Disrupting Power: A CODEPINK Activist Explains How To Stand On Your Chair & Yell For Justice

[Hissyspit]

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/49585

Disrupting Power: A CODEPINK Activist Explains How to Stand on Your Chair and Yell for Justice

By Gayle Brandeis, AlterNet. Posted March 22, 2007.

One activist's story of finding her courage to speak up to the powerful.

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I remember seeing Medea Benjamin confront Donald Rumsfeld during a hearing on TV several years ago, shortly before CODEPINK was founded; it was my first glimpse of Medea, and I was utterly exhilarated by her courage. I continue to be deeply inspired when I witness CODEPINKers disrupting conventions and hearings and speeches, putting their bodies on the line to speak for peace. I work to promote peace as a writer, but writing from the safety of my home feels very different from standing directly in front of the powers that be and demanding change. Last week, watching footage of our own Midge in her hot pink IMPEACH BUSH shirt standing behind Valerie Plame, I felt such a swell of admiration and pride.

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Jodie Evans arrived, looking like the goddess she is in all her pink glory, shortly after Hilda Solis started to speak. Jodie joined me at the table and we commiserated as Solis pimped No Child Left Behind, Bush's dubious education plan. Solis had some good and important things to say about global warming, about healthcare, but she didn't mention the war or funding at all until the end of her speech. She had been part of a women's delegation to Iraq recently, she said, and soldier after soldier asked her when they were going to come home. One told her he didn't have the light bulbs he needed to look for IEDs at night; one told her he didn't have scissors. When she asked why he needed scissors, he told her he wasn't able to bandage up his buddies without them. She bemoaned the horrible conditions and said she didn't support Bush's war, but then she also talked about how, with the supplemental this week, she had a chance to give the troops the funding they needed. Jodie turned to me and said, "I'm going to be sick." We decided that as soon as Solis' speech was over, we'd carry the DON'T BUY BUSH'S WAR banner to the front of the room.

When we stood up and unfurled the pink banner that had been folded in my backpack, the climate of the room changed: There was both a hush and a crackle of energy. We walked up to the front table, where Solis was shaking hands and having her picture taken. Solis smiled and nodded at us at first, but when we asked her to vote "no" on the supplemental, to not buy the war, her expression changed. She clearly wasn't expecting to be the target of our message. She clearly thought she was doing the right thing with the supplemental. We tried to open her eyes.

As Jodie and I walked out of the room, the audience clapped and cheered, some of them standing, when they saw the banner stretched between us. It was exhilarating to know that the people at large agree with our message, that they don't want Congress to fund Bush's war. I hope Rep. Solis was listening loud and clear to that response. We had a chance to talk with her again as she was leaving the event. She kept insisting that she was not buying Bush's war, but we told her that she was making a grave mistake. We asked her to please vote "no," to please help us end this dreadful war.

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Gayle Brandeis is the author of "Fruitflesh: Seeds of Inspiration for Women Who Write," "The Book of Dead Birds," which won Barbara Kingsolver's Bellwether Prize for Fiction in Support of a Literature of Social Change, and her new novel, "Self Storage." She writes the weekly alert that goes out to over 100,000 CODEPINK members.