tears of hope run rivelets...
ann archy
August 15, 2005
"God, What a Weak Man"
Pilgrims of Protest in Crawford
By GREG MOSES
"Today is kind of a blur to me."--Cindy Sheehan
Penny strides into the front lawn of the Crawford Peace House talking
about that time up in Racine five weeks before the alleged re-election
when she stood along the street with firemen and everybody, and
flipped the President the bird. "Thank you," is what Penny recalls the
President saying to her. "God, what a weak man!"
Like Cindy Sheehan, Penny is motivated by the death of her son, but
Penny,s son was not killed in an overseas war. He lost his life to the
politics of health care funding in Texas. "I'm only the Governor," is
how Penny recalls Bush's response when she asked him to help restore a
sudden cut in funding to the cancer research trial in Arlington, Texas
that was doing good things for her son. "My son died because that
treatment was delayed," says Penny. And that's one reason why she
flipped the President the bird.
As for why she's standing here in Texas, 1163 miles from home, she
says of herself and spouse Mike, who should be shuttled here any
minute from the stadium parking lot: "We have no idea what we're
doing. We've never done anything like this before. But it's time we
became teenagers!"
"There's a lot we have on our side," says Penny thinking about the
movement that she has come to join. "There are a lot of angels here.
Every one of those soldiers killed is an angel on our side. I'm
working for the Apocalypse. Either take them or take me, but don't
leave us together anymore!" she grins.
"We had some friends up in Sturgis," says Penny, speaking about the
mega motorcycle convergence that happens up in South Dakota every
August. "I told everyone there to come on down." At Sturgis, Penny had
some work on display. "I went from defense work to making motorcycle
seats," she says.
Then Penny begins to give another reason why she flipped the President
the bird. As a long-time employee of a famed defense contractor, Penny
watched them rebuild equipment using old parts from the warehouse,
then purchase new parts for inventory, charging the government the
cost of placing the new part on the shelf, while returning the rebuilt
equipment. One day she was asked to "fill in" some prices for parts
that had been taken from old stock, but which had cost the company
nothing in recent years. She blew the whistle on that operation and
was laid off in 2002.
Penny's spouse Mike could tell another bird-flipping tale, too, she
assures me, but he's apparently been taken straight to Camp Casey in
the car of Austin attorney Jim Harrington, so Penny hands me her card
and catches the next shuttle out. A tube of caulk hits the sidewalk
near my feet and I look up to see a volunteer on the roof trying to
fix a leak.
*****
Julie Decker from San Diego County, California will be well known to
television audiences in her home town. She and Tiffany Strauss
traveled out here by airplane Tuesday, with San Diego reporters
following every move. Julie says she heard Cindy on the radio "and 20
hours later" she was on the way.
Bob Carter from Houston shows up with a bag full of supplies and comes
into the kitchen asking if he can write a check. Sure says Linda, the
mainstay volunteer of the day, as she scurries to keep up with a pile
of chores. Linda is a retired special education teacher who moved to
Fort Worth from Stockton, California in 1975. In the mid-eighties she
was activated by the Gary Hart campaign for President and
interreligious activism in behalf of Central America. Peace Action is
the group she most closely identifies with today.
Like Linda, Bob is a retired school teacher. He taught music and band.
"I'm here because this is going to be big," he assures me. "This might
be the beginning of the end of the Iraq war. If we don't stop this guy
now he might bomb Iran and Syria. I don't trust the man." Because Bob
was attending the University of Texas, he was given a draft deferment
until graduation day 1954. "In war mankind is at his worst!" says Bob
standing now in the front room of the Peace House. It's incredible how
we reduce young men and women to monsters."
A UPS delivery is coming through the front door. Hadi Jawad signs for
the small stack of boxes and envelopes as the driver surveys the
scene.
"What we have to do is to change the general frame of mind," continues
Bob, after apologizing for preaching. "From our training, our
education, and our media we don't hear the other side. So 70 percent
of the people in the USA agreed that we should start a unilateral war
against a country that posed no threat? What the hell is going on! How
can you change that frame of mind?"
Bob and his spouse park their tiny dog Biscuit in a side room at the
Peace House and catch a shuttle to the camp. When Biscuit starts
whining, I look at Linda and she says, "they said we could walk him."
So I take Biscuit to the garden for a walk around the labyrinth.
