At the Circle K station, it wasn't long before police officers turned their attention to the folks "loitering" on the premises. They began herding people off the private property with orders "Go to your cars." The arrests seemed haphazard. We moved on order. At one point I asked an officer, "How do you choose who to arrest?" he replied, "Anybody walking in a large group." "How many is large?" I asked. "Whatever my supervisor says," he replied.
In recent years, many have questioned the effectiveness of the yearly ritual and litany of the dead held at the gates of Fort Benning, and there is talk within the movement to move the event to Washington, D.C. The addition of fences along the sides of the road and three layers of chain link topped with barbed wire at the entrance to the base, has effectively corralled participants into a crowded "protest zone." Attendance at this November's vigil dropped from 20,000 at its peak to an estimated 5,000. The Jesuit order no longer subsidizes travel to the SOA Watch event for thousands of students from its high schools and colleges, which may have contributed to the loss in numbers.
Other stresses on the movement include withdrawal of $17,000 in annual funding from the Maryknoll religious order due to SOA Watch founder and Maryknoll priest Roy Bourgeois' open support for the ordination of women to the priesthood. According to the Catholic News Service, Bourgeois was excommunicated "latae sententiae" -- automatically-- in 2008 for not recanting his public statements supporting the ordination of women.
Still, the vigil at the gates of Fort Benning, headquarters of the U.S. Army School of America's, moves many to tears and is a profound experience for newcomers. The weekend is filled with workshops and trainings, films and speakers, and tables and tables of activist groups selling t-shirts and buttons, and passing out information of their many efforts to bring about change. And for many it is a reunion and much needed dose of solidarity with activists who gather from throughout the country
The puppetista pageantry is larger than life. This year they depicted the three -headed beast of Global Corporate, Uncle Sam, and the Military devouring the people. Then the triple Goddesses burst on the scene swirling around and around, bringing power and hope and support to the resistance until the blue Mother Goddess burst out of the collapsing beast to the applause of the crowd.
"I believe the puppetistas with their creativity in visually depicting the story has a deep value for our understanding and for our ability to experience the truth," Asheville gardener David Williams said. "It offers a sense of hope--a symbolic meaning that gives us a greater sense of what is possible."
Will it be this feminine face of God that will finally shake the evil of the SOA? Or will it be the more mundane media focus that this year's arrests of stilt walkers and puppetistas, of journalists, passersby and a local barber will bring. Or maybe it will be the stubborn willingness of a Franciscan Friar to return again and again to prison as a protest against this school of terror?
As the song goes, just maybe "it all comes down to how you react."
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