I came back from picking up my lunch about a half hour ago just in time to see a rolling caravan of war-protesters going by the office. They were honking their horns and most cars had signs on them. Some were peace signs, some were anti-war slogans, things like “jobs not war” etc. One was in arabic. I didn’t count the cars, but it was quite a large group. It took awhile to pass by.
As it was passing by, a customer told me that similar events were going on simultaneously all over the country.
Yep…CNN had some coverage this morning. Evidently there’s some attempt at a mass, nationwide protest.
Here in Santa Cruz, protests against one thing or another happen every day. There have been “anti-war” protests almost daily here since September 11, even before it was announced that we were going into Afghanistan.
Redwolf
Heck, even dinky unimportant Springfield, Illinois has a dedicated group that pickets every Saturday at the Old State Capitol (more tourists there than the modern one). They have been saying for a week that some big do was planned for today.
Gotta give 'em this: If they’re out there today with a forty mph wind pushing snow laterally rather than vertically, they’re stronger folks than I am.
Locally, there seems to be a group that regularly goes to the War College affiliated with Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pa.
Have I offered you my theory of social development yet?
I propose that it takes a few people to go wa-a-a-ay out there and persevere through criticism, ridicule, and persecution to drag us along in the way we ought to go.
Like Jesus, the Buddha, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, John Brown, Martin Luther King…
Anyway, perhaps the protesters are showing us the higher road. I’m still pondering that one.
M
I was gonna try to make one in Tallahassee the other week, but school interfered.
Here’s something from CNN.com:
PEACE PROTESTS SPREAD AROUND GLOBE
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) – Tens of thousands of people flooded the streets of Baghdad Saturday, joining hundreds of thousands more worldwide protesting a possible U.S.-led war against Iraq.
A day after the U.N.'s chief weapons inspectors delivered their report to the U.N. Security Council and an impassioned Secretary of State Colin Powell pressed the U.S. case against Saddam Hussein, the demonstrations were sometimes as much anti-U.S. – or more often anti-George Bush – as they were anti-war.
The keystone protest was to occur in London’s Hyde Park, where organizers expected up to a million participants.
“People are frustrated with the unilateralism of the Bush administration,” said Seth Green, an American student in London.
“There is a distinct minority with signs like ‘Death to America,’ but the overwhelming majority are only against the Bush administration’s policies. (The majority of protesters) share the values of the American people.”
Later in the day, demonstrations were planned for cities across the United States.
In Baghdad, Iraqi protesters were bolstered by international peace activists, including members of the “Human Shields” group who hope their presence in Iraq will make Bush and his allies think twice before dropping bombs.
In Berlin, an anti-war protester from Augsburg said he was “against the war which the U.S. will go for because of their interest in oil and power.”
“It is important to demonstrate against that,” Emil Bauer said. “The more people, the better.”
Demonstrators in Rome, too, focused on a possible business motive for war.
“You have to think about human rights and stop thinking about only business and making money,” one protester said. “You can’t stop war by making war.”
Tens of thousands more gathered in Paris, where – as in Germany – the anti-war movement has the backing of the national government.
Protesters in Australia, where the government has committed about 2,000 troops for war preparations, rallied in Sydney, Tasmania, Adelaide, Mackay and Canberra. Melbourne hosted a massive demonstration on Friday.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard has said he has not decided yet if Australian troops will take part in battle, while opposition spokesman Simon Crean urged Australia to encourage Bush to stick with the U.N. process.
Hong Kong demonstrators carried signs reading “No blood for oil” and “Drop Bush. Not Bombs” as they marched from City Hall to the U.S. Consulate. In Jakarta, Indonesian demonstrators chose the Australian embassy to bring their message that “war is savage.”
“Stop the war and solve the problem by the peaceful way, not by aggression,” one protester said.
Other protests took place in Denmark, Malaysia, South Korea, Japan, South Africa, Bulgaria, Pakistan, Croatia and many other locations.
Japanese housewife Mariko Ayama voiced perhaps the deepest fear of the protesters when she said plainly: “We are on the brink of World War III.”
Do ya ever get the feeling we have stepped back in time to the 1960’s?
For what it’s worth - Buffalo Springfield - 1967
"There’s something happening here
What it is ain’t exactly clear
There’s a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware
I think it’s time we stop, children, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down
There’s battle lines being drawn
Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind
I think it’s time we stop, hey, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down
What a field-day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly say, hooray for our side
It’s time we stop, hey, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down
Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you’re always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away
We better stop, hey, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down
Cheryl
On 2003-02-15 13:30, mvhplank wrote:
Locally, there seems to be a group that regularly goes to the War College affiliated with Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pa.Have I offered you my theory of social development yet?
I propose that it takes a few people to go wa-a-a-ay out there and persevere through criticism, ridicule, and persecution to drag us along in the way we ought to go.
Like Jesus, the Buddha, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, John Brown, Martin Luther King…
Anyway, perhaps the protesters are showing us the higher road. I’m still pondering that one.
M
I think it kind of depends on the group. I’ve no doubt that there are a lot of legitimately concerned people from all over the world out there protesting today. It’s just that, in a place like this, we tend to attract “professional protesters” (for want of a better phrase)…i.e., people who take to the streets with signs almost daily over issues that are often as imagined as real (not saying this protest is one of those, just that the same people are out there picketing at the clock tower today as were out there yesterday complaining about the beaurocracy of the local school board. Only the signs have changed).
I do think the protestors have a legitimate concern with the whole Iraq, and I’m glad to see people exercising their civil rights, I just think their message would have more impact if they didn’t take to the street over every little issue (speaking of the Santa Cruz contingent here). War in Iraq is on a totally different level from vegetarian meals in public schools 
Redwolf
No-no : you all were mistaken–don’t believe what you saw with your eyes; do believe what’s aired and printed. If it’s written, it’s true, right ? It’s only us–them old Frenchmen–who are “wimps”. The rest of of the world is unanimously go-for-it the-game-is-over martial.
