Raging Granny Article from Palm Beach Post
Palm Beach Post-Cox News Service
Rally rekindles Vietnam memories
By Bob Dart
Sunday, January 28, 2007
WASHINGTON — Marijo Beckman, a "Raging Granny" antiwar activist from Delray Beach, rolled for peace in a wheelchair Saturday while hooked up to an oxygen tank.
"I just had surgery," explained Beckman, pooh-poohing the notion that any personal hardship was involved in her riding in a car for two days from South Florida to join tens of thousands of demonstrators in the nation's capital to demand an end to the war in Iraq.
"I don't know how anyone could have stayed home," agreed Vicki Ryder, another of the flamboyantly dressed Raging Grannies who came from Delray Beach to be part of the slogan-chanting, placard-waving, troop-supporting, peace-demanding crowd.
If President Bush won't heed the call for peace, then Congress must, the marchers demanded.
"We've got to insist that the Democrats elected in November to end the war find a collective backbone and stop Bush," said Margaret Knapke, who came in a van from Dayton, Ohio.
After being labeled "Hanoi Jane" for her fierce antiwar rhetoric and visits to North Vietnam during the turbulent 1960s and early 1970s and the "lies that continue to be spread" about those activities, Jane Fonda said she had been reluctant to join this outcry.
"I haven't spoken at an antiwar rally in 34 years," she said. "But silence is no longer an option."
This time, she brought her daughter and grandchildren. "I'm proud they're here, but I'm so sad we still have to do this," Fonda said.
"South Florida should wake up and smell the coffins," said Andrea Sullivan, another of the antiwar activists who drove from Delray Beach, spending a night in Florence, S.C., to break up the two-day trip. She decried the "apathy" in her hometown.
"One death was one too many," she said, lamenting the more than 3,000 Americans and untold thousands of Iraqis who have died in the conflict.
"I've been marching against wars since Vietnam. I know a quagmire when I see it," said Bob Goodman, 66, a retired legal secretary from DeKalb County, Ga. "The difference from Vietnam is that the Middle East is full of oil. That might explain Bush's obstinance in trying to expand a war he can't win."
Goodman said the antiwar movement is actually ahead of where it was at this stage of the Vietnam War.
"This truly is a peace movement," said Tom Andrews, a former Democratic congressman from Maine who began his activism as a teenage protester against the Vietnam War.
The end of the military draft has created major differences between the two antiwar efforts, he said.
The Vietnam War was fought largely with draftees and the threat of induction loomed over those who did not go, he said, recalling that the peace movement was centered on college campuses and most of the protesters were young.
With an all-volunteer military force, he said, the sacrifice in the Iraq war is borne by a much smaller segment of the populace. For most young Americans, the likelihood of fighting and dying in Iraq is remote, he said.
"If there were a draft, it would have fueled more protests at colleges," Andrews said. "But this movement is much more diversified than during Vietnam. It involves people of all ages, not just the young."
A sea of handmade signs carried a clear message.
"Lame Duck Bush: Don't Send Sitting Ducks to Iraq." "Stop the Decider. Save America. Free Scooter." "The Surge. Been There. Done That. Vietnam."
One placard pictured Richard Nixon with the caption "No Crook" and Bush with the caption "No Clue." Another had pictures of flag-draped coffins and the caption "George Does Not Want You to See This."
A heavyset guy wore a pink sweatshirt with the message "If You Are Not Outraged, You Are Not Paying Attention."
Onstage, the Raging Grannies sang a song called "The Urge to Surge":
There's something about Sunnis
and Shias and some Kurds
It's much too complicated
But I've got an urge to surge...
We grannies sure are raging
We've urges of our own
But here's the thing that we all sing
Let's bring our troops back home.
"Anybody who has grandchildren and wants this world to be free of terrorism so they can grow up safely should be here trying to stop the creation of more terrorists with our messed-up policies," Ryder said.
Hollywood continued its political activism.
Actor Sean Penn warned Congress that the mandate from the November elections was for action to stop the war.
"If they don't stand up and make a resolution as binding as the death toll, we are not going to be behind those politicians" in 2008, he promised.
Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon, among the movie industry's most strident liberal couples, led the crowd in a chant of "Impeach Bush."
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