Marketing History

Yesterday, I marched on Washington to call for an end to the war, along with about 10,000 other people. This makes my third trip to DC, my first trip being only a month and a half before 9/11 when I was a fifteen years old from Arkansas visiting with 4-H through Citizenship: Washington Focus. Back then, I remember going to the National History Smithsonian and thinking it was absolutely amazing, and being annoyed that the other girls in my group moved through the museum far too quickly for me because they didn’t care about history. Now that I’m older and finishing up my Master’s degree in History, my reaction to the museum was much different. I call this rection “disgust.” There’s so much left out, and so many exhibits created by a certain cable channel reputed for its bad history skills. It’s emphasis is sensationalism to get more viewers, thus, more money, instead of creating factual programs–which is very strange to me because history is sensationalist enough all on its own because people have the tendency to be dramatic, selfish, impulsive jerks (also, cynical). Now that I’m older, the Smithsonian, to me, is like calling a fast food burger nutritious. The Smithsonian, to me, is now just like high school textbooks, full of heroification and one-sided lies.  Nowhere is there the story of how George Washington became General, then President, because then he would just seem like another egotistical, greedy mortal. Instead, inside the Smithsonian and all over DC, there are various statues for Washington, many of which make him look like some Greek god. But he wasn’t a god, not at all. He was just a dude with bad teeth that showed up on purpose in his soldier uniform to make himself look important, even though he’d only had relatively minor roles in the British army as a Lt. Colonel during the French and Indian War, and surely nothing to prepare him to be a General in a war. (For an explanation of Army ranks, click here. Note the great difference between Lt. Colonel and any kind of General.) It’s like a con, really. But they can’t make him seem like you or I. Instead, they call him “noble” and erect giant phalluses to, perhaps, symbolically show the world for what he was compensating. Instead of telling a fuller, more honest story of history, they devote a huge portion of the museum to war, war, war, of course saying nothing of imperialism or deaths or the suffering of fellow human beings in our names. Why not? What do they fear would happen if they told the American story, both good and bad? Perhaps it is like Langston Hughes’s deferred dream. If they told a fuller story of American history, would those who viewed the exhibits and learned of this mourn, then revolt? Yesterday, I watched as Americans that don’t know their own history walked around like the Smithsonian like a shrine, like they’ve found the holy grail of what it means to be American, which is why the line for the entertainment portion–tv and actors and pop culture and stuff, where they keep Dorothy’s shoes and Archie’s chair–stretched all the way to the lobby. Because fiction is more popular than non-fiction.

It was outside the Washington Monument, however, where Cindy Sheehan had set up camp, where she and others had created a GIANT recreation of Arlington Cemetery for those who’d been killed in Afghanistan and Iraq, including civilians, that I watched a fat man point and laugh and suggest to his family that they go look at the protest, to look at the fake cemetery, with all the very real dead people from two sides of the world. I think this is when my dream exploded.

Will You Be There on March 20?

Because I will be.

Resisting the G20

Today, some of my friends are in Pittsburgh protesting the G20. I would’ve been among them, had the vans not been leaving here when I had class, and had they not been driving all night long to get there, then turning around and driving all night long again to return. I wanted to go mostly because I had never heard of the G20 before the National Assembly, where everyone seemed to know everything about it but me. I felt a little shameful–like I was a bad peace/political activist. When I came home, I researched the G20 and was angry, again, because I had never heard of it. Why had I never heard of something so important?

Once I understood what the G20 was–a group of twenty world leaders making decisions about things like the financial crisis–I was outraged. Why should twenty people make decisions in the back room and impose them on the rest of us? This is a democratic-republic. While we elect people to make decisions for us, we still have a say. Where is our say in the G20? Our forefathers broke away from England for taxation without representation. Where is the average person’s representation in the G20?

Now, watching the arrests at the G20, I wonder: why are peaceful protesters being arrested? Why are the police hurling tear gas and armed to the teeth?

