Dear Aldermen,

Since citizens were not invited to speak in response to Alderman Roche's two minute statement about SDP's protest actions at a fall Aldermen's meeting, I will now do so for the record.

REGARDING SDP'S PROTEST ACTIONS AT AN ALDERMEN'S MEETING LAST FALL:

Most significant social change on matters of fundamental justice and oppression involves forms of protest action and in some cases rises to the level of civil disobedience. This is because the groups that are acting have appealed to the powers that be to act for change, and those powers are intransigent precisely because they have all the power.

Martin Luther King was jailed nearly 3 dozen times for fighting against racism. He made the decision to conduct civil disobedience because it empowers ordinary folks to use what power they have against those who have institutional power. In South Africa students and others sacrificed theei lives to fight the racist injustice that they were facing using standard protest actions as a tool.

Protest tactics were used to win the 40-hour work week, end child labor, end slavery, and create countless other social changes we now take for granted but that wouldn't have been possible without protests.

Before one casually accepts the lambasting of SDP for using minimal protest actions at an Aldermen's meeting, consider the institutional forces against us and the actions that they have taken:

CONGRESSMAN MIKE CAPUANO:
He who said "I don't normally get involved in municipal affairs but I do have to in this case", when he came out publicly against divestment. Note he also never met with SDP before making his pronouncement.

He is the same person who openly stated that he would not support the Rachel Corrie bill (for US investigation into her death) because the pro-Israel apartheid lobby was stronger than most of the anti-occupation people sitting in front of him at the Bnai Brith Temple. He told the assembled congregation that his position was based on the stronger power of the pro-apartheid Israel forces that are lobbying him (corporate forces that benefit from the triangular relationship that exists between congress, corporations and apartheid Israel as well as non-corporate forces).

It didn't seem to matter to Mike that a young girl dressed in a bright orange jacket, a US citizen, was killed in a vicious unconscionable act by an Israeli soldier driving a bulldozer in Gaza. I only wish that Rachel Corrie's parents would have been there to dress Capuano down for disgracing the dignity of that young girl's life.

MAYOR JOE "ISRAEL" CURTATONE:
This case is so transparent it barely merits discussion. Last fall Joe vetoed any chance the Aldermen's resolution would go through without ever talking to our citizens group. There was no reason why he had to issue a veto statement that day and also before hearing any of the detailed testimony. That is great governing there by our fearless, but rather immature, leader.

Subsequently, the mayor was unwilling to meet with 125 citizens - truly pathetic. At one point his aid said: there isn't enough room to meet with 125 people ! (He thought we would allow him to meet with just a few of our leaders and not face the full citizen backlash that he deserved for his one-sided non-representative action. We gave him simple, yet principled, conditions for meeting (that he meet all 125 members), and he refused to meet).

The Mayor's ArtBeat action is another example of the use of institutional power. STEP, Groundwork Somerville, and Somerville Climate Action, as well as other groups advocating on various issues (clearly groups that have lobbied and some at the municipal level), are allowed to have a table to participate, but SDP is not.

And, in the process of blocking us, the mayor's office used several technicalities to finally get their lies straight and come up with the varied excuses for preventing us from participating. At least 6 different reasons have been given, and as of Wednesday the 18th, no communication from the Mayor's office in either physical mail or email has been received documenting the reasons why SDP was blocked (you will receive a 2nd letter about this topic). Here are the reasons that have been given over a 6 day period to members of the public as well as to SDP:

a) We (SDP) "do not fit in" with the festival;

b) Our materials had "escalated" from last year (or that the issue of divestment had "escalated" from last year - which is called democracy by the way);

c) The Arts Council had "received complaints" of an unspecified nature and by whom, and how many nobody knows;

d) We were a "political" group. Remember that at one point the Arts Council said that all political groups might have to be banned. But very quickly the concil backed off of this comment;

e) We were engaged in "lobbying" and so were different than other political groups. Note that at least 4 other organizations present at the festival were engaged in lobbying at the state of municipal level; and

f) We were engaged in "explicit political activity" because we were doing a ballot question. Note that other groups did ballot questions for Somerville.

Let's speak plainly. This whole matter of blocking SDP was a charade orchestrated by the mayor and his cronies. Even the poor embattled ArtBeat Director Greg Jenkins, agreed with us "personally" that there was no logical basis for keeping us out, but he couldn't support us "professionally" (he "worked for the mayor"). Also note that at least two unnamed elected officials have told me that they were opposed to the mayor's action. There should be a public admonishment of the mayor for such clear underhanded and unjustifiable action.

(Oh and by the way, I was not protesting at the ArtBeat Office as the SJ article tries to suggest.?.I asked for the list of organizations that were allowed to participate in ArtBeat and they refused to give them to me. I called the press on my cell phone to document it for the record (and both editors heard them say that they wouldn't give it to me)?.at first they said put it in writing !?.then they were too busy !.. they have since changed their tune on this issue as they must according to the law. So this whole story about me protesting is nonsense. I arrived after hours to ask for information that directly affected the finances, operational capability, and scheduling of SDP, and left after 10 minutes, also after hours - see my SJ article7/21)

The Mayor also just walks right by us when we have our tables out, choosing instead to talk to all other citizens but walking right by our table unwilling to take the updated information that we have available. I have been present when the mayor has made a point to talk to every other citizen present (about 20 or so, including police), but not the 6 or so Somerville residents either operating a table, or coming up to the SDP table, dealing with an issue that directly affects Somerville.

