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Acting Up for Peace: Activists and Artists Challenge War and Worldwide Militarism
"When... at what point will you say no to this war? We have chosen to say with the gift of our liberty, if necessary our lives: the violence stops here, the death stops here, the suppression of the truth stops here, this war stops here."
Faced with the prospect of a prison sentence for burning draft records in protest against the Vietnam War, Daniel Berrigan, a Catholic priest and pioneering figure in the peace movement, uttered the words above in a Maryland courtroom in 1968.
On Saturday night, nearly 40 years later, the same words spewed passionately from the lips of actor Martin Sheen, who portrayed Berrigan in a benefit performance of "The Trial of the Catonsville Nine" at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City, California. Proceeds from the event will go to the Actors' Gang, a Culver City-based theater company, and Office of the Americas, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit organization focused on promoting social justice and peace internationally.
Other prominent actors, including Tim Robbins, Beau Bridges, Keith Carradine, Mike Farrell, Camryn Manheim, and Sandra Oh joined Sheen in a staged reading of the play, which Berrigan wrote based on transcripts from the trial that followed the nationally renowned demonstration. Berrigan, his brother, Philip, also a priest at the time, and seven other Catholics participated in the May 17, 1968 protest at a Selective Service office in Catonsville , Maryland.
With their plea to just "let people live," as defendant John Hogan stated during the trial, the Catonsville activists questioned the morality of the Vietnam War. They burned 378 draft cards with napalm to call attention to the deaths of American soldiers and Vietnamese civilians.
The Catonsville Nine's call to end the Vietnam War echoes the current opposition to US military involvement in Iraq.
"I think it's one of the most relevant pieces of theater I've ever worked on because it's -- unfortunately -- timeless," remarked Gordon Davidson, who directed Saturday's benefit reading of the play, which he staged in 1971 in its world premiere at the Mark Taper Forum. "Wars cannot be won. They can only be lost in terms of humanity."
In a July 27 letter to the benefit organizers, explaining that he could not attend because he is recovering from surgery, Berrigan similarly lamented, "Would that the point of the play had been learned -- alas for these dark times!"
Davidson also is disheartened by the cynicism and apathy that characterize current public attitudes towards engagement with political issues.
"It's very unhealthy," he observed. "You have to believe that you do make a difference. You have to feel that."
In contrast to the horrified response to television images of the Vietnam War during the 1960s, Sheen believes the public has become indifferent to the ravages of the conflict in Iraq: "How many thousands we've sacrificed -- young men and women coming home with their brains scrambled, their limbs missing. It's insane. It's horribly evil and vulgar and we tolerate it."
Instead, "nonviolence seems absurd and in some quarters considered insane," remarked Sheen, who knows Berrigan and has been active for many years in the peace movement.
For the participants in Saturday's benefit, "The Trial of the Catonsville Nine" represents a rallying cry for individual action. The performance also highlighted the role of the arts in such activism.
"All art to some degree is a way to reach people's humanity, their hearts, in a way that a politician's speech can't," commented Robbins, artistic director of Actors' Gang. "That's why I feel it is necessary to do work like this."
Robbins, who played the role of Philip Berrigan during the benefit performance, calls "Catonsville " a "dangerous play" because of the provocative questions it raises about civil disobedience and US foreign policy.
When the play was first staged at the Taper in 1971, FBI agents were in the audience looking for Berrigan, who remained a fugitive in hiding after being sentenced to three years in prison in the Catonsville case, said Blase Bonpane, director of Office of the Americas, who attended that opening night.
"As the lights dimmed and the play was about to begin, we heard a voice say, 'Good evening, I'm Dan Berrigan,' " Bonpane recalled. "Several people from the FBI stood up, but he wasn't there. It was a recording." Berrigan later was captured and served 18 months in prison.
Bonpane, a prominent peace activist himself and host of a weekly talk show on Pacifica radio station KPFK (90.7 FM), has crossed paths over the years with some of the Catonsville defendants. In 1966 to 1967, he worked alongside Thomas and Marjorie Melville as part of a group of Catholic clergy helping to organize peasants in Guatemala .
In spring of 1968, Berrigan's brother, Philip, invited Bonpane to be part of the Catonsville action. Though in support of the protest, he declined: "I did not want to risk five years in federal prison," he recalled. "I said in jest, 'I'm Italian. We don't wait for the police to arrive.' ''
Immediately after the Catonsville incident, similar protests took place around the country, Bonpane recalled. "The power of the Catonsville action became clear to us," he said.