Well, of course, except the majority of the Security Council.
And, of course, except the majority of the rest of UN, those little states unworthy of getting in the Council.
Well, of course, except citizen Australians in Melbourne, English in London, Japanese in Japan, Italians in Rome (real pity, this, Sr Berlusconi being such a prestigious support to the Bush estate…) etc.and a healthy good seize of Americans* . Those wimpy merikuns (are they truely ? Awgadd, bring back Mc Carthy to screen them out pinkies!) who don’t believe they’re traitors if they don’t blindly follow fortunate-son heir-prez’ parading in his opera battle-dress, with his son-of-a-gun Uncle Tom yessir for foreign goffairs State secretary 
*(who cares for what them ayrabs shell-meat not-even-normal-civilizedly-christian may think?)
PS: awww, feels so good to let go and scratch this skin-rash… Must be the sushi.
[ This Message was edited by: Zubivka on 2003-02-15 15:00 ]
[ This Message was edited by: Zubivka on 2003-02-15 15:01 ]
I think it kind of depends on the group. I’ve no doubt that there are a lot of legitimately concerned people from all over the world out there protesting today. It’s just that, in a place like this, we tend to attract “professional protesters” (for want of a better phrase)…i.e., people who take to the streets with signs almost daily over issues that are often as imagined as real (not saying this protest is one of those, just that the same people are out there picketing at the clock tower today as were out there yesterday complaining about the beaurocracy of the local school board. Only the signs have changed).
I do think the protestors have a legitimate concern with the whole Iraq, and I’m glad to see people exercising their civil rights, I just think their message would have more impact if they didn’t take to the street over every little issue (speaking of the Santa Cruz contingent here). War in Iraq is on a totally different level from vegetarian meals in public schools >
Redwolf
The problem with some of these “professional” protesters (I call them that too, Redwolf) is that they de-legitimize serious protesting efforts. The last ones that I remember seeing were laughing and dancing around a pile of burning tires in the street at a WTO protest somewhere.
Zubivka,
Bush’s ‘conspiracy theory’ nutters are thoroughly debunked at: http://www.rense.com/general34/fant.htm
'luck now,
brian_k
I heard the Rev. Jessie Jackson’s diatribe today. It was before lunch so, I’m okay.
There was a major protest in Vancouver today too. I wish I could have gone.
Jeez you guys I go off and march down the streets of Spokane with 2000 other people with similar concerns and when I get back to my little home in the sticks and my dog and my horse you start a thread like this.
I think Zubivka said it all and my hat is off to ya my friend.
Yes it is nice to sit and analise the reasoning behind such people as this. Its comforting to have that kind of time. But most of the world that lives in fear of the next move of the king of the block don`t have that luxury. They are busy still picking up the peaces of there shatered lives and counting there dead and woundering where there next meal is coming from and who is in charge now and who the next time and all this so we can maintain our standard of living.
We are out there marching to demonstrate with the world that wealth and power does not give anyone the right to hold the world subject to its whims. Very simple.
Tom
Don’t be shy, Tom … speak your mind
M
They were expecting 100,000 people to show up at the demonstration in NYC (near the U.N. building) this morning. As it turns out, the actual turnout may have been closer to 200,000!
Zub, I say God bless the French for having the courage (yes, courage) to stick with their official opposition to the war, especially in the face of all the insults being thrown about. The cover of yesterday’s New York Post was enough to make me sick (yes, even New York City has an illiterate ultra right-wing rag). France has already shown more courage than it will take Bush and company to send someone else’s kids out to kill and get killed.
Lots of folks in the U.S. seem to have forgotten that our own independence was achieved only with the help of France. I haven’t, pal.
Let’s hope and pray for peace.
On 2003-02-15 15:35, brian_k wrote:
Bush’s ‘conspiracy theory’ nutters are thoroughly debunked at: > http://www.rense.com/general34/fant.htm
That’s pretty funny stuff. I like my satire to a bit more subtle, but still, it was good for a laugh.
George Bush is a bigger threat to the US and world peace that Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein could ever hope to be.
jb
Amen Jim
Tom
Ummm. . . This talk about the majority being against it doesn’t make it wrong. After all, the US (and many other countries) is a constitutional republic rather than a democracy specifically to guard against the “tyrrany of the majority.”
This isn’t to say that I’m for attacking Iraq. I think there are good arguments on both sides. And I think that when people don’t see both sides (of this issue or many others for that matter), it’s because they don’t want to.
Hey Tom (and others)
Not only do you have good taste in whistles but I admire your politics
I had chance to hear Dr Helen Caldicott speak in Lincoln< Nebraska this morning and then there was a rally in support of peace. The numbers were in the hundreds, not the thousands, but in light of the rain, freezing rain, sleet, and snow that dumped on us last night, it wasn’t too shabby.
George Bush is a bigger threat to the US and world peace that Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein could ever hope to be.
jb
I take issue with this statement. Has President Bush ever gassed his own citizens, invaded his neighbor, destroyed 4500 towns and villages in his own country, displaced 900,000 of his citizens, or killed thousands upon thousands of his own citizens in his brutal police state?
Has President Bush ordered his minions to crash airplanes into skyscrapers, killing 3000? Or blown up embassies or ships or barracks? Or helped to spread a virulent network of radical terrorists?
I don’t think so.
Whether or not you agree with a war that has not even started, it is highly spurious to say that President Bush is a greater threat to world peace than these two characters.
Sorry for the rant.
[ This Message was edited by: bdatki on 2003-02-15 22:03 ]