Current mood:	accomplished
Current music:	Dixie Chicks - Sin Wagon

March 19 Fayetteville Antiwar Protest
I meant to post my round-up earlier, but I didn't get home until 2:30am and spent most of today sleeping or otherwise recovering. Dude, protesting (much like Presidenting) is exhausting!



It didn't help that I got almost no sleep this entire week, and had a really draining week at work. This is what I looked like right before I left Friday night:

We left DC around 12:30, and got to Fayetteville around 7am. Fayetteville is an interesting town. One of the first things you see coming in is the Airborne and Special Operations Museum, a big garish $16 million center. I found out later, the city razed a homeless shelter to the ground so the military could put it up. Sigh. Next you go thru this little "old town" area with antique shops, art dealers, etc etc tourist cakes. It looked nice enough, but almost like it was trying way too hard. After this, you get to what I imagine is the "real" Fayetteville, a five mile strip of retail, businesses, schools, etc. What really stuck out to me was how many doctors, emergency medical centers, doctors offices, day care centers, lawyers, funeral homes (at least 5), churches (7), large cemetaries, etc that I saw for such a small city. Kinda depressing.



I grabbed a local newspaper, The Fayetteville Observer, and was surprised to find us on the front page with a sympathetic story. If anything I was expecting to read something like, "FREEDOM HATING COMMIES INVADE!!!" on the 10th page, but this article was pretty decent.

There's a couple reasons DAWN, the group I went with, wanted to join the North Carolina peace activists in Fayetteville. One, the city is the home of Fort Bragg, one of the largest military bases in the country. It was important to have a rally like this close to the military and the families of active soldiers. Two, apparently there's a very devoted anti-war movement in this red state. The activists here were organized, dedicated, motivated and passionate about what they were trying to accomplish. They're also friendly and welcoming. Thanks, NC Peace & Justice Coalition! You guys ROCK.

Speaking of rocking, this is Jenny Schnick and her daughter who came with us from Baltimore.



Jenny was doing research for paper or project she's working on for the College of Notre Dame where she's working on her PhD, I think. Her and her daughter are veterans of the protest/activist circuit, which I think is fabulous. :)



Here's some of the signs we brought down from DC. I especially like the middle one.



Along with several buttons, I wore my Think Blue wristband for solidarity, and my Slytherin wristband for insurance. I figure the Slytherin spirit could come in handy if I got arrested or harrased by a redneck. Hee!



Awww, Unitarians! I was wonderful to see so many people of faith at the protest yesterday. The Quakers of North Carolina also came out strong in support for peace and what I would consider true Christian principles.



WORD. I need to make an icon of this sign!





I was one of the "coffin bearers" in our mock funeral procession, meant to symbolize the dead American soldiers.



I kept looking at our mock procession and thinking about how Bush had the REAL flag draped coffins flown home in the dead of night, prohibiting photographs, etc. It's just infuriating.



There were hundreds of family members from chapters of Military Family Members Speak Out. It was heart breaking to listen to their stories.



In this picture, the woman with the microphone and the man next to her are the parents of a 22 year old Iraq War soldier who hung himself days after returning home. I sat there with tears streaming down my face.



Okay, speaking of infuriating? There was a small (like, less than 100 people from what I could see) group of agitators from FreeRepublic.com who screamed at us along the march route and across from the park rally. Basically, their entire purpose was to be loud & obnoxious, and to incite some kind of violent reaction from us so that they could go back to their little hate sites and write about how the hippy protesters are hypocrites. Freepers and groups like ProtestWarrior.com do this at every anti-war/anti-bush/pro-choice/feminist/etc rally, because... I don't know why. Because they're little bitches I guess. They didn't have much success yelling at us along the parade route, seeing as how Quakers and military widows aren't exactly known for violence. We just gave threw up a peace sign and rolled our eyes. But when they started chanting "Code Pink Kills! Code Pink Kills!" while a mother who lost her son was speaking at the rally? Okay, seriously Freepers, FUCK YOU YOU FUCKING FUCK. Show some goddamned fucking respect you ignorant morons.



Also, as far as that lying sign "Code Pink Give $ 2 Terrorists!", apparently the whole beef with Code Pink is that it gave $600,000 in humanitarian aid to the women and children in Fallujah after our soldiers basically went in and burned the city to the ground. Oh yeah, those evil terrorist helping bitches, how dare they!!! God.




One of my favorite signs, from The Vietnam Veterans Against the War. I bought a button yesterday that said "Iraq is Arabic for Vietnam". Heh. There were a LOT of Veterans at the protest, from Vietnam, the first Gulf War, and also from Iraq.



Here are some of the members of Iraq Veterans Against the War, including founder Michael Hoffman (the one with the microphone). These guys are amazing. Most of them have faced scorn, redicule and harassment and been labeled traitors. Many have spent time in military prison. I can't even imagine having this kind of courage.

My favorite speech was one of the soliders, adressing the Freepers across from us: "I just wanna say to those people on the Hill... where was your rage for me? Where were you to support me when I had nothing but half an inch of plywood on my Humvee? When I had to go to the bank to get a loan, just so I could buy my own body armor? Where were you when my medical and prescription benefits got cut? Maybe you can explain that to me." Dude, seriously, because I'd like it explained too.

Okay, there's other stuff but I'm still exhausted, and I think it's time for sleep.

Sidenote: I think protest gatherings are becoming like following the Grateful Dead for me. It's like I physically NEED to go, and I feel icky if I don't show up. Woah!

The next thing I'm going to is the IMF/World Bank Protest in April. (Sorry knowledgequeen, I know you work there and all. Meep!) I've been meaning to go to an IMF protest for years but never got around to it. If Wolfowitz gets put in, like he probably will, I definitely have to show up this year.