MEMO FROM THE EDITOR
MEMO from the Editor Act of Protest As protest actions go, it was no big deal. Early in the morning on the last Monday in August, three friends of ours—Bonnie Urfer, Susan B. Nelson, and Samuel...
...The second game was less exciting but more comforting (to us): The Progressive won 4-to-3...
...It wasn't shut, of course...
...Madison police are old hands at dealing with demonstrations— and with these particular protesters...
...The leaflets consisted of a brief statement, headed No War in Our Name, which read: "We are locking the entrance to the Federal Center in Madison this morning to express our outrage over the Federal Government's hell-bent rush toward war in the Middle East...
...It took only seconds for the police to cut the chains that bound Urfer and Nelson and Day to the Federal building's door...
...See Urfer's "Prisoner of Conscience," May 1989, and Day's "Prisoner on Purpose," January 1990...
...Hi Sam, Hi Bonnie," said the lieutenant in charge...
...Whatever the rights and wrongs of the present controversy in the Persian Gulf, we deplore the Bush Administration's use of threats and intimidation to achieve an outcome favorable to the United States commercial and strategic interests...
...Let's start building a society of peace and justice at home...
...My late friend Ammon Hennacy, a practicing Christian anarchist and pacifist, was marching up and down one day, a solitary demonstrator against nuclear testing...
...Before snapping the padlocks on their manacles, they had posted signs announcing the building would remain shut until President Bush brought the troops home...
...A door was open right next to the one the protesters had barricaded...
...We reject as a matter of conscience the Federal Government's resort to violence and the threat of violence...
...Sam Day and Bonnie Urfer, both former staff members at The Progressive, are seasoned demonstrators who have served prison sentences for "trespassing" at nuclear-weapons sites...
...Wait till next year, we said last year, when the staff of In These Times, the Chicago-based socialist weekly, imposed a humiliating defeat on The Progressive's team in the epic event we call the Annual Softball Grudge Match and Solidarity Celebration...
...What matters more than what we do, I think, is that we do something...
...So why bother to get out the chains and padlocks, why bother to get arrested and perhaps even serve a term in jail...
...They'll be in court in a few weeks...
...The police arrived a few minutes after the protest began...
...We object not only with our words but with our bodies, too...
...Well, next year came on August 4. The home team—us—lost the first game, 21-to-16, after the visitors—them—scored fifteen runs in an incredible sixth-inning rally...
...We withdraw our consent to the use of force and intimidation in our name...
...Sue Nelson works with Urfer and Day at Nukewatch, the peace-education arm of the Progressive Foundation...
...We've argued a lot among ourselves about the advisability and efficacy of such protest tactics...
...It took only minutes to arrest the three for "disorderly conduct" (though their conduct was unfailingly decorous), book them, and release them on their own recognizance...
...military intervention in the Middle East...
...Oh," said Hennacy, "I don't do this to change the world...
...A reporter asked, "Do you really think you can change the world by doing that...
...Early in the morning on the last Monday in August, three friends of ours—Bonnie Urfer, Susan B. Nelson, and Samuel H. Day Jr.—chained themselves to the entrance of the Federal office building in Madison, Wisconsin, where The Progressive is published, to protest the U.S...
...Some of us would rather march and picket, some would make more rigorous efforts to disrupt business-as-usual, some are more inclined to register their protest by writing letters (or editorials...
...conduct in the Middle East...
...Watch this space for news of the ninth annual encounter to be played next summer—and for confirmation (if any) of wild rumors about a possible bowling tourney...
...I do this to keep the world from changing me...
...There was no perceptible immediate impact on U.S...
...Let's stop the military buildup...
...We're grateful to Rob Mead of Madison for a grant that helped underwrite the articles on the health-care crisis in this issue of The Progressive...
...About a dozen of us were on hand to hold up banners or pass out leaflets or just to bear witness to the action...
...MEMO from the Editor Act of Protest As protest actions go, it was no big deal...
Vol. 54 • October 1990 • No. 10
