[Peace-discuss] K. again delivers his anti-war vote to the establishment

[C. G. Estabrook]

While Kucinich is being "strategic" and delivering his presumed anti-war 
votes to the Democrats (just as he did in 2004), the real anti-war 
movement was active in Iowa.  Kucinich would have done much better to 
join these people (as apparently Paul volunteers did):

====================================================

http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/48578

While Governor Mike Huckabee was busy putting both feet in his mouth 
during a press conference at a downtown Des Moines hotel where he was 
showing reporters a negative campaign ad that he said he had decided not 
to release, antiwar protesters caught his campaign staff flat-footed as 
they occupied his Iowa campaign headquarters on the last day of 2007.

Huckabee’s effort to effectively release the negative ad while 
announcing his decision not to release it brought guffaws of laughter 
from the reporters assembled for the press conference. But no one was 
laughing over at the ordained Southern Baptist minister’s campaign 
headquarters a few blocks away where Voices for Creative Nonviolence 
(VCNV) and Occupation Campaign activists walked into Huckabee’s Iowa 
headquarters and unfurled a banner emblazoned with the question “Who 
Would Jesus Bomb?”

Stunned staffers fingered their cell phones in an effort to reach their 
supervisors, most of whom were at the press conference with Huckabee. 
Soon, staffers began demanding that the activists, Robert Braam of 
Manhattan, IL, Kathy Kelly, of Chicago, IL; and Mona Shaw of Iowa City, 
IA, leave the office immediately. The activists politely declined and 
began singing “Auld Lang Syne” in remembrance of Iraq war dead. They 
also read from a list of the names of the dead, chanting “We remember 
you,” after each name. And they engaged staffers with the question, “Who 
would Jesus bomb?” imploring Huckabee to sign a pledge to completely 
withdraw from Iraq within 100 days of assuming office; halt all military 
actions against Iraq and Iran; and fund the rebuilding of Iraq as well 
as health, education and infrastructure needs in the U.S. and "…the 
highest quality health care, education and jobs training benefits for 
veterans of our country’s Armed Services.”

A private security guard reiterated the Huckabee staffers’ demands that 
the activists leave, and again they politely refused. Moments later, a 
senior Huckabee staffer arrived and gave the order to call police 
officers to remove the protesters. The staffer, a tall man, said he was 
authorized to speak for the campaign but he declined to do so or to give 
his name. The staffer then advanced on Braam and attempted to intimidate 
him verbally. When his words failed to have the desired effect, the 
staffer went nose to nose with Braam and jostled him in an apparent 
attempt to physically intimidate or provoke the activist. Braam calmly 
backed away, asking the Huckabee staffer, “Are you pushing me?”

“Prior to the event we have in-depth discussions about nonviolence,” 
Braam said later. “We are fully prepared.”

Outside in the sub-freezing cold six activists, Razia Ahmed; Catholic 
Worker Community leader Frank Cordaro, Elton Davis, Lee Lewis, Catholic 
Peace Ministry executive director Brian Terrell, and John Tuzcu, acted 
in support of their colleagues who were risking arrest inside. While 
Tuzcu video taped the event for later posting on YouTube, others held a 
banner proclaiming, “End the Iraq War / No War with Iran” and spoke with 
members of the press and with passersby. Lee Lewis held aloft a placard 
bearing the question, “Who Would Jesus Bomb?”

The activists received unexpected support from a group of Ron Paul 
volunteers, college students who came to Iowa at the campaign’s expense 
for something called “Ron Paul’s Christmas Vacation.” The Paul campaign 
volunteers trooped out of Paul’s Iowa campaign headquarters, which is 
located in the same building as Huckabee’s. The groups met and mingled 
with a large contingent of print reporters, photojournalists, and 
broadcast media personnel from local, national, and international news 
organizations who arrived at Huckabee’s headquarters for a scheduled event.

As Des Moines Police Department officers arrived and prepared to arrest 
the activists, their supporters, along with some 35 or 40 reporters and 
media personnel and the group of Paul campaign volunteers, milled about 
on the sidewalk and in the street. At one point, the activists and the 
group of Paul volunteers chanted antiwar slogans responsively.

When Huckabee’s bus arrived, his campaign headquarters entrance was 
effectively blocked forcing Huckabee to sit in his idling bus as 
Cordaro, a former Catholic priest who left the priesthood in 2003, 
shouted question after question at the ordained Southern Baptist 
minister to the delight of the crowd of activists, reporters, Paul 
campaign volunteers, and a growing number of curious onlookers.

“We’re here to ask the governor, ‘Who would Jesus bomb?’” shouted Cordaro.

“What kind of Christianity does he back? The Jesus of ‘love your enemy,’ 
the Jesus of the Beatitudes, or the USA-stamped-Jesus, the Jesus of 
empire?” shouted Cordaro.

After about 20 minutes, the bus pulled away with Huckabee still on 
board. Huckabee’s schedule was delayed for about an hour.

Arrested for trespassing, Braam, Kelly, and Shaw were escorted by 
officers through a cheering crowd to a waiting paddy wagon and 
transported to Des Moines Police Headquarters where they were issued 
citations and promptly released.

The contrast between the belligerent attitude Huckabee’s senior staffer 
in charge inside the campaign headquarters and the calm, quiet 
professionalism of the arresting officers was remarkable.

“They were very gentle with us,” Kelly said in the foyer of the Des 
Moines Police Department headquarters after she and her colleagues had 
been released. She noted that the arresting officers had not found it 
necessary to handcuff the arrestees.

“One commented that the Auld Lang Syne song verses that we were singing 
always got to him,” said Kelly. “It was almost genteel.”

In a news release issued by the Des Moines Catholic Worker Community, 
Kelly, co-director of VCNV, was quoted as saying, “We’re very respectful 
of the Iowa Caucus process and the long history behind it, but we feel 
quite strongly that the issues of this war must be inserted into the 
process of narrowing down the candidates for the presidential election.”


Matt Reichel wrote:
> This is purely a matter of strategy particular to Iowa. If, in any 
> individual caucus, your candidacy doesn't have 15% of the attendees 
> behind you, your supporters must change allegiance or leave the room.
> 
> Another option is making a purely strategical arrangement with one of 
> the other candidates wherein you agree to give up your delegates to each 
> other in any case where one or the other doesn't reach the threshold.
> 
> There may be a few districts, probably in the university towns of Iowa 
> City and Ames, where Dennis will outpace Obama, and resultantly gain 
> Obama's votes in that caucus.
> 
> -
> mer
> 
>  > From: galliher at uiuc.edu
>  > To: peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
>  > Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 16:58:33 -0600
>  > Subject: [Peace-discuss] K. again delivers his anti-war vote to the 
> establishment
>  >
>  > January 01, 2008
>  > An unexpected twist from the Kucinich camp:
>  > Kucinich Urges Supporters to
>  > Back Obama on Second Iowa Ballot
>  > ...