Nearly 40 years later, he believes the peace movement requires the same kind of "creativity and imagination" in its challenge to the Iraq war and worldwide militarism.
"We must continue to call for brave and outlandish resistance," he added. "Our efforts for peace are still not proportional to the immorality of this war [the Iraq war]. We must follow the lead of the Catonsville Nine."
Gina Victoria Shaffer formerly worked as a staff writer for the Miami Herald, the Daily News in Los Angeles , and the Orange County Register in Santa Ana, California. Now a member of the UCLA Writing Programs faculty, Shaffer received her Ph.D. in English at the University of California, Irvine. She is also a playwright whose works have been performed off-Broadway and on stages throughout Southern California.
13 Comments so far
Show AllGlad to see more use of the media and arts for justice and peace. As far a literature, the Blue Collar Review has been in the trenches for over a decade. Time to take back our culture!
Sweet call for action. Here's an acronym you can spread:
GOYA!
Get Off Your Ass!
The quote about the pervasive cynicism in this culture is key - no one believes anyone can actually do anything about anything. It comes through loud and clear on Common Dreams comment boards too. From several different angles, anyone who proposes ANYTHING will be told why it won't work, it can't work, it's hopeless, it's a waste of time and energy.
None of us actually know what can be done - the future is there for the making. The important thing is to keep trying to accomplish something for human survival and an end to war.
Kudos to the contributors who keep pushing for action. To everyone else - GOYA!
STINGER: Mother Nature has figured out "this ring" and will do what she can to disband it: the UP side of global warming (if one can be defined as such).
SUPPORT DENNIS KUCINICH---Amongst democratic candidates, Dennis Kucinich is unique in his strong and continuous opposition to war. He voted against the Iraq war authorization and every funding bill for the war.
Dennis has a unique quality to clearly speak the truth. This quality has now been eloquently recognized by John Nichols in an article published by the Nation, and reprinted at Common Dreams.
The article by John Nichols is called:
"An Attempt to Deceive Americans Into Yet Another War"
A very appropriate quote is:
"Dennis Kucinich may not be a front runner in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.
But the congressman from Cleveland has succeeded in distinguishing himself from the other contenders when it comes to speaking those truths that are self-evident.
And in an era of mass delusion and denial on the party of leaders in both major political parties, stating the obvious can be a radical act.
Such is the case with Kucinich appropriate answer to the latest move by the Bush-Cheney administration to ramp up hostilities with Iran. That move — the unprecedented attempt to label Iran's 125,000-strong Republican Guard as a "specially designated global terrorist" group — is, as the congressman says "nothing more than an attempt to deceive Americans into yet another war — this time with Iran."
The link is:
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/08/16/3201/
There can be no peace. The Machine won't allow it. Most of this country's wealth now feeds the Machine. National infrastructure--the highway system, the electric grid, the public water system--deteriorate but the Machine still consumes. Our children are raw materials and resources to be exploited.
Bonpane is quoted as saying "... the peace movement requires the same kind of "creativity and imagination" in its challenge to the Iraq war and worldwide militarism."
Only an American wearing those peculiar US centric glasses (which, regardless of what is really out there and not really caring what the reality of the world outside the US borders is, see the whole world as a reflection of the US) or (like George Bush and those who advise him) hasn't bothered to learn anything about how things are done outside the US, would talk about "worldwide militarism".
Without detracting from the threat posed by fundamentalist Muslims, the only militarism that is an active threat to world peace these days is US militarism. This statement of Bonpane's, characteristic of what the rest of us have come to expect from so many people in the US, is the projection of bad US characteristics onto everybody else by someone who is obviously ignorant of what happens and exists outside the US.
That being said, I have nothing but admiration for the participants in this performance.
Siouxrose... unfortunately, global warming threatens to increase global militarism for the following reasons:
1) Huge numbers of climate refugees - hundreds of millions of people seeking higher land will put a huge strain on resources.
2) Serious damage to agriculture leading to shortages in food production due to drought, floods and heat waves.
As Kurt Vonnegut said, "If people think nature is their friend, then they sure don't need an enemy."
I don't think 'outlandish protests' are going to do much to solve this problem. You need to change the fundamental problems with the fossil fuel / war based economic systems - the film '11th Hour' goes into all this, and is definitely a must-see:
http://www.alternet.org/environment/60163/
"Davidson also is disheartened by the cynicism and apathy that characterize current public attitudes towards engagement with political issues."
