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it's late but everything happens next

d.c., the black bloc, police, and iraq

warning: the following is long. sorry about that.

Last weekend I went to Washington D.C. to participate in a march on the Pentagon. Three others from Colorado and I made the trip out there. The drive itself was pretty good….we talked a lot and got to know each other to some degree. And I found myself enjoying my company. So that was fun.

The march itself leaves me with a multitude of feelings. I ended up marching with the black bloc (an anti-authoritarian contingent). I had made the decision before leaving on the trip to take part in direct action if possible. I spoke with a couple of lawyers here is town, to get an idea of what may be potential outcomes of such actions. I was okay with that and my decision had been made after many months of contemplation. I felt completely okay with my decision. I knew it was right for me at this moment and these circumstances.

So, after arriving in D.C., I sought out others who also wanted to participate in something that directly challenged the state and made a clear statement against this war. I ended up finding the SDS (Students For A Democratic Society) and the more general black bloc. The black bloc is not an organization but rather a tactic used to confront state authority. I have been around it in the past at other events and felt like this was a good opportunity to hopefully engage in direct action that was personally meaningful.

Before I get any further, I would like to clarify something. As I stated in a letter that I wrote before engaging in what I thought would lead to my arrest, I do not have any illusions about the effects of my personal actions. I know that nothing I do as an individual will somehow single-handedly end this war and occupation. I have given much thought to the dangers of ego and ‘coolness’ that can potentially be involved in these kind of decisions. However, I do feel that I have reached a point in my personal being where this is the appropriate decision. While I don’t have illusions about the effectiveness of a single, individual action, I do feel that my action can contribute to a larger effort. In that way, it can be meaningful, not only to myself but also to the larger effort to end this occupation and killing. And I feel a strong desire to challenge the authority of a government that insists on committing these sorts of actions against human beings.

Unfortunately, this did not happen to the extent I had hoped and planned on. I did participate in the black bloc and we did take some matters into our own hands and challenged the powers that be. The general march ended in a parking lot near the Pentagon, not the Pentagon itself. The black bloc, before reaching the end of the march, broke away from the main line of demonstrators and set out into a large road that led to the Pentagon. Traffic was of course blocked and, as we continued across a bridge towards the Pentagon, we met with a large group of riot police dressed in armor and armed with batons, pepperspray, and teargas.

Our march stopped and we linked arms and sat on the pavement, so that the police could not knock us off our feet. The police began to threaten the group with teargas. Someone, who did not appear to be part of the black bloc and apparently someone from the other part of the march, tried to negotiate with the police, asking the black bloc if we would take a step back if the police did as well. As this individual was engaged in communication, standing in the small space between the protestors and the riot police, he was suddenly snatched by police and disappeared behind their line. This greatly upset all of us sitting on the pavement.

The moment was very tense. I was sure we would be teargassed and arrested. I was prepared and felt surprisingly at ease because I was okay with my decision. When I have been in similar situations in the past, I have felt confused and conflicted because, while not wanting to back down, I also did not want to face arrest and other negative potentialities. This time, though, I knew what I wanted to do and it made the situation feel much different.

A woman, probably in her 30s, was sitting next to me. She was not there as part of any group but like me had made the decision to stay. We talked in brief exchanges. She was planning on going to Palestine and we talked about that. She was unsure of what to expect from the police and the teargas in the present situation but she was not backing down. It was wonderful to see this happening.

As it began to get more tense, the police said they would begin firing teargas in two minutes. Interestingly, I did not hear them give any orders to disperse or face arrest, as I usually have in the past in similar situations. At this point, there were conflicting opinions and ideas on what was the best thing to do. Some people thought that it would be best to march back to D.C. (the Pentagon is across the river in Virginia) and engage in direct action there. According to locals, there were many potential targets including a military recruitment center and weapons manufacturers. Supposedly, police in D.C. are not able to mass arrest whole groups of people but in Virginia they can; this was one reason given to support returning to D.C. Others vocalized concern that we weren’t really accomplishing anything by sitting in the road and that getting teargassed and arrested wouldn’t change that.

