The Power of Protest
A group of FCNLers traveled to New York on April 29 to participate in the United for Peace (UFP) march. The theme was supposed to be simple - no more wars and stop the current one. Well, as inevitably happens, a number of other laudable causes were tacked on including universal health care, immigrants' rights, civil liberties and privacy, nuclear weapons et cetera.
Despite the multiple themes, our reason for being there - bringing the War is not the answer message - was well placed and well received. The march was a success -- in case you don't happen to get the NY Times Metro section at home -- and I personally was impressed with the turnout.
I also had a blast, and of course also took the opportunity to enjoy some New York sights and sounds. FCNL was circulating a petition on the Biden amendment which prohibits funds appropriated in the emergency supplementary appropriations bill from being used to make permanent bases in Iraq or control its natural resources. FCNL and a number of other organizations and prominent people think that the US needs to tell Iraqis that we will not be there forever. The amendment passed, and while I'm no stranger to cynicism, this is a great step.
 The best part for me was talking with young people though. While I was going around with the petition, I was overwhelmed by the number of people there. My strategy was to talk only with young people. I wanted to tell them about what was going on in DC and hopefully peak some interest. Despite only getting to a handful of the thousands there, I think that I was successful. I walked around with the petition and chatted with groups of people eating food, chatting, picking nats out of each other's hair, playing cards and the like. I asked them if they knew what was going on in DC about the war. I told them about the Biden amendment and how I thought it was an important message to send to the Iraqis and the billions of other people alienated by the US and its aggression. I also gave them information on how to lobby and talked about how it was important to make phone calls, write and visit their representatives. Many also had much to say about their frustrations with politics in DC and what they thought about war.
I was energized and encouraged. I came away from the march excited - about the energy and enthusiasm of the people I talked to and the creativity of the protesters. I talked to people who had never voted before, some who had clearly voted many times, and some who didn't even have a vote. We were united in our enthusiasm to send our message to Washington through the march and through our vote.
For more coverage, check out http://www.april29.org/article.php?id=3266.
Posted by Matt 5/25/2006 6:03 pm
The Void on the Hill
So, I’ve finally started to lobby. Last Monday and Tuesday, Ruth and I began lobbying on the NSA Oversight Act, introduced by Representatives Jeff Flake (AZ) and Adam Schiff (CA) in the House. It’s an interesting bill, I think, mostly because its main purpose is to reiterate what is already the law. Now, call me crazy, but Congress shouldn’t ever be in the position of having to remind the president that they had already written a law about something. Anyway, that’s the state we’re in, so I guess we’ve got to live with it.
The NSA oversight act does a couple of almost interesting things beyond reiterating what is already the law. It makes explicit that the domestic wiretapping was not authorized by the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), which has been one of the administration’s justifications for the NSA program. It also requires classified briefings to the full intelligence committees in both the House and the Senate (which, I believe, is also already the law). And, it requests the president to propose new legislation if, indeed, the current FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) law is not fitting the bill.
Lobbying is a funny thing. There are supposedly tens of thousands of lobbyists in Washington . For the most part the profession doesn’t have the greatest of reputations (for one Abramoff reason or another). And how many organizations have their national offices in Washington , DC ? Given this, and the fact that the spying scandal broke in the headlines more than four months ago, you’d think that somebody would have already visited the offices that we visited last week. Wouldn’t you think that if the president was breaking the law, claiming unprecedented powers, spying on people in the United States without any check, wrecking constitutional balances, that there’d be someone on the Hill lobbying against that? I mean, that’s what I thought. But I was wrong.
This means that there’s a lot of space up on the hill for you too. So, come to a lobby training, train your friends, and go sit down with your legislator. Growing up I always thought that there were people down in Washington doing that work. It turns out, there really aren’t, or at least there aren’t many. And that means that it’s your turn to step up, walk in that Congressman’s office, sit down with a notepad and start changing the world. Because nobody’s going to do it for you.
Posted by Jay 5/2/2006 5:03 pm
In Tribute
Here it is more than one month after Tom Fox’s body was found dumped in a trash strewn street in west Baghdad . Most of the time my mind still grapples with the thought that this man’s brilliant light has been extinguished, that never again will any of us get to bask in the warmth of his infectious smile or share amazement at his knowledge about arcane world facts. None of us will be the beneficiaries of the generosity that he showered on not only his own children but the many of us who looked to Tom for guidance, for confidence, for that gentle sincere way that he ushered us toward our own spirituality. Part of my consciousness still tries to understand the captors that could know this man for more than one day and still treat him with such disrespect, such callousness. Did they not see the compassion overflowing in his eyes? Could they not feel the laughter and grace in his heart?
