A wonderful e-mail has been circulating today. It describes how Alice Paul, Lucy Burns and other women of the 1900s — two generations after Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton — were beaten, jailed, trashed in the newspapers and taunted by crowds when they snuck into private venues, stood in lines illegally, chained themselves to the White House, and more, all to get the right to vote. Now praised, then they were considered crazy, obnoxious, rude, loud, and weird. Why couldn’t they just be quiet? Why couldn’t they just politely voice their opinion through the (unjust, sexist) system? Hmm. Funny, CODEPINK women hear the exact same questions today!

Nearly each day, someone informs a CODEPINK member to her face, in an e-mail or by comment (cough cough), that our attempts to stop the war, to stop all future wars, to demand our great nation invest in diplomacy, health care, education and infrastructure rather than destruction are crazy. We are rude, we are weird, we are obnoxious. Sometimes — most times — these tauntings are laced with misogynstic, ageist and homophobic epithets — “old hags” “lesbians” (as if that’s a bad thing), “prudes” etc. And in places like the Democratic and Republican conventions, where free speech and dissent should be protected, we are locked out from public events, taunted by onlookers, pushed back by police and, sometimes, arrested.

It happened to our foremothers, the suffragettes, too. From this incredibly powerful e-mail:

“Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote.

The women were innocent and defenseless, but they were jailed nonetheless for picketing the White House, carrying signs asking for the vote…

It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave. That didn’t make her crazy.

The doctor admonished the men: ‘Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.’” (Read the rest, and see brilliant photos, here).

Peace work and activism is not easy. We face incredible systems of power, and all of those people benefitting from them, and everytime we threaten them, we face the tauntings. The arrests. The abuse. But Alice Paul and other women prevailed after nealy 100 years of work. Can we stand another 100 years of war?

National Call for Action to Stop Police Brutality at the Republian
National Convention!

Support 300 people arrested in Saint Paul! Demand an end to illegal
detention and brutality in Ramsey County Jail!

9/3/08, St. Paul – Approximately 300 people have been arrested for
participating in demonstrations since the beginning of the Republican
National Convention. The majority of arrestees remain in custody and are
being held in inhumane conditions. Of the 300 arrested, approximately 120
have been accused of trumped-up felony charges by police; many of them are
being held illegally beyond Minnesota’s 36-hour limit on detentions
without formal charges.

All people who value democracy and fear for the erosion of our
constitution, regardless of political affiliation, are called upon to
demand an end to this egregious denial of constitutional and human rights.
Prisoners have reported being denied medical treatment and essential
medications, and many are engaged in a hunger strike to pressure the
sheriffs to give them critical care. Many are being held in 23 hours/day
lockdown and/or have not been allowed to meet with lawyers or make phone
calls – especially trans prisoners. Several prisoners have been able to
reach legal support to report brutal physical assaults by multiple
corrections officers. The constitutional and legal rights of all
prisoners are being denied across the board, with no apparent end to this
outrageous treatment.

Please call the following offices and continue calling until all arrestees
have been released:

St. Paul Mayor – Chris Coleman (651.266.8510)
Head of Ramsey County Jail – Capt. Ryan O’Neil (651.266-9350 ext 1)
Ramsey County Sheriff – Bob Fletcher (651.266.9333)
County Chief Judge Gearin (651.266.8266)

Demand the following:
Immediate medical attention as needed for ALL arrestees;
That the prisoners who haven’t given their names (Jane & John Does and
Jesse Sparkles) have access to group meetings with a lawyer in jail;
Dismissal of all charges;
Release of all minors; and
Ensure trans prisoners have access to phone and attorneys, and are held in
gender group of their choice.

Donate!
Money is needed to help cover legal costs and get people out of jail. Any
amount you can give is greatly appreciated. To donate by Pay Pal visit
https://coldsnaplegal.wordpress.com and click on the donate button.

For more details and up-to-date information about jail conditions and
prisoner status, please see:

http://coldsnaplegal.wordpress.com/

http://twincities.indymedia.org/

Visit St. Paul in September 2008!

http://www.nornc.org

Witnesses report the four were dancing and singing. After breaking out in one dance, two attempted to crawl under the bottom of the fence at the corner of 6th and Market in solidarity with the vets who were arrested for the same activity a few days ago.

“Freedom of Speech should not be caged,” they were chanting. “We should not be caged.”

As has become typical of the actions here in St. Paul, mass numbers of police emerged.

Mancias and Fairooz began tying pink ribbons and bows to the fences as the cops appeared—although not, one witness noted, in full riot gear. They began pushing people with batons and CODEPINK’s Jodie Evans and Dana Balicki began reminding bystanders to remain peaceful.

CODEPINKers were singing “Give Peace a Chance,” and flashing the cops the peace symbol. The media swarmed.

During the hubub, “Desiree and Nancy just scooted themselves under the fence,” Balicki said.

The crowd has now moved back across from the St. Paul hotel. A large crowd has gathered and is now singing and chanting, “End the Occupation.”

Deep black-clad troops thick with riot gear and anonymizing helmets, no distinction between them save color-coded duct tape between the shoulders and the slightly differing gait in the thudding of their boots against the cold and hard pavement marched, od I’m not kidding you, Gestapo style up the middle of Robert Avenue in St. Paul last night around 8:45 p.m., straight up toward the Capital building, where they young girls I’d just interviewed were headed because, as they explained, “the march was getting too rowdy.”

Boy, were they probably surprised when 300 storm troopers in black black riot gear showed up to the party, that had been shut down for hours.

It was easily the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen: When I watch videos of the Khmer Rouge moving in on cities in Cambodia, a place I love second only to America, I try to access what the feeling must be like of watching your people invade their own with intent to harm in mass, faceless numbers. Before last night at 8:45 p.m., I could not for the life of me imagine it. And now I saw it, in the very city I’d grown up to believe was immune from the evils of the world.

I know it’s too late to lose my innocence, again, but I took a moment to meditate beside a lake this morning in Chanhassen where we’re all staying, the great pink horde of us, far far away from the clamor of the streets (too far if you ask me, but some of the ladies here are content with that). As I looked out over the gently moving lake, waking up with the 8 a.m. winds, rocking against the shore, I hit sorrow in the pit of my stomach like I haven’t felt before. I thought it might be the aggravation of 20-hour days spent fighting, documenting, worrying, running, sorting through the miscommunications of a group on the go, and just plain old waiting for something to happen. It wasn’t.

It was the image of black American troops moving in with intent to harm young American civilians.

Reports will roll in today about what exactly went down and where. Anarchists will be blamed for “bomb-making”—these aren’t, by the way, to be believed—and stories of National Guardsmen and St. Paul Police and Sheriffs and undercover cops going rogue and lashing out at people will flood the Midwest like the Mighty Mississippi. What I know is that dump trucks were called in to blockade entire streets. Hundreds of troops suited up before the Rage Against the Machine Concert and waited for them to start. Two lines of troops surrounded all sides of a peaceful march just winding down—put on, by the way, by the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign—and threw tear gas, released flash grenades (at least four of them), intimidated, harassed, and roiled a crowd standing up for their right to speak out against a damaging administration into a frenzy they then had to control, through further intimidation and harassment.

Pictures are going up here.

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Check here for updates or whatever I can find.