I wanted to stay and said so; many others did, too. I felt that we were in fact accomplishing something—we were refusing to listen to the state and continuing to protest this war, even when we were told that we couldn’t do it at that time or place. We were blocking traffic on a major road—a message, I believe, of not allowing business as usual while this war continues. We potentially would show many people an example of state violence; I would hope that if a group of maybe two hundred, unarmed and totally nonviolent people were teargassed and arrested, media, even mainstream, would tell that story.

The largest concern seemed to be that, while many had made the decision to be arrested, many others did not want to do that at that particular point. I understand that and completely support it; I do not feel there is any correct or right tactic to be used in opposing this or any other war or other form of state violence and oppression. We all make sense of what is right for us as individuals at any given moment and this is not something to criticize or judge.

In order to make sure that those who did not want to be arrested were able to do that, it was somehow, in a very disorganized way because of the moment, decided that everyone should go back to D.C., regroup, and figure out another course of action. Most of the group got up and headed back to D.C. and the moment was over. It was only after this that the police even gave an order to disperse—after almost everyone was gone.

I didn’t go back to D.C.; I felt pretty strongly that nothing would come out of that. I felt totally deflated. I don’t remember ever feeling so disempowered. I felt that there was nothing to do. The moment was over.

After awhile, I walked to the edge of a grassy slope and started crying. I had failed. I thought about this war and about all the individuals and families caught in it. My decision was not seen through and I felt lost. And so, so sad. The war and occupation continued, as I knew it would, and I had not done what I felt was personally necessary.

I walked back to D.C. I wandered around for awhile. Then I got on the metro and went back to the Pentagon. When I got off the metro, I didn’t know where I was in relation to where the march had been and I walked around the outside of the Pentagon. I talked with a security guard who told me I had to walk around the building on a road if I wanted to get to the parking lot where the march had ended. I finally got there. I don’t even know why I was trying to find it, anyway. There was nothing there. A few big semis that were just about finished being loaded with the sound system and other components of the rally at the march’s end. Scraps of paper talking about the march and some newspapers published by various groups were blowing around or stuck to the wet pavement.

I started back. I passed some young person sitting up against a wall of concrete. He had a frame pack on his back. A few minutes later, just before I came to the bridge across the river, I came across a older man taking a photo of a discarded protest sign. I said hello. He asked if I could take his picture with the sign. We talked a little and it turned out that he had taken a bus from some city….maybe Pittsburgh, to come to the march. They hit a storm and he didn’t get to D.C. until about five in the afternoon. He missed the march.

We started walking back to D.C. together, he had to catch a bus later that night back to the city he lived in. The young guy I had passed earlier caught up with us and the three of us walked across the bridge over the Potomac. I mostly just listened; I was really depressed. The man was a security guard somewhere and drew, as he said, “cartoons.” He was kind of a big guy that people maybe overlook, that kind of big. He had glasses and talked in a slow kind of cheerful way. The young guy was from I can’t remember where and was down in New Orleans, volunteering with the Common Ground Collective there. He had his frame pack and swore sometimes, which was probably only noticeable in contrast to the other man's way of speaking. I don’t remember either of their names but the big guy gave me one of his ‘cartoons’; it was about the goodness of hugs and photocopied on a piece of paper folded so that it had a few pages. The young man pulled out a flask of some kind of whiskey and offered us all a drink. It was a cold and windy afternoon, really kind of dark.

We walked a lot of blocks and I split up from them just before the bus station. I wanted to stop by the encampment on the capital mall, just to see if there was any other direct action or civil disobedience being planned. I had went there first thing in the morning and again after I first walked back to D.C. from the bridge and talked with folks there and met some good people. It was about dusk now and just a few people were gathered in one of the larger wall tents. I just looked at their silhouettes through the plastic of the tent and then kept walking.

I went to Union Station, were I had been the last time I was in D.C. in January. I remembered having found a good place to sit and drink coffee and eat bagels. I went there again and got two bagels and filled up my cup with hot coffee. I sat down by a pay phone and called Jen. I talked to her and cried and cried. Finally, I hung up the phone and left the station.

