Never again will I attend an ANSWER-sponsored event. I was outraged. How can we criticize Democrats for collaborating with the Neo-Cons when we anti-war progressives are collaborating with an organization that uses our presence at an anti-war rally to zealously promote its own controversial and politically disastrous agenda, including anti-American, anti-Semitic, pro-communist views?
I felt deeply offended to come to a march whose announced goal was ending the war in Iraq only to hear people take the microphone and promote radical views unrelated to the Iraq War. Some of the views expressed truly offended me, and I felt used and betrayed as the TV cameras filmed me standing among the captive audience.
Not only the content, but the style of the rally was disturbing and repugnant. I came as a peacemaker, a voice in defense of my country, my two sons, and the sons and daughters of mothers and fathers everywhere. I did not come in hate, but with humility and resolve. To love and honor my country and my constitution, as well as the rights of people in other countries to live unmolested by my own government, without fear of "pre-emptive war."
That is why I was dismayed at the out-of-control, vitriolic, screaming demeanor of speaker after speaker, who displayed anything but leadership. There were notable exceptions — Jesse Jackson, Cindy Sheehan, Ramsey Clark, and a few others. But the rally, as a whole, was a disaster. Even a person such as myself — who has opposed this war from Day One and long hungered for the sight of 300,000 Americans filling the streets of Washington to oppose it — even I could not draw strength and inspiration from this rally.
Instead, I felt repulsed at the ugly spectacle of our peaceful audience being screamed at by a parade of angry misfits. It felt like a group therapy session gone terribly wrong, or maybe a revival meeting in some mega-church in an alternate bizarro universe. It also reminded me of the 1930s newsreels in which screaming, bellowing demagogues attempt to dominate vast crowds by the sheer force of their rage.
From what I could tell, many others in the crowd were dismayed at some of the things we were hearing. I heard few boos. Despite our immense elation at the obvious power of numbers we had achieved for our cause, we were starting to become bummed out. Had we all somehow walked onto the set of the wrong movie? Unfortunately, the cameras were rolling. Here I was, standing in the audience while some guy I had never heard of yelled into the microphone, "Victory to the Iraqi resistance!"
Realizing that our peace march had been hijacked by zealots with their own stupid agenda, I wandered away from the podium in disgust, and made my way into the crowd on the streets that stood, waiting, for what seemed like hours for the march to start.
Growing impatient, I started to move through the crowd, trying to find a place beyond what I assumed was a bottleneck. But no, block after block, it was all the same. The whole damn movement was paralyzed, waiting for some leadership.
Ain't that a nice metaphor.
Puzzled, I kept asking people around me as I moved through the crowd, what's the holdup? Why aren't we marching? Many people seemed as annoyed and frustrated as I was, but it was hard to break the log jam, since there appeared to be no leaders present, nobody knew why we were at a standstill, and it was not possible to simply start marching because we were surrounded by thousands of people standing patiently in close ranks, blocking movement in every direction.
I am not young anymore and my legs were starting to swell up from standing in cramped quarters for so long. I was starting to limp. I can walk for miles, but I cannot stand for long periods. I knew if I didn't start walking soon, I would have to leave and go home. With some effort, I finally made my way to a different part of the crowd on a different street, where things were starting to move in a desultory way, even though there was no leadership in sight.
Now and again, I saw parents of fallen soldiers wearing placards or holding signs that bore silent witness to the hideous fate that is every parents' greatest fear. I felt drawn to them, I shook their hands, told them I was sorry at their loss, and listened to their stories. I looked closely at the photos of their sons, each face as handsome and sweet as my own boys' faces. I have reached an age where all young people tend to remind me of my own children.
I noticed the parents took special care with the photos of their children. They were always large and mounted with care. They were beautiful in a terrible way. One father gave me a xeroxed copy of the last letter his son had sent home. It bore the marks of a boy in first bloom of manhood, full of longing and affection, of pride and idealism, and yet uncertain, with a barely voiced subtext of dread and misgivings. At the bottom of the letter was a lengthy postscript especially for his little brother. How like the awkward tenderness between my own two sons. Why are my boys alive, while these parents have lost theirs? And what about the grief of the Iraqi parents?
One gold star mom was standing by herself intently watching the throng of thousands, and as she shook my hand, I saw she was powerfully distracted. But it was by something more than grief. She spoke, she told me about her son, and she shook my hand warmly, but she looked past me, like a blind person or an oracle. She was staring intently at that vast crowd, as if drinking it in. Perhaps she was stunned to be surrounded by people who were all shouting out in unison the very thoughts that silently torment her in her private solitude of grief.
I befriended a tiny and frail but stalwart fellow marcher from lower Manhattan who told me she was 85 years old, had attended many marches, and had "never seen one as badly organized as this. Where is the parade marshall? Where is the leadership?" she demanded. Where, indeed.
Today, after seeing the CNN footage of the rally, I now realize why the parade was maddeningly paralyzed for hours and why we stood out there, miserably shifting from foot to foot like penned cattle, with no information or justification for this indignity. It was so those blowhards from hell could use us as the stage scenery in their televised photo-op.
Well, I won't fall for that again. To the organizers of ANSWER, I say, "Not in my name". I am against the war in Iraq, not anti-American. I certainly do not want "victory for the Iraqi insurgents"! I want to end the damned war, you morons, so there will be peace, not some hollow victory, with the defeated side living only for revenge. So don't corral me into your bait-and-switch photo op.
Who is ANSWER answerable to, anyway? Who is your Daddy? Who knows. In any case, we can safely assume that Bush and his cronies are well pleased that ANSWER helped make the anti-war movement look like the Neo-Con stereotype: a bunch of fringe groups and kooks.
Let's not allow the growing momentum for peace to get diverted into some unrelated, self-defeating, and — to many — deeply offensive political agenda. Surely we've already had enough of being manipulated in the name of idealism.
Let's keep building on the growing momentum against the war. Let's focus on that one issue. Let's build a grassroots movement so strong that it cannot be denied:
Not in my name.
Not in the name of my beloved country.
End this treasonous war!
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