[Peace] Fw: AWARE Demonstration-10 Reasons to Join the Sat Protest

[Randall Cotton]

This was posted to the peace-discuss list, but since it's an announcement
and call to action, I thought it could stand to be posted to the "peace"
list as well (which has over twice as many subscribers).

R

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Roger Epperson" <cgrle at yahoo.com>
To: <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
Sent: Thursday, September 04, 2008 7:13 AM
Subject: [Peace-discuss] AWARE Demonstration-10 Reasons to Join the
SatProtest


The next AWARE protest is Saturday., September 6, from 2-4 pm, at Neil and
Main St. in Champaign. The following 10 reasons to join the AWARE protest
to demonstrate against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and to rally in
support of peace and social justice causes is adapted from a post by John
Whilley on Medialens of (June 27, 2007).

1. Continue to recall how ‘ordinary’ citizens stood on street corners
knowing the subterfuge that was unfolding in Iraq and Afghanistan while
many of the ‘smart’ politicians and academics were taken-in .

2. Demonstrating does achieve things, albeit, often, in the long run.
Believe in the process itself, and that another world is not only
possible, but, in the long-term, highly likely. As Zhou Enlai said when
asked what he thought of the historical outcome of the French Revolution:
“Too soon to tell”. Think of yourself as part of a great and common force
throughout history who did, ultimately, see their aims being realised.
Walk not only in reasonable expectation that justice will eventually
prevail, but in a spirit of easy humility.

3. Consider all the great political debate and education you’re getting
being amid this sea of vibrant radicalism.


4. Enjoy, in a perverse I-don’t-really-care-kind-of-a-way, that strangely
Orwellian mood-moment of being watched and recorded on the police’s latest
hi-tech surveillance cameras - smile and say “peace”.

5. Stay fit and healthy, while helping the environment – walking on demos
is good exercise and helps keep a lot of polluting traffic off the road
for a day at least.

6. Being part of a positive social collective is great fun and can induce
significant feelings of uplift, compassion and inner happiness. It’s
win-win for all concerned.

7. Think, likewise, in generous spirit about those coerced and conditioned
apparatchiks stuck inside the conference hall while you are out there
expressing your view as a free-minded, liberated person.

8. Think of all those embellished stories you can tell your grandchildren
about how you marched to save/change the world. You might even have kept
some of those quaint old youtube videos to prove it.

9. Remember that, while public protest lets power pretend that we live in
an open, tolerant democracy, the elite would still rather such dissent was
much less visible – which is why the media routinely conspire to render it
‘invisible’.

10. Passive resistance is still the mortal enemy of the oppressor.
Peaceful demonstrating, combined, of course, with multiple other forms of
dissent, helps maintain the inconvenient truth that it’s we who march to
oppose their violence around the globe. And, as an old WW2 veteran used to
remind me: “If you’re marching, you’re not fighting.”