2000-2008
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and developing professional museum workers
network all over
the world....
Let us
TOGETHER
MAKE A DIFFERENCE!
Peace
Is Their Business
One afternoon, 27 protesters zipped themselves up in white
vinyl body bags on the sidewalk outside what they said was the
lobbying office for "Exxon Mobil" on Pennsylvania
Avenue NW. They looked like abandoned luggage. Someone dressed
as the Grim Reaper walked among the prone shapes, cackling and
holding a gasoline nozzle instead of a scythe.
Then the protesters popped out of their bags, chanted "No
blood for oil" and marched to a nearby gas station, where
they posed for pictures next to the pumps.
Ah, the anti-corporate-globalization raiders, with their
theater and whimsy.
But what do they have to do with the peace movement?
They are nothing if not opportunistic. But they also are
adding a planetary perspective that seems new. You didn't hear
this stuff so much in 1965.
"Some of the opposition to the war now comes from a
clearer vision of what's happening in the international world
than we had when we started trying to figure out where Vietnam
was," says John Judge, 55, a coordinator of the
Washington Peace Center. He was a college student in 1965 who
flunked the physical for the draft and counseled students and
GIs on their options, and he's been doing peace work ever
since.
At the gas station, the Grim Reaper, who was labeled "ExxonMobil,"
exulted for the television cameras: "We're looking
forward to the war. The price of oil is going to go up and
we're going to make billions of dollars!"
The alleged war-oil connection is not new, but this species of
dove is opposing the war more broadly as an instrument of
global capitalism, not just oil companies. The demonstrators
say this war is best understood simply as a scheme to make
another patch of the world safe for Western investors.
Several miles north in bourgeois Bethesda, a different
analysis is spreading softly in the night.
Jane Meleney Coe, the Quaker, has about 40 senior citizens
from various Protestant denominations arranged in a circle in
the basement music room of a private school while she writes
their ideas with a squeaky marker pen on a large pad.
They are trying to come up with slogans. They chuckle at
"Drop Bush Not Bombs" but decide it's not nice.
They admire "There Is That Which Is of God in Every
Person," the old Quaker precept.
But is it too much for a sign?
This is new territory. Will Metro allow them to board trains
with wooden sticks for signs?
"I can use it as a cane with my new knee," says Lee
Warren Shipman, 78, an architectural planner. Later she says:
"I just don't believe in war. I think al Qaeda is more of
a threat than Iraq."
Odom Fanning, 82, a World War II Marine vet and retired
writer, says, "I can see hundreds of thousands of our
troops and allied troops being involved in a bloody and almost
never-ending conflict, and I don't think history will look
kindly on the United States for starting that kind of
war."
It was Coe who thought the sight of 65- and 75-year-olds
marching downtown would be powerful. Now it's mushroomed into
the centerpiece of today's activities, the rally at Farragut
Square.
The other peace tribes promise to fall in behind the church
ladies, all for one, one for all.
Where governments respect the rights of all their
citizens and settle disputes by the rule of law
for the common good.
Where all people have food, shelter and access to
medical care, and children are born into and
raised by healthy families and communities.
Where literacy and education for all are
accomplished facts.
Where economic practices create well-being for all
stakeholders, including communities and the
environment.
Where beauty, the arts, and media inspire the best
in people.
Where the benefits of science and technology
enhance all circles of life.
Where tolerance and appreciation of diverse
religious beliefs is the rule, spiritual practice
is encouraged, and reverence for life fostered.
Where the earth in all her natural beauty is
treasured and its resources utilized sustainably,
for this and future generations.
This is a world at PEACE.
May Peace Prevail On Earth
The
Battles to Come
Later will come the schisms, betrayals and
burnouts.
Are sanctions effective? Is capitalism a problem?
Is war sometimes the answer?
The doves disagree among themselves on all of
these questions. The doves are eternally cursed to
disagree, sooner or later. Oh, to be born a simple
hound.
They know this. And yet they keep organizing,
marching, chanting, singing, praying, drumming,
going to jail, zipping into body bags -- so that
one day they might get it together, and the dogs
will be forever leashed.
Every
Day Counts
for A Better World.....
One Heart, One Day
at a time!
