Click on the headline to link to a Smedley Butler Brigade of the Veterans For Peace Website entry concerning the efforts to join the 2011 South Boston Saint Patrick's Day Parade on March 20th.
When: Sunday, March 20, 2011, 2:00 pm
Where: Broadway MBTA Station - Look for VFP Flags • Dorchester Ave. & Broadway • do not attempt to drive - come by T • South Boston
Start: 2011 Mar 20 - 2:00pm
Themes for the Day:
· How is the War Economy Working for You
· Bring the Troops Home, Take Care of Them When They Get Here
· Cut Military Spending, Save Jobs: Teachers, Fireman, Police
· Peace is Patriotic! “Not a Dirty Word”
Please join Veterans For Peace and other peace and social justice organizations for this historic alternative “people’s parade” following the official Saint Patrick’s Day Parade.
Background: Veterans for Peace were denied permission to walk in the “Official Saint Patrick’s Day Parade”. The stated reason was because the Allied War Veterans Council (War Council) did not want the word “peace” associated with the word “veteran”. They also stated that Veterans For Peace were too political for the parade. As if all the politicians, military formations and bands in the parade are not political?
The City of Boston has issued a permit to Veterans For Peace to have The Saint Patrick’s Day Peace Parade, immediately following the “official parade”. Our parade is a “people’s parade for peace and justice”.
We invite all progressive groups (peace, environmental, women’s rights, civil rights, labor, GLBT etc.) in the greater Boston area to please join us as we follow behind the official parade. The South Boston parade is the largest St. Patrick's Day parade in the country and is estimated to draw one million spectators. This is a huge opportunity for us to get our message out!
For more information please go to: Smedleyvfp.org or email ujpcoalition@gmail.com
For information on how your group can participate, contact:
Pat Scanlon, Veterans For Peace: 978-475-1776
United for Justice with Peace: 617-383-4857
American Friends Service Committee: 617-497-5273
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Markin comment:
Normally the efforts of anybody, individually or as an organization, trying to take part into the annual South Boston Saint Patrick’s Day Parade would be a yawner for this writer. Having grown up in a Irish working class neighborhood in suburban Boston and having about ten thousand roots to South Boston back to the “famine ships” of the 1840s when they embarked there with some forebears and now through various second and third cousins I, at least since I have come of leftist political age, have avoided the drunken brawls and other sham Irish stuff associated with Saint Patrick’s Day like the plague.
This situation though is different. This is about defending the public square (even though the august United States Supreme Court has already declared this specific parade a private affair and no subject to free speech guarantees). This is about political exclusion of the Veterans For Peace (as opposed to plenty of space for pro-war veterans and their associations) as was that attempt previously by various Irish gays and lesbians and their supporters to march in this parade that was the subject of the Supreme Court legal decision. That is where our fight is. And that is why this struggle is supportable and why it deserves space here. Although really when we talk about the Irish and Ireland I say the hell with the spirit of Saint Patrick. Rather think of the spirit of the fighters of Easter 1916. That is the real Irish deal. No question.
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