In November, 2 friends and I took part in
the walk out that you guys put together. Ever since then we’ve been
working to make a strong network of people dedicated to idea of driving
the Bush regime out of office, but as 3 high school kids we were a bit
limited. However, the decision to move on the 31st provided us with
something to rally behind. We ended up with a base network of around 7
to 10 people who donated cash and time to put our protest together.
We decided to move on Monument Circle in
downtown Indianapolis. There’s a huge civil war memorial in the middle
of a one way traffic roundabout, with big corporate media outlets and
office buildings surrounding it all. Our core group made hundreds of
flyers and pased them around town, hanging them on telephone poles, in
record stores, and passing them out and punk rock shows all over the
city(most of us play in bands so we had a great outlet.) On top of
that, we pooled together 100 dollars and bought a heavy duty megaphone
so we could adress the public walking by as well as the media outlets.
We probably ended up collecting and spending around 200 dollars on a
high school income, but it was most definitely well spent.
On Tuesday, our core group plus some late
additions met up in our school parking lot and drove down to the cirlce
at about 4:30, getting there just before 5 so we could address the rush
hour traffic. When we first got there we counted 11 people, and we had
suffered 3 drop outs along the way.
We got there just in time as the local news
radio station began broadcasting one of its conservative talk radio
shows, and we immediately began confronting them with unreported
stories, like the downing street memos, the recent admitance of White
Phosphorus being used in Fallujah, the proof of executive knowledge of
torture, and the investigations by the Bush Crimes Commission. We read
each story aloud on our megaphone with the sources in hand and politely
asked the talk show hosts why they hadnt reported any of it, they
closed their blinds and tried hard to ignore us, all of which we got on
video tape.
We had all made signs quoting plea for peace
slogans as well as world can’t wait and other inspiring sources. On a
massive piece of cardboard, we spelled out (incorectly at first)
“Support Our Troops By Impeaching Their Commander!” but our best sign
was “Honk if you Want Bush Impeached!” which summoned up somewere
150-200 honks, we lost count. We stood in groups of twos and threes,
with one person holding a sign and another handing out one the several
handouts we had made, some calling for general activism in an attempt
to preserve democracy, others exposing new views on the war on terror,
a short timeline on the US’s involvment in Iraq during the 1980s, and
my personal favorite, a call for activism which provided the phone
numbers of all local representatives and the biggest local media
outlets.
We had people driving around the circle
three or four times blarring their horns and pumping their fists out
the window. By about 6 pm, we were now pushing 20 people, all of which
called other people and begged them to put their money where their
mouth was. We got alittle bored with our traditional activism, so we
took a que from you guys and duct taped our massive sign to the side of
one of our vans and drove around the circle blarring the horn. When it
started to get dark, a few more people showed up, one of which was
celebrating her 18th birthday and chose to spend it out in the cold
standing up for what she belived in. They ended up leaving earlier than
the rest of us, but her mom bought us 10 hot chocolates that we shared,
which was great because it was freezing.
Somewere into the night, a group of about 5
or 6 more people showed up all the way from Greenfield Indiana, about
an hour away from were we were. They all brought signs and air horns
and american flags and were definitely a boost in morale. At our peak,
there were probably 40 people, but we definitely got noticed. Everyone
who was involved signed up to continue our activism, and a local
reporter from the Indianapolis Star gave us his E-mail so that could
get in contact with him the next time. We have now tripled our numbers
and have a good strong base for building a local chapter and keeping
involved. We would definetly love any support you could give us,
financialy or with people to help us organize. Thank you again for
giving us an outlet to make a change, and we will continue to fight.