Wear red every Friday, "so we can see that we are the majority."

A Witherspooner forwarded this interesting note -- a suggestion for protest that borrows from the heroic (and non-violent) resistance of Norwegians to the Nazi occupation in World War II.   [5-26-04]

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My name is Nadia Jensen and I have an idea for a quiet revolution. Please take 5 minutes to read my email and then help me if you can: Here's some history behind this idea: When Norway was occupied by Germany in 1940, Norwegian women began to knit RED caps for children as a way of letting everyone know that they did not like what was happening in their country, that they didn't like having their freedom taken away by the Nazis. My great aunt, Karin Knudson Myrstad, was one of the women who knit red caps for her children and others. Similarly, in Denmark, women knit red-white-and blue caps (colors of the Allies) for the very same reason.

The result was that whenever Norwegians and Danes left their homes -- to go to the store, to work, etc, they could see that the majority opposed what was going on in their country. As you know, both countries organized effective Resistance efforts and changed history -- everything that happened began simply by wearing red!!!! (or the colors of the Allies, in Denmark).

1. BACKGROUND: I believe, as many of us do, that at the very heart of our democracy is our right to oppose certain policies of our government. Increasingly, our Government is redefining "freedom" in ways that make too many Americans perceive that it is risky to oppose his policies - and, in particular, current inroads about individual freedoms and policies in the U.S. and abroad. However, many of us do oppose what our government is doing to individual rights-- and I have an idea that will allow all of us to recognize each other very easily so we can see that we are the majority.

2. SO... I have been thinking that it's time to take action in a way that is effective and easy for all of us to do: Just wear red every Friday between now and election day.

Wear a little or a lot - just be sure that when you leave your house to go about your day - to work, to school, to the store, to the gas station, wherever you go in your daily routine - that everyone who sees you will see that you are wearing red because you believe in freedom and you don't agree with our current administration's policies at home and abroad. I'm really certain that we'll see that lots of us wearing red for freedom - because we are the majority. We just need a way to show each other who we are!!! Between now and election day, ask everyone you know to wear red for "Freedom Fridays."

3. I have already spread the word to friends and have had a very enthusiastic response. This email has been forwarded around the country by many who receive it - feel free to send in on to your friends and co-workers.

From a Quaker mailing list

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We received this moving and inspiring response from a mother whose son, a Marine, was killed in action on April 6, 2004.   [6-1-04]

Great Idea!

I just read the suggestion today, Sunday, and am glad that I inadvertently made a statement last Friday. My son, Staff Sgt Allan K. Walker, USMC, was killed in action April 6, 2004. Friday his high school honored him as a part of their regular Memorial Day observance, and I wore a red jacket.

I get so tired of people telling me "You shouldn't say things like 'Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush are no better than mass murderers because your own son died defending your liberties'." EXCUSE ME. My son served in the armed services of this nation, in order to ensure all of our liberties, including mine to speak. He died trying to rescue a wounded Marine. Liberty had nothing to do with the situation in which they found themselves in mortal peril. GREED DID.

I will say it again. Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush are no better than mass murderers. They are directly responsible for wasting the lives of all the US COALITION AND IRAQI military who have been killed in Iraq, for all the grievous woundings of ALL CASUALTIES, BOTH COALITION AND IRAQI. They are responsible for ALL CIVILIAN DEATHS AND WOUNDINGS, ALL 'COLLATERAL DAMAGE' AND ALL THE LOOTING. Furthermore, by focusing on Iraq rather than Al Quaeda, Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush can now "claim" ALL THE DEATHS, WOUNDING AND DAMAGE IN MADRID. The good news is, at least Halliburton is now operating in the black instead of the red.

Another thought: I will be attending the Peace and Justice Conference in Seattle and it might be a good idea for conferees to wear red the entire time.

Nancy C. Walker

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More comments on wearing red -- added on 6-10-04

We received this positive suggestion on 6/6/2004:

Ah, proud to be RED! Growing up in the 50s, Red was something bad because of its identification w/communism and the Evil Empire and all that. How nice to be able to have something good for wearing red.

But in our day and age red is not an unusual color, as it may have been during the more drab times of WW II. My suggestion is that we make a badge or large pin to further explain our cause, something like RED FOR FREEDOM.

What do you think? I'm going to get some of those peel-off name badges at the office supply store, print them in color w/RED FOR FREEDOM, and share them w/friends. We'll wear them on Fridays!

