I had another one of those “Meanwhile in Baghdad” moments when I turned on the TV today, my first day back home again in Indiana from the front lines of the political war in Washington. CSPAN is running video of hearings that are more than a month old while the Mainstream Media is running live coverage of a hearing about, you guessed it, Anna Nicole Smith. And I am baffled.
They are airing live, in real time, a hearing about what will happen with the remains of a person who is famous for being famous, sending out national news alerts that the Judge presiding over the hearing wept when he rendered his decision.
Here's the baffling part. For a solid month, activists and Women For Peace have been in hearings in our nation's capital. Standing up, quite literally, for our democracy, our rights as citizens and the human rights of others all over the world. True, we did not have a gallon jug of methadone in our refrigerator in the CODEPINK house on Capital Hill—organic cheese and leftover vegetarian soup are more our speed. But we, too, have wept in hearings, and we also created quite a ruckus on our last trip to a hotel.
That's where the similarities begin and end, though. No one waited an inordinate amount of time to call 911 for us. We could see the secret service out on Connecticut Avenue counting up the six floors to pinpoint our location and put an end to our partying. Our idea of fun was to drop a forty-foot pink slip from the sixth floor of the 6-star Mayflower Hotel while George Bush was speaking in a ballroom downstairs. Pink-slipping George was one of many highlights in a month filled with actions and opportunities to work for Peace.
The past month of living and working in D.C. with CODEPINK has been an invaluable experience with many victories, both large and small. The women of CODEPINK have experienced both excitement and frustration at trying to move Congress to end this war in Iraq and prevent another in Iran. As a small town, mid-western woman with only a couple of years of activism under my belt, the leadership and mentoring provided by all in CODEPINK has been of incalculable worth. Seeing the determination on Medea Benjamin's face each morning as we marched the eight blocks to the Capital through the snow and ice that nearly shut down the city soothed any doubts I may have had about our effectiveness.
