give peace a chance? final update from twin cities

I finally caught my much awaited sleep this morning. The RNC is over. Yesterday we were fulfilling an obligation with our giant puppets at a “peace picnic” on an island across the river from downtown. It was awful to be stuck there while the streets were full of teargas elsewhere. We spent the later part of the evening in a friendly neighborhood meeting place, theater and bar in Minneapolis. Some people there were returning from the streets. One woman I talked to was very shaken up. A street medic, she had just treated a 70 year old woman who had been hit dead-on by a concussion grenade while leaving a Sears store near the capitol. “She is lucky to be alive… and if you take away one image from this week, that should be it,” she told me with a voice still shaky from the experience. I will be taking away a lot of stories from this week, and I am hoping that with the convention circuit I can begin to write them.

Adam Kokesh, the founder of Iraq Veterans Against the War disrupted McCain’s acceptance speech last night by unfurling a banner that read “You Can’t win an Occupation.’ I hope that time will prove the same true to the police forces, secret service and city administration of Saint Paul/Minneapolis.

For the time being, no one has summed up the last week so concisely as this article from Twin Cities Indymedia, who like most are trying to recover from the intensity of it all and finally get some rest themselves.

“…The Republicans couldn’t end their eight-year reign of state terrorism without dumping it all over our fair cities – beginning with the Friday night Convergence Center raid, the thundering Saturday raids, the Monday journalist beatdowns, the Tuesday concussion grenades, the intentional bottling up of the RATM fans on Wednesday night, and finally on Thursday night, a big stupid fracas instigated wholly by the police for no particular reason.” Read the whole article.

Unfortunately the RNC is not over for the Twin Cities and for the hundreds of people who have been arrested this week, or who will sufer the long term effects of excessive force and “less lethal” weaponry. They have been known to include bronchial problems and sometimes cancer from pepper-spray and OC gas, broken bones from billy clubs, hearing loss from concussion grenades, and other trauma, not to mention serious legal complications and the threat of witch-hunting police agencies anxious to blame and frame those without agency, and recast the media attention — which seems to be finally sharing more sides of the story with many of their own having been corralled with demonstrators during heavy outbursts of police violence…

Yesterday evening when the violence began as the police closed in on the anti-war march which they had suddenly declared exempt of previous permits, our crew was tied up with our giant puppets at the “Peace Island Picnic” across the river. At the picnic we ate hot dogs and drank iced tea. Various bands played old songs from the sixties while the mostly middle-aged crowd sat in the lawn and sang along. At one point (I imagine as the police began to open up the first canisters of peppers spray on the youth-led anti-war rally) the mostly middle-aged picnic goers formed a big peace sign on the grass and took pictures of themselves with a long pole, while singing together this song:

“all we are saying, is give peace a chance.”

Who exactly was the audience? A secret service helicopter briefly hovered overhead, then meandered on towards downtown, where it would soon be waatching over one hundred people of various ages and political convictions, as they lay face down on a bridge their hands cuffed tightly behind their backs with plastic zip-ties.

The dictionary definition of peace, as a well known singer-songwriter pointed out to me last night, is commonly stated as “the absence of social disorder.” It occurred to us that the picnic goers had finally found their holy grail: the truly peaceful protest. Contrast that to the most common newspaper headline tag for protests everywhere. I have seen it a hundred times:

“Peaceful Protest turns Violent…”

Imagine if that crowd had instead been on the bridge, or joining the kids who were getting clubbed in the street, doing the best to push back the limits of our liberty, and the freedom to express discontent in the streets and commons. What if they joined the anarchists to blockade the war criminals (speaking of violence) from entering the Xcel center on the first day? you starting to follow me? The “peace” movement has disallowed itself the ability to effect the world. They can’t even make the news anymore. It was depressing to be sitting in the grass on the literal “peace island.”

So that’s what has been on my mind, but the tour is not to be delayed. it is time for us to move on again, but i will keep writing about these questions on the road. I am thinking of an open letter to “the movement.”

Evan, Mark, and Nick left for home an hour ago, so that leaves four of us to continue on the rest of the tour. We are sad loose such good companions, especially Nick, who has been on the road with us form the start and helped so much of it happen. He is also my best friend and traveling companion. Thanks Nick for your enthusiasm and brotherhood.

We have to be at the Fighting Bob Fest in Baraboo, Wisconsin tonight, so we have just begun the daunting task of packing up Serendipity again and cleaning up after the entropy and disorganization that slowly grew over the last two weeks. Maintenance is another task — changing fuel filters and checking systems.

All the best to you all. I hope you all are well, and enjoying your loved ones.

Logan