[Peace-discuss] The War on Dissent Gets Creepy

[Lisa Chason]

The War on Dissent Gets Creepy


by Mike Ferner <mailto:mike.ferner at sbcglobal.net> 
by Mike Ferner

 <http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/ferner5.html#>   On New Year's Day, I
decided to start 2006 out with a public protest against the war. Little did
I know how public it would become.

My younger brother and I (he was only the wheelman, led astray) tagged three
highway overpasses near Toledo with "TROOPS OUT NOW!" (see photo, below).
Suburban cops with too much time on their hands and citizens with cell
phones being what they were, we were soon pulled over by five (no kidding)
patrol cars and arrested on no fewer than five felonies each. For those of
you who haven't been paying attention to how state legislatures protect us
from crime, in the late 90's in Ohio it became a felony to spraypaint a
public building (called "getting tough on gangs") AND a felony to possess a
can of spraypaint in the commission of that crime ("possession of criminal
tools" says the Ohio Revised Code). 

We spent that night in jail and the next day appeared, shackled together,
before a judge who set bond at (this is all for real, pals) $3,000 each, no
10% business. 

Earlier this week we went to one suburban court, plead to misdemeanors, and
found out how much the Ohio Dept. of Transportation (ODOT) charges for the
"preliminary" repair of each overpass (grey paint) - $600 - with the final
repair bill due at our sentencing next month. Technically, that includes up
to 90 days in jail. 

Today we went to the second suburban court and my brother plead to
misdemeanors. I, on the other hand decided that if I'm going to pay that
kind of money and face time in the cooler, I'm at least going to have a
trial and speak my mind about the war. I've now been "bound over to the
grand jury" (which may mean something to those of you who watch cop shows)
for a trial in county common pleas court on the remaining felony charges. 

Finally - our local paper, the Toledo Blade, ran an editorial last week
titled "Defacing
<http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?Date=20060106&Category=OPI
NION02&ArtNo=601060314&SectionCat=OPINION&Template=printart> a reputation,"
referring to my time on city council and what it considered acceptable war
protests, opining that I went too far with the spraypaint. Below is my
response to the paper and our fellow citizens. 

Response:

The Blade was gracious enough to list me in the company of some civilly
disobedient heroes, indicating my behavior fell woefully short of those
honorable standards. Spray paint wasn't invented in Gandhi's day, but might
he at some point have scrawled "Brits Out Now" with whitewash and a brush?
One might think so. 

"But why break the law," people ask? "What about this war troubles you
enough to break the law?" 

In one word: images. 

Images that never leave me. 

Images of young soldiers and marines lying in row upon row of hospital beds.
Images of picking shrapnel out of Mike Ramsack's backside.dressing Bob
Butikofer's wounds every day and trying not to make him scream.changing
colostomy bags on guys hoping they won't defecate out the hole in their guts
caused by a gunshot wound to the abdomen.trying to give a brain scan to a
young soldier missing his entire left temporal lobe.Images of eating in the
chow hall as dozens of patients in wheelchairs, on crutches, missing arms
and legs and eyes line up for dinner.Images of a young man sitting silent
and broken in a corner of the psych ward. 

And there are other, more recent images from my trips to Iraq that I cannot
forget. Images of the kids I met on the streets of Baghdad, and the ones in
Abu Siffa who shared their chicken and rice dinner with an American
journalist two days after a cruise missile blew their orange grove to bits.
Images of Fatima in the Sa'adoon St. copy shop who told me how beautiful she
thought her country was and how she hoped there would be no war. Images of
the young U.S. Army sergeant from West Virginia I accompanied on patrol one
night near Balad, who answered my question, "why are you in Iraq?" with a
tired shrug saying, "I really don't know." And his partner from North
Dakota, just as bone-tired, who answered simply, "oil." 

I see these images every day. And I know that the young men in that Navy
hospital 35 years ago, just like the ones I met last year in Iraq, are
getting killed and maimed for a preposterous lie. As my blood boils I tell
my government to "BRING THEM HOME NOW!" by writing letters, signing
petitions, speaking, and yes, painting highway overpasses.

Our government is not only causing great suffering by this war, it is also
violating dozens of international and domestic laws. See the Veterans For
Peace "Case for
<http://www.veteransforpeace.org/impeachment/impeachment.htm> Impeachment"
for a partial list. As citizens we are complicit in these crimes and
suffering. That is why historian Howard Zinn's words make more sense to me
each day this war continues:

"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our
problem is that people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of the
leaders of their government and have gone to war, and millions have been
killed because of this obedience...Our problem is that people are obedient
all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and
war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails
are full of petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running
the country. That's our problem."

The most important mistake I made on New Year's Day was not that I painted
"Troops Out Now" on overpasses, it was choosing a form of civil disobedience
not many people are comfortable adopting. If you believe we must end this
war, what kind of civil disobedience would you choose? Refuse to pay part of
your taxes this April? Sit in at a Congressional office? Organize a strike?
Or will we be content to speak quietly, watching the petty criminals go to
jail while the grand criminals continue the slaughter in our name?

January 21, 2006

Mike Ferner [send him mail <mailto:mike.ferner at sbcglobal.net> ] served as a
Navy Corpsman from 1969 to 73, was discharged as a conscientious objector,
and is a member of Veterans For Peace <http://www.veteransforpeace.org/> .
He would like to add that any contributions to his legal defense fund above
$5 will be returned. 

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The convention which framed the Constitution of the United States was
composed of fifty-five members.  A majority were lawyers-not one farmer,
mechanic or laborer.  Forty owned Revolutionary Scrip.  Fourteen were land
speculators.  Twenty-four were money-lenders.  Eleven were merchants.
Fifteen were slave-holders.  They made a Constitution to protect the rights
of property and not the rights of man,: Senator Richard Pettigrew -
Triumphant Plutocracy (1922) 

=
" I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes
me to tremble for the safety of my country.  As a result of war,
corporations have been enthroned, and an era of corruption in high places
will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its
reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all the wealth is
aggregated in a few hands and the republic is destroyed.  I feel, at this
moment, more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in
the midst of war.  God grant that my suspicions may prove groundless."
Lincoln in a letter to Col. William F. Elkins on November 21, 1864 :

=
This great and powerful force-the accumulated wealth of the United
States-has taken over all the functions of Government, Congress, the issue
of money, and banking and the army and navy in order to have a band of
mercenaries to do their bidding and protect their stolen property.
Senator Richard Pettigrew - Triumphant Plutocracy  - Published, January 1,
1922. 

=
I grieve for France ;  although it cannot be denied that by the afflictions
with which she wantonly and wickedly overwhelmed other nations, she has
merited severe reprisals.  For it is no excuse to lay the enormities to the
wretch who led to them, and who has been the author of more misery and
suffering to the world, than any being who ever lived before him.  

After destroying the liberties of his country, he has exhausted all its
resources, physical and moral, to indulge his own maniac ambition, his own
tyrannical and overbearing spirit.  His sufferings cannot be too great.  But
theirs I sincerely deplore, and what is to be their term ?  

The will of the allies ?  There is no more moderation, forbearance, or even
honesty in theirs, than in that of Bonaparte.  They have proved that their
object, like his, is plunder.  They, like him, are shuffliing nations
together, or into their own hands, as if all were right which they feel a
power to do: 

Thomas Jefferson - To Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin -Monticello,
October 16, 1815

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