So what are you going to do about it, Damnit Janet? Well, tonight I’m going solo due to a sick kid. I’ll be taking the Max Light Rail into Portland tonight and meeting up with some of the most beautiful people – CodePink and Veterans For Peace Chapter 72.
I do not have a ticket to get INSIDE, so the arrest level is a low probability for me.
I feel betrayed by such a person who could have been a strong advocate for education, health care and human rights. Instead I’m trekking through the cold, rainy night to tell Hillary – LISTEN!!!
To all my beloved bloggy friends. I do not truly march or protest alone. I take you all with me. I take RubDMC and his witnesses, I take StevenD and BostonJoe and their sincerity and humor with me. I take Bood and his gallery with me. I take the entire Froggy Bottom Contingent with me as they provide me with the courage, strength and love to do this.
When I get there, I will be surrounded by new sisters and brothers. I am not alone. Not alone at all.
Most likely FBC quote:
“Have fun storming the castle, Janet!” – “Second Nature”
From an email to a distractor who asked why not just meet with Hillary:
I can only speak for CodePink New York, but I will tell you that we called Hillary Clinton’s office on October 24th to ask for a meeting with her or her staff. We were told by local peace groups (Vets for Peace, among others) that they had never been able to secure a meeting because Senator Clinton wasn’t interested in what peace activists had to say. But we called and called, and e-mailed and e-mailed. When by early December they were still stonewalling us we decided to take an outside street action approach.
This is from our new Hillary post-card:
“Part of my job is to be a good listener” – Senator Hillary Clinton
In a survey that accompanied a recent fundraising letter, Hillary Clinton asked for her constituents’ opinions on a variety of issues—but the war in Iraq wasn’t one of them. Clearly, Hillary isn’t listening when it comes to Iraq.
And while her ears remained covered, thousands of Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis have died. Isn’t it time for leadership, not politics? For bravery, not calculation? Hillary needs to hear that the time to end the war is now.
Cindy Sheehan met with staff in Chuck Schumer’s office who told her, “Senator Schumer believes the war is good for America.” Hillary Clinton’s position on the war is not far different from his. And in a speech at Princeton last week she took a belligerent tone with regard to Iran–in fact, Newsday characterized her position on the conflict with Iran as “to the right of the Bush Administration.”
If we don’t want another Lyndon Johnson—a Democrat who escalated the air war in Vietnam and Cambodia–we need to make sure that the Democrats who represent us and particularly those with national ambitions know how we feel about the war in Iraq. There are many ways to let them know and we’ve been using all of them: phone calls, letters, face-to-face meetings, and street actions.
We believe that direct action works. A recent study on environmental activism by sociologist Jon Agnone showed that chaining yourself to a bulldozer and throwing paint over company executives is more likely to influence environmental policy than lobbying on Capitol Hill.
It was only on January 20th after CodePink announced a weekly vigil outside Hillary’s office that her staff returned our phone calls to set up a meeting. We are scheduled to meet her at 10 a.m. on February 16th—but we will be out front with our signs HILLARY YOU’RE NOT LISTENING: BRING THE TROOPS HOME NOW every Friday until that meeting….And unless we hear of some significant change in her position on the occupation in Iraq, we’ll probably be there from now until next November.
Thanks for taking the time to contact us. It is always useful to hear from people who disagree with us because it helps us think carefully about our tactics and our goals.
Sincerely,
Nancy Kricorian
for CodePink New York