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

[sharpie at riseup.net]

can we link the video of arrests or any of the photos with this? it looks
pretty good, but its a lot of text...

peace
sharpie

> 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?
>
> Read the full article »
> 16 Jun 2005 | Filed under: Commentary / Human Rights : International
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