Johnny Wolf laid out the design, which looks very much like the famous
pattern on the floor of the cathedral at Chartres. It makes for an
interesting foot trip today. First you think you are heading steadily
to the center, then you find yourself moving out to the rim. But why
doesn't the path just take me to the center, you ask yourself, and
just as you're about to curse the labyrinth, you're standing right in
the middle. Very nice. A little lesson in patience for Biscuit and me.
*****
Directing traffic this morning along Cedar Rock Parkway is Tim, a
Stonewall Democrat from Tarrant County (Ft. Worth). His face is beaded
with the sweat of activity as he hurries to keep up with all the
arriving cars, trying to keep people from parking in unauthorized
zones, and running shuttles now in three locations: the Peace House,
the camp, and the satellite parking lot at a nearby stadium. He has to
go back home soon, so he also is looking at the time and for someone
to replace him. Here is Michelle from Houston, but the velocity of
arrivals is beginning to blur my notes, so I return Biscuit to her
crate and hop a shuttle.
Just before the carful of pilgrims is ready to roll, Hadi knocks on
the window of the car. "We have a Gold Star Mom, and she needs to get
out to the camp." Standing with Hadi is the mom's escort from Military
Families Speak Out." So I hop out to catch the next shuttle as Hadi
pauses to speak to a reporter from Argentina. According to a press
release from MFSO, two Gold Star Mothers are scheduled for arrival
this morning. Barbara Porchi of Camden, Arkansas lost her son Jonathan
Cheatham in July 2003. Sue Niederer of Penington, New Jersey lost her
son Seth Dvorin in February 2004. Niederer is a co-founder of Gold
Star Families for Peace.
Out at the campsite, Celeste Zappala takes her turn speaking at a
press conference: "We lost our son Sgt. Sherwood Baker. He was thirty
years old. He was killed on April 6, 2004 while he was looking for the
weapons of mass destruction long after everybody knew they weren't
there. He was the 720th American to die. He was the first Pennsylvania
National Guardsman to die. Seven more died this week."
"When we buried Sherwood, I knelt down beside his coffin and I vowed
to him I will speak the truth for him. This war is a disaster. It is a
betrayal of our military. And it's a betrayal of the democracy they
seek to protect." With wind beating into the truthout microphone and
tears racing into her eyes, Zappala turns to step away from the
camera: "Bring our troops home now."
Stepping from the shuttle with a woman from Boulder, Colorado, the
first thing we see is Cindy Sheehan walking toward us along Morgan
Rd., television cameras close behind. She seems just a little bit
nervous as she approaches us to ask how we're doing, gently bringing
her hand up to touch a shoulder. All those cameras certainly make me a
little nervous as I ask how is her fever. "It's still getting better,"
she says. She has taken some medicine.
As Cindy and her media entourage continue their stroll, I hear a
reporter identifying himself with the Baton Rouge Free Press, the
anti-war newspaper produced by the Louisiana delegation. I also hear
Jim Goodnow slowly spelling Terlingua.
*****
The sun is high now, so I pop an umbrella and stroll along the
un-named lane where the crosses are now fairly well begun: Ernesto
Blanco, a former student from Texas A&M University, killed by an
"explosive device" on Jan. 28, 2003. Buried at Fort Sam Houston,
Texas, at a funeral attended by the Governor. "My brother touched so
many people," said his sister. "Everyone that knew him felt like they
were Ernie's favorite, and that is a great gift." He loved his life
here in Texas: country music, Shiner Bock, and the Hill Country. I
hear the clink, clink, clink that senior boots make as Aggie Cadets
stride across campus. His sister Carmen hears him playing guitar and
singing.
Viktar V. Yolkin of Spring Branch, Texas, one of three Texas soldiers
killed when their Bradley fighting vehicle "overturned". He had come
to America in 1998 and according to the Houston Chronicle, "he
insisted on joining the Army two years ago so he could wear the
uniform of the nation he had come to love." His ex-wife, who tried to
talk him out of the military, said his body would probably be buried
back in Belarus.
Robert Wise, a 21-year-old Florida National Guardsman, killed in Nov.
2003 by an improvised explosive device or IED. At high school in
Tallahassee he played soccer, ran cross country, and was commander of
the ROTC. He had been in Iraq seven months and was looking forward to
seeing his newborn . When two helicopters collided, killing 17
soldiers, Robert's father David told the that his son was greeting
them in heaven, "Making it better on them ... you know, with that
goofy grin that he had."
