[Boston-editorial] new feature: Why We Were Arrested

[Matthew Williams]

This was originally posted as a comment to my article, but I thought it 
was worth promoting to feature status, given that Joe seems to have put 
a fair amount of work into it and it's a fairly thoughtful piece. -- 
Matt

Why We Were Arrested
by Joseph Gerson, American Friends Service Committee, JGerson (nospam) 
afsc.org

Yesterday afternoon, as I tried to make my middle aged bones 
accommodate the uncompromising metal cot in my jail cell on the men’s 
block of the Cambridge police station, I found old New England and 
national history floating through my mind. During the 1848 U.S. 
invasion of Mexico, Emerson had asked Throreau, (who had refused to pay 
war taxes), what he was doing in jail. And, as we learned in school, 
Thoreau’s response was what was Emerson doing outside the bars.

Many of my friends and colleagues from the American Friends Service 
Committee, the Quaker-based peace, justice, reconciliation and 
development organization, had joined a peaceful protest on the city’s 
centuries old common. Two of us, a photographer friend, and four 
younger activists ended up in the slammer.

What happened? Last Thursday evening, a friend called with news that it 
had just been announced that a Blackhawk helicopter, the Under 
Secretary of the Army and a lot of other military hullabaloo would be 
descending on Cambridge Common, ostensibly to celebrate the Army’s 
230th anniversary. Interestingly, the Army hadn’t bothered to show up 
to celebrate the 200th or 225th anniversaries!) What the military, 
desperate for recruits, had in mind was an extravaganza to reignite its 
sagging recruitment efforts. Finding it nearly impossible to recruit 
young men and women to kill and to die as occupiers in Iraq and 
Afghanistan, the military was anxious to gin up its system. By coming 
to Cambridge, after years of being unwanted here, the military wanted 
to show that it was on the offensive. The piece de resistance would 
come at night with the televised induction of new army recruits in 
Fenway Park, the home of the World Champion Boston Red Sox. Had Leni 
Riefenstahl risen from the dead to produce more military propaganda?

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16 Jun 2005 | Filed under: Commentary / Human Rights : International