Vladislav Davidzonthe art of doing the impossible – thoughts on the great turning

A couple of weeks ago I spent time in Connecticut and Massachussetts with the Wheels of Justice Bus, an awesome project of the Voices in the Wilderness, Al-Awda(Palestine Right to Return Coalition), and The Middle East Children’s Alliance. The Wheels of Justice is a 1978 bus that is driven around the country with speakers who have been to Palestine and Iraq. I just uploaded the photographs to the gallery.

It is no wonder that our country is the mess that it is — when we came to a high school in North Andover, MA, one of the students told us that she was had never heard from anyone who dared to suggest that *all* conflicts can be solved without the use of force, violence and war. These kids are completely shielded from the real world, particularly from the ‘destructive’ influence of any opinions that go contrary to the formal drums of war (and corporate war profits) of the government.

A couple of weeks ago I spent time in Connecticut and Massachussetts with the Wheels of Justice Bus, an awesome project of the Voices in the Wilderness, Al-Awda(Palestine Right to Return Coalition), and The Middle East Children’s Alliance. The Wheels of Justice is a 1978 bus that is driven around the country with speakers who have been to Palestine and Iraq. I just uploaded the photographs to the gallery.

It is no wonder that our country is the mess that it is — when we came to a high school in North Andover, MA, one of the students told us that she was had never heard from anyone who dared to suggest that *all* conflicts can be solved without the use of force, violence and war. These kids are completely shielded from the real world, particularly from the ‘destructive’ influence of any opinions that go contrary to the formal drums of war (and corporate war profits) of the government.

Someone in North Andover, an affluent suburb of Boston, has apparently mistaken the Bus for the Ku Klux Klan or something, as there was apparently a tremendous amount of controversy about our visit. The jewish community apparently felt it was in no way appropriate that their children might actually hear about what the other terrorism — the state terrorism committed by the Israeli army against innocent palestinian civilians. We made the front page of many local newspapers ahead of our visit, but the real surprise came afterwards. The kids and the administrators at the school all left asking ‘what was all the fuss about?’ when they all realized that the rabbi who was invited to ‘debate’ us actually happened to agree with about eighty-five percent of our positions. Gotta love the reactionary imbecility of the pro-israeli community.

However other than the North Andover incident and a rampantly right-wing jewish college, we were welcomed with open arms everywhere we went. I was absolutely astounded by how many peace groups we’ve met everywhere we went. While some, like the North Andover grop Merrimac People for Peace) have been around for twenty some years, most groups have sprouted since the events of September 11th, or the terrorist attacks that followed (ie the wars on Afghanistan and Iraq).

The resistance is truly fertile. Everywhere we went we were met by people who weren’t willng to just shut up and accept the insanity that has become our formal government policy. There is something very American about what I saw — the resistance to the oppression and dissent are at the very heart of what it means to be an American. After all, it is not the country, the constitution or the flag that matter, but the very ideals that are at the heart of what this country is all about: freedom, democracy.

I cannot accept the whole idea that this country ever was a democracy or there was true freedom ever present. Just ask the Native Americans what they think of our compassionate acceptance of other races, or ask the blacks about the long ugly history of slavery in this country. The ideals are ideals — they are what we’re striving towards, not what we ever truly represented. But it is those ideals that make us different from other countries — the fact that we actually have in our constitution the notions of democracy and equality sets us well ahead of other countries. It is because of those ideals (and not necessarily the reality) that America has (until recently) long been considered a beacon of democracy.