Peace???

It’s everywhere. Divisiveness. It’s in the Green Party and it’s in the peace movement.

Recently planning groups in Salt Lake pulled off two very successful anti-war actions.

The first was on August 22nd when George W. came to town. A group of people from all political phiolosphies came together and planned one of the largest protests in recent history within a 5 day time period. There was no name for the group and the group did not continue as an “organization” beyond that event. It was truly amazing.

The second was for September 24 End the War in Iraq march and rally. The planning group consisted of a variety of folks, again, but this time under the umbrella of the M19 Committee. (The name “M19” stems from a group that evolved from the organizing of the March 19, 2005 anti-war march and rally.) Some of the most intense discussions during this planning revolved around the wording of the message and what organizations would be permitted to sponsor the event. This event took over 3 months of planning during weekly meetings.

The September 24 event was huge and successful, in my opinion. However, some organizers, people who are represent one organization that claims to be a “coalition” of organizations, are upset due to the fact that a group of “anarchists” (a group of about 20 kids) came from all over, took to the streets (instead of the sidewalk) and confronted police, resulting in some arrests. The upset organizers have placed blame on other organizers (stating that the anarchists had no right to do this and they were not “in line” with the message, etc.) and days later decided to withdraw any future support of the “M19” committee. These same organizers claim that they had a meeting of their organization last week and came up with these three proposals:

1) we think meetings should be in a public place with a decorum suitable
to inviting people from all walks of life in our community

3) we think there needs to be an understanding that M19 is committed to
building a mass action anti-war movement aimed at involving as many
working people as possible, including the related understanding that
encouraging ‘anarchist’ confrontations with the police at marches and
rallies is in contradiction with that goal

Now this is interesting.

Regarding #1: All meetings were held at a local retail shop that sells all sorts of activist items, from anti-war to anti-poverty to pro-union, to gay and lesbian items, etc. The owner of the shop generously offers space to activist organizations who want to meet or show movies.

Regarding #2: The “democratic process” was not followed when these same organizers making these statements made last minute changes against what had been decided upon, including changing the march route, causing multiple problems.

Regarding #3: As someone pointed out to me, #3 contradicts the statement in #1, inviting people from all walks of life in our community. Additionally, this is clearly an attempt to “control” who participates in marches and rallies. Let’s face it. There will always be all sorts of groups participating – the more the merrier! I love the anarchists – they have balls! At any rate, to exclude a group which is anti-war, pro-peace, but just goes about getting the message out in a little bit more aggressive way, is highly inappropriate.

I have also learned, just today, that the same people who claim to have consensus on the above statements/proposals in their “coalition” are against the Department of Peace. What????!!!!????
Also, this “coalition” consisted of about 5 people at their last meeting, not representative of the claimed 20 groups that are listed as coalition “members”.

A local CodePink member has issued a call for the SLC Code Pink group to withdraw its membership from this “coalition” because it did not include all the “members” in making any of these decisions.

I would also like to add this note:
Some of the folks who are involved in the above-mentioned “coalition” who are part of the Beardall Green Party. One of those persons serves as a placeholder for about 4 organizations in this “coaltion”.