Activist weekend at Bele Chere (Asheville)

This was posted to Daily Kos at the end of July. I tried to record all the activist work that I did on this weekend that Asheville has Bele Chere.

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The weekend started for me with the writing up a blog post on "A bit of fascism comes to Asheville?" which meant I did not have time to make up the "SIGN PETITION TO IMPEACH" sign. I also did a blog post on Iraq Today, to update that blog on what is going on inside Iraq. By 3 PM on Friday, I left to go to Bele Chere to work for the WNC Campaign to promote the Department of Peace. I worked there from 4 to 6 PM, and in the middle of that we had quite a rain storm. We handed out cards on the Department of Peace and we had members of the general public sign a letter to Representative Shuler, Senator Dole and Senator Burr. If they were from out of state, we had them sign blank forms where we will fill in the Representatives and Senators later.

After that, I hung out for a bit, listening to some music and eating some not-particularly-good festival food, then went home – to read and write on the inner tubes and to answer emails.

One email took a lot of time, just to figure out – some local activist copied something from a republican website in the eastern part of the state, and then sent it to activists in the western part of the state (where we are) and asked them to contact friends in the eastern part of the state to call their NC state senators to vote against a bill in the NC house or representatives. On top of that, I believe the bill was already defeated. Seriously. Some people just go nuts with their cutting and pasting, or something. I have had to drop off of listserves because of behavior like this. Another example from Friday evening: someone from the eastern part of the state cut and pasted an email calling for actions during the week of Hiroshima and Nagasaki anniversaries to various listserves around the state – including one for western NC. Problem is, there ALREADY ARE events planned in Asheville. So, in order to keep people from getting confused , I had to do an email to that listserve. Some people are of the opinion that if they cut and paste everything they find to every listserve they can get their hands on, that will somehow improve things.

No.

It will only keep people like me from getting some real work done.

On Saturday morning, I found out that I would need to do a blog post on Iraq Today, since the regular guy could not cover it. (And I still had not made my sign!) Also, it was raining again, and the precluded getting signatures on petitions anyway. I did the blog posts, did a silly blog post for Daily Kos and my own blog, and then made the sign (finally) saying SIGN PETITION TO IMPEACH. I had to make sure it was (mostly) waterproof. I headed back to the Department of Peace booth to work a couple of hours. They were getting plenty of signers for their letters and the folks working there said a Vietnam war veteran had stopped by earlier and had them all in tears with his stories.

One guy who stopped by while I was there said he was in Fallujah. He was a very young guy with a young wife and baby about a year old. He said repeatedly "being in Fallujah really opened my eyes about the US government" and he also said that there is no logical reason for the US military to be in Iraq, and the only explanation was that "somebody is making a pile of money off this". This was a local guy who grew up in the county, with no exposure to the rest of the world. This was a guy who believed what he was told by his government and schools and the military, until he spent some time in Fallujah. He said he is still in the Ready Reserve, but he was happy to sign for the Department of Peace and totally against this war and occupation of Iraq. I talked with his young wife briefly, and she said that Americans do not understand what he sacrificed and gave up, in order to stay in Iraq for a year. I agreed with her. I told her that he will be making sacrifices for this for the rest of his life. I gave this young veteran my card, and said if he contacts me I will put him in touch with Iraq Veterans Against the War. So far, he has not contacted me.

Then, I and some of my companions saw something very disturbing. Around 6 PM, there was a local nutcase yelling about Jesus. He was wearing sandwich billboards, and he does this every year. I can never figure out why these Jesus preachers feel they have to yell. Anyway, a group of young people gathered around him, and I heard rumors that same sex couples were kissing in front of him to get him worked up. (I would say there is a good chance those couples were hetros, too – some folks just want to stir things up.) They were also yelling back at him. There were about four cops watching this, when I saw one of the cops push a young lady to the ground HARD, and then yelled at her to get out of there and not come back. She got up and ran away. I went up to the Asheville Police Officer later and asked him why he pushed her down, and he lied to my face and said that she tripped. His name was Marpin. I hear that some other folks there (not the young lady pushed to the ground) are asking for remediation with this officer, since he treated them very rudely. He did not treat me rudely; he just lied to my face.

So, great, now we have the Asheville Police joining the Buncombe County deputies in acting like thugs. And then lying about it.

After my couple of hours at the Dept of Peace booth was done, I walked to my car, got the petition sign and the eight clipboards for petitions. Along the way, I changed from my Dept of Peace shirt to my IMPEACH BUSH & CHENEY shirt at WPVM. (They are a way cool radio station, and I recommend listening to them on the web.)

As I was walking back to Bele Chere, I had cars stopping in traffic, insisting on signing the petition. As I got to the festival, one women gave me an evil look and said "you’re wasting your time" – but I set my sign on a newspaper box, and gathered 132 signatures in less than 90 minutes. It was terrific. Since I was by myself and it started getting dark, I took my stuff and went to my car. When home, I did some more reading, writing, commenting on blogs on the inner tubes. And I separated out the petitions and put them in a file, and got the clipboards ready to go again, and put it all back in my car.

Sunday morning, I passed on going to church and instead wrote two letters – on to Sheriff Duncan and one to Chief Hogan, concerning the recent events that took place in our town. I also printed up pictures of bush signing a flag, made a copy for the back of my HONK TO IMPEACH sign and made copies for the Sheriff and the Chief. And, I made a copy for my car window, and put it up there. I put up an upside down flag on the back window also. It goes nicely with my IMPEACH license plates.

