The local peace movement was mobilizing even before the war started. Six months prior, with President George Bush's war talk, 300 to 400 residents gathered at Ithaca High School to discuss what they would to do if the U.S. bombed Iraq and how to oppose a war.
"They immediately organized a die-in on The Commons," recalls Ithacan Bob Nape. "It was well-orchestrated and tons of people came out. And then people were coming out of the woodwork to show up to things."
Most remember the action of the St Patrick's Four, just days before the war started. They spilled their own blood around the entrance and on the flag at the Army and Marine Corps Recruiting Center. They read the following from a statement at the Station that day, March 17, 2003:
"...War is bloody. The blood we brought to the recruiting station was a sign of the blood inherent in the business of the recruiting station. Blood is a sign of life, which we hold to be precious, and a sign of redemption and conversion, which we seek as people of this nation..."
Nape recalls that one of the most memorable moments in the local movement was the acquittal of the St Patrick's Four in 2005. It was an emotional high point, further fueling local activists. The trial and acquittal reinvigorated Tompkins County residents to continue taking direct actions toward peace, because, although the Four were convicted of damaging property, they were able to speak their purpose to the jury.
Even as active as the Four have been, along with many other Ithacans, the volume of people showing up to events began to decline a couple years ago, compared to the swarm in 2003. Perhaps with time and the escalation of the war, some have become disheartened.
"As the war has dragged on, the number of people active in any meaningful sense has dropped significantly," says Peter DeMott, one of the St Patrick's Four. "War resistance has become the backdrop of our common ordinary activity. A lot of people are just taking it for granted, it's sad to say." Another activist suggested that some people became afraid of reprisal.
Bob Nape, a Finger Lakes for Peace organizer, believes there is more to it than that. He remembers the peace movement during Vietnam: "The draft fueled war resistance. That was a lot of fuel that isn't here right now. With Vietnam, the movement grew and grew until it was a monster. With Iraq, it started as a monster, and now it seems like a mouse."
Why the apparent decline in support of the peace movement? Eighteen, 19- and 20-year-olds are not being drafted, which has led to extended tours for active soldiers and has lent a feeling of disconnection to the majority of youth, as there are few signs at home of the war. Many people don't know a single soldier. Many people do, of course, but for a lot of people, they are not sure what they can do about because they can hardly tell it is happening.
American young people demonstrate a general sense of helplessness. Andrea Levine, organizer of Ithaca College's Students for a Just Peace, believes that most students just don't think much about the war. They can listen to their iPods, chat online, hang out on Facebook and text message each other, without having much face-to-face conversation. It has been a whole cultural shift.
"They feel unaffected," she said. "I have to remind my roommates, when they ask me why I care about peace activism: 'You work two jobs through college because money for education goes to funding the war. The war does affect you.'"
One of Levine's goals on campus is simply to remind people that the war is still going on. She'll set up a table at a festival with information about the war, or set out paints and long butcher paper and let people paint between classes.
Alexis Alexander, a coordinator for Tompkins County Against War and Occupation, says there are two main issues for the local movement to focus on five years after it first began.
The first is impeachment. To some, impeachment hearings are the only way to force the administration to tell the truth about the war. In that vein, some 2,600 local signatures were collected in favor of beginning Bush/Cheney impeachment hearings, and the Tompkins County Legislature voted 9-6 in favor of impeachment. The vote last June made Tompkins the first county in the nation to pass such a resolution, and join the dozens of other pro-impeachment cities across the country. That was a step in the right direction for those in favor, but the real challenge to the peace/impeachment groups now is working on Representative Maurice Hinchey.
Hinchey has been against the war from the beginning and in favor of Impeachment, but activists say he will not sign onto an impeachment resolution because he believes it would not pass, and that failure would "embolden" Bush.
Local organizer Ellen Grady says she has been impressed with Hinchey's stance against the war. "He took a lot of flak for his position in the beginning. I was hopeful for him, and I am hopeful. If everyone who was for impeachment did something about it - well, not only is it not too late, the world is waiting for us to do something about it," she said.
Hinchey's position has been a bit nebulous, in that he will talk about, but will not vote for, impeachment. Communicating with him has been one uphill battle for the local groups.
"Democracy is new and fragile," says local activist John Hamilton. "The United States was actually founded as a republic. Rich white men were created equal. The movement now is working on expanding that principle of equality to all humans. With civil rights acts we had the first semblance of democracy, but we need to keep working because all people are created equal."
Alexander believes a second focus of the movement is on supporting the G.I. Resistance movement.
"The peace movement needs to team closely with G.I. war resisters and support them in getting their stories out to the general public," she says.
Kristin Herbeck is with Cornell Campus Antiwar Network, or CAN, a local chapter of the national campus network. She explained that Cornell CAN focuses on education as well as direct action because many young people do not understand the implications of the war. They also have close ties with the Iraq Veterans Against the War.
"It's really important to give the returning vets a place to be able to share the truths of their experience in the war. They're risking their lives with this project, really," she says. In early April the two groups will screen the IVAW's film, "Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan."
Along with education, CAN engages in direct-action tactics, such as sit-ins, banner drops, office occupations and roadblocks, and they collaborate with local activists. Three pillars of the organization are the immediate withdrawal from Iraq, reparations for the Iraqis and getting benefits to all veterans.
This past year in Ithaca, the movement has been a smaller but consistent collection of people from various peace groups, namely Finger Lakes for Peace and Tompkins County Against War and Occupation, that have been organizing for the upcoming rally. Despite their various angles on peace, their one clear point of unity is ending the war.
"Its all very interesting," says Grady. "It's been a bit disheartening too, to hear people saying, 'The elections are coming up so we don't have to do anything about it.' But that's not true at all. As we get close to the 4,000 mark of our soldiers that have died, that voice for peace has to be loud."
|
|
