From our street corner: Evidence that this IS class-warfare.

[patrice]

About 150 people participated today in a Time For Peace march through the Country Club Plaza Art Fair. The Art Fair is a decades old annual event and draws thousands from the metro area.

The march was organized by the Quakers and Catholic Worker House, who are the heart of our ongoing weekly demonstrations. Today we carried stretchers full of combat boots tagged with soldiers' names and states of origin, and individuals carried pairs of civilian shoes with names and ages of Iraqi dead on them and a few mock coffins. All of us wore signs around our necks that said what the boots and shoes symbolized. It was a funeral march so we walked slowly to the beat of drums, quiet (for the most part) except for our chant "How many more?"

When we prepared for the march earlier, I had pulled a pair of civilian shoes out of the bins with the name Kitwga Hassan Ali and 60 years old on the tag. I held the shoes and the tag out so that people I passed on the sidewalk could easily read the name and age as we marched by. I'm absolutely certain the predominant reaction was somber and sad, except for teenagers and 20 somethings who cheered and clapped us. Several times, older women read the name tag I carried, stopped, and looked down sorrowfully. Later when I talked to other marchers after the march, all of us agreed that the big majority of reactions were good.

One couple, somewhat past prime, but not old, stepped out of an expensive restaurant and began mocking us. I held the name I carried so they could read the victim's age and they said it was better that "they" died before they came here to kill us. Though we are instructed not to debate those who criticize us, this couple followed my part of the group along, saying things to various other marchers, so I broke the rule and asked, "So we're killing people for what they MIGHT do now?" What followed contained some reference to "the blood of Jesus" being more important than anyone's blood, which I just couldn't deal with, so I asked if it was okay for me to kill one of them for what they might do. To which the man responded with a complete non-sequitur, "If you had money, you wouldn't be doing this." I walked away at that point, just couldn't handle it anymore.

We stayed together in the park near the art fair and held our signs along the street for a couple more hours. Traffic was strongly supportive.

It's time for Peace.

[Gormy Cuss]

1. It's really a shame that he showed his hand.

Killing innocent people to protect his money is apparently okay.

If he had a soul, he wouldn't have objected to what you were doing.

[baldguy]

3. Jesus died so he could keep his McMansion & Halliburton stock.

[sweetheart]

2. Overgrown weeds

When the garden is overgrown with weeds,
they block out all the light,
cut them down roots an all if you bleed,
or your bounty will be blight.
Ignorance seems a been takin' seed,
were we better stop, we might...
able dread screed from the seed,
moth uz all back to the light.

A piece of the wealth of dead greed,
belongs to common right,
40 acres of the land at need,
commoner rights, awakens by lead.
Will gods strill be sung,
lost and forever, warmongers stung.

[patrice]

7. NICE! Is that yours?

Kind of Gerard Manley Hopkins-ish with the aliterations and slant rhymes. Nice rhythm. Intellectually teasing.

Pretty cool! Thanks.

[sweetheart]

8. unedited DU

Sometimezz i read back a post with this moniker on it and cringe...o h shit.
issshould not havvvepressed "post message." But such is the back seat of time.

Poetical nonsense for want of an election, immaculate love lost indeed. :cry:

[patrice]

9. Well, don't regret that one.

AND be proud of the courage to experiment and explore with language even if it doesn't always work for others.

I love poetry an dhave memorized several things. They feel like prayer ought to feel to me.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

4. "If you had money, you wouldn't be doing this."

...To which you might have responded: "If you had any conscience you wouldn't be trying to diminish us with ridicule, you'd be supporting us."

[shadowknows69]

21. That does pretty much say it all

I'd like to think if I had money I could still be a human being.

[zeemike]

5. I am K&R this one because it is a good story

It shows a lot of things, one of which how tolerant you can be.
It would have been all I could do to keep myself from getting in his face.
Jesus would have been proud of you. No that is not right, I am sure Jesus is proud of you.

