Act On Your Conscience
By SEAN HANNON

April 17, 2003

For the last few weeks, during what I call my “executive lunch break”, I have taken a couple of hours out of my day to exercise my First Amendment rights (not to mention my upper arms) by standing at the corner of a certain bridge, with signs of peace and protest held high. On the second day I was joined by a kindred spirit named Patricia who carries a sign inviting people to honk for peace. We’ve been there on a pretty regular basis, weather permitting, and we intend to continue this peaceful protest into the foreseeable future.

Most people who drive by seem to understand why we are there, and the range of responses is fascinating: from faint wish-you-well honking to lay-on-the-horn support, to sneering thumbs down and the ubiquitous gesture of intimate sexual congress. But there are more than a couple of people who look at us with utter incredulity, wondering if we had just not read the newspaper and heard of the victory. For them, I wish to speak to my own reasons for standing there, as it means many things to me.

Principally, I’m there to say that we need to wake up from the shock and awe of 9/11 and look at what we’ve done; I’m there to publicly grieve for the horrible devastation and chaos we have needlessly imposed on hundreds of thousands of Iraqi people, on their children, on their lost culture and heritage; I’m there to curse the betrayal perpetrated on General Tommy Frank’s “youngsters”, our valiant & trusting men and women, OUR children, who have been exposed to depleted uranium yet again, while our government denies health benefits to the veterans of the first Gulf War.

I’m there to meditate on how my actions or inactions could have contributed to this; I’m there to remind those who have that look of weary annoyance that, no, we don’t get to go back to Disneyland just yet; to those who sing out their windows, “It’s o-ver!”, I’m there to say “Oh really? Listen to our leadership... That was just the opening salvo”; I’m there to say that our country is being steered to ruinous shame by brutish men using arrogance, ignorance and fear as their engine.

I’m there on that bridge with my sign as a form of stress release, to get away from the televised distortions of reality --- Leni Reifenstahl and Joseph Goebbels were amateurs compared to Fox News; I’m there to say that the smallest action by one person does make a difference; I’m there to receive an infusion of hope when little children in the backseats of the cars wave their peace signs back at me; I’m there because honking a horn for peace is for some the only outlet for dissent they have among their spouses and their friends; I’m there to say, and say again, and again... “Act on your conscience, not on your fear”.