Here's to peace and freedom, and to living in a country where we are free to protest -- and, hopefully, to THINK about what's really going on here.

Peace,

Joyce Dillenberger
Bellingham, WA

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Then came this comment, which makes the slightly negative assertion that "the people who put this out and are passing it around are the same 'peace' activists who routinely support terrorism and hate our country." But the writer begins with an interesting concern about comparisons with Norwegian resistance to the Nazi occupation.

This is a dangerous and misleading concept. Norwegians under Nazi occupation did not have the freedom to express their opposition to their government in the press or on streetcorners (or on the Internet, if it had then existed). They had to resort to subtle means such as are described here. Most important, they did not have the right to vote. Here, to the contrary, we have all the freedom in the world. We don't need to wear red caps because we have freedom of expression and we vote. If you don't like a policy, write a letter to the newspaper, picket the White House or Congress, vote for candidates who express your point of view. The one thing you should not do is confuse democracy with tyranny. To go along with this proposal is in fact to go along with an effort to blur the difference between the two, as well as an effort to label the US as "Nazi," just as Israelis are routinely labeled 'Nazis' by people who in fact advocate genocide against Jews. Unfortunately, these are conscious efforts, and are meant to undermine the very democracy which makes the proposal superfluous. The people who put this out and are passing it around are the same "peace" activists who routinely support terrorism and hate our country. They are not concerned with freedom and individual rights, but in fact support every racist, totalitarian, woman-abusing, child-abusing, anti-Semitic regime around the world. The freedom of terrorists to go about in the US as they please is the only threatened freedom they are concerned about; the legitimate concerns one might have about some of Ashcroft's policies are of no interest to them. This movement to wear red is an insult to the memory of those brave Norwegians who took risks to defend democracy. Incidentally, it is also dishonest on yet another level: You can be sure that 99% of those who will wear red on Fridays will do so unwittingly and have never heard of this "Freedom Friday." They will thus be exploited by these anti-democratic propagandists who pretend to be "the Majority" and who would never trust the people to express themselves at the ballot box.

Andre Katz
Baltimore, MD.

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On wearing red ... the discussion continues   [6-14-04]

We recently posted a suggestion from an anonymous source that people wear something red every Friday as a symbol of solidarity with those of all nationalities who are suffering in Iraq, and as a call for an end to the violence there.

An enthusiastic response came from Nancy Walker, a woman whose son was killed in military service in Iraq. Her comment was met by a note from Andre Katz, who accused her of supporting terrorism, etc., etc., etc.

Ms. Walker has now responded with this comment.

Well! the truth is finally out. I am a terrorist sympathizer who is one of those who

"routinely support terrorism and hate our country. They are not concerned with freedom and individual rights, but in fact support every racist, totalitarian, woman-abusing, child-abusing, anti-Semitic regime around the world."

Thank you, Mr. Katz, for making it clear that my son died for your freedom to abuse me, and others, including both the political right and left of this country, who believe that our country could be sliding towards totalitarianism.

I recently had my son's truck in for servicing, and while in the Chevy dealership I had a conversation with a "gentleman," formerly in the military, who was holding forth about "those people" who "don't understand freedom" and who therefore, in his opinion, deserved to be tortured. "Heaven forfend," he told me, "that someone you love should be in Iraq right now."

I am sorry to admit that I lost my temper a bit, for I felt compelled to point out to him that "those people" are PEOPLE first before they are anything else, and armed militia action should be expected when PEOPLE feel that they are in jeopardy of being unjustly imprisoned, and their basic human rights abrogated, and that this was the basis of our own Declaration of Independence.

I then had to show him the Staff Sergeant and Drill Instructor insignia on my son's truck, and explain that I had inherited the truck because the "insurgency" in Al Anbar Province was probably fueled by our illegal and immoral treatment of the Iraqi detainees. He had nothing else to say to me except that he was sorry for my loss.

By the way, Mr. Katz, to categorize Arabs, whatever their religion, as "those people," is anti-Semitic. To characterize any people, on the basis of their religion, as "those people," is the beginning of the kind of intolerance which has led us in the past into such unlovely episodes as the Crusades, the persecutions of the Albigensians, the turmoil and deaths in Amritsar, the Thirty Years War, and each and every pogrom, anywhere.

When we target anyone for intolerance, we lay the ground rule that targeting is others is okay, conveniently ignoring the fact that to others, WE are the "other" and therefore okay to be made targets in return. There is no useful outcome to such thinking.

