Shout out to my DU friends who were there in 2003.

[wtmusic]

Last edited Wed Mar 20, 2013, 02:36 AM - Edit history (1)

That is - protesting the obscene war that was just beginning.

We were marching in DC, in Manhattan, in Miami, in Seattle, in Chicago. Everywhere. I was in Los Angeles, in Century City, in Hollywood outside the CNN studios where inside CNN was breathlessly cheerleading. We could see the FBI inside taking video of the crowd, pre-"Homeland Security".

Some of my best memories were the people I met while holding a sign on street corners, in L.A. and Westwood outside the Federal Building. The Republican-looking doorman who said, "Bush wouldn't know what war was if it bit him on the ass."; The grizzled 'Nam vet who showed me his "Tet 1968" tattoo, then looked me in the eye and said, "It's the same shit all over again."; the people who pushed my leaflet away and told me to get a job; honking their horns in support, flipping me off. The woman getting out of her car who came running up to me screaming in Spanish. I laughed - until I realized she was crying, and her son was in Iraq thinking he was fighting for his country. I fucking sat down and cried, then went home.

I put together a 30-second radio spot called "Stop This War" with a voiceover artist I used to work with, and spent my savings on getting it played on the stations who would play it - KNX in L.A., who at the time had a sales manager who was against the war and gave me some free airtime, and a station in New York, I think it was WCBS. Very few would touch it. I quoted the Red Cross - which predicted the casualties of Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined - and the prediction ended up being surprisingly accurate.

The protesting didn't help a bit, but it introduced me to Democratic Underground.

What are your memories?

[WCGreen]

1. I was just starting to come over here....

I was spending most of my time on Bart and posted this:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022534188

Soon, I started to post and by 2004, I was posting almost all the time on DU....

[bigtree]

2. saw these people standing beside the fuzz taking our pictures

. . . guy next to us looked over and said, 'Welcome to the reopening of our FBI files!'

I remember handing out little rain gear kits in D.C. that I'd bought.

Handing out t-shirts that I'd made with a peace sign on one side and 'support our returning soldiers' on the other.

Brought reams of copies of info I'd printed out about VA benefits and contact info for veterans and the like. I left it in a pile at the square and driving by I saw an obviously homeless man going through the pile and collecting up a sheaf of the info I'd left.

Brought cases of bananas and water and other food to a rally - took the excess and dropped it off at dusk at a community church downtown to a surprised makeshift parish gathered in a storefront.

Standing on our local corner protesting with a handful of local folks with a huge peace sign.

Taking in some marchers after a sunset meeting at an old white church which featured David Byrne's mom. Saw them off at dawn with two of our borders at the end of the procession with their drums; one Scottish, the other Native American. First one drum made it's sound, then, the other, and they were off. The sound of the heartbeat of God.

[wtmusic]

3. Our drums in L.A. were a little more crude than that.

Every march had more of them, the 5-gallon plastic paint buckets that people would tie some nylon rope on and hang around their neck. Unbelievably loud.

[TreasonousBastard]

4. I was there in NYC, DC, and standing in front of our...

Quaker meetinghouse on Saturday afternoons. It looked like we were starting something almost revolutionary and we were all fired up.

Fat lotta good it did. Millions were out there all over the country and it didn't make a warm bucket of piss worth a difference. They did exactly what they wanted to do.

They learned a lot from Nixon's mistakes, though, and were incredibly efficient at cutting our balls off at the roots without anyone noticing a thing until too late.

[wtmusic]

5. It didn't do any good, but

I don't regret a moment.

I remember an interview on one of the evening news channels with a Fox reporter covering a protest:

REPORTER TO ACTIVIST: Do you think this is going to do any good?

ACTIVIST: Probably not.

REPORTER: Why are you out here protesting?

ACTIVIST: Because the alternative is not doing anything.

[TreasonousBastard]

6. True enough-- I don't regret it either...

and have a certain pride in being a part of something huge and special, but in the end can't help regretting that all that effort went for naught.

Not wasted. That much activity and heartfelt belief can never be considered "wasted" or we have lost it all, but noting we aimed for was accomplished. We were completely neutralized.

Have we learned anything about how not to be neutralized?

[bigtree]

7. what we were up against was a result of decades of detachment from the product and processes of govt

. . . by a majority of Americans. That attention span was narrowed by the tragic events of 9-11 and, almost ironically, widened by the invasion of Iraq. We lost the 2004 election; and with it the chance to alter the course of the occupation. The election of Obama was our first real chance to undo the occupation, as Congress was institutionally unable to shake themselves out of their decades-long pattern of acquiescing authority for war to the Executive.

We gained, along the way, an awakened and enlightened generation of advocates and advocates. Transformational changes are almost always generational.

[AndyTiedye]

8. We Protested, It Made Us Feel Better But Nobody Else Noticed

because they kept it off the Tee Vee.

[DallasNE]

9. What I Remember Is That The War Bush Started

Is not the war Congress authorized. The war resolution that was passed authorized the use of force should Saddam not comply with UN Resolutions for UN weapons inspectors with a free run to inspect the sites of their choosing, including Saddam's palaces.

Bush later went back to the UN for a war resolution while the inspectors were still in Iraq and when Bush didn't have the votes to pass it he simply withdrew the resolution rather than be humiliated by failure. Bush also failed to go back to Congress asking for a new authorization not hamstrung by language tying war to the UN inspectors.

I have stuck by this line from the moment Bush failed to get the 2nd UN resolution for war. Bush should have been impeached rather than reelected for starting a war not authorized by Congress. Both Senators Kerry and Clinton have said their understanding was that this vote only authorized use of force should Saddam not let the inspectors in with the access they demanded. Bush has even said that he had to go to war because Saddam wouldn't let the inspectors in at the very time he was ordering them out in order to invade. That means that he needed this fig leaf to start the war, even when it was an outrageous lie.

That's my memory.

[HiPointDem]

11. Bush should have been impeached = indeed.

[democrank]

10. We marched in Vermont, many times actually.

Protestors were mostly young...under 25 or older...over 60. Several Vietnam Veterans.

There`s a wonderful woman in a small neighboring town who has been standing on the corner of Main Street with her peace sign every Friday afternoon since the war began. Rain or shine, alone or not, she`s there.

[wtmusic]

12. That's a good observation on the ages.

Possibly why I felt out of place, I was early forties. Most people my age were at work, trying to make a living. I was skipping work (actually, losing it) but I had two young kids and the criminality of the whole enterprise hit home.