Isela Rubacalva from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico was killed by May 8, 2005
near a chow hall. Her father Ramon is quoted by John Ross saying, "she
died on Friday thinking about coming home to eat carnitas and beans,
drink a beer and go to a dance. This war is useless, as useless as
Vietnam.
Jonathan B. Shields of Atlanta was killed when "a tank accidentally
struck him." As he prepared to join a mission to Falluja, reports the
Atlanta Journal-Constitution, he emailed his wife in Texas: "This is
the last time we're going to talk. I'm not coming home from this."
Before all that, he had planned to enroll in culinary school, open a
restaurant, and add more children to his family.
Among the crosses, one finds an occasional crescent or star of David.
Behind me, a late model Chevy 2500 eases quietly up the nameless lane
from Prairie Chapel Road. Down comes the window and a middle aged
fellow looks out, his spouse smiling from the passenger seat. "Good
job, good job!" he says indicating the row of crosses. "We're driving
back from California to SouthEast Texas, but we just wanted to stop by
and tell you how much we appreciate you." Several of us thank the guy
for stopping by, up goes the window, and the family trip resumes. I
double back down nameless lane and SouthEast on Morgan Road to check
the leg of road where folks are parking.
*****
It looks like headquarters here, the land of the goddess warriors.
Near an open van several CodePink organizers pace with their cell
phones. Camp director Anne Wright is here, too. Cindy Sheehan is
sitting on an ice chest speaking with a reporter.
Further up the parking ditch, here's a pure Texas classic. From the
driver's window of her brightly polished red Ford pickup truck stick
the brown leather boots of legendary Texas activist Diane Wilson. The
inveterate nonviolent warrior who changed chemical history down along
the coast with her hunger strikes, and who was grinning and tromping
around camp at dawn like a trooper on caffeine, has now gone sound
asleep in the mid-day heat. She's hunger striking again, in case you
haven't heard. The hunger strike started on Saturday the moment the
cops stopped Cindy in the bar ditch and told her she could go no
further. "Are you with me?" she asked Jodie Evans, and Jodie said
sure. So Jodie and about 100 others are hunger striking this action.
About this time, Biscuit's mother comes walking by, so we chat about
the little guy. I tell her that I took him for a walk. She tells me
the story of how he was found near a Houston highway at the age of
eight months. He's about three years old now. I wonder if he'll ever
get over his abandonment anxieties.
As I'm marveling at the purple color of the bud or fruit of a five
foot tall nettle or thistle, up comes a new car. "I'm playing hookey
from work," admits the man from Austin as he locks up and walks toward
camp. The newly installed Port-O-Potty has been inserted into the line
of cars here. So the foot traffic is a little heavier than before.
Attached to a car, with California Premium Trailer plates, is an
artful steel trailer. Into the panels that surround the trailer an
artist has cut reverse silhouettes of the symbol of battlefield death:
a bayonetted rifle stuck upside down into the ground with a helmet on
top. So this is how the crosses got here. Cicadas and crickets sing as
waist high grass blows in the westerly wind. In the ditches one finds
abundant evidence of the media flood that has come and gone, leaving
tire marks in the lush grasses. Along the East side of Morgan road the
fence posts are metal. Along the west side, wood. I'm out on the
prairie again any my mind runs free. Dragonflies make their way
against the wind.
Back down Morgan Road toward camp, I am beginning to get a sense of
family. Here is Annie from the Louisiana delegation running an errand,
and Diane Wilson is awake now speaking on the cell phone. She lifts a
boot to wave hi, and I make a note: it's the left boot. Cindy Sheehan
and the departing reporter exchange hugs.
Nearby, Bill Mitchell is trying to get some shade and downtime, but
he's being harrangued by a lefty on revolution overdrive who want a
petition signed pertaining to some issue that apparently needs lots of
explanation. "I'm here," says Mitchell finally, "because my son was
killed in Iraq." That seems to startle the lefty somewhat, but I don't
hang around long enough to learn whether it shuts him up.
The chalk tally where the crosses begin marks today's official tally
at 1,841 killed in Iraq, 13,769 wounded. Next to that is a poster with
thumbnails of the first 1,000 faces. While looking at these signs I
can't help but notice the one right behind them: "Posted No
Trespassing." It won't be too many days before the juxtaposition of
these signs will define a conflict.
