From: Joseph Catron (joseph@mutualaid.org)
Date: Mon Oct 21 2002 - 19:13:49 EDT
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [starhawk] Code Pink: Unreasonable women's call to action
From: Starhawk <stella@mcn.org>
Date: Sat, October 19, 2002 4:25 pm
To: <livrive@yahoogroups.com>, <rwto@yahoogroups.com>,
<rspider@yahoogroups.com>, <nowto@yahoogroups.com>,
<starhawk@lists.riseup.net>
Code Pink: Womenıs Pre-Emptive Strike for Peace
Call to Action
We call on women around the world to rise up and oppose the war in Iraq.
We call on mothers, grandmothers, sisters and daughters, on workers,
students, teachers, healers, artists, writers, singers, poets, and every
ordinary outraged woman willing to be outrageous for peace.
Women have been the guardians of lifenot because we are better or purer
or more innately nurturing than men, but because the men have busied
themselves making war. Because of our responsibility to the next
generation, because of our own love for our families and communities and
this country that we are a part of, we understand the love of a mother
in Iraq for her children, and the driving desire of that child for life.
Our leaders tell us we that we can easily afford hundreds of billions of
dollars for this war. But in the United States of America, many of our
elders who have worked hard all their lives now must choose whether to
buy their prescription drugs, or food. Our childrenıs education is
eroded. The air they breathe and the water they drink are polluted.
Vast numbers of women and children live in poverty.
If we cannot afford health care, quality education and quality of life,
how can we afford to squander our resources in attacking a country that
is no proven immediate threat to us? We face real threats every day:
the illness or ordinary accident that could plunge us into poverty, the
violence on our own streets, the corporate corruption that can result in
the loss of our jobs, our pensions, our security.
In Iraq today, a child with cancer cannot get pain relief or medication
because of sanctions. Childhood diarrhea has again become a major
killer. 500,000 children have already died from inadequate health care,
water and food supplies due to sanctions. How many more will die if
bombs fall on Baghdad, or a ground war begins?
We cannot morally consent to war while paths of peace and negotiation
have not been pursued to their fullest. We who cherish children will
not consent to their murder. Nor do we consent to the murder of their
mothers, grandmothers, fathers, grandfathers, or to the deaths of our
own sons and daughters in a war for oil.
We love our country, but we will never wrap ourselves in red, white and
blue. Instead, we announce a Code Pink alert: signifying extreme
danger to all the values of nurturing, caring, and compassion that women
and loving men have held. We choose pink, the color of roses, the
beauty that like bread is food for life; the color of the dawn of a new
era when cooperation and negotiation prevail over force.
We call on all outraged women to join us in taking a stand, now. And we
call upon our brothers to join with us and support us. These actions
will be initiated by women, but not limited to women. Stand in the
streets and marketplaces of your towns with banners and signs of
dissent, and talk to your neighbors. Stand before your elected
representatives: and if they will not listen, sit in their offices,
refusing to leave until they do. Withdraw consent from the warmongers.
Engage in outrageous acts of dissent. We encourage all actions, from
public education and free speech to nonviolent civil disobedience that
can disrupt the progress toward war.
A Code Pink Diary
By Starhawk
Tuesday, October 1, 2002
I am mostly thinking about how to perhaps take in a museum and go to the
airport when I drive over to meet with Medea Benjamin of Global
Exchange, to talk about organizing around the war in Iraq. Iım in
Washington DC, staying on for a day or two after the actions around the
World Bank and
International Monetary Fund. The war vote is coming up in Congress in
the coming week. Medea is hanging out with Diane Wilson, who has been
organizing in her home state of Texas against major toxic polluters,
Mary Bull, who spearheads Save the Redwoods/Boycott the Gap, Margo
Bielecki who is a climber and activist from California. Weıre joined
later by Jodi Evans and Carolyn Casey, astrologer, writer and host of
the Visionary Activist radio show.
