Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2003 12:49:49 -0500
From: "Michael Hoover" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Subject: Anti-war Movement Amazes its Adherents
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Posted on Mon, Mar. 10, 2003
"The neighborhood groups are one facet of a grass-roots peace movement that
has no single leader, headquarters or hierarchy. Rather, it exemplifies the
sort of decentralized network that social theorists call 'heterarchies,'
said Linda Jean Kensicki, an assistant professor in the school of
journalism and mass communication at the University of Minnesota."
Anti-war movement amazes its adherents
BY KERMIT PATTISON
Pioneer Press [Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN]
Sherri LaRose, Pioneer Press
<http://www.twincities.com/images/common/spacer.gif>
Rachel Goligoski, left, and Anne Benson worked to mobilize Merriam Park
neighborhood residents in their opposition to military action against Iraq.
Rachel Goligoski and Anne Benson weren't quite sure what to expect
when they invited some of their St. Paul neighbors to talk about war
and peace.
They figured 15 people might respond when they advertised the first
meeting of Merriam Park Neighbors for Peace. Then 60 people showed up.
"I was so happy I could have cried," recalled Goligoski. "The
neighbors just kept pouring into this little meeting room in the
basement of the Merriam Park Library. The librarian came down and
said, 'You're way over the fire code and will have to wrap up this
meeting.' "
Such neighborhood groups have emerged as the building blocks of the
movement opposing war against Iraq, establishing a block-by-block
presence in some areas with lawn signs, house meetings and petitions.
There are roughly 25 Neighbors for Peace chapters in the Twin Cities,
many of which formed within the past few weeks, said Kathleen Schuler,
a member of the Neighbors for Peace coordinating committee.
"Usually organizing is like pulling teeth, but this basically was
completely organic," said Schuler. "People just took it and ran with
it. It's really a perfect example of democracy, because we have every
right to speak to our elected officials about how we feel about this
war.''
The Merriam Park group is one of the more dramatic examples. After
getting kicked out of the library, organizers moved to a nearby church
and got to work. Within five days they blanketed the neighborhood with
5,000 fliers and drew 200 people to their first public event, a speech
by peace activist Phil Steger.
"We're hoping to educate our neighbors about what's really going on,"
said Benson. "What's really going on isn't what the Bush
administration is telling us. Saddam Hussein isn't a direct threat to
our country. The inspections, although slow and frustrating, are
working and there's really no need to race toward war."
The neighborhood groups are one facet of a grass-roots peace movement
that has no single leader, headquarters or hierarchy. Rather, it
exemplifies the sort of decentralized network that social theorists
call "heterarchies," said Linda Jean Kensicki, an assistant professor
in the school of journalism and mass communication at the University
of Minnesota.
"It's diffuse and spread out among all types of different groups,"
said Kensicki. "It's enabled mobilization efforts to reach places it
just couldn't before. It's pulling from different parts of the
community, and not just angry college students that protested back
during Vietnam. I went to the protest here a couple weeks ago where
you saw grandparents with children."
Kensicki said the anti-war movement had gained momentum with
unprecedented speed due to the Internet and rapid communications.
"In Vietnam and the civil rights movement, it was years and years
before it got to the level of consciousness that it appears this has
already," she said. "And the thing is, we're not even at war yet. It's
pretty profound. To think this sort of outpouring would happen before
a declaration of war or a shot has been fired."
One night last week, leaders of four Neighbors for Peace groups
gathered around the dining room table of a Minneapolis duplex. They
included a pharmacist, a social worker, an environmental health
specialist and a worker from a natural foods co-op who had never met
until the threat of war prompted them to form peace groups in their
respective neighborhoods.
"One of the new things that's exciting about this groundswell is that
it feels like it's door-to-door," said Paris Dunning, who helped form
a peace group in the Whittier neighborhood of Minneapolis. "It's my
neighborhood. There's something for each of us to do in terms of
gigantic actions and rallies, small meetings and working
face-to-face."
Another committee member, Christoper DeAngelis, said the movement has
brought together organizers from labor, environmental and peace groups
as well as those who had never been politically active.
"All this infrastructure and experience was there," he said. "It's
incensed everybody and touched everybody's nerves. They don't feel
they are being represented and saw something wrong being done in their
names. They see their issues direly affected by the march toward war."
The committee worked late into the night assembling anti-war petitions
from peace groups across the Twin Cities. Members stuffed copies into
envelopes and addressed them to their senators, governor and President
Bush.
By the end of the evening, they had tallied resolutions from 22
different neighborhood groups and more than 800 signatures. It was,
they hoped, a small effort that would resonate with something much
larger.
"This is probably the hugest public outcry or mobilization I've seen
in my lifetime," said Joel Albers, who helped form a Neighbors for
Peace chapter in the Marcy-Holmes area of Minneapolis. "It's certainly
the biggest since Vietnam, I would say. This movement gets stronger
with each successive threat of war."
