Willimantic area help needed

[intheflow]

Hello, CT DUers! I'm in Denver now, but am a fairly recent UConn grad. One of my professors forwarded me this, thought I'd post it here to see if anyone can help out. Please disseminate far and wide. Thanks, intheflow

------ Forwarded Message
From: "james.r" <[e-mail]>
Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 17:57:36 -0400
Subject: Request for Support

Dear Friends,
I have been unexpectedly thrust into the center of an ongoing protest of National Guard recruiting at the Willimantic Third Thursday festival and I need your help.

Specifically, I would like all of you who are able to join me in leafleting in front of their booth on July 21 from 6:30 to 9:00 P.M.

Let me explain. Third Thursday is a very popular community and family festival that draws several thousand people from near and far. Main Street is blocked off. Lots of community groups set up booths. There is music and food.

At the May 19 event the National Guard showed up to recruit replete with a Humvee, grenade launcher, and machine gun—the festival organizers later made them put away the weapons after a complaint from Michael Westerfield. They had earlier requested permission—denied—to land a Blackhawk helicopter on the town square.

A local peace group, the Northeast Coalition for Peace and Justice, was able to set up a booth next to them.

My daughter, Magdalena, and I took some leaflets from the peace group on alternatives to military service and handed them out in front of the Guard booth. A sergeant came out and told us to leave. I replied that it was a public street and that he should read the Bill of Rights. He called the police.

The police officer said he thought that there “could be” an ordinance that prohibited us from being there. We said that we had our doubts but agreed to move anyway. All of this took place and was over in about five minutes.

To our great surprise the local newspaper, The Willimantic Chronicle, built up the whole “incident” in several front page stories over the next week, stating that “criminal charges were pending” against us along with Michael Westerfield who had lodged the complaint against the weapons display. The series was capstoned by an editorial against us.

The effect and possibly intent was to associate protest of the war and recruitment with criminality and to intimidate anyone from further protest. That has thrust me into the public spotlight, obliging me not to back down and to keep exercising and defending our right to protest military recruitment in public spaces.

I repeated the leafleting last Thursday briefly until a storm rained the whole festival out. I got a number of thumbs up from passers by. The sergeant at the booth had a different reaction, calling me various anatomical obscene names.

I would like help at the next festival so that we are able to make a stronger statement of opposition to targeting economically depressed towns such as Willimantic for recruitment for this illegal war. The Guard undoubtedly has a legal right to be there to recruit. But we have an equally legal right to make it known that they are not welcome.

Think of it as a roving picket against the war.

We would meet at 6:00 in front of the Willimantic Coop—two blocks north of Main Street (27 Meadow Street). You could bring any leaflets against the war or military recruitment that you wanted to hand out. If you have an antiwar tee shirt, that would be fine. I think that carrying signs, while we would have a right to do so, would be pushing it. We don’t want to disrupt the festival. This is not civil disobedience. Rather it is defending a Constitutional right to free speech through leafleting.

Please let me know if you will be able to participate and feel free to pass this note on to others who might be interested in participating.

Take care,

Jim R.
[e-mail]

[WhollyHeretic]

1. I'll pass the message along

I'll try to make it down there. I'll see if my friends who put out the Hartford Undercurrent will do a story about it.

[LynzM]

2. I can't make it to the next two...

I'll be in class. But I will keep an eye out for this going on and write some supportive LTTE if I see any more stories! I'll also pass this along to Briarius, in case he wants to help :)