Stephen has permitted me to publish the entire piece along with photos that he took (click each photo for larger versions).
Dear Sen. McConnell: Will You Help Us Stop The War? By Stephen George
The police have just told us to join the small group demonstrating on the other side of the street. It’s a balmy night in Louisville, and the crowd is menacing and concerted for a bunch of peaceniks, standing on a hill that is someone’s private yard about 20 yards and a two-lane neighborhood street from U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell’s doorstep. Rumor is he’s in the house, but no one will confirm that, especially not the mixed bag of police and Capitol security detail trying to stay composed in the face of a huge, loud protest.
Some on this side are incredulous that the group of 300 or so anti-war protesters — many holding yellow glow-sticks to illuminate uniform, blazing red “Support the Troops: End the War” placards — is about to share a five-foot-wide spit of concrete with the 30 or so McConnell supporters who were waiting when we arrived. It would seem, of course, that pushing the groups together would incite some kind of general violence, particularly given the aggressive nature of several McConnell supporters. Like all good Republican leg-humpers, they’ll gladly shove a video camera in your face and ask you questions like, “Why do you want to kill our soldiers?” and “Why do you hate America?” Those questions carry about as much meaning as a venereal disease.
As the group marched the quarter-of-a-mile from Bellarmine University — where the culminating event of Iraq Summer had just gone down before more than 700 supporters — some of McConnell’s henchmen drove aside us in a black SUV, deep tinted windows, filming. Hopefully we’ll end up in a campaign commercial!
Some of the amped-up Mitchheads seemed to be looking for a fight. An Iraq war veteran there to support the Senate Minority Leader promptly screamed epithets in the face of an older, gray-haired man — I was shocked when the white-knuckled patriot decided to walk away rather than beat him with a collapsible baton or, hell, his own highly trained fists. A thin boy in a red collared shirt tried in vain to explain to me and two others that there’s no way to end a war unless you win it, and that you cannot “support the troops” without supporting the war and McConnell’s program for “winning” it. Tell that to South Vietnam. The best comeback this kid could muster to the systematic challenges of his logic: “Well, obviously we disagree, and that’s OK, but you’re wrong.”
The profundity of this statement should not be overlooked.
The pinnacle of this night was not so much the somewhat less typical protest, although the booming chants echoing through the neighborhood — “Mitch, can you hear us? We are the people!” and “End this war!” — and the somber version of “We Shall Overcome” that closed the proceedings should send a message to any representative with a shred of dignity and decency toward his constituents. No, the real eye-opener was at Bellarmine in the early evening, where 677 guests plus several handfuls of volunteers and activists entertained the idea that the People can force change from their representatives, even the ones who’ve voted with President Bush’s failed war policy 15 times.
The event, part of a national web of similar happenings called “Take a Stand,” wrapped a 10-week campaign by a coalition of groups called Iraq Summer, which is a wing of the group Americans Against Escalation in Iraq. That group, which has targeted members of Congress in 15 states for obstructing policy shifts on the Iraq war, is an amalgam of members from MoveOn.org, True Majority, Working Assets, VoteVets.org, and a number of unions, along with other progressive groups.
Louisville’s outing was expected to be one of the largest, which is why Tom Matzzie, Washington director for MoveOn.org, decided to spend his night here. Also at the helm of Iraq Summer, Matzzie said he’s running this like a political campaign, and sparing no punches as he goes. His group is part of a newly forming coalition in Kentucky advancing a strong Ditch Mitch agenda — and the drumbeat in Louisville in particular seems to be getting louder.
“Kentucky’s progressive community is sick of Mitch McConnell obstructing an end to the war,” he told me. He also said the progressives here are among the more active in the country right now.
I mentioned that recently it seems McConnell may be starting to sidestep, at least in his rhetoric, his incessant war support. “If he’s got a proposal for how to force Bush to end the war, bring it forward,” Matzzie said. That’s about as likely as McConnell coming out of his house to greet the protesters, which could have been an outstanding chance to sit and talk, maybe whip up some tea, and get to the bottom of this whole Bush-doting thing he’s into.
Warming up the crowd between the most spontaneous standing ovations of the night, U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth said the Republicans he’s hearing from are expecting fallout over Iraq in the 2008 elections. “Republicans are scared to death,” he said, to rousing applause. “Let’s keep up the pressure.” Yarmuth, of course, has assailed the war since before troops were deployed.
Lt. Col. Andrew Horne, after losing to Yarmuth in last year’s Democratic primary, has kept a high profile in the anti-war movement. He told the crowd “we are battling for no less than this country’s soul.”
Watching this mass tonight, seeing an organized effort at nonviolent protest that didn’t seem like the self-caricature so many political protests have come to in the last few years, one might think Horne’s idea is resonating. As far as fervently political cities go, Louisville is more content than conflicted. But people here are angry about Iraq, and the best way they can find to tell McConnell about it — he turned down an invitation to the evening’s proceedings, probably a sensible, if highly political, move — is to stand in front of his house for two days and bark it at him.
Amy Shir, the former candidate for state representative, walked up to McConnell’s front door at one point during the protest and rang the bell. She was carrying a small American flag over her shoulder. There she stood for a second, frozen, looking surprised cops hadn’t tackled her yet. Not everyone caught it. Of course, within 30 seconds Metro police and the small Capitol force dashed to the porch, flashlights drawn, ready to take Shir down for fucking with the wrong guy. It was right after Shir and I played catch-up next to the flashing lights of a police cruiser blocking the road.
“We need more fearless people,” she explained. “What’s the way to be fearless? Show up. Use your voice. What’s the risk?”
As far as I could tell, Shir wasn’t arrested. But I didn’t see her again.
Stephen George is managing editor of the Louisville Eccentric Observer (LEO). Contact him at sgeorge@leoweekly.com
Recent Comments