I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy

Hurrah for a day off in the middle of the week! After sleeping in until 6:45 (six forty-five! Can you believe it?) and watching two episodes of I Love Lucy that I've never seen before (can you believe it?), we spent our day at an anti-war demonstration called Operation First Casualty, put on by Iraq Veterans Against the War.

I'm a pretty jaded and cynical activist who goes back a few years. I cut my teeth at the 1983 encirclement of the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant, I was an active participant at my university's Shantytown protesting South African apartheid in the late 80s, and was a planner and participant in demonstrations and civil disobedience during the first Gulf War.

I'm one of those that believes that the left has to get its shit together because how we demonstrate negatively impacts our effectiveness. People tune us out the second they hear Give Peace a Chance or If I Had a Hammer at yet another one of our rallies. Little has changed since the 1960s in terms of how we conceptualize our presence and how we communicate our message. As a result, I haven't been terribly involved in the protest movement for this Gulf War but I am proud to say I've spoken out loudly against it since before it was started, and before poll numbers indicated that 70% of us thought it might actually be a bad idea.

But today was different. IVAW put the word out that today's event was focused on guerrilla theater and I confess that I rolled my eyes. I've seen some good guerrilla theater in my time and some really bad guerrilla theater. This one was great.

A group of Iraq vets, in desert fatigues, served as the soldiers (duh) and another group, identified by their white t-shirts, were the Iraqi civilians. They started near the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial in Civic Center Park, with the soldiers re-enacting foot patrols coming upon Iraqi citizens. Even with the backdrop of a gorgeous, sunny Denver day, it was startling to see uniformed soldiers throwing people to the ground, binding their hands, and covering their heads.


This scene was repeated throughout downtown Denver for about 90 minutes with the civilians heading off ahead of and on a different route from the soldiers. The civilians would gather in a public area (in one case, right in front of a lot of conventioneers eating outside at Corner Bakery...) and the soldiers would approach and attack. Following our group, were people handing out postcards explaining what was happening and why. (Super smart.) People on the street were actually reading the cards, watching the action, and asking questions of the vets about their time in Iraq. One man who did so actually joined the group.


The culmination was a press conference held on the front steps of the downtown recruiting office. The heartfelt speeches were short and to the point. The goal of IVAW is to return soldiers home from Iraq safely and swiftly, to take care of them when they return, and to help the people of Iraq rebuild what has been destroyed. The three Iraq war vets who spoke are clearly distressed about where we're at today. They were all proud to join the military and serve their nation, as so many before them, but they now feel betrayed by an administration of lies and they want to affect change.




While I suspect many of our political beliefs are different, I applaud these young men who are working so hard to get the word out about the lies and deceptions. Their action today was so well executed and I'm proud to have been a part of it. To me, this is what Independence Day is all about.