Palestine Tet – 44 – Another Old Geezer for an Immediate Ceasefire Joins Jewish Youth in Denver Civil Disobedience for a Ceasefire

Old Geezer Extraordinaire, Arnie Carter

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Legal defense fund – Please contribute.

1.

Front Range JVP’s Fundraising Statement

This past Sunday, a coalition of @DenverBoulderJVP and our allies put their bodies on the line to SHUT DOWN a major blvd outside the Jewish National Fund’s Global Conference for Israel to demand #CeasefireNOW!

The highway was shut down for 1.5 hrs and 15 people were arrested while 200 fellow protesters surrounded the group with prayers for peace and chanting “Ceasefire Now!” to raise awareness about the ongoing genocide in Gaza, funded by our government.

The devastation continues to increase in Gaza where an estimated 15,000 Palestinians, including over 6,000 children, have been killed. These are not just numbers. Each of them is an entire universe extinguished.

We are asking our community to support those who were arrested by giving to our bail fund here. For the next week, 100% of funds raised will go directly to our chapter (instead of 25% going to National JVP). This will go to ongoing legal support for these comrades, and any other individual or collective costs for past and future actions.

If you stand against genocide, please give today, spread the word, and show up to our next event. We must mourn the dead and fight like hell for the living. We will keep showing up to say NOT IN OUR NAMES until there is a ceasefire, and until Palestine is Free!

2.

Fifteen of us protesters were arrested, charged and released as a result of the civil disobedience. Bail was generously provided by Elizabeth Epp’s Colorado Freedom Fund , a most valuable resource. Virtually all of those arrested (except myself) will need funds for legal help and that is what this blog entry is about. To contribute click on the link above “Legal Defense Fund”.

I urge those of you who can afford to do so to give generously. You can start by matching – or bettering – my $1000 contribution. I will not touch a penny of this money. It’s for the others. I’m retired and can handle the legal expenses at least as I understand them currently. Not so for the others.

Ever go to a mainstream Jewish Zionist fundraiser? They often raise tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars in one sitting. It’s time we more mature (in age anyway) supporters of Jewish Voice for Peace and Not In Your Name show that we can and will match those contributions. Of course, give what you can …

Now is the time. No excuses, no bullshit.

These young folk are out there doing what many of us should have been doing long ago but didn’t have the moxy to do so. As is known, many, nay most of these JVP folk are living far more frugally than their parents. They have talent, compassion, extraordinarily good anti-racist politics, ie, already, great worldly experience none of which is marketable. Now is a good time, an opportunity to make amends for lives of gluttony, unbridled materialism, narcissism and psychologically studying navals.

It’s never too late!

3.

Arnie Carter qualifies easily, no questions asked, as an “old geezer extraordinaire”- the highest level of geezership..

He’s has led a lifetime of work for the common good, working for Denver social services helping homeless people get their pills and medical treatment, organizing for decades for peace and social justice in so many ways that they are difficult to even catalogue. These last decades he has been one of the stalwarts of the Romero Troupe, an organic theater group that has struck a deep chord for its productions on the hidden history of Colorado – labor struggles, racial justice and peace. He has also been active through social justice group of the First Unitarian Church (on 14th and Lafayette), especially where it concerns immigrant rights, peace issues.

At the end of 2003 as the Bush Administration and its proxies pushed to invade Iraq and destroy the country there based on the bogus pretext of Saddam Hussein’s “chemical weapons”, Arnie and I, along with about a dozen other folks, initiated a campaign to press the Denver City Council to pass a resolution opposing the Iraq War. To that end, our little organizing group (in which local Quakers were a key, driving force), organized a door to door campaign to encourage citizens to contact their city council reps to support such an anti-war resolution.

The response to the door-to-door campaign was both overwhelming and instructive. “Instructive” in the sense that it revealed a deep and pervasive core of peace sentiment among Denver residents in all districts. Council reps complained at the time that they had never gotten so many phone calls and letters expressing constituent concerns. Although there was some not very surprising opposition from local hawks and Zionists at the time, the measure passed by a 5-to-4 vote with one abstention (Joyce Foster, who spoke against the resolution). It made front-page news in both local papers at the time, the Denver Post and (since defunct) Rocky Mountain News. 

Arnie Carter was a key part of the organizing committee.

With that memory in mind, there is momentum growing for a City Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinians in Gaza. It’s coming friends and from the same folks that have brought you demonstrations for a ceasefire, and an end to the U.S. supported Israeli cruel blockade of Gaza.

No surprise Anrie was a part of the mix when Jewish Voice for Peace asked for volunteers to engage in civil disobedience in support of Palestine, for an immediate ceasefire of Israel’s genocidal war against Gaza, and against the Jewish National Fund’s holding of a major conference in downtown Denver. among a flood of Jewish youth, organized by Front Range Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Not In Our Name. Arnie Carter was there with Mike Wilzoch and Rob Prince – three old geezers – shutting down traffic on Speer Blvd and Champa Street, a main thoroughfare in Denver.

And shut it down we did … with the three arthritic musketeers shortly afterwards heading off  with a dozen young Jews to Denver’s main jail where the food was terrible but the company as good as it gets for eight hours or so of bad jokes, cooking tips, political tall tails from the 1970s, some local left history – all in all a fine day of social protest, friendship, kicking the powers that be in Colorado in the shins, or perhaps, a little bit higher.

No we didn’t “shut down” the Jewish National Fund (JNF) shindig but in demonstration after demonstration, each bringing together thousands, we exposed the JNF for what it is: an integral element of Zionism’s program to ethnically cleanse Palestinians off of their land. There will be more far reaching political consequences’ to this campaign, to be discussed in future blog entries.

Opposing War with Iraq resolution – the 2003 Denver City Council resolution opposing the Iraq War.