A Lesson Against Cognitive Dissonance from the Cranberries

 

It may not be you or your family, or even anyone you know, fighting in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but they are still there and the are still dying. If you’re against the war, what are you doing to end it?

But, you see, it’s not me
it’s not my family
in your head, in your head, they are fighting
with their tanks and their bombs and their bombs and their bombs
they are crying . . .

A Day in the Park

Today, I went to Hope Out Loud in Hartford’s Bushnell Park. Rather than write a long diatribe about it, I feel like sharing photos instead.

Psst, Hey Kid: When People Say to Take a Photo Because It’ll Last Longer, They Don’t Actually Mean for You to Do It

Yesterday, I received an Army jacket in the mail that I had bought for 75c on ebay. Since receiving it, I’ve worn it somewhat religiously. Today, I noticed a teenaged  boy photographing me with his cell phone while I waited in line. First, he photographed my jacket. Then, he photographed the numerous buttons on my backpack. The side in particular that he photographed has a button reading “honor diversity” along with another featuring a rainbow and a heart. I’m sure he also photographed the numerous antiwar buttons on the front of my backpack before I noticed him. The thing is, he wasn’t even stealth about it. He didn’t pretend to not be photographing me, even with me staring right at him. He didn’t smirk while photographing me, like he thought I was funny, so I have no idea why he was photographing me, whether he thought I was funny or liked what he saw. Either way, I have a feeling I’m going to be an Internet sensation tonight.

Wearing an Army uniform plastered with peace signs while also wearing a backpack with antiwar slogans is a fascinating experiment. Just by wearing it, I find that it draws attention to me, which is incredibly awkward at first, but after this strange photography experience, I find myself thinking of how I am making people think about the soldiers or the war, if even briefly.  By wearing it, I am standing up quite tall for what I believe, even though I’m aware of the dangers of doing this. Strangers could yell at me or attack me. Mostly, though, people just stare.

Today, after the impromptu photo shoot, I found myself pondering whether people would photograph Jesus if he were alive today. Would he stand out so much against the crowd that people whipped out their cell phones to text photos to their friends to have a little giggle?

To this kid, I was some strange outsider to photograph and have a few kicks with his friends. I was the crazy hippie to stereotype and to make assumptions about my life, to photograph like a circus animal. To me, I was just going about my life waiting on my turn in line.

Support Our Troops: Bring Them Home Now

While I was proud to have extended Operation Toy Soldier to total of five states so far in my recent Amazing Tour d’New England, my travel companion–aka, my politically-apathetic sister–wasted no time in ranting to our mother about it who, in turn, is again obsessing at my daring to utilize my First Amendment right to protest. (Thanks, sis. Really.) My mother feels that to protest diminishes morale and isn’t “supporting the troops.” As I’ve told her before, not wanting the troops to die is supporting the troops. No matter how many times I explain it, I’ve come to the conclusion that my family will never understand my peace activism. They’d rather I just blended in–just sat back and looked pretty and acted like a Good Little Godly Girl ™–not someone who goes to antiwar conferences and started her own peace protest involving leaving toy soldiers everywhere (see link above). They’d rather I was like my sister, perhaps–never appearing to have opinion of my own about anything, and never being able to have my own opinion because I don’t know the facts about anything outside my own tiny little life. They’d rather I was too weak to stand up for myself and my beliefs and, instead, either yielded in conversation or immediately began screaming so that the other person would not bother arguing because they want her to shut up so very badly.