Another part of my mind tries to comprehend what is happening in Iraq and the chaos in which Tom’s death occurred. This one month anniversary of Tom’s death followed just weeks after FCNL co-sponsored a delegation of Iraqis who came to the U.S. to share their perspectives on the situation in their country. The delegation, mostly women, was unique in the cross-section of Iraqi society that it represented. The women’s testimonies, their personal stories, their different versions of reality ripped gapping holes in the picture of Iraq that has been painted for us here in the United States . This conflict is not just about Sunni, Shia and Kurd, it is not just about occupied and occupier and liberator, it is not just about resistors or insurgents. The pain that these women are reeling from, the pain Iraq is reeling from is much deeper and more complex than can be portrayed on the pages of a newspaper or a five minute news reel.
That’s why it is sometimes so baffling to me the seemingly cavalier way in which the United States was set on a collision course with millennia of history, conflict and complexities that make Iraq what it is today. And maybe that is why this past month’s successes for the Iraq peace campaign felt like such a monumental step forward. By including just a few lines in the supplemental spending bill indicating that the U.S. does not intend to have a permanent presence in Iraq, we hinted at an acknowledgment that maybe, just maybe, we don’t know best. We admitted that we don’t understand the complexities of Iraq and never will. It is such a minute detail, a few words on a piece of paper, the culmination of months of work. But there is the potential that it could mean so much more.
Because I live in DC I was lucky to be able to go to Tom's memorial this past weekend. This was the public service, intended for the news media, for the broader audience that knew Tom in some aspect of his diverse life. But despite the more public feel it was an incredibly moving ceremony. As I sat on the hard pew, focusing on the ceiling in an attempt to fight back the tears that were clogging my throat, I couldn't help but juxtapose Tom’s death with my reality. I cannot reconcile my work that sometimes feels like it deals with the very fringes of people’s everyday lives, the comforts of the life I lead, my daily interactions with people that are just like me with the example this man lived.
Instead, the challenge becomes how do I not get lost in my own head, in the legislative science of Capitol Hill, in the daily frustrations that so often seem to stand in the way of any real progress. How do I keep my eyes set on my reality of working for change? Maybe not the kind of big monumental change that affects our social conscience, but the kind of change that affects me. In our quest for a change strategy, sometimes we have to look beyond our desire for mountain moving, paradigm shifting change and recognize, even embrace the slow glacial movement of gradual change as the powerful force that it is; the change that comes from the person to person interactions that were the focus, sustenance and example of Tom’s life.
Posted by Ellen 4/24/2006 7:25 pm
Cultures of Resistance
During FCNL's Young Adult Lobby Weekend, as I spoke with high schoolers, college students, and young adult activists, I was inspired by the many ways people are working for change--in their jobs, through campus and community organizing, and simply by the way they choose to live their lives. Still, when I stopped to ponder my own advocacy efforts, my thoughts (try as I might to stop them) often wandered to "am I doing enough?" Maybe this reflects some defensiveness or insecurity on my part, but on occasion, even in the peace community, I sense a desire to "measure" activism--what have you done to save the world today? Admittedly, I've noticed this strange competitiveness in myself at times. Why, even in serving others, is there a latent need to prove oneself? Pardon the abundant references to sociology 101, but maybe it's part of some socially constructed American norm, equating success with quantifiable results. In my lived experience, I'm culturally hard-wired to measure everything I do. But how can we measure activism? By degree of resistance? By the number of pins and buttons you have? By how much you shun "the system"? Being with and listening to my peers last weekend helped me get one step closer to realizing that these are not the right questions to be asking.
Measuring activism by an arbitrary "hierarchy of resistance" will not lead to effective change. It will not only alienate those you're trying to influence (be they members of Congress or the general public), but it will also alienate those who are like-minded, but don't feel they're up to someone's radical standards. Certainly, I question my role in working within the system at times, and I know there are those who think such work is futile. But even those brave revolutionary souls who reject social mores, who dismiss the system as hopelessly corrupted, who cringe at our twisted definitions of success cannot pretend they can dissociate themselves from America 's particular history and culture--including its system of government. I think the "American experience" shapes us and conditions us, no matter how much we resist it, and I think you have to embrace and acknowledge that, before you can challenge it.
That's what I liked about this lobby weekend: people with different views, different experiences, coming together to talk, to open minds to new, creative ways of thinking and resisting, but not excluding anyone from the conversation or dismissing anyone's work because it wasn't their particular brand of activism. We need to recognize how our efforts complement and enhance one another's, how they encourage growth and create community. Why create more divisions as you work to dismantle existing divides? I guess Young Adult Lobby Weekend in many ways reinforced what I already believed--advocacy isn't about either/or, it's about and. Working outside the system and within the system, pounding the pavement and walking the halls of Congress. I know this isn't a new idea, but sometimes it serves me well to state the obvious. It refocuses me. So for me, right now, speaking truth to power quietly, subtly, steadily, even (dare I use such a DC term) strategically is, I think, just as effective, just as disruptive, just as soul-changing, just as risky , just as worthy, as shouting it. And that's OK.
