By Bruce Gagnon
On Dec. 15, 2005 I was arrested, along with 18 others, in the Bangor office of Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine). Seventy-five of us had gone to Sen. Snowe’s office asking her to admit she had been lied to about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. We delivered a letter signed by 450 Mainers calling for an end to the war. We asked, for the hundredth time, for the senator to hold a town hall meeting on the war so the public could speak to her about their concerns. All we got was a visit to the Penobscot County jail.
Two years ago I had decided that I could not go on living each day without escalating my antiwar activity. I was busy writing letters and organizing protests against the war but felt I had to do more. I needed to get beyond my comfort zone. I had the idea to do an occupation of offices of our Maine congressional delegation. We would read the names of dead American GIs and an equal number of dead Iraqi civilians.
In December 2004, 13 of us held a four-hour sit-in at the Portland office of Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine). We expected to get arrested but nothing happened. As we entered her office we read a statement outlining our opposition to the war and ended it by asking for a town hall meeting.
The idea of the office occupation came from stories an old friend of mine had told me about the autoworker occupations of plants back in the 1930s in Michigan. At the time he was a young, budding baseball player in the Yankee farm system. When the plant sit-downs began he faced a crisis of conscience. Baseball or union activism? He stuck with the union, grabbed his bat and joined the plant occupations. He became an international organizer with the UAW.
After our first office occupation, 17 of us next went to Sen. Snowe’s office in Portland. Then 35 people joined the occupation of Rep. Tom Allen’s (D-Maine) office and he eventually agreed to hold a public meeting on Iraq. With virtually no help from the mainstream media we turned out 500 folks for his July town hall meeting.
Next we went north to Bangor and held another occupation and reading of the names in the office of Sen. Collins. This time 100 people joined us; so many that we had to read the names both inside the office and outside in order to involve everyone. Then we went to Sen. Collins’ Lewiston office and 50 people came along. By now, it took nearly six hours to read the names as the numbers of dead American GIs mounted. After that we went south to Biddeford to Sen. Snowe’s office and this time had over 40 participate in the six-and-one-half-hour reading.
As our group of activists grew, so did our technique. For each name that was read we began marking an X on a huge banner we labeled the “Iraqi War Cloth.” After each name we rang a bell.
Following each occupation I wrote up a report and e-mailed it out to every corner of the state. Many people agree with us politically but think there is nothing we can do to stop the war in Iraq and the waste of $8 billion a month on it. Many activists are living in quiet depression. It was our hope that our actions would shake people and help move them to do something – even write a letter to the editor opposing the war. Maine Veterans for Peace has become very involved in the sit-ins and recently purchased radio spots on a Portland station asking listeners to call our senators requesting a town hall meeting.
We also sent information about the office occupations to activists in other states. We soon learned that people in New Hampshire, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland and Pennsylvania had undertaken similar actions after hearing about our efforts in Maine. One of our key folks, artist Pat Wheeler, was videotaping our occupations and created moving half-hour documentaries about them. We began putting them on cable access channels around Maine. People in other states ordered copies of these videos to show in their communities.
On January 11, 2006 we held a double occupation with over 70 people in the offices of both of our Republican senators offices in Portland. After our recent arrest, something of an aberration, we were not sure how we would be received. Nothing dramatic happened.
Since then more people have been arrested again in the Bangor office of Sen. Snowe.
Our actions led us to urge the father of an Iraq war soldier to run for Congress as an Independent. Many of us volunteered for him during the recent national election and he got 8% of the vote calling for a 50% cut in military spending, an immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq, and the conversion of the military industrial complex.
The time has come for those in the antiwar movement to step outside our normal activist boxes. If we wish to end the war then we must create positive, nonviolent conflict in our communities. We must force the politicians to step outside their comfort zones on the Iraq war issue.
Bruce Gagnon works for the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space and lives in Brunswick, Maine.
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