I did some more reading, commenting, blogging on Sunday, and then went back down to Bele Chere to work for the Department of Peace campaign. Again, we seemed to get some good responses from the general public. I did not attempt the impeachment petition on Sunday because it was spitting rain before my shift at the Dept of Peace booth, and I was there to close the booth down. While taking down the booth and cleaning stuff up, I answered a call from someone who wants an event scheduled for a veteran from the Vietnam era to speak on impeachment who is coming to Asheville on August 6, 2007. He had gotten my name from an activist in the eastern part of NC. I told him that we already have two events planned on August 6, 2007 and two more events that week, and I also had several meetings to go to that week, on top of working all week, and that I was too busy to plan anything further for that time frame. He replied that we are all busy. (I would guess I am a tad busier than most!) Anyway, I told him that if he got some info to me I would pass it along to the WNC Peace Coalition and the local Vets for Peace group.

So, back home, to blog and post to listserves. The main one I do is a weekly listserve to the WNC Peace Coalition. It is a moderated listserve, so you only get one email a week, which includes events in the area (and a few out of area events on weekends) and announcements for actions or issues, and minutes from the monthly meeting. I posted it on my own blog today, so you can read it here. If you would like to receive this email, please go to the WNC Peace Coalition webpage and sign up for the ACTIVES list.

Also last evening, I wrote a letter to Staff Sergeant Mark Radford (National Guard Armory, 75 Shelburne Road, Asheville, NC 28806). I wrote to him because he was the one who reported on the upside-down flag on the Kuhn’s porch with protest items pinned to it (see blog post from Friday). I sent him a copy of george w. bush signing a flag. I figured he would want to know, since he said:

“Constitutional or not, a flag desecration law is on the books in North Carolina, which is one reason Mark Radford said he decided to alert authorities about the Kuhns' flag. Radford is a staff sergeant in National Guard's Asheville-based 105th Military Police Battalion. He has served in the military for 14 years.

Radford said he first noticed the Kuhns' flag July 20 driving to and from the National Guard unit headquarters. Radford said he is not friends with Scarborough but knows him as a soldier and from seeing him on patrol near the unit headquarters. Radford said Scarborough is not in his unit.

"I'm all about free speech ... and to have all of this stuff in his yard, that would be fine. Nobody really cares," Radford said. "But when you take the American flag ... to do that, it's illegal, but personally, it was disrespectful. I was like, 'Man, too many people have served under that flag.'"

Radford said the flag raised the ire of several soldiers in his unit. He said he told the deputy about the flag Monday. Whether a law is seldom enforced doesn't matter, he said.

"The law is the law, and if we don't follow the rule of the law as a society, where does it go from here?" Radford asked.”

He does not seem to care if something is constitutional or not, just that something he does not like is illegal. Then he can use the law to stifle free speech and to hell with the Constitution of the United States. After all, the "law is the law" and where will things go if we don’t follow the rule of law? Really, I think he would be happier in a place with no constitutional rights on free speech or political protest, like Russia maybe.

I got this in an email today: There has been much ado about the flag issue in WNC over the weekend, and the TV news clips are posted on YouTube. (Thanks, Christian for sending that!)

Today, I have a HONK TO IMPEACH action at 5 PM at Flint Street bridge (canceled if it is raining hard). I will be flying the flag - upside down. I hope to get to the Fine Arts at 9 PM to hand out flyers after SICKO on health care in America and what we can do about it. These flyers come from Progressive Democrats of America, another fine organization. I am state coordinator for PDA in North Carolina and a congressional district rep for them.

Also, I have blog posts to do on Iraq Today and News about Afghanistan and of what is happening to the Iraqi people. Here are the weekly events in Asheville:

PEACE VIGILS
Sunday, 5:30 to 6 PM All Souls Episcopal Church [Biltmore Village]
Tuesday, 5 to 6 PM Vets for Peace Vigil [Vance Monument]
Wednesday, 4:30 PM Haywood Neighbors for Peace at Waynesville Post Office
Wednesdays, 5:30 PM Votive Mass for Peace at St. Mary Episcopal Church in Asheville
Friday, 5 to 6 PM Women in Black Vigil A’ville [Vance Monument]
Friday, 12 to 12:30 PM Women in Black Vigil H’ville [Main St at Old County Court House]
Saturday, 12 to 1 PM Transylvania County Vigil for Peace [County Courthouse]
Other: Tuesday, 6 PM Run for Peace; Run for Impeachment at Vance Monument
Other: Food Not Bombs: 3:30 on Saturday at Pritchard Park. Info at 303-929-9713
Other: HONK TO IMPEACH on Flint Street bridge from 5 to 5:30 on Mondays – till Labor Day

And you can find other local events on my own blog. Please join us if you are in the area!

And I hope to write up a letter or op-ed on this flag incident for the local paper. And write a letter asking for a meeting with Rep. Shuler in August – for the Peace Coalition. And deliver that letter - so many outrages, so little time!

Bonus: Free downloads of local music at http://www.mountainX.com/music - brought to you by Mountain Express. And I know it takes time to read all of this, so thank you for reading – but keep in mind that time on the streets is likely way more important.