We Must Raise The Level Of Our Resistance
Excerpted from Lynne Stewart’s letter to the United National Anti-war Coalition (UNAC) conference that took place March 23-25, 2012 in Stamford, Connecticut.
Too many wars, too much death and destruction on both sides…
And our ever-present legacy of these wars? Go down to your local “shelter for the homeless” or state prison and count the veterans… Watch any sport on TV and the ads that sell the glamorous, patriotic life of the military are the best that big money can produce. It attracts, as it is meant to do, the kids this government means to “throw away” in the projects of the big cities, on the farms that can no longer compete, in mines of Appalachia, in the immigrant communities. And these sons and daughters of “someone else” die; they are maimed; they are driven mad, in faraway places where people hate them and the flag they operate under. And then they come home to haunt us.
All of that said, what to do? Can we afford to see these sons and daughters, the victims of a rapacious imperialism, and our brothers and sisters in the invaded/occupied lands at home with children massacred — drones, desolation and despair? Will the concept of this endless war (very profitable for the one percent!) see another generation fed into the meat grinder?
What to do?
We must raise the level of our resistance. As Dan Berrigan, who opposed war on religious and peaceful grounds said, we have to change the complexion of the jails and fill them with protesters. There are many creative ways to impede or halt the war machines; and I know the imaginative movement that spawned the concept of “occupy” can think of new ways, that do not involve going to Washington, hat in hand, to the very legislators who started these wars, continue them, and know the best way to be enriched and re-elected. They believe that we, the opposition, can always be stonewalled; that we are too comfortable and fearful of losing that comfort level – “at least I have a job” – to mount any real resistance.
And yet that is what must be done… Does it mean sacrifice?? Yes. Would you rather stay at home and skip it – probably; but we don’t have that LUXURY. Too many ugly deaths do not allow us to be dropouts in the anti-war resistance! We must rise up and fight back on behalf of all the wasted lives of their wars!
Lynne Stewart, March 16, 2012
[Lynne Stewart is a now-disbarred civil rights and criminal defense attorney. In 2005, she was convicted of conspiracy and providing material support to terrorists for her public advocacy on behalf of her client convicted of terrorism offenses. She is serving a ten year prison sentence. Letters may be sent to Lynne Stewart 53504-054, FMC Carswell, POB 27137, Ft. Worth, TX 76127.]