When I was sitting in that street, with my arms linked to other people’s arms, I felt like we were somehow changing the world. It was beautiful. I realize now that I made a mistake—I put everything into one decision, into one potential action. I felt that if I took a certain action, somehow I would feel better. Maybe even that somehow that would be enough. That I could go back to just thinking about taking a long hike, reading good comic books. I know this isn’t true. Things don’t disappear. We are not alleviated. Whether we like it or not, and I think for most people it’s not, this government is engaged in war and occupation, in killing human beings. After I was able to get out some of my feelings of intense disempowerment, disappointment, and regret, I was able to see that there is no single action or statement that makes things go away. It’s a continuing effort, a way of being alive. Opposition and transformation come from a multitude of decisions and actions and ways of being. This is not to say that the decision to participate in direct action is not meaningful; in fact, I believe the opposite to be true. It is simply that all of this, all the efforts to challenge hierarchy, domination, and authority, do not culminate in one action that relieves these problems or clears the conscience. And I’ve been reminded that there is much to learn from every situation.

This feels like the beginning of something. At the moment, I felt like it was the end, a deadend, a failure. But I realize that there is much potential. When I think about all the people who experienced what happened at that action, I can’t help but believe that there are more and more people committed to change. I feel horrible that the occupation of Iraq is not over, that this government continues its inhumanity. The occupation was not ended on Saturday, of course, and would not have ended if that action had been realized. This keeps going on. Every day that this continues more people are killed, more families are separated, more lives destroyed. And everyday more and more people challenge the authority that allows and creates these atrocities. There is hope in this.

from a poem...."Jerusalem"

A child's poem says,
"I don't like wars,
they end up with monuments."

-Naomi Shihab Nye

city council

On a more positive note, a proposed city ordinance that would have targeted people of spanish speaking descent and used fear and prejudice to divide communities was voted down at city council. It was a big deal for people here—a big victory and it should be noted and celebrated. A lot of people showed up for the meeting….one city council member mentioned that it was the most community members he’d seen at a meeting since he had been on the council. I decided to speak in front of the council. It doesn’t sound like much but I was really nervous and afterwards really, really happy that I had.

There were many people from the community who spoke and I heard some incredible speeches. At one point, I was stereotyping someone who I thought was going to be a racist white man but, it turned out, I was completely wrong. He spoke near the end, walking up to the microphone in blue jeans and a jacket. He talked about how he has been a small business owner in Fort Collins for 30 years (the ordinance was aimed at business owners) and that he recognized the proposed ordinance as legislation that would create fear and mistrust and would severely and negatively affect Latina/o folks in the community. I was really impressed with his statements and his courage, as I was with so many people who were at the meeting. One Latina woman said something about how as soon as a Hispanic person voices concern about these kinds of policies, so many people lash out and accuse them of ‘playing the race card.’ She said something like ‘after you’ve walked in my shoes try telling me that.’

I did not like the ‘politics’ element of the meeting, in which the council members sometimes seemed like calculating politicians. I don’t feel that the community members’ comments probably really have that much affect and it certainly does not feel like I am a part of the decision or the even the process. And it was interesting that the council, made up of seven people, were all white and all but one were men.

All the same, it is great that the ordinance did not pass and I do believe that some of that is due to the hard work of lots of people in the community. Someday we’ll all be able to make those decisions and no one will be excluded or ignored. When and where that happens, I doubt that an ordinance like this would ever even be conceived of.

children and occupation

Two nights ago I was looking for photos of Iraqi children, to use as part of Project Occupation—a series of ongoing actions aimed at ending the funding of the war and occupation of Iraq. I had to stop after just a few minutes. The images were sickening. Somehow I know it’s not true but I can’t help but think that if anyone looked at those photographs, there is no way they could support this war. I am so fucking angry that this is happening, that this is continuing. I am so sad. And I am so disgusted.

Senator Salazar finally responded to our requests that he work to stop the funding of the war and act to prevent a future attack on Iran. He ignored the second request. He didn’t exactly even address the first question; essentially he said that he supports the continuation of the occupation. He laid blame on the administration for mishandling the war but never once admitted it was wrong in the first place or that it should end.

I was at the office that the senator uses here in Fort Collins again on Thursday, as part of a day of elevated presence in offices across the U.S. I talked with the senator’s regional representative in the office and we had a good discussion. Throughout the day, different people came in and stayed an hour, so that there was a presence all day long. We brought in the photos of Iraqi children (no shocking ones, mostly just pictures of kids—although some were in hospital settings) and the regional representative said that he would send them to the office in D.C.

