Bucks
Peace March Richland Meeting
Dear Friends,
Good morning. Richland Meeting was more vocal than usual on January 28. The day before, 47 members and attenders boarded a bus and traveled to Washington to participate in a march for peace. The following Sunday, several rose to speak about their participation. Linda Cooper is the Clerk (the title that Quakers give to their leader). She told me that each rider paid $35 for the effort. “We came up $55 short,” Cooper told me, “but I think someone will step forward to make the effort whole.” I heard that someone did.
During the Sunday meeting for worship, Kay Winters gave her observations about the march and how it felt to be part of 400,000 protestors. I asked Kay to send me a copy of what she said to the members. Here it is.
“From the capital to the Washington monument,” Kay began, “hundreds of thousands of people crowded the mall. They came in wheelchairs, with walkers, in strollers, in couples, in families, in groups, and alone.
“There were Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Quakers, Buddhists, and Muslims. Some wore nose rings, down jackets, costumes, LL Bean boots and peace signs painted on faces. They blew whistles, beat drums, and thumped tambourines in time to the chanting: “Get Out-Get Out – Get Out of Iraq.”
“They carried backpacks, water bottles, floats, puppets and signs: “Congress: Speak Out-Stand Up, Say No to War, Raise Peaceful People, Keep out of Iran, Surge Protector, The War on Terror is a War on Peace, What would Martin [Luther King] Say,” Kay continued. “Marchers came from California, Connecticut, Ohio, Wisconsin, New Mexico, Utah, Illinois, Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, Montana and Vermont. They had different agendas but one major goal. Stop the War.
“Not one more dime, or dollar or day spent on killing,” Kay said. “We heard Jane Fonda, Jesse Jackson, veterans, lawmakers, Peace Movement leaders, Gold Star mothers and the articulate Moriah Arnold, a 12 year-old girl from Massachusetts, who stood on tiptoe to reach the microphone.
“The speakers expressed grief for people who died, families left behind, the wounded, the emotionally shattered, those who may never recover. They shared shame that the U.S. was a bully. They showed disgust at people who profit from war. They showed despair that our commander in chief doesn’t heed his military advisers.
“And then we marched,” Kay added, “Peaceful, polite but determined. Hundreds of daffodils waved bright faces in spite of this week’s winter winds. And we came home with hope. We stood up to be counted. Did Congress see? Did Congress hear? Did Congress care? How will they vote? What happens now?”
Kay Winters thoughts were sobering.
I read the New York Times account of that march (Jan. 28). “President Bush was in Washington on Saturday,” the article stated, “but had no public events scheduled. He spent part of the morning on his weekly bicycle ride at a Secret Service training facility.
“The
protest was largely organized by the group United for Peace and Justice, a
coalition of 1,400 local and national organizations,” The
Like it or not, President Bush’s war in Iraq is turning Americans against Americans, just as the war in Vietnam did a generation ago. That war brought Lyndon Johnson’s presidency to an end. He did not seek reelection in spite of a landslide victory just four years earlier. Has it brought George W. Bush’s presidency to an end although he just hasn’t figured it out yet?
The visceral impact of the war in Iraq hasn’t hit Americans yet. That may be because there is no draft. If there were, President Bush might be heading toward impeachment hearings. And he may still, should the Democratic congress uncover evidence that the President deliberately withheld intelligence data proving that there were no weapons of mass destruction, before the invasion.
I am afraid America is stuck between a rock and a hard place. We can’t stay in Iraq and we can’t leave either. I fear that young Americans will be in harms way for decades. Unfortunately, this administration paid no attention to the aftermath of World War I. And it failed to listen to the generals who told the President that a military force well above 500,000 troops would be necessary to secure the peace.
Was it George Santayana who wrote: Those who cannot remember the past are condemned [maybe doomed] to repeat it? One of you readers will remind me, I am certain.
Sincerely,
Charles Meredith