[patrice]

6. We have a strong core group.

We think of our street corner as Church.

[Jcrowley]

10. K & R

[No Exit]

11. Great work!! Incidentally, I also encountered such a couple...

that is, this couple I met at a small gathering... your couple sounds a lot like the couple I met a couple of weeks ago.

There were candidates campaigning, so politics naturally came up. The man, who I guess was some 10-15 years my senior, said, "Are you a republican?" (A loaded question, to say the least!)

I told him--as I have told many here--that I used to be quite the supporter of the republican party (though was never registered as one.) I told him my history of presidential voting... a history which many here would deplore (as I do), but which he agreed with. Then I told him, "But nowadays... let's just say, I'm not a supporter." Whereupon he said--in a defensive tone--"Well, I like President Bush. I think he's doing a great job." I told him I disagreed.

Since I didn't feel like spending much more time talking to these people, I cut to the chase. I said, "You see, I have draft-age sons. I DON'T want them being seized in a draft and sent to the SHITHOLE that is Iraq, to die or be maimed." He did not seem to have a reply. Keeping in mind that these people are constantly trumpeting "family values", I added, "You know, if they take my kids away, what, really, do I have left? Would it matter if I had more money? No. Would it matter if I had whatever else the republicans are promising us? No. Do you understand, sir?"

He didn't really have an answer. The discussion petered out. I hope I gave the sonofabitch something to think about, at least.

And, of course, the unspoken part is that that was JUST THE BEGINNING. The Iraq war was JUST THE BEGINNING of my realization of what a FRAUD the republican party really is. Since that time, I have read horror after horror after horror. We are all familiar with the daily horrors of the * administration and its repukelican rubber-stamp congress. Never again.

[patrice]

17. The difference between you and that fellow is probably a matter

of the ability to see things from a variety of other people's perspectives.

Being more able to put yourself in other's shoes, you're probably also more informed. If you'd got him to say what he thought Bush was doing good at, other than the Invasion of Iraq, he'd probably have little if any other factual information, just buzz words and talking points, evidence of attitudes that are quite often incongruent with behavior.

Really, it's not prejudice, but just a statement of probability based on my personal experience; the generation also-known-as Great is not, on the average, highly characterized by critical thinking applied to self-awareness.

[No Exit]

27. Thank you.

And, you know, I never thought I had it in me.

He wasn't quite old enough to be of "the greatest generation", but was definitely old enough to have been a full-fledged adult in the Vietnam era. As I used to do, he probably bought the old demonization of "hippies" and war protesters of that era; he also probably bought the old one about how "they will destroy us from within"--"they" being "communists" and/or "soulless atheist family-hating blah blah blah whatever".

Well, it turns out that "they" ARE "destoying us from within"--except "they" have turned out to be a very different "they". "They" = fascist types and soulless corporatist profit-chasers.

You clearly have the ability to put yourself in the other person's shoes. It's a valuable ability and I admire it.

[pberq]

28. Good work! - it's important to engage these people

You never know what might happen later - they might start reevaluating things.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

12. Perfect example of the "more money than brain cells" crowd

They'd probably think Bush was a fun guy to have a pre-dinner drink with at the country club.

[mykpart]

13. My son's former employer is very conservative, and

my son used to enjoy debating with him. One day he said, "Well, once you finish college and start to earn some decent money, you'll change your thinking." To which my son replied, "Maybe, but I sure hope that my morals and values are never determined by the size of my wallet!"

[hfojvt]

20. there but for the grace of God ...

It seems to me that I became more radical as I came closer to finishing college and realising that my employment prospects sucked. The naive childhood dream that I was sold on - that I would make decent money doing something that I enjoy, that my University math skills would be in demand was shown to be a tanjed lie. I sorta made decent money for my first year after college - $522 every two weeks take home pay in 1986 with three promotions guaranteed in the next three years, the first one increasing my gross pay by $75 a week. But I found the work to be quite tedious and the work-week to be too long, and I did not like my employer or believe in their purpose.

