Contact Me
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
I do it so the country won't change me
Yesterday 40 or 50 of us met at the state capitol and a few people spoke before we marched banging pots and pans and chanted our way to the Federal Building. One of our MFSO mothers couldn't be there because she was attending a funeral of a young soldier who was supposed to make it home from Iraq to witness the birth of his first child a daughter but he was killed only 11 days before her birth. A woman who has lived in Syria for a few years read statements from Iraqis who have escaped death by fleeing to Syria and each of these people sounded just like any American parent who loves his/her children but these people were doing what they had to do in order to protect their children from early death when death screamed all around them. And the American parents around us were taking their kids shopping on one of their first days of summer break. I wondered what they worry about. Certainly not IED's and soldiers breaking into their homes and taking away the men of the family. And certainly not a bomb going off on a bus near the shopping center killing and maiming souls whose only crime is being in the wrong country at the wrong time.
Once in awhile as we marched I wondered why we were doing this. It was not going to stop the war and I could just imagine the headlines saying that a handful of protesters walked down the 16th Street Mall banging pots and pans against the war and everyone would think that a few goofballs are against the war while the normal people are walking the mall in shirts and ties and talking important business on their cellphones. But from the peace signs and thumbs up that we got I know that we were bigger than a handful and we put the war in the faces of the shopping moms and summer kids and that is important because over there this atrocity is in the face of every person every day.
And I remember the A.J. Muste quote which I can't promise is a real live quote of his but it doesn't matter because it says something important. It goes like this:
A reporter interviewing A.J. Muste, who during the Vietnam War stood in front of the White House night after night with a candle, one rainy night asked,"Mr. Muste, do you really think you are going to change the policies of this country by standing out here alone at night with a candle?" Muste replied, "Oh, I don't do it to change the country, I do it so the country won't change me.
Once in awhile as we marched I wondered why we were doing this. It was not going to stop the war and I could just imagine the headlines saying that a handful of protesters walked down the 16th Street Mall banging pots and pans against the war and everyone would think that a few goofballs are against the war while the normal people are walking the mall in shirts and ties and talking important business on their cellphones. But from the peace signs and thumbs up that we got I know that we were bigger than a handful and we put the war in the faces of the shopping moms and summer kids and that is important because over there this atrocity is in the face of every person every day.
And I remember the A.J. Muste quote which I can't promise is a real live quote of his but it doesn't matter because it says something important. It goes like this:
A reporter interviewing A.J. Muste, who during the Vietnam War stood in front of the White House night after night with a candle, one rainy night asked,"Mr. Muste, do you really think you are going to change the policies of this country by standing out here alone at night with a candle?" Muste replied, "Oh, I don't do it to change the country, I do it so the country won't change me.
Labels: Iraq War Rally
posted by Carol at 9:13 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home