Then there is the all-expense-paid trip to Israel. An ethics violation. Enough said.

In addition he embarrassed the city by stating that he would like to visit Palestine one day when he had visited the West Bank. As a Jewish woman, Susan Jacoby, pointed out in a letter to SJ, "where did he think he was ?" Clearly the mayor failed to learn even the rudiments about the geography of Palestine.

OTHER STATEHOUSE OFFICIALS:
Then there are the other elected officials at the Statehouse level that came out against us without ever speaking to us.

THE JEWISH COMMUNITY RELATIONS COUNCIL:
This Boston based non-Somerville organization group called the minister of the College Avenue Methodist Church to complain that SDP was allowed to use a room in the church to show a film. Ridiculous and totally ineffective. JCRC also influenced the Aldermanic debate, even leading to the Israeli Consulate official speaking at an Aldermen meeting (foreign meddling in internal US politics - an act that is probably illegal).

THE JEWISH ADVOCATE:
This conservative newspaper in the Greater Boston area called my work place to try to intimidate me, asking "do you know that there is a Mr. Francis working in your school who is involved with an effort in Somerville?.?)". A rather pathetic personal attack. Fortunately their attempt to intimidate me failed miserably, as my personal and professional reputation as a decorated physics teacher is nearly unassailable.

Then there are the local yet fanatical Zionists who rip down our posters, intimidate us by taking photos of us, and stalk our female and male volunteers so as to rudely interrupt when our volunteers are engaging with individuals. These are paltry and ineffective actions that will not stop our corps of dedicated volunteers.

Personally it does not bother me that so many institutional powers are allied against us, because it will make our victory all the more decisive. When we win, and we will win on something sooner or later, because both morality and justice are on our side as the growing church support and now UN support indicates, it will be the ultimate citizens' victory over established institutional powers.

We aren't going anywhere and we are mobilizing more and more good people of Somerville as I write this. I may be naÔve to believe that a grassroots citizens group can be effective, but as the good Aldermen Pero pointed out, it sometimes is the only thing that is.

Now all that I have just written, up to this point, is to show you that there are strong well-funded and well-connected institutional powers arrayed against us and they are not passive; they are taking unprincipled and sometimes illegal actions against us.

All of these forces are lined up against an under-funded citizens group led by and consisting of almost all Somerville residents, with little or no staff, who volunteer their time for a cause of justice that does not benefit themselves materially or personally in any way, doing the best we can to try to get our local municipal officials to do the right thing and support international law and act against overt racism.

These institutional powers have pushed us to the point where we have fewer options than other social change groups. There are probably other examples of interventions by these powers that I am, of course, unaware of.

If faced with all of this, we choose the time honored tactic of basic protest actions, like "terrorist" Nelson Mandela before us, I hope you will understand. It is not our preferred choice but we will always leave protest actions as an option.

Yes we did sing a song, put unsolicited papers on your desks, and chant a few slogans for justice. We never committed any violent act however, and certainly all of these actions are well within the bounds of usual protest activity in the US.

All of the other Aldermen have treated us with basic respect as far as I am concerned, always being civil, as I have always been, and will always be.

When Alderman Desmond's home and family were attacked by some idiot, I immediately sent out an email to all SDP members, opposing these actions on the off chance that it wasn't a crazy pro-apartheid supporter that was trying to make SDP look bad. When another Alderman had a stressful meeting, and left the meeting thoroughly distraught, I personally wrote a letter to this person offering condolences.

We will continue to treat the Aldermen with respect. But there are times when groups that are faced with overwhelming powers need to use standard public protest action. The Civil Rights movement and the U.S. anti-apartheid movement are only two examples of this. I choose to mention these two movements because, like SDP, these movements are explicitly anti-racist.

Oh, by the way, the song we sang was the anthem of the African National Congress, linking the two anti-apartheid struggles, and even more importantly linking the people who have each worked on these struggles. The political message that the song delivered was clear, and is a song that is a rallying cry for people to rise up and fight institutional power.

Finally, I must also state that I find the Clerk, John Long, to be one of the fairest and most professional individuals in city government.

OUR WORK AS SDP:
The work that SDP is doing is serving to educate the US public about our connections to the Middle East, so that people understand why it is that the people in the Arab and Muslim world think so negatively about the US. Among other things, it is the US's continual support for Israeli human rights violations and apartheid that most places our country in jeopardy from a security point of view.

It can only help our country to have a ballot initiative that raises the Middle East IQ of citizens all over the US as people begin to focus on the non-binding ballot question, as our country moves toward taking a human rights-based approach to foreign policy, starting in a little place named Somerville.

Ron Francis
617 666-4343

cc: various Somerville politicos