At the Longmont (CO) Peace Rally on 4/18/10, I held a sign stating, “STOP FUNDING WARS.” On the same street corner, my sister activist’s sign read, “HEALTHCARE NOT WAR.”
A man walked up to me and asked, “Could we have a peaceful conversation?”
I replied, “Always.”
To set the scene, this man walked from a parking lot about ½ a block away and crossed the street to confront my octogenarian sister activist and me. The closest corner from the parking lot was staffed by two articulate Vietnam combat veterans, one of whom is an obvious disabled veteran (double amputee). The other corners had multiple peace activists with at least one male veteran. Isn’t it curious that he came out of his way to talk to two female activists? We talked for about 10 minutes. A condensed version of our conversation follows.
“Your type of thinking delayed the United States from entering World War II to fight the Nazis, which caused millions of people to be killed.”
“Do you think I am opposed to peacekeeping and defense?”
“There were WMDs in Iraq.”
“Really! What is your credible news source?”
“A soldier I know told me. Many people know this.”
“What is your credible news source?”
“There is a book written by a Christian man about this.”
“Who is the author; and what is the book’s title?”
He didn’t answer that. “You should read things other than from the liberal media conspiracy.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Credible news sources are unbiased. Would you like to talk with some of our veterans about our stances? You might find their thoughts interesting on war and peace.”
“No, they’re probably disgruntled.” He walked away.
What was his motivation for confronting two women? Why didn’t he want to talk to our male activists and/or our male veterans activists? I think he wanted to, in his perception, intimidate the weakest targets. But the women activists stood their ground and the opponent walked away.
Submitted by Marta Turnbull 4/18/2010
Have you read any of Lakoff's work on framing? I'm not sure how much of it I buy completely, but this guy makes me think of Lakoff's idea that sometimes you can't make our message of peace and cooperation resonate with people who subscribe to (what he terms) the "strict father model" of government.
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