No, I will not be like that. I cannot be like that. I’ve been watching the news obsessively since I was nine years old. I don’t even own a tv, but I still watch Democracy Now online almost every day. I read blogs, I read CNN’s website–I get around. I seem to hear about things an average of two days before it appears on MSN.com’s home page. A part of me truly hates when my routine of news-absorption is interrupted and I have to play catch-up. I hate not knowing what’s going on in the world around me. I don’t understand how anyone can so willfully choose to be ignorant. Give me the stories of people my sister has never heard of: the hate crime of an innocent Muslim woman, the war against women in Congo, the disappearing of the island of Tuvalu, all of that. All the stories of the “underdogs,” the stories that are truly important and generally ignored by the mainstream media. I’m okay with having never heard of most actors, even when others almost always look at me like I’m from another planet. Have you seen King Corn, Eulogy, or The Business of Being Born? Have you seen whatever fascinating documentary, indie flick, or foreign film I watched last? Do you like reading the Bible to find examples of how Jesus was a social activist liberal misunderstood by even his own disciples? Do you love Howard Zinn and Michael Moore? Did you talk your parents into voting for Ralph Nader when you were fifteen years old? All of that said, do you find this song to be an awesome rallying cry?

My sister thinks it’s a phase. My parents think I’ve “gotten in with the wrong crowd” because I want peace. It’s not a phase. I’m not going to wake up some day and think “you know what? Our country should go bomb the Cradle of Civilization for imperialistic reasons. Huzzah, I thirst for me some blood of dead Iraqi children!” As for the wrong crowd, I hang around social activist feminists, GLBT people, Quakers, peace activists, and history graduate students. We talk about Spongebob, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and enacting positive change in the world. Sometimes we have cookies.

Though my family might want to change me, I’m always going to be me and I’m always going to stand up for my convictions. Whether they like it or not, my family members were the ones who taught me this. Between my religious right-wing brother bullying other people into being afraid to voice opinions different than his and my mother’s lectures about organic gardening, the backwood’s movement, and how if homeschooling became illegal, she’d be arrested before the state put me back in public school, I learned to question everything because some people don’t want you to question anything. I cannot be some mindless robot with little sense of self. I must be me, and being me entails believing in peace.

You’ve Got to Stand for Something or You’ll Fall for Anything

Recently, I was accused of being as fanatical as our brother by my sister for my antiwar protests. While I originally thought this was funny, I’ve begun to question this accusation. Our brother, you see, bullies other people into believing his religious-right-wing propaganda. Those who disagree with him are cast as immoral and their characters bashed in his weekly newspaper editorials. Never does he say what is right with the world, but only what’s wrong. His entire premise is that his way is the only way to live one’s life, and, therefore, centers around ingorance, intolerance, and hatred.

That’s not who I want to be, and that’s not who I think I am. I like to think of myself and my protests as being the antithesis of him. Where he is negative, I am positive. Where he says people are going to hell for being different, I embrace diversity. It’s a great big world, after all. Regarding my peace protests, as I’ve stated before in this forum, it’s not about hate, but rather, love. It’s about not wanting soldiers to die. It’s about wanting a community of peace, not war. I’m well aware that there are people who disagree with me and whose minds I will never change. People have a right to believe whatever they want. All I am asking is that people take a moment and consider what I’m saying. As the song goes–all we are saying is give peace a chance.

It’s long fascinated me that our parents produced a hateful, homophobic, religious-right-wing loudmouth; a political apathetic; and a way-out-in-left-field lesbian liberal peace activist. And the thing is, growing up, all of us have always been this way, one way or another, and our mother has tried to change all of us to be calmer or more active, or active in a different way. For my brother, it was to shut up before he got himself shot and to not embarrass her in public, then later, to not be a Republican. For my sister, it was to care about the world around her and to realize the things on the news affected her, too, as well as how important it is to vote in each election. For me, it was to not protest every single thing that pissed me off. (Pretty much, Mom failed all around to change us in these things, I think.)

When I think of the things my mom used to tell me regarding my . . . enthusiasm . . . for political issues (I got my parents to vote for Nader when I was fifteen. I’d never been so proud), it seems like the real message was that things will never change, so I shouldn’t bother trying. One of her favorite expressions was “You cain’t get blood outta a turnip,” to which I would reply, unfailingly, “you can if you squeeze hard enough,” which would bring about the response “I’d like to see that.” Her other favorite was “You wanna fight? Join the Army.” (Sorry, Mom, I’m a gay asthmatic Quaker.)

