SOWING THE SEEDS OF PEACE

St Augustine People for Peace and Justice was formed six months before the illegal invasion of Iraq in October, 2002. Back in the day, we had hundreds at rallies and demonstrations. When I came to St Augustine 3 years ago, at the candlelight vigil in 2006, on the 3^rd anniversary of this immoral and illegal invasion, we had 50 people. This year, March 19, 2009, we got 25 people to show up and about half were not even our members. We’re still around; we still demonstrate monthly. We still have death, destruction and despair. So what has happened? What has changed?

I started a garden this spring, determined to learn how to grow my own food. I needed a lot of help, did a lot of reading and talking to gardeners and it struck me how much a seed depends on so many factors to grow and thrive. Then I started thinking about the peace movement and wondering why IT isn’t growing and thriving.

HOW CAN THIS BE, when the steady drenching rain of tears forces our seed to germinate and break through the surface to grow towards the sun of truth and justice?

HOW CAN THIS BE, when the slow dripping irrigation of the blood of our kids and innocent Iraqis and Afghanis draws our roots down deeper and stronger into the soil of anger?

HOW CAN THIS BE, when the ravaged compost of dead children’s bodies enriches the ground of our rage?

HOW CAN THIS BE, when the winds of economic hurricane batter us and force us to strengthen both our roots and our resolve?

HOW CAN THIS BE, when the sunlight of the true human cost of these “wars” energizes us to grow new branches and produce ripe fruit full of new seeds?

HOW CAN THIS BE?

We are those seeds. We are and always have been the seeds of peace. We have everything we need to grow strong and propagate our message. This is our time; the ground is fertile with rage, death and despair. When spiny thorns and insidious roots of weeds of derision and dissent try to crowd out our vitality, we fight back and grow stronger. This is the ground where peacemakers grow. This is where we will prevail, propagate and bear the fruit of peace. This day, this hour, this minute is our season to plant and grow. We must not wilt, we must not wither, we must not succumb to the weeds of despair. This is a harvest we cannot afford to lose. Plant your roots deep in the soil of anger, spread your branches wide to the truth, throw your seeds onto the winds of the apathetic and the ignorant and multiply the message of peace a thousand times. We must spread the peace, one seed at a time. Only this harvest will save our world.

PICKING FIGHTS WITH PEACEMAKERS

He said, "Let me ask you something. Did he enlist? Then he got what he deserved.”
This question, posed during PPJ’s recent peace demonstration, was cruel and inappropriate to the widow of an American veteran. It was posed as if enlistment then justifies the death of a husband and father in an illegal war of aggression. Yet this is what our nation and our discourse has been reduced to: spit out soundbites and angry rejoinders.

It’s not just the 3,875 officially acknowledged dead Americans, although that is sad enough. USA Today reports the Pentagon has not classified as wounded some 20,000 soldiers with brain injuries. A November 13, 2007 report from CBS News tells us that in 2005 alone, in just 45 states reporting, there were at least 6,256 suicides among those who had served in the armed forces. That’s 120 each and every week, in just one year. Just adding that one year, 2005, to the current death toll puts the cost of this aggression at over 10,000 American soldiers. Add in the 30,327 officially wounded and tell us the cost of “freedom” in Iraq is worth it. We get 60,458 young American lives ruined forever, either through untimely death, brain injury, suicide or physical disability.

St Augustine People for Peace and Justice apologizes to any who have been offended by our presence, our signs and our infrequent responses to the obscene insults and baiting that we endure every first and third Saturday at the Plaza de Constitucion. We do not look for apologies from the countless individuals who once supported or still support this immoral illegal occupation. They are hurt, defensive and confused and strike out at us for relief. However, we will never apologize for our belief that all war is wrong and this “war” in particular is a grievous mistake, based on lies and twisted intelligence, which is killing our young people and innocent civilians while enriching the cronies of the Bush administration.

But we will always welcome reasoned dissent and try to find common ground. We believe it is the only way to hold this nation together.