In a message dated 10/13/05 3:07:13 PM, somebody else wrote:



Some very sad news (some of you already know). 

 
I'm sorry to say that Lennox Sweeney, our friend and a great South Bay peace activist, was hospitalized (at El Camino Hosp) the other day with a bleed in his brain.  I  heard from his housemate, George Johnson, that he is not expected to recover...  all the signs are that there is no brain activity.  The hospital will be removing life support today. 

 
This is a very sad day.  Lennox, even while fighting health problems, has always been an anchor, a man of wisdom and maker of great protest signs for the peace movement in the South Bay, counter-recruitment and in Veterans for Peace for a very long time.  He went to the September 24th march in Washington, DC and is present at most every event... encouraging our youth and helping to organize and stage VFP events.  He also worked in the Dennis Kucinich for President Campaign. 

 
A while back he received a transplant that returned him to better health, but now this.  What a great loss for all of us.

 
Lennox apparently had already lost all of his family, so his close friends as taking care of what needs to be done and we will probably have a wonderful (large!) memorial service for him soon. 

 
Please keep Lennox in your thoughts and prayers.
 

Diane wrote:

>
>We sure will miss him.
> At 1:45 pm today, October 13, 2005, our wonderful Lennox Sweeney
>was taken off life support.  He was surrounded by love and friends
>holding his hand when he passed quietly a few minutes later.

>
> As a very active member of Veterans for Peace, Lennox sometimes
>seemed to be everywhere, with his signs and his car prominently
>covered with bumper stickers.

>
> If you missed the previous e-mail, Lennox suffered a brain aneurysm
>yesterday morning.  He spent the day in ICU on life support, and today's
>action was pretty much expected.

>
>
        When I think of Lennox, I picture him always smiling.
>
>        A party to celebrate his life is being planned, possibly for the weekend after Veterans' Day. 
>
>        Sharon Kufeldt can be contacted with questions about any of this - 650-799-1070.
>

I didn't really know him well, but I knew Lennox long before I started my
website. He was one of the people who said "I've seen you before" when
I started going to public events here in '99 or '00 or whenever it was
that I came back. I didn't remember him from the first gulf war time
frame, but being an activist was all new to me then. Lennox wasn't the
kind that dominates your attention. He was more the kind you notice
when the crowd gets more interesting than the speakers.

The first time I remember him was when he came to the Statewide Green
Party meeting in Arcata, back when that was the only place in the USA
that had a Green Party majority on the City Council. Lennox wore a very
tie died T shirt with exquisite Native American themed artwork on the
front. He gave me a couple of lessons on the nonviolent nature of peace
activism. One of them was holding up a hundred freshly printed Green
Party stickers to his nose and inhaling deeply. Then he said "the smell
of activism" with a smile. The other thing he told me there that stuck
was that watches are "time machines".

There are many pictures of Lennox on my website. He was always
showing off another great sign at marches, rallys, and peace vigils.
In fact, it was looking at those things and wanting more people to see
them that got me started putting demonstrations on my website.

One is the "Quagmire Accomplished" in the crowd of people listening here:
http://tian.greens.org/PaloAlto/AnarchistMarchJune05/index.html

Another is the "Quagmire Accomplished" he held in a yellow coat here:
http://tian.greens.org/MountainView/MVVPChristmas04/index.html

Another is the Rachel Corrie picture on this page:
http://tian.greens.org/PaloAlto/JusticeBusDec03/EventNotes.html
Rest in peace, Lennox Sweeney...

Tian


I sent the above out as an email, and got the following reply from John:
>
>I just had to write to say that I'm sorry to hear of Lennox.  You're right, he was
>always around, showing up to take his stand. 
>When I was involved with the campaign to keep the women's clinics open in San Jose
>(I think it was in the summer of '92), I first ran into him.  Then when I worked on the
>campaign to defeat Prop. 209, I was with one group, and he would always show up
>with the Greens at various actions the group I was with would participate in.  We had
>more than a couple street corner discussions on green politics & issues of the day, and
>when the Dems punted on maintaining affirmative action and ceded the campaign to
>the state fascists, aka Pete Wilson, well, I started coming to Green meetings.
>
>I mentioned it to Gaylen, and she said, Isn't he the guy we saw in San Jose who had the
>"Quagmire Accomplished" banner.  I told her it was, and that the last time I saw him,
>he seemed okay.  I saw him a couple months back in front of the Grand Lake Theatre
>in Oakland when we were part of the last 1000 people to show up for 650 seats to hear
>U.S. Representative Barbara Lee speak.
>
>I mentioned Oakland, where I'm at now, in the context of a Seva Concert that Lennox
>and I had attended in Berkeley, when we discovered at about 1:30 a.m. that BART
>actually stops running sometime just after midnite.  He knew someone in Oakland who
>took pity on us and let us stay with them. Lennox had kind of let it go, but it was a
>great concert.  Jackson Brown, Bob Weir, Ram Dass, Odetta, among others.
>
>You're right about his getting around and being there.  I'll think of him and will miss
>him.  Thank you for posting this message.

Then the next day I found this notice about an upcoming event:

Honor the memory of Lennox Sweeney

by doing what he would be doing today:

Saturday Peace Vigil

October 15, 12 noon

at the corner of Stevens Creek & Winchester, San Jose

End the War & Occupation! Bring the Troops Home Now!



This email message was sent by Lennox to the SBM list last week.*

From: Lennox Sweeney <lummox41@pacbell.net>
To: sbm@lists.riseup.net; VFP 101 <vfp101@yahoo.com>
Subject: [SBM] Help - Winchester peace vigil
Date: Fri, 7 Oct 2005 23:40:36 -0700

Attendence at the Saturday/Sunday peace vigil at Winchester and Stevens Creek has fallen to about 2-3. David Ledesma, the mainstay of this vigil, is off to Hawaii this weekend and next for a mix of business and pleasure.

I feel a little awkward out there alone and would appreciate any support. I'll be out from 11:30 to 1:30 Saturday and Sunday, Oct 8, 9, 15, 16 (and beyond) with some extra signs.

(This location has good visibility and LOTS of cars)

*It could be considered his last request. It was the last request I saw he made.

On the appointed day, many people showed up:



We vigiled for a couple of hours. There was some talk about Lennox, but mostly people just did what they do at these kind of things. Bob passed around a bowl of fresh orgainc apples from the tree in his back yard. Vida gave out fliers about an upcoming event. It was special because there were so many people. Lennox would have been pleased that his email had so much effect.

At the end we circled up and talked a bit. Donna recalled how Lennox had always been there, and always on the right side of every issue. Lennox's landlord of 25 years talked about all the activism stuff there is in the house, and how reliable Lennox had been about paying the rent. Somebody else mentioned that he had been arrested just two weeks ago on in front of the  White House. Several people had nice things to say about the signs he was always coming up with, and everybody liked the way he was always smiling. We finished up by responding to "Lennox Sweeney" with "PRESENTE!"



Before going our separate ways we posed for a group shot.

A week or two later the San Jose Mercury News published a nice obituary.