Gina Record participates in the Venice Peace March. Another IMC member suggested this interview.
Gina Record of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, a self identified “former Republican” came to Venice Beach with a sign stating: Genocide: the policy of deliberately killing a nationality or ethnic group. The reverse side says
Use nonviolence against the one who is evil.
Jesus Christ Mathew5:39
Do not resist the one who is evil
King James (on a power trip)
A student of Reverend Lawson’s Holman Methodist Church school of nonviolence, she views the war as an extension of corrupt government in the White House. She sees massive demonstration as the way to turn around the situation we now face. To demonstrate the efficacy of such a movement, she mentions the PBS documentary How To Bring Down a Dictator that tells how 5 CIA trained operatives created a social movement of such force in Yugoslavia it eventually toppled the Milosovich regime.
This sort of loose affiliation works very well at the Venice Peace March, which is a true engagement with free speech. At the march’s end, people participant and crowd are invited to speak their peice regarding the war. Hecklers harangue and people walk by cursing “kill them all, let god sort em out.”
The boardwalk is a priceless public space and marks a striking discord against the media monopolies that reportedly cover the war. The boardwalk is awash with political imagery, venders consciously addressing war on their stalls booths, party shirts talking about the libertine life and gads of legalization paraphernalia. Gina always wears political buttons and finds that there is so much more support for pacifist and anti-bush ideas then the mainstream media lets on.
CNN reported that the DC police were realistically expecting 1,000,000 protesters for the September 29th IMF meeting in Washington DC. It would be a huge challenge to the Bush administration and the global order. Instead, we know have unchallenged media conglomeratization and a year of war. Gina sees hope in the public access system as a way to really enforce to more popular audiences the craziness that has been going on. She notes a blossoming crop of progressive public access producers coming up
Other Notes
VoterMarch
Conscientious Objectors and Peace Guides (With a reportedly active LA chapter, this group is a mostly older group of CO’s who council youth on ways to avoid the draft and find alternative funding sources for College.)
Peace and Freedom Party
California Clean Money Campaign (With an LA office, this group will be making ballot initiatives that demand equal and free access to California airwaves for all political candidates)
Reverend James Lawson’s Monthly Nonviolence trainings at Holman United Methodist Church (An LA Gem, this man was an advisor to Martin Luther King- he now teaches a monthly course which among other things involves an introduction to the most radical notions of Democracy Gina has seen. And the statement “its not who’s in power, its how you react to it.)