Riot Face, Strong Heart

I had tried to wake up Artie, but he just farted and went back to sleep. I waited in the cold alone, blowing into my hands because the heater in my car was broken. The bus was supposed to have arrived at 6:30am and it was almost 8:00 before it showed up. One by one we piled on, until the greyhound was filled to capacity. I didn’t know anyone else on board but we shared one thing besides a mutual destination, we didn’t want our country to go to war and we were meeting half of a million other like minded citizens in New York city to let the world know.


It started off as a riotous cacophony of voices and chants. People brought instruments and there was music drifting out of the long serpentine river of bodies that drifted through the city. We sang and we danced and it was good, it felt like we were doing something, like all of us together might make a difference. It was two years after September 11 and the nation was still shaken, the impetus to get revenge was palpable, but we in the streets had the will to resist the temptation. We weren’t going to give in to our baser instincts, we would rise above and persevere.

The police closed in around three o’clock in the afternoon, they bisected the parade at the intersections using horses and shields. People resisted but most dispersed, for the stubborn they had tear gas and hoses, for the fearless they had clubs. I saw a girl get kicked flat in her chest that day, I saw a boy being dragged face down along the asphalt. I didn’t know what to do, it seemed so wrong that they could just push us around like this, wasn’t this our right, as citizens, to peacefully assemble? I was really scared, there were riot cops, faceless, with shields and batons pushing us back, the gas was drifting down our way from a spot up the street. Someone had given me and orange handkerchief earlier, he said "in case you need it". I thought he meant if I needed to sneeze. I tied the rag over my nose and mouth, and clasped my hands behind my back, I dropped my weight and centered my stance and with all my secret kung fu knowledge resolved not to be moved from where I stood.

I don’t know why I did it really, I don’t know what I thought it would do, I just didn’t want to let these anonymous enforcers dissolve me, silence me, make me obey. I wasn’t doing anything wrong, it was my country that was committing the crime, the war on terror was a travesty and I didn’t want my to be any part of it. They had the horses buck their steel bridles on top on my head, they kicked me from their mounts, and finally one of them came from behind and hit me behind the right knee with a billy club. I quickly found myself being zip tied and thrown into the back of a paddy wagon.

All around me kids were being beaten up and dragged away, it was chaos and the police were efficiently and enthusiastically breaking this protest apart. I felt both terrified and galvanized in my position, there was a clear line as to where I stood, for the first time in my life I suppose. These cops looked at me with disdain, but mine was greater, they pulled the rag off my face and tried to be "bad cops" but I just stared. I had nothing to say, scared to death at what was going to happen to me, but my eyes held the accusation, the challenge that made them look away. They might have just been doing their job, but they were wrong and they knew it.

Inside the wagon I met a few other nice guys, we all shook hands in a silly back to back sort of way with our zip cuffed hands. One of them, Brian from Virginia, had a cell phone that we each took turns calling our friends on. I remember leaving a highly excited message for my friend Jay whom I was supposed to find somewhere in the masses of collected faces that day. The others assured my nerves that what lay in store for us was just a process, a lot of waiting and not much else. I guess they had done this kind of thing before.

They drove us down to central processing, by this time my cuffs were cutting my wrists, drawing tiny droplets of blood to the surface, my arms were numbing up and I wore a sort of grimace. They pulled us out and filed us through and it was there I noticed the most pronounced difference in the police attitude. While the front line cops were frothing at the mouth and spitting their most hateful epitaphs at us, the rear quarter cops looked ashamed of what was happening. I guess that’s the way it goes when you watch almost a thousand people, mostly kids being dragged in, beaten, bloody, and abused by the very people who have sworn to "protect and serve" them. They would offer off handed apologies like " I think you guys have the right to do what you’re doing, we’re just doing our job, it’s not our fault." or even " I’m just waiting to get into the fire department, I don’t want to be a cop." They took more pictures, I for one would love to see mine someday. All brash and defiant in my self righteous 22nd year, sporting my FUCK THE WAR hoodie and the kindling angst that will typify my Millennial generation.

