NORTHAMPTON - The term "Burma-Shave" might not strike as resonant a chord for most students as it would for their parents, but for local activist groups "Burma-Shave" is as powerful now as it was in the 1960s.
The Amherst chapter of the Raging Grannies, Physicians for Social Responsibility, American Friends Service Committee, Northampton Committee to Stop the War, the Pioneer Valley Coalition Against Secrecy and Torture and the Western Massachusetts Inter-Faith Peace Coalition, lined up along the Calvin Coolidge Bridge from 7-9 a.m. and 4-6 p.m. yesterday to demonstrate in protest against "the threat of a new war" with Iran.
"There's a lot of talk that the administration is going to attack Iran supposedly because of atomic weapons," said Steve Jones, a local physician, "but probably primarily because it gives them a political advantage. They can say, 'anybody who opposes this move supports the terrorist state because they have nuclear weapons.'"
Roughly two-dozen demonstrators lined up during periods of heavy traffic flow in classic "Burma-Shave" style.
"Burma-Shave," Jones explained, was a brand of shaving cream known in the 1950s and 60s for its creative advertising, which employed sequential signs painted with their slogan as an advertising gimmick. The protestors painted these sequential signs with anti-war slogans such as "No War with Iran" and "Bring Troops Home Now," and terminated with the telephone number of Congress, encouraging passing motorists to phone their representatives in protest.
"This is just to let people know that this is the wrong thing to do," said Jones.
The picketers met a substantial response from passing motorists, many of whom honked or waved in support of the demonstration.
"Were trying to raise people's consciousness," said Marty Nathan, M.D., an organizer of the event and a member of the Physicians for Social Responsibility. "You go to classes; people go to work; there is a much bigger world out there, and we wanted to insinuate this looming possibility - this looming disaster - into people's daily thoughts as they were driving to work, and ask them to do something it."
The picketers felt it was important to hold a demonstration before any actual military action was taken, drawing parallels between the possibility of war with Iran and the current war in Iraq.
"We have all come to know what a mistake, what a disaster the war in Iraq has been," said demonstrator Norma Akamatsu. "And it seems like we're just about ready to make the same mistake all over again - and we will - in Iran. We're just trying to call attention to the possibility or likelihood that we're going to again take illegal military action."
The Bush administration has announced no formal plans to take military action against Iran, but vice president Dick Cheney told reporters this past February that "all options are still on the table."
"The Kyl-Lieberman amendment that was passed in the Senate [on September 25th] is basically the first step in granting the president power to do in Iran what he's done in Iraq," said demonstrator Dusty Miller.
The passing of the measure, as well as a similar measure in the House, caused Nathan and members of the other organizations to take action.
"It started out with the rationale that it was to stop their nuclear program and now it's switched to being an extension of the war in Iraq," said Nathan. "This should sound familiar to all of us because his shifting rationalizations for the war in Iraq had a very similar pattern to them"
While the picketers acknowledged that there was little likelihood the Bush administration would take notice of two dozen or so protestors in the Pioneer Valley, they hoped displaying the phone number of Congress would incite a few passers-by to make themselves heard.
"I'll have to go home and call my Congressman," said demonstrator Carolyn Tkach.
S.P. Sullivan can be reached at spsulliv@student.umass.edu.
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