matthisresists.us

On Nov. 15, 2008, I climbed the National Archives in Washington D.C. with members of Veterans for Peace and my dear friend Elaine Brower of Military Families Speak Out.

We climbed up there to hang banners demanding that George Bush and Dick Cheney be prosecuted for war crimes, and I must say, it was the funnest but also most moving piece of activism I’ve done in a while. Climbing up that scaffolding with anti-war veterans from as far back as the 50s to defend the constitution we all swore to protect was one of the most grounding experiences I’ve had in a while.

Just as the war-makers have their legacies, so do we in the anti-war community. My refusal to deploy to Iraq was building on a long history of objectors who stood against the flow of subversive lies and murderous mandates directed at the people by tyrants.

Sitting up on that scaffolding really made me think what is possible in our nation, though. In the 40s, men were executed in Nazi Germany for refusing military service. And there I was, a 24-year old war resister free as a bird perched 90 feet up a national landmark. God, I love progress which they’ll never destroy as the norm of existence.