[iwillalwayswonderwhy]

14. This so reminds me

When I was a teen in the late 60's early seventies, a black family bought a home right across the street from my church. In the dead of the night some of our church members including deaonns went over to the white painted lovely little house and spray-painted nazi symbols and the "n" word. I spoke out about it at a prayer meeting.

A woman tried to explain it to me after church that night, saying that if I understood what this was going to do to house prices in the neighborhood, that I would see there was 2 sides to the story. That I was too young, and without a mortgage or bills to pay, so I would not understand.

I've never gone to church again.

[donco6]

15. Wait a minute.

I have money and I don't think anything like those assholes. This is not class warfare. You're looking for a simplistic dividing line and it doesn't exist.

[Selatius]

16. Nobody argued being rich = being selfish

What people are pissed about are those who would put money first ahead of human dignity and human life. It is greed that is the problem, and when you combine greed with tremendous wealth, you have the mentality as well as the resources to advance your greed at the expense of everyone else. For these people, class warfare is real because they want it for the sake of greed. For the poor, it is equally real, for it is they who suffer most when tax cuts for the rich are given away, which leads to slashing funding in social programs to provide opportunities to the poor.

[patrice]

19. You're right. It is never that simple. I just meant that subject line

as a sort of hypothesis.

It's only class warfare to that couple and those like them, who think money creates a different set of rules for those who have it. John Dean talks about this in his book Conservatives Without a Conscience.

To others with money (BTW, I and my husband do have enough that I don't need to work, though I do anyway because I like my job), it isn't about class warfare. It's about Love and the Human Family.

You are right to object to my hypothesis, because it usually isn't a good idea to accept the struggle on the opposition's terms (like we did with al Qaeda, for example, i.e. "war").

[Solon]

23. Doesn't exist?!?

Please, I guess, with money, you wouldn't understand, then again, maybe you only THINK your on the other side like so many other "working/middle" class people do. Turn a blind eye to class warfare if you want, its not like YOU are the one staring down the muzzle.

[donco6]

26. It was the "dividing line" that doesn't exist.

And only because the concept of "dividing line" is too stark and simple. Everyone over THERE is on THAT side, and everyone over HERE is on OUR side. It just doesn't work that way. It's more like a "dividing general fuzzy grey area that shifts around from time to time."

Of course there are class divisions.

[judaspriestess]

18. Just another red herring reply to your question

"If you had money, you wouldn't be doing this."

WTF does that have to do with anything? Nothing at all. May God have mercy on their sick twisted lost souls. But then again they are driven by GREED on of the seven deadly SINS.
People shouldn't throw stones who live in glass houses.

[raccoon]

29. I think what the insensitive, bigoted, moran meant was,

"If you had money, you wouldn't be protesting. Because the system treated you well, you wouldn't have any problems with the way things are going. It wouldn't matter to you what happens to anybody else."

[NMMNG]

22. The deaths of unimportant strangers are always less important

than your bottom line. :sarcasm:

[Reader Rabbit]

24. Question that should be put to all wealthy folk who claim Christianity:

Expecting to get through that eye of the needle any time soon?

It's beyond me how so many people claim to be Christians, when the only things they really worship are money and power.

[patrice]

25. I wish I had thought to say that!

I always get so upset and then think later of what I should have said.

It would have been great to ask about that camel or say "If you had a heart you would be doing what I'm doing." But we really ARE NOT supposed to insult others while we are demonstrating.

There are many many businesses advertising with fish symbols in their signs, in the yellow pages, and on their advertising materials in our area. I'll bet some churches even publish business directories and sponsor networking events. I'm convinced that research would be worthwhile into, not only how "churches" are violating IRS regulations against political advocacy, but also into an even BIGGER issue in how they benefit from the business relationships that they promote amongst their members. Many churches REALLY are business cartels.