By Jason Hancock

Ready or not, here they come
Group bringing message of nonviolence to candidates

photo submitted by Michael Gillespie

Every candidate for president received a letter in October asking them to sign a pledge to end the Iraq war, rebuild Iraq and foreswear military attacks on other countries, namely Iran.

The letter also said that if the pledge was not signed and returned, a group called Voices for Creative Nonviolence would deliver another copy to their campaign offices in Iowa and wait there until they got a positive response.

Sen. Hillary Clinton and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani understand what that means, as a group of activists “occupied” their offices in early November.

Now the group has put out the call to activists all over the country to come to Des Moines for the caucuses and help send a message to the candidates: the American people want this war to end.

“Seasons of Discontent: a Presidential Occupation Project” (SODaPOP) is an effort to do just that. On Jan. 1, as people from all over descend on Des Moines, the Des Moines Catholic Workers Union and the Catholic Peace Ministry will hold classes in nonviolent civil disobedience. Then on Jan. 2 and 3, volunteers will occupy campaign offices of every candidate that has not signed the group’s pledge.

“The candidates say they are for peace, but their actions are for war,” said Frank Cordaro, a member of the Des Moines Catholic Workers Union. “They don’t say they will bring peace, they just say they will do a better job of conducting war than [President] Bush.”
Mona Shaw, another member of the Des Moines Catholic Workers Union, said the people overwhelmingly disagree with the country’s policy in Iraq.

“But that view is being completely ignored by the candidates,” she said. “And it’s not just Republicans. It’s Democrats, too. They all want to get war off the table as an issue.”

Brian Terrell, executive director of the Catholic Peace Ministry, said the goal ultimately is not to get arrested, although that is usually how it turns out. With that in mind, those wishing to participate must remember there are consequences to their actions.

“Civil disobedience puts a light on things,” he said. “It brings things out that people don’t want to talk about.”

This wave of office occupations will follow a similar track as previous ones, including the Nov. 7 occupation of Clinton and Giuliani’s offices.

In Clinton’s office, where the staff actually waited 8 hours before calling Des Moines Police to arrest the nine activists, the group read the names of U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians killed in the war, taped “End the Iraq War” flyers onto Clinton campaign signs and took a brief turn calling registered voters to inform them of Clinton’s war votes before the phones were disconnected, Shaw said.

The Giuliani campaign waited only two hours before calling the Clive Police to arrest the 10 activists that refused to leave.

No one will be allowed to participate without taking the nonviolence seminars, and no one has to get arrested to participate.

“If they want to leave to avoid being arrested, that’s fine,” Terrell said. “We also have lots of things they can do, such as protest outside, that won’t get them arrested.”

The number of people who will participate is still unknown, but Cordaro said a similar effort is already in the works for the New Hampshire primary five days later on Jan. 8.

To learn more about the program, or to register to participate, go to the Des Moines Catholic Workers Union Web site, www.desmoinescatholicworker.org.

Notes: The Des Moines School Board voted to spend more than $25.8 million to improve and expand Central Campus, including the purchase of the neighboring Wallace Homestead Building. It also allocated $28 million to renovate Roosevelt High School and $6 million to renovate Jackson Elementary School. Lastly, the board decided Edmunds Elementary School would remain open. CV

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