I will be wearing red on Fridays, and the entire time at the Peace and Justice Conference. I am red, white and blue in my patriotism but I don't have to wave the flag and shout "hooray" just because some moron is beating a drum.

Nancy C. Walker

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We've also received a note from frequent contributor Earl H. Tilford, Jr., Ph.D., Professor of History and Fellow of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies at Grove City College. He again accuses us (the Witherspoon Society in particular and liberals in general) of terminal confusion, as he labels Ms. Walker's earlier note "rantings." And so it goes.

Liberals are confused and radicals terminally so. You call the rantings of Nancy Miller, mother of a US Marine killed fighting terror and tyranny in Iraq, "moving and "inspiring." Then you dub Andre Katz's remarks "slightly negative."

Nancy Walker calls the President, Vice President and Secretary of Defense "murderers", asserts that they are responsible for all the violence in Iraq, and you dub these unfounded allegations "moving" and "inspiring." Andre Katz points out that the Norwegians wearing red did so in silent opposition to a fascist regime; exactly the kind of regime the United States and its Coalition partners---most notable among them being a contingent from Poland, a country which experienced fascist occupation as few others did in World War II--removed to free the people of Iraq from a form of Ba'athist fascism very much like that of Nazi Germany. You call making that point being "slightly negative."

Liberal confusion continues to amaze me. Liberals, especially the Witherspooners, certainly seem confused as to what constitutes marriage. Despite the physiological impossibility of consuming any marriage" between same sex couples and the moral proscriptions against sodomy not only in the Judo-Christian tradition but in every other conceivable religion, liberals continue to compare the gay community's efforts to legitimize homosexuality and sodomy with the Civil Rights struggle as if proscription against sinful behavior and discrimination based on race were synonymous. Ask most blacks if they like being compared to sexual perverts and you may find their answers somewhat enlightening. Nancy Walker throws the word "murder" around with no workable definition of the term. Murder is the unjustified taking of innocent life. That's a clear definition of killing babies in the womb but one hardly apropos to killing terrorists in Iraq---and it is quite likely Mrs Walker's son was killed by a Hezbollah terrorist dispatched from Iran.

The only remedy for confusion is truth. There is definitive truth to be found in the Word of God. I suggest you search for it.

Very Respectfully,


Earl H. Tilford, Jr., Ph.D.
Professor of History and Fellow,
Foundation for the Defense of Democracies
Grove City College
Grove City, PA

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Dr. Tilford makes an interesting Freudian slip.

con·sume v. consumed, consum·ing, con·sumes. --tr. 1. To eat or drink up; ingest. See Synonyms at eat. 2.a. To expend; use up: engines that consume less fuel; a project that consumed most of my time and energy. b. To purchase (goods or services) for direct use or ownership. 3. To waste; squander. See Synonyms at waste. 4. To destroy totally; ravage: flames that consumed the house; a body consumed by cancer. 5. To absorb; engross: consumed with jealousy.

--

John Simpson

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Prof. Tilford responds in a note dated 6/17/04 [6-19-04]

No, Mr. Simpson. That was no "interesting Freudian slip"……just a careless spelling error not discernable with "Spell Check." Unlike many in the Witherspoon Society, I have no trouble understanding what St. Peter is talking about in Acts 10: 9-22 (that's in the New Testament for you Columbia Seminary faculty and students) when the disciple discusses eating unclean foods. Although those who argue that being released from proscriptions against chowing down on pork chops provides license for sodomy may have a problem distinguishing between pork and sex, I do not. However, one trip to "Dreamland" in Tuscaloosa, Alabama , the home of the South's finest barbeque, approaches ( I would have written "comes close to" but I'm watching my words here) an orgasmic gastronomic experience.

Very Respectfully,

Earl H. Tilford, Jr., Ph.D.

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Wearing red -- another comment   [7-19-04]

Another enthusiastic wearer of red sees that gesture as a means to communicate, and even to open up conversation.

July 19, 2004

I think the idea of wearing Red is wonderful. All forms of communication are helpful and HOPEFUL.

When you are complimented or commented on your RED attire, choose subtle words as to why you wear red to complete your intended message.

Then take ACTION.......Invite others, Email others, get involved with petitions, register people to vote. Help out, communicate. Speak! March, do what you can and Take it to The POLLS in November.

Knowledge is power.....

I am doing my part and I will wear red on Fridays.

Gabriella Dolores Rodriguez

San Diego CA

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