To the editor:
"Where have all the war protesters gone at Grant Circle?"
That was the question Dean Burgess asked in his letter (Times, Monday, Nov. 2).
The answer is, at Grant Circle every Saturday, from noon to 1 p.m. — exactly where we have been every Saturday since December 2002, except when it has rained, snowed or sleeted prohibitively.
For more than 90 percent of the time over the last eight years, straight through the Bush-Cheney regime and consistently on into the Obama administration, we have remained at Grant Circle every week reminding the passing residents of Cape Ann that hundreds of our troops are dying in these terrible wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; reminding all of us also that Iraqis and Afghanis — especially women and children — are also dying and suffering, not by the hundreds, but by the thousands. It is simply not true that our rejection of war and the specific wars and occupations being waged against Iraq and Afghanistan ended with the end of the Bush tyranny.
As part of the North Shore Coalition for Peace and Justice, formed in the winter of 2002, our goals remain to address the underlying issues that lead to war and to support peaceful, multilateral approaches to resolve international disputes including the use of the United Nations and other non-violent channels of international diplomacy and law.
Our signs at our weekly peace vigils call for no escalation, and instead for the use of diplomacy and development strategies in Iraq and Afghanistan, an end to the use of torture, the holding accountable all who engage in torture, the closing of Guantanamo, and the rapid withdrawal of all U.S. forces from both countries. We say clearly that war is not the answer, regardless of who is president.
Similarly, since the summer of 2003, we have continued to collaborate with the Veterans for Peace, Samantha Smith Chapter, to carry these same messages into Gloucester and Rockport in the Horribles parades, including this July. And we have consistently lifted up these same messages of peace and conflict resolution at our annual booth during Gloucester Sidewalk Days.
Mr. Burgess may assume we have gone home, but thousands of other passers-by honk their support for our efforts each week at Grant Circle, applaud our peace-seeking activities during the annual Horribles' parades, and sign our annual petitions seeking the return of our troops to the United States and an end to the woefully misguided use of now more than $927 billion in tax dollars (National Priorities Project as of Nov. 3) — dollars that could be far better used to pay for our schools, recovery from the recession, to provide health care and community policing, to restore the failing infrastructure of our country, etc.
From the taxpayers of Gloucester alone, since 2001, these wars have wasted more than $116.5 million that could have otherwise provided, for example, 1,667 elementary school teachers for one year, or 405 units of affordable housing, or 181,646 homes with renewable energy for one year, or 43,687 children with health care.
No, we who seek peace, rather than war, have not gone away and will continue to work toward peace and justice on every front we can until we reestablish appropriate priorities for the United States and its people — regardless of who is president. We invite others who share our desire for peace to join with us in our efforts.
Sunny Robinson
Harvard Street, Gloucester