--Posted by Laura 4 /5/2006 3:05 pm
Wednesday, 29 March, 2006
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Keeping it real
I called my parents a few days ago because I wanted to tell them about two exciting developments on the Hill: the House had appropriated more money for the African Union mission in Darfur and approved language that prohibited appropriations they were then working on from being used to make permanent military bases in Iraq. While I don’t work on those issues myself, the news was significant and I wanted to share it with someone. No one was home. I called my sister, and she seemed more concerned with her tax liabilities, and was unable to appreciate the gravity of these developments with me.
I finally got in touch with my Dad the following morning and was able to relay the good news. He didn’t get it. I had to tell him it was significant and that this language was in fact meaningful. He said “well that’s great,” in the same way that someone looking at the picture of a hideous baby would say that it was the cutest thing in the world. We also talked about Feingold’s censure motion before the Senate. My Dad and I agree that it is a worthy and worthwhile measure. He started talking about an article that said that conservatives were using the censure motion to rally their ranks, but how my dad (and many others) thinks the president should be censured for all the lies peddled and half-truths told… and how he wouldn’t vote for Hillary anyway. He was rambling, but the connection between all of this was made, and it got me thinking.
I started telling him how the censure motion was simple and clean and that was best. There is nothing about the war, nothing about “I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees” or help is coming, nothing about “we do not torture.” Its simple – we’ve got this law called FISA, it says that you need a warrant to tap a phone, the President didn’t have a warrant, he broke the law. But wait – all of those other issues are important too, and IT IS all connected. Why shouldn’t the censure include all of that?
Feingold’s measure is simple, and I’d vote for it if I could. When I step back though from these two mini-conversations, I see that they are wrapped in the plastic wrap of the beltway, stuck in a microwave at 10% power. Maybe I’m in there too? I can see what is outside, but I’m stuck in this little confined space, my insides slowly being nuked. I used to be a “big picture” kind of guy, trying to find themes and make connections, but now I think more about minutiae, coalitions and bipartisanship. Is $50 million more – to stop genocide – something to celebrate? Is language buried in one small appropriations bill for a war that costs hundreds upon hundreds of billions of dollars, something to celebrate? Is the simple censure of a man who has flagrantly broken law upon law, something to celebrate?
Politics warps your mind. Remember that, don’t forget the big picture and don’t get stuck in plastic wrap.
--Posted by Matt 3/29/2006 10:02 am
Wednesday, 22 March, 2006
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Pressin’ the Flesh in the Heartland
Although I devote half of my time here at FCNL to the Civil Liberties and Human Rights program, and am a legislative intern, I am also a Field Program Intern. In that capacity I have been, among other things, assisting to build capacity in our Young Adult program.
Last month I got the chance to take FCNL on the road in Indiana and Ohio; both states which have key players in many of the issues that we work on. Sens. Lugar, DeWine and Voinovich are important to our arms control, nuclear disarmament, civil liberties, and Iraq work. The most effective way to create change in Washington is for citizens to build sustained relationships with their elected officials and their staff. We want to help.
I put almost 1000 miles on a rental car traveling to Earlham, Goshen, Manchester and Wilmington colleges, as well as Ball State University, Indianapolis Peace House and North Meadow Friends Meeting in Indianapolis . I try, when I travel, to help people understand that there is something they can do to effect change in Washington . If you’re a young person and want to learn how, come to the Young Adult Spring Lobby Weekend, April 1-3. Hope to see you there!
--Posted by Jay 3/22/2006 9:44 am
It 's the little things . . .
It is so easy to get caught up in the daily grind of mundane tasks that are a part of every job that I sometimes forget to step back and appreciate the little things that make this moment in my life so exciting.
Things like the strange convergence of events that brought me to FCNL five months ago. The intelligence, creativity, and passion of the people I work with. That even the mundane uninspiring tasks I am assigned are helping to spread a message that I truly believe in to people around the country. Wondering where this internship will take me next. The red buds blossoming on the maple tree just outside my window on bright almost-spring day.
Today as I was walking back from a rather useless House hearing I passed bus loads of school children disembarking in front of the U.S. Supreme Court and smiled because I realize how strangely and narcissistically beautiful this city is to me. There are times when I am rushing from one place to the next when I am suddenly struck by the magnificent architecture that houses these institutions, or feel a shiver of excitement as I pass Sen. Lugar in the hallways of the Hart building, or am amazed and somewhat dismayed by the people that I encounter that believe that Washington, DC is the epicenter of the world. And yet I feel at home here. DC is one of those paradoxical places that awes me and comforts me at the same time.
--Posted by Ellen 3/8/2006 4:55 pm
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