But sometimes the things that are seemingly sideshows really are the main events, the tightrope where life and death can occur in a blindingly fast moment. Take the much discussed story of Sue Niederer. Niederer is a New Jersey woman whose son, Lt. Seth Dvorin, was killed in Iraq. Wearing a t-shirt that said, "President Bush You Killed My Son," Niederer attended a campaign speech by Laura Bush, another mother, as we are constantly, nauseatingly reminded. At the firehouse in Hopewell Township, New Jersey (is there a firehouse in America not visited by some random Bush or Cheney?), Niederer demanded to know why Bush doesn't send her daughters, both of military age, to go fight in Iraq. She was, as we know by now, arrested for trespassing, even though she had a ticket to the event. Consigned to the category of "protester" by the media, Niederer's plaintive cry for justice is now equal to people who strip off their clothes for AIDS funding or puppeteers for peace. Republican New Jersey Assemblyman Bill Baroni commented, "She really ought to find something to do with her time."
Maybe what she can do with her time is try to put back together the gory jigsaw puzzle that is now her son's corpse. See, Seth Dvorin died trying to defuse a homemade bomb, which went off and ripped through his body, sending pieces of it in several different directions. There's a good chance his hands were torn into dozens of bits. There's a good chance the bomb was packed with metal shards, nails, what have you, each of which that went through him would have taken a piece of him with it before it landed on the ground. Seth's father, Richard, has also taken it upon himself to protest, in a letter to President Bush. Perhaps his 25 year-old widow has protested, too. But it is his mother who has made the most public outcry, to another mother, about the deaths of children.
During the "Dirty War" in Argentina, from 1976-1983, a military junta disappeared tens of thousands of so-called "rebels" and others. Every week, on Thursday afternoons, since 1977, in the Plaza de Mayo, the main square of Buenos Aires, a group of mothers have appeared to demand answers on what has happened to their children. In often silent protest, the very presence of these women, the Madres de Plaza de Mayo, creates a living memorial, a way for the disappered to never be forgotten. Some of the members themselves were disappeared, but their numbers grew to thousands, an empowering moment in the early 1980s when the people themselves were blatantly disempowered. And many of the mothers did learn what happened to their children (although thousands remain unaccounted for). And the junta fell, but the mothers remain.
Perhaps it's time, perhaps it's time, again, at last, in this nation, for Sue Niederer to be another Rosa Parks, for movements of mothers to come together and not allow their children to be disappeared into the vast abyss of memory where all soldiers seem to have been told they die for good and noble causes, where all parents are supposed to be proud of the sacrifice.
Maybe what she can do with her time is try to put back together the gory jigsaw puzzle that is now her son's corpse. See, Seth Dvorin died trying to defuse a homemade bomb, which went off and ripped through his body, sending pieces of it in several different directions. There's a good chance his hands were torn into dozens of bits. There's a good chance the bomb was packed with metal shards, nails, what have you, each of which that went through him would have taken a piece of him with it before it landed on the ground. Seth's father, Richard, has also taken it upon himself to protest, in a letter to President Bush. Perhaps his 25 year-old widow has protested, too. But it is his mother who has made the most public outcry, to another mother, about the deaths of children.
During the "Dirty War" in Argentina, from 1976-1983, a military junta disappeared tens of thousands of so-called "rebels" and others. Every week, on Thursday afternoons, since 1977, in the Plaza de Mayo, the main square of Buenos Aires, a group of mothers have appeared to demand answers on what has happened to their children. In often silent protest, the very presence of these women, the Madres de Plaza de Mayo, creates a living memorial, a way for the disappered to never be forgotten. Some of the members themselves were disappeared, but their numbers grew to thousands, an empowering moment in the early 1980s when the people themselves were blatantly disempowered. And many of the mothers did learn what happened to their children (although thousands remain unaccounted for). And the junta fell, but the mothers remain.
Perhaps it's time, perhaps it's time, again, at last, in this nation, for Sue Niederer to be another Rosa Parks, for movements of mothers to come together and not allow their children to be disappeared into the vast abyss of memory where all soldiers seem to have been told they die for good and noble causes, where all parents are supposed to be proud of the sacrifice.
Let's do mothers and fathers. Can we do that?
But yeah, I guess around the world it seems to be the mothers who wrest change from brutality and death, dope dealers and goon squads.
I saw a bumper sticker yesterday - Vote: It's up to the women.
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