by Melissa Hill

VFP members and others, from left to right are, Bruce Berry, Charlie Bloss, Barry Riesch, Wayne Wittman, Camille Lenling, Anne Bellamy, Coleen Rowley, Gerald Ganann, Melissa Hill, Kevin Ray Smith, Molly Culligan, Bob Palmer, Steve McKeon and Toni Radmann. Also attending from Minnesota, Bob Heberle, Jack Neis, Janice Ward.

132 arrested including eight from Minnesota.

On December 16th 2010, the day that Obama was to release an report on the Afghan war, seventeen people from Minnesota including the author of this article traveled to Washington D.C. to support an open act of civil resistance. While this event got a splattering of coverage from the media including a few local interviews with people in our group from AM950 and The Uptake , the action was organized nationally by the Veterans for Peace and endorsed by various groups wanting to stop the wars and occupations being fought and funded by the U.S. government.

At a press conference the day before , a small number of media showed up to hear Daniel Ellsberg, whistle-blower of the Pentagon Papers, Ray McGovern, ex-CIA analyst, Leah Bolger of Veterans for Peace and others talk about the urgent need to stand up for peace at the next day's action. With the urgency and increase of troops and resources directed in Afghanistan, political prisoner Bradley Manning's deteriorating health due to being held in solitary confinement for months, Ellsberg and others felt that this is the time to end the war now and that we must be willing to clog the machine as much as we can.

Our group from Minnesota headed towards Lafayette Park for a rally and solemn silent march in honor of all those who have died in our empire's wars. Minnesotan participants included Steve McKeon, Jack Neis, Gerald Ganann, Barry Riesch, Coleen Rowley, Melissa Hill, Janice Ward, Camille Lenling, Molly Culligan, Bruce Berry, Bob Heberle, Bob Palmer, Charlie Bloss Anne Bellamy, Kevin Ray Smith, Toni Radmann, Wayne Wittman of whom 15 are pictured in our group photo (insert photo). We broke through the barriers and got onto the white house fence as this video shows. Besides standing in front of the white house sidewalks, holding signs, chanting or singing, throwing signed cards and a few DVDS full of wikileaks documents onto the White House lawn, some people were also willing to attach themselves to the white house fence or a nearby lamp post. At least five people caused the police to take out the heavy machinery such as a bolt cutter and metal grinder to break the chains that bind them to the fence. This of course delayed the process of their arrest - and with a larger than expected crowd of people willing to risk arrest - there were some of us out there for over four hours in the snowy weather.

I was 130 of 132 arrestees. Though as one of the last arrestees, I spent the least time under their control. By the time I got handcuffed, I was put in the back of a paddy wagon (buses ran out) with a group of nine of us including Chris Hedges,an award-winning journalist who was also participating in this act of civil resistance and gave a great speech at the rally before the action. Unlike my last arrest when I had no intention to be arrested, this time I participated in this action with full knowledge that we will likely be arrested in an act of civil resistance.

The day after some of us who decided to fight the charges were forced to go back to the US park police office to receive a court date for our citation. With people arriving at 8 a.m. to see if they could get a routine court date - we didn't get out there until 2 p.m. due to the "system being offline" and a clerk who didn't arrive until 10 a.m. that morning. After many requests for a bathroom break and some people calling attorneys and their congressional offices, we were finally allowed to use the bathrooms, which turned out be the same port-a-potties in the mass arrest processing area - that some of us had access to the last night of the arrest. I snapped these few cell phone photos when they opened up the gates. (insert photos)

Not forgetting that it was the holiday season, the raging grannies from Massachusetts were also there waiting for court dates from the arrest. So we decided to practice some of their holiday carols including this new one, "Lies, Lies, Lies". After a few rounds of holiday tunes redone in anti-consumerist and peace themes, the US park police finally came out to tell all of those who weren't waiting for a court date to stop singing in the doorway.

Those who refused to pay the fine are expected to be on trial sometime in the Spring of 2011. Two Minnesotans will be amongst this group who will be fighting the charges. All of those arrested at the White House on December 16th were charged with "failure to obey a lawful order".

A Call to Freedom.

by Gerald Ganann

It is begun. The power of the people of the United States of America has been reduced to active civil resistance, and Veterans for Peace has stepped into the breach with flags flying.

At 10AM on the morning of Thursday, December 16, 2010, five hundred or more veterans and supporters gathered in Lafayette Park across from the White House. As the snow began to fall, one brave American after another, spoke to the assembled crowd. They spoke of the horrors of war, and the failures of our government to heed the will of the people to redress the course of criminal behavior the Bush/Cheney regime had charted for our country. And the snow continued to fall.

Many of us were holding dual-sided signs we had assembled the previous evening at St. Stephen's Church. The sign on one side featured a picture. On the left of the picture you could see the lower body of an American soldier in desert camo, and the barrel of his weapon with a flashlight mounted on it. On the right, illuminated at the edge of the circle of light, was a small Iraqi girl, maybe two or three years old. She is crying hysterically and the floor around her, her face and hands, are stained with the blood of her parents, who have just been killed before her very eyes. The blood matches the red flowers on her dress.