When I looked at the photos, I thought immediately of the children in Palestine, the kids I met in Nablus, in Balata camp, and in Askar Jadeed and Askar Cadeem camps. This is the reality of war. Children. These are the true casualties of war and occupation. Whole generations of Palestinians have no childhood. Young children literally get shot on the streets of refugee camps, families lose mothers and fathers, and children grow up with no hope for the future. Can you imagine what it would be like to live without hope? Without hope for the future, for your family, for yourself?

I read in an article from 2004 that an estimated 47% of Iraqis killed in this war are children under the age of 15. About 60% of Iraq’s population of approximately 24 million are children. That is all the reason anyone needs to be completely against this war and occupation. Besides this war resulting in an estimated 655,000 Iraqis killed, more than 3,000 U.S. soldiers killed, hundreds of thousands of wounded Iraqis and Americans, and about 4 million Iraqi refugees, the U.S. is creating a generation of children without hope.

action

And writing a few paragraphs on a blog doesn’t change the world.

And this is what it comes to….we can read and talk and even write but that won’t change things; we need action if we are to transform our lives and the world.

Often that can be the difficult part. I know that I, and I think many others, can get stuck in the question of “what do I do?” It can be a debilitating way of thinking about activism and change. Really, we can do just about anything we want. The impetus is there—we know how horrible so many things are. We recognize that war, imperialism, and hierarchy result in incredibly tragic outcomes. We know that oppression is happening; we know that complicity hides in the shadows of silence and inaction. We must simply decide that the time is now. We can no longer delude ourselves into thinking that we can bring about change with a vote or a discussion about how bad things are. We need to make the decision to act for change, to directly engage the world around us.

The moment we make this decision, possibilities arrive in our minds; actions and their potential outcomes hover on the horizon. By then taking those actions, we can arrive at those outcomes.

Of course, these things take planning, creativity, and cooperation—things we humans are actually pretty good at. Just get together with a group of people and we are amazed at the fluidity of creative interaction that occurs. Before long, goals and outcomes are arrived at, plans are made, and then action happens.

I don’t know what works and what doesn’t; I just know what results from doing nothing. I don’t know what actions are the best or most effective and I don’t think anyone does. That is why the more the merrier. Some actions will work for some people, while other ways of acting will make sense to other people. A diversity of tactics is a positive element in the movement of transformation, precisely because it addresses different desires, concerns, perspectives, and circumstances.

So, what am I writing this for? Partially, it is to flesh things out in my mind. I often work that way—I write down ideas (or discuss them with others) in order to better understand them and to develop them personally in a way that makes sense to my own worldview. Also, I want to encourage others. I hope that is not high-minded sounding. Like I said, I certainly don’t know what works and what doesn’t but I do know that things as they are now are not desirable. And I believe that most of us feel similarly. So, I want to say to others that there are things we can do! It is not hopeless. We are individuals that can make our own decisions and our own actions. There is nothing to stop us! All we need do is decide that we will do something and then go about doing it. There is nothing to lose and there is so much to gain.

occupation (or, let's see what's on tv)

A few days ago I received an email from Samah, a friend I met in Nablus. She is in Spain right now, finishing a master’s degree. The Israeli military has once again invaded and occupied Nablus. The military was there for, I think, five days and has now apparently left, for the moment anyway.

I can’t imagine what it must be like for Samah, being away from Nablus, from her home and family and friends, while this happens. Her family’s house has been occupied at least twice in the past by the Israeli military, apparently because it is on the corner of a street, providing a position for the military to watch both streets. The last time soldiers broke in, they set the house on fire and shot a bystander in the chest through an open window in the house.

I wasn’t able to find much in the international media about this current invasion. Reuters literally had a two sentence article about it (I was able to find a little more about it at their website but the two sentence article really sums up mainstream media). I did find some information and apparently a civilian was shot in the neck and died; his son was wounded as well. In the city of Jenin, north of Nablus in the West Bank, three other Palestinians were shot and killed—two members of a militant group and a taxi driver. An apartment in Nablus was also apparently set on fire by the military, which was moving from house to house. At one point, according to eyewitnesses, the military forced a Palestinian to walk in front of the soldiers as they broke into homes. The Israeli Supreme Court has actually ruled this practice illegal. The military hasn’t commented.

So, I am just writing this here to let you know about it. I’m pretty sure the television didn’t let you know. Of course, about four people might read this as compared to the millions watching tv.