[Iowa-dx] Fwd: Camp Democracy opens (announcements; Washington Post article)

[hhart@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu]

Come to Camp Democracy !

Camp Democracy opened on the Mall in Washington
on Tuesday, and will run through September 21st.
We need you to come and join us now!

Here's what the Washington Post had to say about
us this morning:
http://campdemocracy.org/node/234
or
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/05/AR2006090501=
225.html
[pasted below]

Check out the schedule of upcoming events:

http://campdemocracy.org/schedule


If you live outside of the Washington, D.C., area
and you come, we will find you a free or cheap
place to stay.  But you can make it easier for us
by signing up here:
http://spaceshare.com/campdemocracy

If you live in the DC area, please offer a bed or
couch or floor to people who are acting on behalf
of all of us by coming to make their voices
heard.  Please list any space you have here:
http://spaceshare.com/campdemocracy


We are buying radio ads to spread the word.  We
need your financial assistance.  Please
contribute what you can:
http://www.campdemocracy.org/sponsor


*  *  *  *  *


Antiwar Message Travels From Texas to Washington
Military Families Group Expands Agenda

By Petula Dvorak
The Washington Post, September 6, 2006; Page A05
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/05/AR2006090501=
225.html


The antiwar activists who picketed near the
president's ranch this summer traded dusty Texas
for soggy Washington yesterday, when they set up
camp near the White House to continue their
vigil.

"Every day, we realize there is a war in Iraq,"
said Charlie Richardson, co-founder of Military
Families Speak Out and whose son is a U.S. Marine
recently returned from Iraq. "But the vast
majority of Americans don't; they forget. Less
than 1 percent of this population has gone to
war. And we need to get those troops out -- now."

Richardson and about 100 other military family
members, veterans and peace activists kicked off
a 17-day demonstration called "Camp Democracy"
yesterday. With piles of military boots to
represent slain soldiers and banners calling for
an end to the war as their backdrop, they rallied
in the pouring rain and stayed throughout the
day's relentless drizzle.

Camp Democracy, a spinoff from Camp Casey in
Crawford, Tex., started by antiwar activist Cindy
Sheehan, will feature a series of speeches,
lectures and discussions under white tents
pitched on the Mall at 14th Street and
Constitution Avenue NW.

Sheehan, whose older son, Casey, was killed in
Iraq in 2004, started the Crawford protest camp
early last month on a five-acre lot she bought in
July, after her roadside vigil last year drew
about 10,000 supporters from across the country.
She wasn't in Washington yesterday, but
organizers expect she will be a speaker before
they pull up stakes.

The main voices heard yesterday were those of
veterans.

Charlie Anderson, 29, spoke loudly through the
rainstorm. "I was so optimistic," said the Toledo
native, who joined the military when he was 19.
Then he "rode into Iraq without body armor," he
said. And "I had no idea what the mission was,
because it was changing every day."

Dozens of other veterans nodded when Anderson
said this. A Vietnam War veteran in a wheelchair
clapped. A naval recruiter from the Vietnam era
raised her fist in the air. A Gulf War veteran
mouthed the word "yes."

They talked about shortfalls in veterans'
benefits and medical care. They discussed ways to
end the war and tactics to starve the war machine
of its essential fuel -- young recruits like
them.

"I've been to dozens and dozens of
counter-recruitment actions," said Joe Hatcher,
who served in Dawr, Iraq, from February 2004
until March 2005 with the 1st Infantry Division.
Now, the 25-year-old California native tours the
country and sets up camp outside schools, where
he gives students his real-life version of the
recruiters' pitch about military life. His group
also advises families on ways to opt out of
military recruiting.

Camp Democracy will have similar themes every day
for the next few weeks: Organizing the
Progressive Agenda Day, which will feature
several members of Congress; Immigrants' Rights
Day; Labor Speaks Out Day; Climate Crisis Day;
and others.

Camp Democracy has no single message, though its
organizers said they wanted the veterans and
their families front and center because "they are
the ones affected most by this war, except for
the Iraqi people," said David Swanson,
coordinator of Camp Democracy, which was born
when the people protesting in Crawford wondered
what they could do next.

The variously themed days and speakers from
causes across the spectrum are one way to
demonstrate that war affects all parts of
American life, organizers said. They want to show
that funding to rebuild New Orleans is hamstrung
by war costs, and immigration legislation is
threatened by the drumbeat of war on foreign
soil, Swanson said.

"People keep telling us that this will muddle our
message," Swanson said. "But this is not a
three-week PR campaign. It's more complicated
than that. We're trying to bring people together
to make a stronger movement."