*****
"Motorcade incoming!" someone shouts as we all freeze and look
NorthEast along Prairie Chapel Road. Is it Condoleeza Rice? Donald
Rumsfeld? Bush? Because the line of cars contains a cop car, someone
jokes: "He's been in office seven years and they finally figured out
what he's guilty of." But the joke draws an immediate rejoinder: "They
won't arrest the head honcho." A television news truck peels away from
the 'motorcade' and parks inside the triangle as banter in the crowd
continues. "Somehow these people think you don't have the right to
change your mind. Both this 'motorcade' and the next dissolve before
our eyes. They were purely accidental arrangements of vehicles that
somehow just got bunched up on these narrow country roads.
The precinct four road department is back again, with the driver of
the truck asking, "Where's my help?" And the response: "What do you
need help doing?" The atmosphere seems to be loosening up quite a bit
between protesters and officials. I take in some last images of animal
life out here, Lucky Dog, a buzzard, and a butterfly, before taking
the next shuttle back.
"What's your name?" asks the woman in the passenger seat. After she
hears from the driver and me, she says, "I'm Gen Vaughan." Wow, talk
about dropping a heavy name. If you don't know, do a Google on
Genevieve Vaughan to get lots of details on this pre-eminent feminist
organizer and philanthropist, proponent of gift economics, matriarchal
studies, and women's radio. Then get out your calendar and save these
dates for the Second World Congress on Matriarchal Studies: Sept. 29 -
Oct. 2, San Marcos, Texas.
Back at the Peace House I'm going for some trunk supplies in the Honda
that I rode in, but I'm also distracted by what's parked nearby. It's
a friggin Yellow Cab! I mean here in Crawford a Yellow Cab? The
mystery is answered somewhat when Air America political satirist Barry
Crimmins climbs into the cab and rushes toward camp, but I wonder, did
he catch that cab on Park Avenue? Anyway, I'm thinking I should hang
out here at the Honda. Last car I saw here was driven by Matt Taibbi
of Rolling Stone, but that was hours ago.
The side lawn of the Peace House is now drawing a small crowd, thanks
to Hadi's world famous wok veggie deluxe. Recipe: get a Texas sized
wok, preheat on an outdoor cylinder grill, add veggies and spice to
taste, and serve with rice. Mark Green is going crazy for the stuff,
chomping down his third bowl and telling me how to trade in
electricity the honest way.
Austin musician Bill Passalacqua is singing vintage Prine and updated
Zevon. He had the whole house grinning up at the VFP convention last
weekend. And he's getting some grins here too. Dick Underhill is
shaking everybody's hand. He tells me that Kay Lucas is the story to
go for, so make sure the guys from truthout, Air America, and Rolling
Stone don't hear this, because I need the scoop.
But what's remarkable here on Thursday afternoon in the side yard of
the Peace House, August 11, is the tent that's going up. Three foot
metal posts are being pounded into the ground by guys that look like
they've done this thing a time or two, and a large white canopy is
secured overhead. A half dozen volunteers are dragging out cases of
water from inside as portable water coolers are being dragged over the
stones of the labyrinth.
Jim from Austin wants to videotape my philosophy of religion, but I
take a rain check on that. The heat and the hours are swimming my
thoughts around. Under this freshly raised tent, I may be getting
religion right about now, but I couldn't unpack a concept for him. We
agree to try again in air conditioning.
*****
Going for a bottle of water, I meet the most interesting fellow. His
name is Tom and he didn't drive too far to get here. By some kind of
luck he got out of the military in the summer of 2001, but he knows
lots of soldiers who were still in when 9/11 hit. One of those
soldiers, a friend of his, went to Iraq. Back from Iraq, the friend
fell into deep depression and was eventually discharged. "They messed
him up," says Tom. "And if they messed up my friend, that's not
right." So Tom went and bought a brand new digital camera, because his
favorite bloggers on the internet want to see more pictures. "How do
we get to camp?" asks Tom. To which I reply, "Come with me, I'll show
you." This tent is working great....
Greg Moses is editor of the Texas Civil Rights Review and author of
Revolution of Conscience: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Philosophy
of Nonviolence. His chapter on civil rights under Clinton and Bush
appears in Dime's Worth of Difference, edited by Alexander Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair. He can be reached at: gmo...@prodigy.net