“Don’t know. Americans will figure this out.”

By Doug Graves © 2007

Ten to fifteen people showed up at the Federal Building in Allentown on Wednesday, July 18 to protest the United States’ policy in Iraq. Pedestrians generally avoided the group or walked stoically past them. Some motorists honked their horns in support of the message, but most remained passively silent. At least one motorist shouted “Hippy!” preceded by an obscene expletive as he drove across Hamilton on 5th Street.
Bill Maurer of Bethlehem said, “People are supportive of security measures; it is difficult to make an argument about which tactic is effective. Bush is not the one to make the decision.” When asked who is [the one to make a decision], Maurer shrugged, “Don’t know. Americans will figure this out.”
Self-described pacifist Judith Woodruff of Allentown, when asked what her response to 9-11 would have been she said, “Legally pursue the people who had something to do with it. 9-11 wouldn’t have happened if the U. S. had been a country that was just in their actions with other countries, especially third world countries.” When asked if she could name a country that she considered as being “just in their actions” with third world countries, she could not. “Maybe a Scandinavian country,” she said.
On the Lehigh County Courthouse courtyard diagonally across from the protesters office workers and contractors sat in ones and twos taking their lunch breaks and passively watching as the demonstrators waved upside-down flags and shouted.
“Don’t they have jobs?” said Ron Castagnera of Emmaus. “I understood why we went into Iraq,” said Dale Inglehart from Dallas, Pa. “I can’t tell you that we should pull out today. I don’t know if that’s the best solution.”
The event was staged outside the Federal Building where Republican Senator Arlen Specter has an office, but Specter was in Washington where Republicans defeated a procedural ballot that would have allowed a vote on an amendment that would bring U. S. troops home from Iraq by April 30. The Democrat leadership needed at least 60 votes to bring the amendment to a vote. They lost 52-47. A call to Senator Specter’s Allentown office on Wednesday was not returned.
Groups that had representatives at Wednesday’s protest included the Lehigh-Pocono Committee of Concern and the Allentown Armory Activists.