Reports are rolling in to the Iraq Moratorium website on what people did as individuals or in groups to observe Moratorium Day #2 on Friday. They are heartening and diverse--traditional vigils, actions aimed at recalcitrant elected officials, freeway blogging for impeachment, newer tactics like black ribbon distribution. Check 'em out over the next few days. More are coming in pretty steadily.
The report I found most striking is one submitted by the crew in Sewanee, TN (pop. 2335). Those who follow my diaries here regularly (and I am deeply appreciative of both of you) know these folk are dear to my heart. They liked the Moratorium idea so much that they started theirs in July, two months before everybody else. I followed up with this in August, and was thrilled that their September 21 photo became the masthead shot at the Iraq Moratorium website.
This time they decided to leave their friendly and progressive-tending small town and take the effort to nearby Monteagle. But let them tell it:
The Sewanee group that "jumped the gun" with an Iraq Moratorium street vigil on Third Fridays in July, and again in August and September, are still at it, going strong. (That's us up on the banner of this site!) Today more than 25 of us moved our vigil site to the nearest town, Monteagle, which couldn't be more different than our street corner in Sewanee, home of the University of the South.
In a sense, we have been "preaching to the choir" in Sewanee, and the decision to come out so publically against the war in Monteagle was not taken lightly. Monteagle straddles Interstate 24, is home to a national guard armory and has patriotically sent many of its sons and daughters to war. [It is also the town with a history of having burned out the Highlander Folk School as "communists" years ago for teaching non-violent resistance to racial injustice.] We got permission from the owner of an old unoccupied motel at a busy bend in the main 4-lane and demonstrated in front of it with our signs at evening rush-hour.
Not being sure what kind of response we'd get, we can report that opposition to the Iraq War in this small Middle Tennessee town was very much alive. Motorists coming home from work, delivery vehicles, construction workers, truck drivers, all responded to the "Honk for Peace" signs stationed at each end of our long line of colorful flags and signs and flashed peace signs and thumbs up. We feel like we've found a very productive new location, right in our own back yard, to witness for peace and an end to the Iraq nightmare.
We're sending pictures of our vigils to our Congressmen with letters demanding de-funding the war and a timetable for bringing the troops home.
Thanks for your tireless leadership in this struggle.
It pretty much speaks for itself, but what's happening here has lessons for all of us. After three vigils in Sewanee, each larger than the last, these folks decided to step out of their comfortable small town and take the campaign to the larger, more conservative burg five miles down the road. Turns out people there are righteously sick of this war, too, and supportive of those who protest it. And they don't forget to document their efforts and use the photos to let their Congresscritters know, one more time, that active opposition to the war is building.