[Peace-discuss] to go where no demonstration has gone before

[Robert Naiman]

Dear Karen et al.

I am a huge fan of this idea.

I totally agree that there is plenty to do "here." But, I would argue that
our notion of "here" ought to extend outside the city limits of
Champaign-Urbana, because "here" includes our responsibility to try to
pressure Tim Johnson. I think a key aspect of pressuring Tim Johnson is
demonstrating that opposition to the war and U.S. policy generally is not
confined to Champaign-Urbana, or to C-U and Bloomington-Normal. Obviously,
our capacity to do this is not infinite, but the choice before us is not
zero vs. infinity, but zero vs. something.

I strongly doubt that we would be arrested for a legal demonstration in e.g.
Mahomet. The First Amendment also works there. Of course, people who are
genuinely afraid should not be pressed to go, regardless of whether their
fears are rational. There are no guarantees - sometimes people are arrested
for First Amendment activity, as we all know, even in our nation's capital -
but it's very rare. Again I wouldn't push anyone to do anything that they
wouldn't feel safe doing. But I doubt that if this were the only concern, we
couldn't find people to go.

As we all know from our own experience, there are people who hate war
everywhere, even in "conservative small towns." As Karen suggests, if
someone were to organize such a thing, it might encourage folks in the town
who feel isolated.

I think that choosing an appropriate context would be important. Like, if
Tim Johnson or his staff are holding a public event in the place. Then we
could say, we're here to protest Tim Johnson, that's where he is, so that's
where we are.

Let's try it once, and see what happens...

On 9/13/07, Karen Medina <kmedina at uiuc.edu> wrote:
>
> Dear Peace Discuss,
>
> It has been suggested that AWARE demonstrations (in the future) extend to
> small towns around Champaign-Urbana (i.e. we go and demonstrate in other
> towns).
>
> My immediate thought was that we have enough to do here.
>
> Others' reactions included "we would be arrested in small towns".
>
> My second thought was "surely there are people in the smaller towns that
> are against this 'war' that are afraid to say anything until someone else
> stands up first."
>
> So, rather than continue this discussion in my head only, I open it for
> discussion here.
>
> -karen medina
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>



-- 
Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org

Just Foreign Policy's current estimate of Iraqi deaths due to violence since
the U.S. invasion - now more than a million:
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq/iraqdeaths.html
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