, and I’m fearful of the soon-coming day when she will be outsmarting me. For now, at least I can spot her ploys. But I’ve got an ego. So she got to stay up and watch.
Our vigil. It got about eight-seconds. A voice over describing the event in factual terms. All placed well behind the car crashes and such that dominate local news. I would have had to kill someone with my bare hands (something anathema to most members of the peace movement) to get the one-minute lead coverage I would have liked. Me. I’m in the video cutting dustbins of history. All for the best I suppose, considering the hat.
But it was fun learning how to send out press releases. And I suppose I shouldn’t complain. They came out anyway. Radio. TV. And print. So maybe our realities will converge some day soon. Some peaceful day.
Goofy Hats, New Friends and Absurd Irony
Speaking of goofy hats. I must introduce a new friend. An activist and a poet and blogger and an Internet distributor or sorts. He is part of the local anti-war group. And he wears a goofy tri-corner hat (from the days of colonial American fashion) to our protests. I love the hat. It is so goofy and fun and fittingly patriotic, that I want one. And it is so much better than the neo-new-world-order goofy made-in-China green hat that I have keeping my head warm now.
I’ve invited him to drop by the frog pond. So if you see anyone in a goofy hat, please welcome him. I’m trying to talk him into joining me on my soon to be Booman Tribune cross-country promotional book tour. I figure he might read some poetry and keep things lively. And given my Cheney-esque demeanor and general hugging deficiency, I will probably need some help with lively. He is not as idle as I, though, so actually convincing him to take the tri-corner hat on the road will take a magnificent sales job. Not too large a task for a “new leader” in the local peace movement, though.
My new friend, his tri-corner hat firmly in place, was standing in front of me at the protest. He held the “NOT” sign. I had the “ONE.” Others lined up behind us had MORE-DEATH-NOT-ONE-MORE-DOLLAR. A photo journalist liked our display. He tried to stagger us for the perfect shot. He wanted the whole effect. A photo op. The traffic was heavy. This is a busy six-lane corridor. But the photo journalist was brave and persistent. After he had us staggered just right, he kept darting into the road when there were breaks in traffic, and turning his back on the distant but on-rushing automobiles, in order to frame the perfect shot. I was genuinely fearful for the poor photographer’s safety. But not genuinely enough to let his foolishness pass without comment.
“Wouldn’t it be ironic if this guy gets plowed by an SUV,” I yelled to my new friend. “With us here smiling and holding up a ‘Not One More Death’ sign.”
My new friend laughed. A real laugh. Sometimes you have to laugh. Even when more people will surely die.
Well. I’ve written myself right out of the “coming up for air” phase. E-mails have been piling into the in-box. More people want to be involved. Newbies. Time to get back to work. I miss you all when I am at these events, and look forward to the day when we can again stand and protest together. And better yet, to the day when we don’t need to.
Update [2005-10-27 20:11:58 by BostonJoe]: I just received this web movie, Bitter Fruit, from an attendee I met at last nights vigil. I am fairly certain I saw it circulating here, or at dKos, recently. But I didn’t have the time to watch it. If you’ve got the time. It has as heavy an anti-war message as I can take. Must stop the war.
