| June 23, 2006 Red Alert by Soren Wuerth Just
going along
“Let
your life be a counter friction to stop the machine.”
— Henry David Thoreau
The World Cop is busy this solstice, thrusting his baton toward the Middle East now, Southeast Asia next, poking his nightstick into the cages of Guantanamo, rapping bloody those fingers on the bars. Who will actually join this sad Yankee Doodle chorus, the one that refrains: now we hate Iraq, now we hate Iran, North Korea, nneh ... nanny, nanny, nanny, who’s yo daddy? Like a horny puppy at the leg of an embarrassed guest, none other than the BBC jumped on the World Cop message, asking listeners, at end of a polite interview with a U.S. congressman, “and what steps will the UN take to deal with defiant North Korea?” World Cop on Page One, World Cup on Page Ten. If it doesn’t make you laugh... For comic relief, I picked up a copy of The Funny Times and found a new t-shirt that advertised “I’m already against the next war.” Seizing the sheriff’s badge in another desperate attempt to bring his poll numbers up, Frank Murkowski just returned from a trip to Iraq. “Show up in a war torn country and watch your popularity soar,” I can hear his PR consultant purring. What better moment, then, to be civilly disobedient? July fourth is fast approaching and it’s time to consider making a statement on behalf of those children playing on a Palestine beach ripped to shreds by an Israeli missile, or those families executed in Iraq by U.S. troops, or the two American soldiers caught in a war not of their choosing, but of one pushed by oil-slathering politicians. A message of peace will do. On Independence Day a few years ago, three friends and I burst from the crowd and dashed in front of a military fuel supply truck as it moved slowly down a Fifth Avenue parade route. Prepared in advance for our arrest, we brought the machine to a halt in the midst of thousands of spectators gathered in Anchorage’s downtown park. A colleague with a video camera caught the crowd’s reaction: “What the...?” “What are they doing?” “OhmyGod! OhmyGod!” “Get them out of there!” Within seconds, a group of bystanders pulled us roughly to the side of the road and the parade continued. We had tipped off a Channel 2 news crew in advance of our action and the station headline the evening’s broadcast: “PROTESTERS INTERRUPT PARADE.” Last night I saw a bumper sticker that said “land of the free, because of the brave.” As the latest news reports show, America is far from the “free” country so many zealots on the right would have us believe. But resistance to the friction of the machine does take a measure of bravery. This July 4th, join the resistance. Email me with your ideas for an Independence Day peace action. AT LEAST, join Codepink’s fast: www.troopshomefast.org. Soren Wuerth is perhaps Alaska's best known community activist, and is the winner of the Alaska Press Club's 2006 'Best Columnist' award. He resides in an undisclosed location in rural Alaska and can be reached at soren@insurgent49.com. |
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Reserved. in-sur-gent (in sur'jent), n. 1. a member of a group which revolts against the policies of its leadership. |
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