Maine's Peace Activists Turn Up a New Warpath
A new kind of war calls forth a new kind of peace movement -- one that rarely mentions peace at all
by W. David Kubiak
Some 350 Mainers marched to the Bush summer home in Kennebunkport on November 17 to protest the bombing of Afghanistan and the corporate takeover of our country.From a distance the 11/17 Kennebunkport Rally, March and Teach-in to "Stop the Cycle of Violence!" seemed a vivid but traditional war protest. Lots of speeches, banners, costumes, chants and passionate appeals. But up close and intimate, it was obvious something fresh was afoot, something surprising, shrewd, and infectious with rebellious vitality. For those who missed it, a quick recount.
Scene 1: brilliant fall morning, high calligraphic clouds, soft azure surf break around St. Anne's Chapel point, 350 citizens from around the state teetering between deep grief and high umbrage, listening, amen-ing, applauding. Presenters: South Africa's Rev. Ken Carstens preaches on Solidarity --- what it really means, how frail it's become, how reviving it can help us stanch the grief of the world. Dr. Meryl Nass explains bioweapons --- their promiscuous creation, their escalating risk and the suicidal US government/biotech opposition to their treaty control. Veterans for Peace leader, Tom Sturtevant recaps Veterans for Peace history, its Maine birth and nationwide spread, and urgent objections to Afghanistan's pain. The Raging Grannies premier "Oh Ramadan" (cf, Oh Tannenbaum) to mark the war-torn start of Islam's sacred month-long fast. Maine Global Action Network's Matt Schlobohm describes (with enthralling passion) the grotesque cynicism/weapons/starvation toll of our blood-for-oil bombing campaign, the domestic emasculation of our media and rights, and the confluent rage of the oppressed\exploited\attacked now creating an unprecedented movement of movements worldwide. And finally the young Dylan of our age, Ethan Miller, introduces his riveting new street anthem, Declaration of War, which spurns violence but appropriates the martial metaphor for the fateful struggle to come (chorus: "This ain't no peace song. This is a declaration of war. And this ain't no sing-along. This is the rise of a mighty roar."). Delighted pandemonium ensues, followed by the long, energized march to the Bush compound, an open mike Truth-to-Power Speakout, Carolyn Chute's Old Glory reclamation skit (scrubbing away 50 corporate logos overlaid on the star field to restore our original flag and non-jingoistic sense of patriotism), more fierce songs, and exodus to the teach-in at Kennebunk. (Leaving behind 10 relieved, helpful and overtime-enriched cops and sheriff's deputies, plus 10 less gratified hidden Secret Service temps who spent five needless sweat-soaked hours jammed in Bush's garage in full riot gear.)
Scene II: the venerable First Parish Unitarian-Universalist Church; crowded intense workshops on Islam vs. fundamentalism, the body count in Iraq, Terrorist U (Fort Benning's School of the Americas), student activism, Vietnam's lessons, globalized greed, movement synergy, and the current corporate stranglehold on political power; all followed by furious discussion, fine food and a soulful multi-artist musical finale.
Great event or what? To be sure, but more importantly, it was unprecedented. Never before has Maine witnessed such a powerful synthesis of anti-war and anti-corporate themes, analyses, and constituencies. Never before have we seen such a clear and contagious commitment to bring a war home and overthrow the corporate regime directing, marketing and milking it for exorbitant payoffs and draconian social control. Never before have we so fully understood that a corporate-controlled government must, by its nature, enforce corporate values; that those values are by definition hierarchic, dictatorial and pitiless; and that corporate rule thus demands the final strangulation of democracy and all non-economic values in our world. But then again never before have we seen so many suddenly awakening to this fell game.
Even mild-mannered Uncle Bill Moyers recently burst forth: "Our business and political class... declared class war 20 years ago and won. They're on top. If ever they were going to put patriotism over profits, if ever they were going to practice the magnanimity of winners, this was the moment. To hide now behind the flag while ripping off a country in crisis fatally --- fatally! - separates them from the common course of American life."
Scene III: Somewhere in Maine, right where you're now reading this, the air is cold, the hour dire, the airwaves hum with hypnotic orders to fear, attack, shut up, consume. But outside, people in hundreds, soon thousands, of homes are pondering the strange words "corporate coup d'état." To many just awaking to this uncomfortable thought, natural questions come thick and fast. "If the Fortune 500 has indeed usurped power, how can we know for sure? What would its priorities and policies look like? What would its ventriloquized government do and say? How would it respond to the 9/11 strikes or consolidate its control over our minds, lives and land?"
Since proof-positive answers to most of these queries are now broadcast daily as "news," we don't face a terribly steep learning curve. And Maine being Maine, when the truth finally hits, I expect a feisty, far-reaching reprisal. In fact, I will bet the farm on a day very soon when we will find Down East militiamen and Greens, grandmas and teens, Calvinists and anarchists all plotting discretely, humming "Declaration of War" and archly cackling, "Reckon it's 'bout time foah the countercoup."
IMC audio-video coverage of the 17th, Moyer's full speech, Ethan's anthem, and news on the evolving countercoup are all available online at www.newchautauqua.net
Back to Peace Talk Index, Winter, 2001-2002
