Blue Grass + "Red" State = Peace Activism

"Kentucky at War," proclaims this week's issue of The Nation, the standard-bearer of the U.S. socialist-bending progressive community. The Nation has been publishing a series of articles looking at the political debates in so-called "red" states as the presidential campaign heats up. This feature article by Bob Moser, which highlights how military veterans are speaking out against the Iraq war in "unlikely" places like Louisville, KY, mentions the Fellowship of Reconciliation's role in sparking a regional peace action coalition.

FOR's Louisville chapter is one the most organized and active in the country, so for those who know our grassroots base, this piece will come as no big news. But for those who don't, it might well seem a surprising place for a "coalition of peace activists, military veterans and families, blue-collar hard hats and college professors, old and young and (mostly) middle-aged" to come together under the banner of the Louisville Peace Action Community (LPAC).

The article is an inspiration for activists who have been working to stop the war for close to five years, and who -- with the latest news that the Bush administration has requested another $200 billion to fund the war, and no evidence that the Democratic-led Congress can do anything to stop it -- might feel on the verge of giving up. LPAC not only has managed to bring a richly diverse set of people & groups together in common cause, but it has shown incredible creativity, a refusal to let the lack of coverage in mainstream media be an obstacle to organizing, and great resiliency.

For we can all take courage in the example of all sorts of Kentuckians profiled in this article, such as long-time local FOR leader Jean Edwards:

There's 85-year-old Jean Edwards, a legendary local peace-and-justice activist, and her 15-year-old granddaughter, who asks the question, What would Gandhi do? There's a liberal white Presbyterian minister who went to Mississippi in 1964, during Freedom Summer, followed by an African-American minister who surveys the room and declares, "We are the people that can end this war. It has always been and will always be us--the good people, the common people, the regular people. It will always be incumbent upon us, when we have had enough."

Let's hear it for the bluegrass state!