Iraq Summer Campaign

So while I'm back in town I thought I would squeeze in an anti-war demo or two. (This is something I don't really get to do in Japan, and given my strong feelings about the war I try and be active when I can.)
This Friday there was a demonstration sponsered by the Iraq Summer Campaign. Media Mouse gave a nice summary of this group a few weeks ago, of which I will quote a brief paragraph:

""Iraq Summer" is a nationwide campaign organized by Americans Against Escalation in Iraq, which is dispatching nearly 100 organizers to the home states and districts of Republican Senators and Representatives who have opposed setting a timeline to end the war in Iraq. The program is modeled on the "Freedom Summer" civil rights project. Organizers will be in fifteen states from Nevada to Maine, a total of 40 congressional districts." (end qoute)

I talked to one of the organizers (a gentleman from Colorado) at the protest. "If we can get just some of these Republicans to vote against the war, we can have a veto proof majority to end the war," he said. "Vern Ehlers is one of the people we decided to target because he talks very moderately when he is back in Grand Rapids, but then when he goes to Washington he consistently votes with the right wing."

"You know I've had this conversation with a few other people," I said. "They said that Vern Ehlers doesn't really have a choice because if he bucks the party they'll just find someone else to run against him in the primary."

"That is a tactic that they use to keep a lot of these guys in line," the organizer responded. "But with Vern Ehlers, he wants to retire. He didn't even want to run last term but the party insisted he did. So he's got nothing to lose with an anti-war vote."

So there you have it folks. So if you hate this war, and you're in Vern Ehlersr district, he's been targeted as one of the people who could serve as a tipping point. Give him a call and let him know how you feel.

(616) 451-8383 or write
Washington Office
2182 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515

As always it is difficult to know how effective these little protests are. With all the little protests combined across the country, I like to think the total combined effect is creating pressure to end the war. But then Nixon was famous for ignoring anti-Vietnam War protests, and there's no indication that our current President is any more receptive.

We did get several honks of the support from the passing cars. (Now what would be really nice is if all those people who honked and gave us thumbs up would get out of their cars and join us on the street. Now that would be a movement! But for the moment I guess I'll take what I can get.)

And as always there were some people who were very upset and yelled at us. I've mentioned my frustrations with these kind of people on this blog before.

When someone is driving by and only stopped briefly at a light, it is difficult to have an indepth political discussion with them and show them the error of there ways. For instances a man in a pick up truck shouted this out at us:
"What's going to happen if we leave? Tell me that, what's going to happen if we leave? It's going to be a blood bath! Just like when we pulled out of Vietnam and 2 million people were killed in the blood bath! Do you want that on your hands?"

It's difficult to know where to even begin with this statement. First of all there was no blood bath when we pulled out of Vietnam. In fact the massive retailatory killings that the right wing was sure were going to take place (and was used as an argument to extend the Vietnam War)never happened. I mean it wasn't a Utopia, don't get me wrong, there were a lot of people put in re-education camps and a lot of boat people but there was no massacre that the right wing had predicted. And it certainly wasn't anyway close to the estimated 3.4 million Vietnamese civilians who died during the war.

But the right wing has created this myth about the bloodbath after the fall of Saigon that never took place, and have used it to justify every foreign debacle since then.
(There was actually 2 million killed by the Khmer Rouge, which came to power as a result of our illegal bombing of Cambodia, and was actually ousted in 1978 by none other than our arch enemies the Vietnamese Communists).

Not to mention that the level of US bombings and killings and massacres in Vietnam during the war. And that some estimates are 10,000 being killed in Iraq every month now by US forces.

But what's the use of trying to explain all that to a guy driving through a light? If someone is getting all their information from Fox news and right wing talk radio, it's hard to even communicate with them they are so far removed from reality. He drove away, and I turned to the lady next to me and said: "I think his statistics were a little off, but what's the point in trying to correct him."

I had another small exchange with another woman stopped at the light. "I think the war was a mistake, but we have to support our president now," she said. "It's just going to take time. Look at Germany and Japan. It took us ten years before we could get out of there."

"We're still in Germany and Japan," I said.

"Yeah, well, whatever," she replied.

Not everyone in our group was as laid back as me. There was a Vietnam Veteran who would shout at anyone who supported the war that they ought to go over there and fight it themselves. He got in one particular shouting match with a couple of middle aged woman. "Oh yeah, why don't you go over there then? Yeah, you're of age, go over! Don't you give me that crap, I fought in Vietnam. You don't know what you're talking about."

It seems like in our political climate being a veteran gives you a sort of saints status that no one can disagree with whether you are pro-war or anti-war. I'm not entirely sure I approve of that, and yet I can feel the guy's frustration. Imagine serving in Vietnam and then being told you don't have the right to protest the war by two fat middle-aged surban republicans.

Link of the Day
1,106 soldiers ordered back to recruiting duty