by Kathy Kelly
for Satya Magazine

How can we best educate the U.S. public about the futility of pouring U.S. resources down the rathole of military spending?

During the recent SOAW trial in Columbus, GA, as co-defendants told what motivated them to risk imprisonment and heavy fines, we heard stories of military atrocities that explain why increasing numbers of people in other parts of the world feel seething rage and antagonism toward the U.S. In a very real sense, our dangerously over-consumptive lifestyles were on trial, just as much as U.S. readiness to use threat and force, overwhelming military force, to protect the American way of life. The belief that, as President George Bush said at a 1992 energy conference in Rio de Janeiro, “the American way of life is non-negotiable,” leads others to justify violent responses to stop U.S. imperialism.

For most of us, the U.S. government does not want our bodies on the line in combat. It wants our assent and our money. Elected officials often perceive that we put them in power to protect our inordinately comfortable lifestyles, and if they have to use violent means to do so, we will foot the bill. Refusal to pay for war (through war tax resistance) and readiness to radically resist militarism through nonviolent means helps us find what Rev. D”Escoto pointed us toward: “actions commensurate to the crimes being committed.”

Before sentencing me, Judge Faircloth asked me why the campaign I work most closely with is called “Voices in the Wilderness.” I explained that we believe there is a wilderness of compassion here in the U.S. I”m grateful to have been part of the passion that motivated defendants in the courtroom. We haven”t given up on nonviolence. Rather than advocate that others risk torture and slaughter as the only way to resist U.S. warmaking, this group and the many thousands of supporters who are part of the SOAW network are committed to “the further invention of nonviolence.”

By telling a judge that we are willing to go into the prison system, and there give witness on behalf of mothers and fathers separated from their children by a cruel and wrongheaded prison-industrial complex, we can point to a radically countercultural departure from accepting the status quo that now exists in the U.S.

Step 1: Look in the Mirror

by Kathy Kelly

Following the March 11, 2004 terrorist attacks in Madrid, Secretary of State Colin Powell told ABC TV’s “This Week” that he hoped Europeans, recognizing that no one is immune, would dedicate themselves to “going after” terrorist organizations with military force, intelligence, and law enforcement. He said that all of us have to get together to defeat organizations determined to kill and destroy innocent people. He urged Spain not to step back from the war on terrorism.

I think a crucial step forward in coming to grips with terrorism requires that we ask ourselves why individuals, some of them young, rational people with their whole lives ahead of them, would hate the US and its allies so much that they would commit acts of massive destruction and end their own lives as well.

Shortly after US troops began occupying Iraq in April, 2003, a large contingent of western media people arrived in Baghdad. One young journalist said a more seasoned correspondent had told her to talk with me when she was ready to do a humanitarian story. One of the first stories she pursued was about a baby who’d been born in one of Saddam Hussein’s prisons. I suggested she might also explore stories about the hundreds of thousands of children who died because of economic sanctions. “Oh,” she said, “That was Saddam Hussein’s fault.” I mentioned that UN documents directly attributed the deaths of over 500,000 children under age 5 to the effects of economic sanctions. Her response was immediate: “Well, except now everyone knows that the UN was in bed with Saddam Hussein.”

US think tanks helped brief US journalists before they headed over to the war zone. Perhaps the complex US/UN relations during thirteen years of economic sanctions couldn’t have fit into convenient briefings. With deadlines to meet, electrical outages to cope with, and editors seeking stories about Saddam’s cruelties, who could expect this young, energetic reporter to delve into old analysis of yesteryear’s news?

by Ceylon Mooney

I just returned from a brief stay on the Wheels of Justice Bus Tour in Dallas, Lafayette and Memphis. In those 5 days we spoke with hundreds of people in these states and drive our billboard (see pictures) past hundreds of thousands. Normally, my duties as co-coordinator are limited to scheduling and programming; my job is much like a booking agent for bands or touring performers. As you may have read below, the bus breathed its last gasp somehwere 60 miles west of Fort Stockton, TX.

We quickly shifted to our backup transportation, the Wheels of Justice van, which got a quick face-lift: “no war against iraq” on one side, and “end israeli occupation justice and human rights for everyone” on the other. I drove from Memphis to Dallas to meet the crew on March 17th.

In Dallas we did a few programs and met with some unbelievably organized and committed folks from all walks of life working for justice and peace in the middle east and in their own communities, from the Dallas Peace Center to the Crawford Peace House, just 8 miles away from the OTHER house in Crawford you might have heard of (hint hint hint…think of something FAR removed from “peace”). We relied on the love and hospitality of hosts, of friends old and new, in Austin, Crawford and Dallas to scoot our speakers and manager around the state for a few days while they waited for the WoJ van to meet them at a coffeeshop in Dallas.

If you ever wanted to see a SOLID analysis of media bias and Palestine/Israel coverage, visit www.ifamericansknew.org. So many of our presentations are to people VERY unfamiliar with Iraq or Palestine that we often have to really put our best foot foreward in addressing a sympathetic or well-informed audience. Well, media is something that not enough activists know how to navigate or how to work, and Alison Weir’s presentation lays it all out for you, the well-informed or the newcomer. Not only must we confront the media; we have to become the media.

By Kathy Kelly
March 26, 2004

This weekend, I’m preparing for an April 6, 2004 entry into the Pekin FCI (Federal Correctional Institute) in Peoria. I’m one of several dozen people who, on November 22, 2003, crossed the line at the US Army’s military combat training school in Fort Benning, GA. With caring friends, I’ve shared gentle and sometimes nervous laughter as we try to make the best of a difficult reality. “Will you write a book?” asks a sweet sister-in-law. My brother can’t resist chortling, “Yeah! A pop-up book!” and then we’re off on a string of imagined pop-ups over which to giggle. Yesterday, a friend joked about a cartoon he’d seen that showed “the boss” in jail and the unnerved assistants asking, “How long can we say, ‘Sorry, he’s away from his desk.’”

I could be harmed in prison, but that certainly could have happened to me while in Baghdad or several other places I’ve traveled to by choice. I don’t feel anxiety beyond normal fear of the unknown.

The cruelty of prison rests in locking up people who are often already feeling remorse and low self-esteem because of past actions and then heaping upon them more reasons to feel badly about themselves and allowing almost no means to improve their situation. Parents separated from their children, feeling that they’ve screwed up their lives, are often snarled at by counselors and guards who say they should have thought about their loved ones before they started causing trouble. People who’ve committed crimes, often nonviolent crimes which they honestly regret, (mainly related to drug use and drug trade), shouldn’t be free to continue harming themselves or others through drug traffic. But why take away every other freedom, and why employ other human beings to act as “human zookeepers?”

I’ve felt somewhat insulated from attacks on self-esteem while in prison. I’m proud of line-crossings that protest pouring money into the Project ELF nuclear weapon facility in northern Wisconsin that fast tracks Tomahawk Cruise missiles to maim and kill people in Iraq. Likewise, it’s good to be part of the growing group who’ve crossed the line at a military combat training school in Fort Benning, GA. Graduates of the school have been responsible for massacres, assassinations and tortures. People should be crossing these lines every day of the week. No shame, no stigma here.