I was thinking in terms of a leisurely breakfast conversation about long
term organizing. I was definitely not thinking about doing an
actionIıd spent Friday morning on the streets with the Pagan cluster
marching as part of the Anti-Capitalist Convergence actions to shut down
DC. By nine AM, we were in jailwhere weıd remained for thirty-six
hours, missing the events of Saturday. On Sunday, weıd marched for
peace. On Monday, weıd done press conferences and media work. I was
ready to go home.
But by the end of the afternoon, Iıd postponed my flight, helped to
dream up a series of actions for the next day, written a call to action,
scouted at least one of our action sites, helped to make signs and
banners, and recruited the remaining Pagan cluster men as our support
team.
Wednesday, October 2
We wake up too early, once again. Dear Goddess, why canıt we do midday
actions? But we troop downtown in organized fashion to the White House
gates, where Senate leaders are supposed to pass through to meet with
the President. We are wearing pink T-shirts or pink sashes that say NO
WAR!" We unfurl anti-war banners against the fence. Diane Wilson, an
amazingly brave and athletic woman older than me, leaps lightly up onto
one of the gate posts and unfurls a banner. She gets arrested, but also
gets on major news media.
After checking what is going to happen with her, we move out, regroup,
have coffee. We go on to the Capitol steps. This is the site we have
not scoutedto our deep regret, because just where weıve called a press
conference, the entire side is under construction and blocked. However,
we gather our supporters on the House side, and some media does indeed
turn up. We march up to the steps, unfurl a banner. Several members of
our team strip down to dove-covered bras and underwear, and we begin our
radical cheer:
"Weıre putting our bodies on the line,
You Congresspeople better get some spine,
We say Stand Back,
Donıt attack,
Innocent children in Iraq!
We say Stand Back,
Donıt attack,
Innocent children in Iraq!
We say No!
To war!
We say No!
To War!
We say No!
To War!
Peace is what weıre calling for!
And a little call and response at the end:
We donıt want to bomb Iraq,
We want to take our country back!
We donıt want your oil war,
Peace is what weıre calling for!
Osama Bin Laden we hear you say,
Bomb Iraq and make my day!ı
We hand out flyers to Congresspeople coming through, and astound and
possibly horrify an entire civics class from a high school in North
Carolina. Again, we get media. No one gets arrested.
4 PM.
I have to leave, to catch my already postponed flight. But Medea and
the others get into the hearing that will mark up the bill in the House
to open debate on the war. At an opportune moment, they strip off their
blouses, reveal their T-shirts, and start chanting our No War in Iraq
chants, disrupting the hearing. Medea does get arrestedpossibly
because this is the second hearing sheıs disrupted in two weeks, but the
others are simply escorted out.
Conclusion:
The war vote has happened, but the war has not yet begun. The half
dozen of us involved in planning the actions and putting out this call
are, indeed, wild, unreasonable, awesome and outrageous women. But we
are not alone! We know that there are thousands, hundreds of thousands
like us out there, in cities and small towns and farms all across the
US.
Imagine if we all rose up, if we all committed a few outrageous acts of
rebellion against this forced march to war. If we kept our opposition
visible, creative, nonviolent but still right in the face of power.
Imagine a blast of pink in your town council meeting, a pink attack on
your local oil company or gas station, a pink witness in the downtown
shopping mall. Last week, a group of youth erupted from the audience of
a live show on MTV with an antiwar message. Think of all those womenıs
talk shows.pink T-shirts under that long sleeved blouse, anyone?
This is a Code Pink Alert: meaning an immanent threat to peace, and to
the values of compassion, nurturing and tolerance that caring women (and
men!) hold dear.
Code Pinkitıs a movement you can start yourself. All it takes is a
scrap of pink cloth, a little paint, and an outrageous refusal to be
silenced.
(What--you don't know how to plan an action? See the website for
advice.)
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