I reject my mother’s cynicism. First of all, protesting things is really quite empowering, thank you very much. Secondly, if everyone was so cynical, nothing would ever change. Gandhi said that you must be the change you wish to see in the world. I’m not fanatical–I’m passionate. What’s wrong with standing up for your beliefs? In the immortal words of Aaron Tippin, you’ve got to stand for something or you’ll fall for anything. Ironically, this message was echoed frequently by my mother and my granny, both in words and actions.

It’s easy to be silent and go along with the crowd. It’s easy to try to do what makes everyone else happy. It’s easy to live a life of ordinariness and to never stand for anything your entire life. What’s harder is seeing when others look away. What’s harder is speaking when others are silent.

I will not be silent, and I don’t care if people like this or not. I want a compassionate planet. Moreover, I can’t know that there’s a war going on in my name or that there are starving people around the world and not feel something, and not do something. I can’t know that somewhere, someone is being discriminated against, and not say something. Even though my siblings seem to have learned much different lessons from our family, what I learned is that everyone is worthy of love and that it’s okay to go off the beaten path. What I wish is that my siblings had learned this same lesson, because if I ever have children, I think this is the most important thing I could ever teach them.

Peace Activism

A week and a half ago, I went to the National Assembly to End the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. When I came back, I began my own protest inspired by Code Pink Pittsburgh, which I called Operation Toy Soldier, involving attaching little notes containing statistics and/or stories of soldiers who died in Afghanistan and Iraq to the legs of plastic green Army men and leaving them at random for other people to find. When I told my mother about this, she was furious and said that she was against the war, but thought that people should “support the troops.”

“Not wanting the troops to die,” I argued, “is supporting the troops.”

Still, because I chose to be vocal about my displeasure, my mother refused to believe that people can protest the war in different ways and for different reasons. As she was in college during Vietnam and remembers veterans being booed or eggs being thrown at the troops when they came home, she believes I do these things as well. In truth, I don’t, and I wouldn’t if given the opportunity. I’m also not going to go up to a military family and inform them of how against the war I am, either. These things just seem wrong.

I’m against the war because I believe all wars are wrong. It seems so unbelievably tragic to me that young people are being sent overseas to kill and be killed. I have friends and acquaintances in the Armed Forces, and each time I hear that someone else has joined or is to be deployed, my heart falls and I worry that they’ll be killed or forever changed by the horrors they will, no doubt, experience. War breaks up families and breaks hearts. War forever changes a country and scars a people. I don’t want this done in my name. I want peace, and love, and happiness. I don’t understand why peace has to be an ideal. I don’t understand why grown men and women are sent to fight their country’s battles with bloodshed like two little children on the playground. I hate the idea of purposely harming another living creature. While I’m also against the shallow reasoning behind the wars–oil–when I think of wars that have been fought in the past, I can’t think of very many that didn’t have equally shallow reasonings, whether or not they were known by the general public then or now.

Instead of saying I’m an antiwar activist, I like saying I’m a peace activist. It seems so much less negative and portrays what I truly wish for the world. Shouting insults at veterans or egging them does not seem peaceful whatsoever. It seems like waging my own war in the name of peace, but war can never beget peace. As the popular saying goes, Bombing for peace is like fucking for virginity. Egging for peace is like that too.

Soldiers and their families are just people too. Many soldiers I know are against the war themselves, but needed a way to pay for college. They just kept hoping and hoping the war would be over by the time they finished. Instead, the war drags on, and some soldiers I knew in college were deployed in the middle of the semester, sometimes right before their graduation. When I think about the war, and I think about what it’s done to so many young peoples’ lives, and the lives of their families, it makes me sad because it seems as if no good can come from war.

I want peace, and I want it by peaceful means. While the next activist may completely disagree with my methods, we agree with wanting a better, more peaceful world.