We were held in what I understand is a " drunk tank", huge cells that accommodate hundreds and most typically used for St. Patrick’s day and Puerto Rican day parades, where serious drinkers and gregarious mischief makers can cool off after a long day on the job. It would have been bad if I was alone, but that cell was a pretty good place to be if you had to be stuck somewhere indefinitely. I got thrown in with about two hundred other fist lifters like myself, I was immediately congratulated and welcomed into the flock, I was amongst the others like me, the ones who stood against the tide, I was home. When they brought Jared in I could only smile and say "what’s up man?" he was shocked to see me, and he gave me a big hug, and pretty much became the best jail buddy you could ask for. I had grown up with Jared in the town of Lincoln, we played football together at Lincoln high, and we went out causing trouble together on many occasions, once he even called my Mother when after a run in with Police I ended up stranded on the other side of town way past curfew and he, being older and class president, tried to smooth things over (unsuccessfully) . He was a the same age as my older brother and had gone on to become a outspoken local activist and poet. Funny. It was funny to see us both sitting there, I was still totally overwhelmed by what was happening and terrified of the consequences of what I had done. Was I a traitor? Were they going to deport me? Am I going to trial? Am I going to prison? I didn’t voice any of this, but Jared could tell I was nervous, he helped calm me down, and I was grateful to have friend there, I knew he would look out for me. That’s when one of the other detainees got on top of a bench and started to speak " Hi, my name is Michael and I am an attorney at law, and I want to tell you what your rights are, and what they can and can’t do to you".
Dumb fucking luck.

We spent eight hours in that cell. Michael, the lawyer, gave us the lowdown ; basically they were going to interrogate us, idly threaten us and let us go. There was nothing they could really do, after all there were at least five hundred of us in this building alone, and they couldn’t possibly supply adequate and humane facilities to us, we were in the shade. We passed the time by talking to each other, retelling our story of how we got nabbed, and listening to impromptu freestyle sessions between those so inclined, while drumming out beats on the bars and benches in the jail cell. It got a kind of feel good hippie vibe in there, it was all "we shall overcome" and " peace , love and civil disobedience". While we were together we were the good guys and we were united against the dumpy boys in blue on the outside of the cell, we told them jokes and sang their praises when they came in and they couldn’t help but laugh despite their impenetrable veneers. They had separated the men and women into different cells, but when they started the interrogations and releases, they had to parade the women by our cell to the interrogation rooms. We cheered, beat the bars, chanted love songs, and feminist slogans. They blew kisses, shook their hands together like champions and screamed populist rally cries, and we couldn’t help smiling knowing that release was eminent and once we hit the street again we will have our voices back we will have won.

The fat detective asked me a lot of questions, but I didn’t answer any of them, I just replied " no comment". He told me If I didn’t cooperate I was going to go downtown to the city jail, with some bad black men who would love to get their hands on me.
I laughed because Michael had told us the cops would say something like " they will bring you downtown or to Rikers Island and you’ll get sodomized by row after row of big scary black men" as one of their idle threats. The fat detective didn’t appreciate my disrespect so he got close and did the whole "super close spit talking routine" in my face, I just averted my eyes and repeated my mantra " No…Comment". He dragged me back to the cell and told me to have fun rotting in there. Before the cell door even closed my name was called again, I was cut loose.

After you’ve been in a small room with three hundred other guys for eight hours straight, no food, water or bathroom facilities, coming out into downtown Manhattan is some kind of surreal revelation. I was greeted by a large group of supporters, other members of the protest or affiliated groups, that had camped out in front of the central processing building, with hot coffee, doughnuts and hugs.
RULE. Yes, it kept being reaffirmed, I did a good thing this day, took it to the fullest extent, went on the record to say that this war and the new slate of foreign and domestic policies were a mistake, were against our own best interests, were bad for America. I stood with many others who felt the same way and could probably articulate their thoughts and feelings much more eloquently than I can, but I was there to say no, no more blood, we have suffered enough already.

Back at the University of Rhode Island, not many people shared my view, frequently during class discussions of this critical topic I was called a "traitor" and " Un American" .I’m sure many of the other people who I shared that cell in March had to absorb these same kinds of insults. Five years and 4003 dead Americans soldiers later, public opinion has finally caught up to us, finally sobered from their hate laden bloodlust after young members of their own communities came home in boxes or missing limbs. 29, 541 American servicemen and women have been wounded since this whole affair began, and finally people have had enough. They want to call it quits, want to call it a mistake, want to pin it on Bush like they didn’t go along with it the whole time with their American flag stickers on their SUV’s; but it’s too late to go back., it’s too late to withdraw. What amazes me most is that the entire Baby-boomer generation, which prides itself on it’s youthful political activism and its valiant championing of civil rights and the end to violence in Vietnam, could have wholesale sold their OWN CHILDREN down the river to the same kind of imperialist war of occupation that they struggled so hard to end? How did they not see the writing on the wall? Was it not obvious how all this would play out? I was only a child, 23 and greener than a golf course and I knew that this would end bad, it would be nothing but blood and tears. Now they want a big change, now everyone wants out, get out of Iraq, end the war, bring the soldiers home. Well I wish they could come home too, I wish they never left; but if there is any hope for us, if there is any hope for a free Iraq and a stable middle east and a safe America, we cannot back out now.

