[Peace-discuss] Local anti-war groups

[C. G. Estabrook]

[The following letter, sent to Alexander Cockburn of CounterPunch.org, 
describes local peace groups that sound like ours.  The trouble are apparently 
general.  --CGE]

From: Martin Murie 
Subject: Anti-war

I agree wholeheartedly with your [gloomy] assessment of the anti-war 
organizations. However, there are still local gatherings that are and have been 
solidly anti-war during this long honeymoon period. Just recently at the Yellow 
Springs, Ohio demo. we had a visitor from a town, population 800, who stood 
with us for a while, just passing through. He has an anti-war demo going in his 
village. The great thing about these spontaneous uprisings is that they usually 
don't have big names, nor meetings to attend, nor dues, nor a reach into the 
mainstream. But the advantages outweigh all that: honks amd V-signs from a 
good fraction of passing vehicles, even from motorcycles and big trucks.

I think there is a new wind struggling to be born: local demos. For a long 
agonizing period of months Alison and I endured the ending of the Malone, 
New York village's anti-war protests. They simply stopped. But now, a few 
protesters have begun showing up at Veteran's Park in Malone & plan to keep it 
up on a weekly basis. It's finally sinking in: the Obama presidency simply keeps 
the wars going. And the mish-mash that Obama gave a few days ago, on 
health care, was a dead give-away.

I know, it's hard to keep track of local anti-war protests across this beautiful 
land, but I wanted to speak up for local demos. They are the little kernels that 
might lead to greater results. We can keep up the struggle, even manage to get 
local coverage by local media. Big statements by big outfits suck energy from 
localities. They ought to be supporting protests at the grassroots level, instead 
of huge marches into the heart of oblivion, Washington, D.C. These are barely 
mentioned in mainstream, corporatized media and then forgotten. Meanwhile, 
we contact citizens, challenge them, every week.

Peace/Resist
Martin Murie