We had a crew of six go to downtown San Francisco. Four of us were dressed in the Guantanamoesqe orange jumpsuits with black hoods. We kneeled on a sidewalk in front of the entrance to a major shopping center. It was chilly day on this day before the night before Christmas, and there was a hustle and bustle of people moving up and down the street with bags and packages in hand.
But we were bringing something very different to the mix. We had a couple people switching off doing agitation. We talked about how each and everyone must take responsibility for opposing the crimes of the Bush regime. That while people were hustling about picking up gifts for their loved ones, the thousand of prisoners locked up in Guantanamo
and Abu-Ghraib and all the secret prisons and torture chambers the CIA
operates, are not having holidays with their loved ones. That instead
they are being subjected to unspeakable pain and agony and suffering.
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Our agitation focused more on fundraising than previous actions”and
succeeded in drawing attention and getting donations. Responsibility
vs. complicity was also a theme of the agitation. Politically strong .
Respecting observances of holiday…BUT, drawing attention to glaring
contradictions of the holiday. “While you are shopping, which is fine,
people are being tortured all over the world”it’s okay to shop, and buy
things for your loved ones, but think about how many inIraq and Afghanistan can’t be with loved ones”And that it is up to all of us to bring this to a halt. To drive this regime from power.”
Many people passing by stopped and stared at us, clearly we were not
what they expected to be part of their shopping experience that day. We challenged people, “We have to stop this! We have to drive this regime from power!”
A number of people made appreciative and supportive comments about what we were doing. We
actually did better when we walked over and approached people who were
really checking it out. One middle-aged middle class woman commented on
how disturbingly surreal it is that people are supposed to have the
“holiday spirit” and serene feelings about “peace on earth” when people
are being tortured. Another young man said he thought the whole “war
on Christmas” was a propaganda hype to cover for the Christian crusades
that Bush, et al are fighting in the Middle East. A good number of people talked with us and thanked us and gave their contact information to be involved and contributed funds.
We also got into some intense debates with people; some more
backwards or ignorant people said racist and confrontational things.
Generally it was these big beefy white guys. [We don’t have anything
against large men who happen to be white, but there are a bunch of
people in this country that are ignorant and insulated from the
nightmare truth of what this government is doing around the world.] These people are out there. They exist and we have to face up to that. But we did not back down. We politically took them on. These two big guys came up and said we should be ashamed. They asked if we had any idea of how the women were being treated in Iraq? We were somewhat astonished because it seemed odd that they had any real enlightenment or concern about women’s oppression. We said, “You don’t really think the U.S. cares about the women of Iraq do you? What about the women and young girls that have been raped by U.S. soldiers?” And then one of them yelled, complaining about when he goes into a 7-11 to buy a Slurpee he has to see an “A-rab”.
Another guy walked up and simulated chopping off the head of one of
the kneeling detainees and then as we were trying to politically
challenge him, the coward walks off. [I know people think things like
this don’t happen in politically liberalSan Francisco.] But we challenged him, asking if he thought there was something glorious in beheading prisoners. He yelled back that if we don’t like the country we should get out.
We asked where we are supposed to go? “This country is a empire with
720 military bases around the world”he does not like us being here
because we make him think.” And he stomps away complaining that we have spoiled the holiday spirit.
With this other guy we got into an argument – he was really in our face. Saying we should get the f*ck out of this country. And yelling at us, “Look we both know the war was wrong. But we f*cked up their country, and now we have to fix it. If we don’t, Iraq is going to descend into chaos and there’s going to be a power vacuum there.” We debated him. We said the U.S. is not there for the people of Iraq. They never were and never will be. They are there for empire, to control the oil jugular veins of the world, to “reorganize” not just Iraq but the entire Middle East. And
we went on for about 10 minutes”BUT the point of this story is that we
encountered this but then we responded and debated him, arguing for the
truth, andthe guy actually ended up agreeing with us.
When intense arguments like this happened, people seemed to gather and were watching to see how our people took this on.
Mainly, the people that we talked to were supportive and the
challenge was to get them out of the bleachers and into this movement
to drive the regime from power. But we wanted to share these stories about the backward people too because we have to take that on. If we want others to do that, we have to do it ourselves.
We were out there 2 hours. We approached everyone who stopped and leafleted them, and asked for donations and contact info. We collected approximately four sheets of contacts and $86.