October 27th in Smithfield

Stop Torture Now (www.ncstoptorturenow.net) organized three main events in Smithfield as part of the October 27th United For Peace and Justice (UFPJ) national day of action against the Iraq War  www.oct27.org).  In this case, the focus was anti-war, anti-rendition, and anti-torture.  The schedule was for people to gather at 12:30, march 1-2 to the rally site in a small park beside the Neuse River and Business 70/Market Street, and meet again from 3 to 5 at Aero's hangar at the Johnston County Airport, a few miles away going west on 70.  I heard that the march started late, at about 1:15.  I was planning to arrive in time to at least see it, but I got there for the rally.  There were a few counter-protesters with large flags at the first intersection as I came in to downtown Smithfield, and I slipped by a large group across Front St. from the rally.  They were making some catcalls, but they were relatively quiet despite their numbers, and they left early, possibly half way through the rally, which went a little late.  The roads were blocked off, but the police didn't mind me parking closer to the rally, and there was not a large police presence.  I was told that for some reason (intimidation is the only explanation that comes to my mind, other than a kneejerk reaction), the police wanted the addresses of the tablers, so they could run background checks.  The lawn was the only town property tablers could have damaged, so I don't see why the would target the tablers for legitimate reasons.  The rally seemed to have several hundred to 1000 people.  I didn't look carefully, but there seemed to be 50 or fewer counter-protesters, and fewer than 10 police at the site.  I mainly remember the counter-protesters making childish insults, but they were politer than those in Fayetteville, although I assume that many of the same people were there too.  I heard that a woman put her hands on a counter-protester's face, in a gesture for calm, but was accused of slapping him.  I don't know if she was arrested.   

 

Alliance ML had a table and people took half of the impeachment pamphlets and also some of the reprints of the summer 2006 articles on Aero and NC public worker organizing.  GRIM, Peace Action, CodePink, the Socialist Workers Party, the Green Party, Peace !st (I think), Stop Torture Now, BORDC, and a few others were tabling.  I talked to an SWP woman from Georgia, who said her group was also going to a Greensboro event that afternoon, and some other people.  The SWP seems to emphasize Cuban socialism, and I think it is a long standing Trotskyist group.  A local couple stopped by and I talked for a while with the woman, who was amn army veteran at the time of the Gulf War.  She was probably feigning ignorance in asking what my sickle-and-hammer pin stood for and whether Russia was still communist (I thought only people like Rush had trouble telling the difference), yet seemed to know that China is very capitalist, but I can't be sure.  She seemed sympathetic, despite apparently being a Hillary Clinton supporter (of course, some conservatives say she was/is a communist, which is an insult to us...).  It could be better, but that was one of Alliance's most effective tablings here, and I see it as partially making up for our absence earlier this year at the Fayetteville event.   

 

I went to the Aero Contractors event as it was starting.  There were lots of cars parked across the street from Aero's driveway, which is named after a pilot from the Vietnam War period.   There was an NC Council of Churches sign and a prayer and some remarks.  I didn't know what the plan was, other than that we were not planning to do civil disobedience.  Two counter-protesters started slowly walking from their group, at the gates of Aero, to us, maybe 150 feet away.  The group had bullhorns and were talking about Daniel Pearl having his head sawed off (they didn't mention the connection to Pakistani military intelligence), the US methods aren't torture (there can be worse torture, but I still think it is torture and the people doing it could be charged for it someday), the jihadis are going to get us, etc. Three more marched down, and the first two were not as disruptive as they could have been, but yelled about us indoctrinating our kids (there were several there).  We marched in rows of 8, at long intervals, carrying black posters with pictures of torture victims or the disappeared, from around the world.  I did not envy the first row to go down, though the counter-protesters said they were non-violent and welcomed us to touch the fence and be arrested.  

 

As my group came up the counter demonstration, I thought they were blocking us out, but actually that was the gate.  Aero has a large, dull blue hanger (I thought it would be darker), surrounded by young pine forest on the right and towards the road, and brownish lawn to the left.  We hung our signs on the fence, stayed a while, somewhat mingled with the now quieter counter-protesters, and then left. The counter-protesters had lots of flags, a few airhorns, a truck that periodically made bull sounds (?), and there were 12-15 motorcycles parked nearby.  Most of their insults were childish, like offering tissue for us 'whiners' and they said FIST's sign was not worth being in college.  I expected worse from them.  I heard that they told the children of a woman who went down early that their mother had troubles, but the counter-protesters were fighting for the children's freedom, or something like that.  There wasn't cursing though, and there were some actual discussions (theological?).  There weren't any troubles, other than a protester dropping one of the proferred tissues and being accused of littering, and I think counter-protesters not letting an organizer retrieve the picture of a relative, I think tortured or killed by the Nazis.  There could have been less than 50 in our group and less than 30 in theirs at the gates of Aero.  The Stop Torture Now group was almost all white, but younger than what you would see at a Chapel Hill impeachment event.  There seemed to be a few south Asians, people from the Middle East, or Latinos though.  The counter-protesters were mostly men and middle-aged.  There were only a few people from the Sheriff's department, yet there were three big vans and lots of patrol cars, and the officers were relatively heavily armed.  I wondered if  a few of the cars that went by were trying to disrupt us, but there weren't loud motorcycles like at Fayetteville.   

 

Out at the main road there were a few conversations with counter-protesters that showed that they are human and seemingly reasonable people.  They will be in our face, they said, but they won't be violent or threaten us at home, as one accused an anonymous CodePink member of doing.  One said he would find eyewitnesses more compelling.  Most of the counter-protesters stayed back at Aero.  They think the US doesn't torture, so I guess they don't feel like they were protesting for torture, which seems odder to me than protesting for Bush's wars.  This was more confrontational than I am use to, and I was wondering what the deputies might do, but it was not a very dangerous situation it seems.      

 

I haven't looked for coverage, but it was briefly on WTVD (ABC).  I'm not sure that even stated our purpose, I only saw a picture of a couple counter-protesters, and they had a view of Aero from a different road.  I did not see any TV crews, and I assumed the few journalists I saw were from alternate media or small media.  There should be a writeup in an upcoming issue of  Alliance!, and it might be time for an article on new discoveries about Aero.     

 

Note:  GRIM is actually meeting for the month Sunday evening.  I thought it met last Sunday.