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In Solidarity and Love--Resist!

Chicago activist and Indymedia reporter, June C. Terpstra, calls for the first war resistance movement of the 21st century

Last night my daughter and grandson picked me up so that I could see the candle light vigil that was held in Evanston, Illinois. Evanstonians lined Ridge street from Howard to Church with candles and flags. My daughter said she needed me to see that people were really good. I asked her whether she thought the flag waving meant the people of Evanston, often called "progressive," meant they were supporting war. She said, no, she thought they were saying that the Evanstonians were expressing their unity in mourning for the victims of the horror in NY and that they were saying we are unified as Americans from the U.S. I pray she is right.

In the midst of all the talk about America's first war of the 21st century and bombing people into oblivion, my beautiful daughter wanted to remind me that people are good. I must admit that I need to be reminded right now for I am sickened by the death and destruction in NY which I believe to be a direct cause of USA imperialism, the manufacturing of consent for war and hatred that is being worked on the people here in the USA, the reported attacks on mosques and Middle Easterners here in Chicago, the rumors of tenured professors who are saying that they will change the way they teach so they do not get targeted by the state, and, most of all my fear of any possibility of my own loved ones suffering the terrors of war the way in which so many of my brothers and sisters suffer today in the Middle East, Latin America and Africa.

As I listen in absolute disgust and disbelief at the blatant lies of the corporate media and frantically search out the voices of those who know better on alternative Internet web sites. I am also anguished by my own personal knowledge of what it means to rage at loss and murder, I understand the pain of all families everywhere who lose their precious loved ones. Fifteen years ago, my dear sister, Jan, was murdered in South Haven, Michigan. My response was not a tempered one. I know what it is to want to strike out in pain and rage and blindly destroy. This example of my own individual experience does not compare to the devastation of thousands in NY, Iraq, Palestine, the Sudan, or the destruction that will surely come with this first war of the 21st century.

Those who know me, know that I understand pain, rage, resistance and even that deep, burning, sorrow-filled place in my heart that longs for vendetta. In spite of an intimate knowledge of this longing to quench the pain and grief of loss by striking back, I hold a greater vision of a world that embraces each and everyone of us, especially the "wretched of the earth." I am calling on the people of the USA to understand every single part of the grief and rage they feel and embrace those across the earth who have also experienced this pain and rage when the overlords have paid and sponsored their destruction for profit and greed and from that place make the connection to the heart of the matter, our collective suffering hearts. It will not make the suffering cease to allow the ruling classes and their governments, "our" government, to plunge us into a war which will only cause more anguish and destruction.

Please, where ever you are, join me in the first war resistance movement of the 21st century.

In solidarity and love,
June C. Terpstra
 
 

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