By Dan Leahy
On the first Friday of each month, neighbors from our Hospital Hill section
of Olympia’s Westside have been holding “Stop the War” signs
at Harrison and Perry. It’s not a big action, but it’s something.
As we were holding up the signs one morning, a neighbor told us about a book
called Support the Truth. It was a plea written by a Gulf War I veteran to start
telling the truth about how our troops are misled and misused in a senseless
war and then forgotten in homeless shelters, hospitals and prisons often times
suffering from radiation sickness due to depleted uranium poisoning.
We
decided to change our slogan around and organize a “Support the Truth”
day at the Capitol Theater. We see it as a chance to hear some uncensored facts
about the current state of Iraq. We see it as a chance for people sickened by
this conflict to register their opposition. We see it as a chance for little
groups like ours to gain strength by seeing others who are also determined to
mobilize their neighborhoods, stop the war on Iraq and bring our troops home.
We’ve
been lucky enough to secure two great keynote speakers, Scott Ritter and Dahr
Jamail. Mr. Ritter is the former weapons inspector in Iraq for the United Nations
and a former major in the U.S. Marines. He is the author of several books, including
Frontier Justice: Weapons of Mass Destruction and the Bushwhacking of America.
Dahr
Jamail is an independent journalist who has spent a total of eight months in
occupied Iraq. Mr. Jamail will have just returned from Iraq after coverning
the US sponsored elections in Iraq. As part of this talk, he’ll present
a slide show of Fallujah.
In
addition to these speakers, we’ll be making some noise with the Infernal
Noise Brigade, a well known collective of drummers, performers, singers and
blowers of brass created in Seattle in 1999 to prepare for the World Trade Organization’s
ministerial. Many of us remember how important this Brigade was to us during
that great victory over the WTO.
Much of this event has been made possible thanks to the sponsorship of the BRICK
student organization at SPSCC and the Heroico Batallon de San Patricio. The
event has been endorsed by the Veterans for Peace, the Olympia Movement for
Justice and Peace, and the 100 Thousand and Counting campaign.
See you at the Capitol on Friday night, February 18th, at 7:00 pm. And, if you’ve
got $5.00 or more as a donation, bring it along to help cover costs.