January 2012: Our 6th anniversary

[Brian]

Nancy and Anni, part of Montrose Peace Vigil on December 23, 2011.

One Friday this month, Montrose Peace Vigil will meet for the 313th consecutive week on the northwest corner of Ocean View Boulevard and Honolulu Avenue in Montrose, California. The Iraq Study Group had yet to convene when we started in January 2006, a year before the surge, and now almost all U.S. troops have left Iraq. But we're told that they will stay in Afghanistan through 2014.

We continued to average 12 participants each week last year, about the same as in 2010. Our exchanges with people walking and driving by remain overwhelmingly positive, supportive and sometimes effusive. Please feel free to drop by the corner any Friday between 5:30 and 7 p.m. -- or if you can't make it, say hi or anything you'd like on this message board.

[anni]

Let's recall the beautiful thoughts Roberta shared with us on last year's anniversary about the first time she and Nancy stood together for PEACE on our now famous corner. To PEACE, long may we aspire!

Jan 7, 2011 13:14:20 GMT -8 Roberta said:

That first Friday I remember so clearly getting off the UCLA van at about 5pm at the park 'n ride and picking up coffee, to wake me up from my van coma, and to kill time til 5:30. I had my anti-war sign (signs?) in the Prius, knowing I couldn't go home first, for fear I would chicken out.

We've all stood alone there for a few on Fridays til comrades arrived, but that Friday Nancy was right on time, having seen my posting from Progressive Democrats of America or maybe gotten an email from them, since it was their organizing effort which originally got me out there. It was marking some dreadful milestone, maybe 1,000 or 2,000 (U.S. military only of course) dead in Iraq.

The rest, as they say, is history there at the corner!

We have hitched our wagon to other organizing stars, like MoveOn.org, over the years, but really from the beginning most recruits have been people who saw us there and joined on the spot, or came back on another Friday. Despite the not-so warm welcome from some segments of the local business community, we represent the best of Montrose in exercising our civil rights (really responsibilities, to me) there.

[Brian]

With the holidays over, the lights and decorations were gone yet more people were out driving and walking during the latest Montrose Peace Vigil. Nine of our regulars demonstrated this week. The three counter protesters we haven't seen since Thanksgiving returned to the opposite corner.

Thanks to Mike for bringing his auxiliary flagpole for the 15th week in a row, despite suffering a bad cold.

Nov 3, 2011 23:00:19 GMT -8 Brian said:

The American flag is back on Fridays, courtesy of Montrose Peace Vigil.

Every Friday for four of our six years on the corner, the shopping park association has taken down the flag that used to wave 24 hours a day, seven days a week over the Vietnam War memorial installed there in 1968. Mike, an engineer, designed a telescoping flagpole made with light plastic tubes that could reach half way but never leave a mark on the permanent pole. Then he went to the Department of Defense website every week and compiled the press releases announcing those who died, which he posts to explain why our flag is at half mast -- and why we are still there.

I've assumed the solemn duty of publishing the weekly deaths. Logged in members can download the PDF link below, and everyone is invited to register on this message board. Or come to the corner any Friday.

Attachments:

[Brian]

Although the weather was great, the news out of Afghanistan and Iran was horrible. Either way, 11 Montrose Peace Vigil stalwarts came to the corner this Friday. I can't mention enough the continued goodwill expressed to us by so many passing in vehicles or on foot.

This week's Defense Department posting has nine deaths -- the most since we started hoisting our flagpole.

Attachments:

[Brian]

During this Friday's Montrose Peace Vigil, we initiated an addition to our regular protest -- Imagining Peace -- which was developed by Anni and Jeanne in consultation with Paige elsewhere on this message board (in the thread, "Another Movie Night," in the Community section). While Roberta, Jim, Bruce and Louisa continued the long-standing vigil we've observed for six full years along the curb, the rest of us met for 20 minutes of commemoration and contemplation next to the flagpoles.

Anni brought her new Imagining Peace sign along with five feet of Astroturf. I read the names and circumstances of the men who died in the past week from the Department of Defense press releases, as shown in the PDF attachment below. Jeanne told a true story that inspired a song that she wrote and played for us on her acoustic guitar. And Nancy arrived in time for the silent meditation and the discussion that followed about envisioning the future.

I'll have more to say about Imagining Peace in the days ahead. For now, here's the attendance this month:

• Jan. 6 - 9
  
• Jan. 13 - 11
  
• Jan. 20 - 8
  

Attachments:

[Brian]

I gave the who-what-when-where here about our first week of Imagining Peace, but not much about why.

Although my activism has always involved some kind of political outreach, I haven't been totally blind to the inner light that blinks occasionally. The best examples were those times I was handcuffed for trespassing at the Nevada Test Site from 1989-92 -- when I never felt more like a free man. That's why I embraced Anni and Jeanne's ideas for Imagining Peace, especially the few silent minutes that we'd spend doing just that. Last Friday, once I let my workday thoughts go and got over how noisy the corner really is, I found myself spontaneously conjuring images of drivers looking out for each other on freeways and people traipsing across borders in the Middle East that no one felt had to be maintained.

I'm also interested in new ways to reach out to the community along with our regular Montrose Peace Vigil. Coincidentally or not, right after we rolled up the AstroTurf next to the flagpole last Friday and returned to the curb, three distinguished looking retirees stood for several minutes in front of our poster commemorating the soldiers who died in the past week, then exchanged some friendly words with us before walking on. I want to call more attention to our weekly half-mast flag installation. And, as Jeanne pointed out, Imagining Peace could result in more attendees -- she said someone she knows is reluctant to hold a sign in public, even if she advocates the message, but might participate in a different promotion for peace.

Jeanne will miss the second Imagining Peace next Friday because of another engagement, but Anni and I will provide a quorum. We invite you to consider joining us for about 15 minutes or for any part of that.

[Jeanne]

I'll be thinking of you tomorrow night. I'll be at CSUN at a reception for LA students and their art work. I've got two peace mugs in the show. Does that count as holding a sign?

I feel good about our starting a spiritual time and space at the corner. I have told some of my church sisters and invited them to pray with us or from home. I have also invited them to a Palm Sunday Peace March in Pasadena.

www.thepeaceacademy.org/peaceparade/

I have been participating in it for 5 years and I think Roberta has been with me for most of them, if not all. It focuses on the radical acts and street theater approach of Jesus when he rode into Jerusalem and turned the tables over. It starts at a church and ends at a mall. There are families there, singing, and last year there were papier mache doves.I am hoping to add to the numbers this year. I hope you'll think about joining in.

[Brian]

Wind gusts up to 50 mph -- twice as fast as the passing traffic -- greeted Montrose Peace Vigil. We missed some of our greatest stalwarts this Friday for various reasons, but Chris and Frannie returned to the corner after absences of many weeks. I looked it up: the last time any strangers joined us spontaneously was November 25. This month's participants:

• Jan. 6 - 9
  
• Jan. 13 - 11
  
• Jan. 20 - 8
  
• Jan. 27 - 7
  

January's attendance averaged 9 per week -- rounded to the nearest whole peacenik -- compared to 10 in December, 12 in November, 13 in October and 15 last September. The average in January 2011 was 12.

Jim had assembled Mike's three-part telescoping, half-mast flagpole on the grass before deciding the winds were too high to raise and secure it. We also postponed our second Imagining Peace observance, although I read aloud the Pentagon releases about nine deaths in the past week from the PDF attached here:

Attachments:

[martine]

Imagine Peace: