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

[Stuart Levy]

On Fri, Sep 14, 2007 at 09:29:48AM -0500, Robert Naiman wrote:
> 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...


I'd be willing to do this, *if* (where) at least one local person can
invite us in.  We can hope to draw more local support once we're
actually present somewhere, but I'd hope to avoid being labelled as the
Invading Leftie Eggheads from Urbana-Champaign.   The rest of that
label is fine with me -- I'd just want to be acting in support
of local people, rather than as an invader.