Just goes to show you how a corporate-controlled press has succeeded in keeping the people ignorant and believing they are living in a country that will take care of them; therefore, why bother to engage in political issues when they have their home movie theaters, sporting events and reality shows to occupy their time? What, me worry?....sh*t doesn't happen in this country! I'm paying my taxes and there's a volunteer army fighting in Iraq. These are the people who are BLINDED BY PROPAGANDA!
Then we have the downtrodden population who have been screwed by this government more than once; have lost any sense of empowerment that might have existed at some point in their lives, and have given up completely and don't really give a sh*t about anything, with the exception of worrying about where their next meal will come from. For the most part, these people are largely uneducated and their jobs have been consistently outsourced to feed the greed of the corporatocracy. These are the people who say, fu*k politics and the government, they don't do anything for me. Why would people who can't even feed their families be concerned about an American occupation in Iraq?
Cynicism and apathy abound in this country.....and I don't believe it is the result of "un-intended" consequences.
To be effective in fighting the machine one must be OUTSIDE the machine. I left the US and moved to Costa Rica and am currently working on creating a sustainable community to weather the fall-out from the ongoing insanity. I think it may very well get worse before it gets better, and there is no point in hoping that there will be fair elections, or that the dollar will stop falling, or that corporations will stop poisoning us and drugging us and indebting us and enslaving us. I'm positioning myself outside the maelstrom and I'll watch the collapse from a safe distance. When the exits are all sealed off, this torch will still be burning. I suggest others consider and face the truth concerning the current situation, and find a place where freedom is still a possibility. This goes beyond national loyalty, as the America we grew up believing in no longer exists. Get out of debt, sell your house and car, buy gold and silver and get to high ground away from the US, before the national ID goes into effect. Seriously.
Challenge? It's more like a side-show.
It takes more than a staged reading of a play by Daniel Berrigan to "challenge" Dick Cheney.
Blue collar review? i'm not sure of the trenches they have been? is there a war on bad poetry? and what about these awful comments
"None of us actually know what can be done - the future is there for the making. The important thing is to keep trying to accomplish something for human survival and an end to war."
that's the most vague thing said.but, haha there's one more.
" Sweet call for action. Here's an acronym you can spread:GOYA!Get Off Your Ass!"
i was incensed by Andrew Keen's book; but after reading this , he does have his points
Some would say no to something they believe is wrong. Others would say nothing.
Some would take a stand and feel that they should do something to show it. Others spend their time making excuses for doing nothing - "It won't matter, it never does, why bother?".
Why did Rev. Dan and the others show such astounding courage? Why did Rosa Parks and many others? Why does a 94 year old, legally blind, glorious old gal of a Granny For Peace, stand (with the aid of a walker) and dare the police to do what they would, she would not be moved from a protest in front of a recruiting office? The police by the way were very polite and courteous... yes they chickened out and apparently were very traumatized by the whole thing. I think one of the grannies offered the cops cookies... causing the officers to seek therapy after the experience.
With the awesome courage and sacrifice of the Berrigans or the humorous rascality of some old ladies (who emerged victorious and beloved by a cynical city who loved their audacity and style), it is the doers... whatever they do, that gets things done and MAKE things happen.
Otherwise there is only silence and in effect acquiescence. Cheney's preference.
One woman stands by a road everyday and holds up a sign saying no war. There are those who say that doesn't do much but everyone who passes by sees her sincerity and comes (begrudgingly for some) to admire it.
One good soul says NO to something they believe is wrong. Then another good soul sees that as the right thing to do rather than remaining silent. Cindy stood on a roadside alone ...at first.
The point is do something ... anything (nonviolent)... make some noise. If for no other reason than it annoys cheney. See just thinking about it annoying him motivated you didn't it? They need our silence and to have us feel powerless, impotent and weak. But if we are so weak then why do they fear protests and dissent? Remember... for cheney ala haliburton... silence is golden. For us silence is slippery with blood.
That's why what we do matters, whether small or large... we just don't want to agree to the blood shed in our names, so we say no to that acquiescent ... silence. It stops... with us... not them.
IKE: I understand your points and certainly they are logically taken, but I think something that transcends logic is about to do some serious culling to modify the Mars-rules militarism that has consigned so many to misery; and as others have mentioned, the tools to tune the machinery have been rendered all but null and void.
SUZEN: How is life in Costa Rica? that is a place I'd personally consider to wait out the political tsunami, as the ID card does scare me, given all the other collapsing factors on checks & balances, law and order, civil liberties, etc. Patriotism to me is not necessariy particapating willingly in an Orwellian nightmare. Many writers have chosen to be expatriots...