Patriotic threats.

• Author: Rothschild, Matthew
• Position: Actions against war protesters

The weekend before Bush started the Iraq War, I went to Spring Valley, Minnesota, population 2,518. I was invited there by a group called Rural Peacemakers, which has been going town to town every Saturday since January--and remember, this is frosty Minnesota!--to picket for peace.

I was lucky. It was the warmest day of the spring so far. Sandhill cranes escorted me out of Madison, and bald eagles greeted me at the Mississippi River. I met up with the Rural Peacemakers at the Spring Valley public library, and an activist offered me a selection of placards. I took the one that said "Respect, Create, Dream." Three dozen of us, carrying anti-war signs, went through the little downtown and protested at the main road leading in and out of Spring Valley.

A few weeks later, I received an alarming e-mail from the group.

On March 30 in Rochester, Minnesota, pro-war organizers put together a "Support the Troops" rally, which 3,000 people attended at a public park called Soldiers Memorial Field. About thirty members of the Southeastern Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers decided to attend in silent protest. "Support the Troops: Bring Them Home" was one of their signs.

Shortly after the peacemakers entered the park, the police asked them to leave, says Steve Schwen, vice chair of the alliance. "They said, 'Get out of here, or you will be arrested.' They told us to go across the street," Schwen says.

Members of the "Support the War" crowd heaped abuse on the peace activists. "They were calling us traitors and saying we should be tried for treason, and telling us to go to Cuba, China, or France," recalls Barb Fix, the founder of Rural Peacemakers.

Then things really turned ugly. "Three individuals threatened to get their guns and kill us," says Schwen. Fix remembers one of them saying, "I'm going to go home and get my gun." Despite Schwen's pleas, the police did not apprehend the individuals or...