There comes a time when we all have to grow up. We have to accept responsibly for ourselves and our actions. The United States is a young culture, a strong culture, and a very immature culture. We came to the opportunistic rescue of our European allies sixty years ago and watched as the old imperial power structures crumbled and the new American free market became the dominate force on the planet. We used our power recklessly, over turning popularly elected governments in favor of puppet states our companies could exploit (cough, Vietnam, cough) We created Manuel Noriega, Saddam Hussein, and Osama Bin laden, all "assets" funded, supplied and trained by fat Yankee treasures. Our grandfathers never had to realize their own consequences, as they had passed into senility and dust by the time one of our "assets" drove two jet airliners full of American citizens into the twin towers of the World Trade Center . Let that be the lesson, let us learn. We went to Iraq for the wrong reasons, we waged a war that was by all rule and principle , a criminal act. That war is over. Now there exists a fractured society, that was once held together by fear and fist and now has been haphazardly glued with good intentions. Iraq is a state that was carved
out of the Ottoman Empire at the end of the Great War, it’s borders were arbitrarily drawn by British bureaucrats. It has bound tightly disparate tribes of peoples (Sunni, Shiite, Kurds) who have a history of "not getting along" and no experience with self rule. These people have been under a autocratic regime since prehistory, they are used to one strong voice telling them what to do. If we leave now, there will no one strong enough to resist the well funded , well trained, and zealotous forces of Radical Fundamentalism from taking control of the state.

I don’t want to be mired in an almost endless struggle to stand a fledgling Iraqi state on it’s feet, or wait the thirty some odd years for reconciliations to take place amongst the various tribes and ethnic minorities. I don’t want to dump trillions of tax dollars into the desert just to say we did what we said we were going to do, bake up a free and democratic Iraqi cake.
No.
I want to do those things because WE OWE IT TO THEM.


We owe it to the kids whose fathers got blown up because they worked next door to a viable target, we owe it to the mothers whose children were "collateral damage", we owe it to the Fathers who were kidnapped and stolen to Guantanamo or murdered by a rival tribe in the chaotic aftermath of the invasion that we headed, brash, brazen, hooting and hollering. We owe it to the simple people of that country, who went to sleep one day with a very stable government , albeit headed by a sociopath but a reliable sociopath ( maybe not so much different than ourselves?) and they woke up the next day to a living hell that has persisted for the past five years. We promised these people everything, we told them they would get schools like ours, free choice like ours, clean water , power, and food, PEACE we promised them PEACE. IF the forces of Fundamentalist Religious Extremism take hold of their lives then they will never know peace, they will never know the freedom that we know. Believe me I have my qualms with this broad nation of ours, but I know that it is the best thing going, I want those people to have what I have because, goddamn it ,THEY’VE EARNED IT. They have bled and suffered enough, over a million total deaths, and if we disappear on them now there is no telling how bad it will get. Guess what, when the kids are grown and look back and the misery that is their lives you know what they will see? Some semblance of stability before WE came, then terror, chaos , blood and loss, and how we left them to fend for themselves because we only care about ourselves and our money. They will hate us. Then you have on your hands, the most cunning and inventive weapon of all, a hate filled human mind. I’m sure through the forces of social construction and indoctrination their hate can be finely crafted and honed until ten years from now WE, the Millennials and our children, not our parents, will be faced with a entire generation of weapons, deadset on reciprocating the chaos that we have visited upon them.

That is why I say we stay. That’s why I say we have to eat this one. America needs to shut up, grow up, and MAN the fuck up and deal with the mess we have created. The entire world watched us do this, and they will watch to see what we do next, if we really are force of freedom and democracy, if we really are a nation full of good, compassionate souls who are trying to raise the world out of the strife and despair that it has known for ten thousand years, then we need to show that we are mature enough and strong enough to admit we were wrong and to use our power to correct our mistake. It is still possible to save them, it is still possible to give them the bright and glorious future promised, they will stand up and claim it for themselves if we can be the light that shows them the way. This would be the greatest work of our young nation, this would make us great, not our wars or our television shows, but our heart and our commitment to doing right no matter the cost. I think we can be that great, the question is, do you?

I stand up for what I believe in, and I’m an American whether we are right or wrong, I will do my best to help steer this nation in a responsible direction. I support my troops, and very much believe in their mission, I am against the war, now and forever, but I am also against giving up on the people we have promised to help, I am against giving in, I am against letting them suffer. This isn’t going to be easy, this will cost us dearly, but on the other end we will have learned, grown smarter, done good for the world, and we will not be fooled again.