The horrors of war ... And the snow continued to fall.

They spoke of the obscene costs of war; to those in the military whom we ask to commit these monstrous acts; to the peoples of Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan and Yemen; and to the people of the United States of America. They spoke in support of Bradley Manning and Julian Assange, and against the real criminals who have brought this carnage on the world, and who continue it.

They spoke, all of them, the old soldiers and the young soldiers and the citizen activists, to my heart and to my soul. And like everyone else standing in the cold that morning, I was moved by the words because I knew they were true.

And the snow continued to fall as Dan Ellsberg warned of a Vietnamistan that would last beyond the lives of our children, and Ray McGovern recalled the wisdom of Martin Luther King and Daniel Berrigan, and Mike Prysner extolled those on active duty not to deploy to illegal wars justified by reasons that those who had been there knew to be lies, and Chris Hedges spoke of active resistance as our last hope to avoid the disintegration of civil society in our country. And then Delaney Bruce from Friends of Peltier began to speak of the long history of betrayals of Native Americans by our government. And when she said,"... the Bill of Rights is just another broken treaty," the words struck me like bullets. My eyes filled with tears and my heart ached like it would break. In closing, she said,"In Indian way, the first snow is the time to make new tracks ... time for Obama to make new tracks." And the snow continued to fall.

When Debra Sweet and Brian Becker and Medea Benjamin and all of the speakers had finished, we were called to attention and the order given to present arms, a sign of respect. Many of the assembled veterans rendered salutes as Bill Homans (Watermelon Slim) blew taps on his harmonica. After the order arms command was given, they folded the U.S. flag and the procession began.

We proceeded single file, silent except for a funereal drum beat led by Bruce Berry. With an array of large white Veterans for Peace flags leading the way, fluttering in the snowfall, we marched around Lafayette Park to the fence in front of the White House. It was a spiritual end to the rally, as we made new footprints in the freshly fallen snow.

The barriers that had been placed in front of the fence were quickly breached, and many of us mounted the low footing wall and stood with our backs against the fence. The police, some mounted on horseback, watched as the rest of the veterans and supporters gathered in the wide avenue in front of us, singing, chanting and waving their signs in solidarity. Some on the footing wall had handcuffed themselves to the fence. Elliot Adams locked himself to the fence with a Kryptonite bike lock around his throat. Others assisted Bill Homans in padlocking himself to a lamp post in heavy chains. We all waited, as the snow continued to fall.

Finally, some of the police started arranging the barriers to cordon off the arrest area, while others struggled in the falling snow to erect two canopies for processing the arrestees (to catcalls from the veterans). Behind those activities the buses borrowed from the MTA idled. Then the warnings started, the bullhorn blaring that if we didn't disperse we would be arrested.

And still we waited. Whatever was going to happen, we were committed. The previous evening at St. Stephen's, the lawyers had described what we could probably expect and it sounded fairly benign. But from this person and that came other stories of what had happened to them or their friends or acquaintances that sounded anything but benign. The truth was that we had no idea what to expect. We were throwing our bodies into the machine and would be at its mercy. But we were committed, convinced that no matter what happened to us, this was necessary. Our morals and our principles would be our guide, and we would pay whatever cost came due.

And the snow continued to fall.

Then they started arresting us, cuffing our hands behind our backs with heavy plastic restraints and escorting or dragging us to the canopies for initial processing. We were identified and photographed, then led onto a bus or paddy wagon for transportation to the jail.

By 5:30 that afternoon, I had paid my fine, my belongings had been returned, and I was ejected into the parking lot of the Anacostia Station. I walked up to the road and found the cars of those who had volunteered to support the people who had been arrested. I had a bottle of water and something to eat while I talked with Debra Sweet. She told me I had just missed Coleen Rowley who was going to get our van. The snow continued to fall, but for me it was over. My trip through the bowel of the beast was done. ... This time.

The experience had been pretty much what the lawyers had told us to expect. No it wasn't as bad as some of the stories we'd heard, but it wasn't a walk in the park either, and there had been a fair amount of discomfort. But the most difficult thing for me was placing myself in the custody and control of the authorities; relinquishing my personal freedom. I had promised myself on the day I was discharged, having survived two years as the property of the U.S. Army, that I would never again allow myself to be so controlled and constrained. I was only able to break that promise, even for a short time, because I truly believed it was necessary.

The entire experience has had a profound effect on me. In the days and weeks that followed, I kept thinking about and analyzing it. I had been firmly convinced for some time now that massive non-violent civil resistance is the only course open to any significant change. And I now hope with all my heart that the action on December 16 was the beginning of a movement that will grow to encompass Americans of all stripes, and spread to urban centers all over the nation, and that regardless of the number of organizations involved, the actions continue to be"... led by the Veterans for Peace."

It's time to make new tracks.