Granny Peace Brigade Blog

Yesterday evening there were at least two events that Granny Peace Brigade members wanted to attend. (Nothing new about that.) Since she hasn’t figured out yet how to be in two places at the same time, Bev went to the demo at the Federal Building – 26 Federal Plaza to protest FBI raids and harassment of antiwar activists in Chicago and Minneapolis.

Meanwhile, Barbara H, Joan P and I (our two-places-at-once skills aren’t so great either) tottered out to Brooklyn to join CodePink NY, Brooklyn for Peace and others for the Stolen Beauty AHAVA Boycott Campaign outside the Ricky’s store on Montague Street.

Counter demonstrators showed up at Ricky’s.

There was a lot of hollering. We had to chant really loud to compete with the noisy, ardent counter demonstrators. It was hard. It was tiring. Our voices started to give out. But we carried on.

As we were leaving one of the organizers suggested that next time we should have a sound permit.

Here’s my question:

Is using amplified sound to cope with noisy counter demonstrators a good idea?

This is a general question about street demos where we expect counter demonstrators. My concern is that by cranking up a sound system we might alienate the people we are trying to reach. Maybe we should work on having the best chants and songs (Corinne, Mercy — head’s up)…  and pack along some throat lozenges.

What do you think?

- Eva-Lee Baird
for the Granny Peace Brigade

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Ms. Gizmo Rides again — to Union Square this time. As always people think very carefully about how to allocate the twenty pennies we offer. Click on the photos for larger images and go to our previous post for a bit of explanation about Ms. Gizmo and a list of her eight tax categories.

We will post the statistics and charts on today’s vote early next week.

- Eva-Lee Baird
for the Granny Peace Brigade

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This Thursday, September 16 the Granny Peace Brigade took Ms. Gizmo to Brooklyn. For the fifth time she was out on the town and again, as always she was embraced with enthusiasm by people passing by.

What is it about Ms. Gizmo that makes her so very popular? After all physically she’s just a bunch of plastic tubes standing side by side in a couple of racks. Is it the labels on her tubes?

• Arts & Culture,
• Education,
• Environment & Clean Energy,
• Health Care,
• Housing,
• Jobs,
• Military,
• Transportation.

Or is it the question we ask? “How would you spend your own tax dollars?” We offer each passer by a plastic bag containing 20 pennies. People can drop these pennies into Ms. Gizmo’s tubes in any way they see fit. That’s it – 20 pennies and eight categories. Of the hundreds of people who have distributed pennies, not a single person has done this thoughtlessly. All have concentrated as they allocated these modest funds.

The key to Ms. Gizmo’s charm — New Yorkers want to be heard. Many of us are not pleased with the enormous amounts of money the U.S. spends on war, on the military. We see a crying need for increased spending on the other seven categories. Ms. Gizmo is a step towards giving us a voice. She helps to bring us together and start conversations. We’ll see where we can go from here.

- Eva-Lee Baird
for the Granny Peace Brigade

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