Peace demo # 82 or so
It was good to be back home this week and go to our regular Thursday afternoon peace demonstration in the center of town. (The Charlottesville Center for Peace and Justice had resumed the weekly peace presence in early December 2003. Hence the numbering system above.)
These past few months, we've been trying to urge our supporters to make a special effort to come out to the vigil on the first Thursday each month, even if they find it hard to make the other Thursdays. The weather has not been cooperating. Each of the months since we've had this policy, the afternoons of the first Thursday has been very rainy. Yesterday was no exception.
Nevertheless, six or seven of us did turn up. I'd taken my rain gear, and the rain was nowhere near as bad as I have sometimes experienced it there... But oh, yesterday as always in recent months, the demonstration was definitely worth doing! The honks of support that we got were extremely numerous-- at some stages fully half of the passing drivers were participating.
Yes, we had a couple of people yelling bad things at us. I can understand if people were upset over what had happened in London. I was myself. But the general reception we got was great.
Two especially nice things happened. One woman driver rolled down her window and handed us a bag of truly delicious, home-baked cinnamon buns. (Note to self: remember next time that it's well-nigh impossible to hold the sign, wave to passing motorists, and hold a cinnamon bun all at one time.) Then at a different point, one of our Charlottesville City Police officers came by on her bike, looking very snappy and efficient in her bike-police uniform. "Thanks for being there," she told us cheerily as she passed.
Of course, one could interpret this as "Thanks for being there, on that sidewalk," as opposed to in the median strip, which the police tell us-- probably rightly-- can cause a traffic hazard. But still, I realize that we really are lucky to live in a city where peaceful political protest is recognized and even welcomed as part of the normal order of things, and moreover is protected by the law.
Anyway, this is just to let our non-American readers know that the antiwar movement is alive and well in some spots of heartland America.
Also, it's slowly but surely growing in influence nationwide. About time, eh?
"When Salman Rushdie wrote a controversial novel involving the prophet Muhammad, he was sentenced to death by the leader of Iran. To this day - to this day - no major Muslim cleric or religious body has ever issued a fatwa condemning Osama bin Laden."
If It's a Muslim Problem, It Needs a Muslim Solution
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: July 8, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/08/opinion/08friedman.html
Losing faith in war against the terrorist, blaming Muslems as he did many times
Why Iraq not Iran then? If it's Muslim Problem who supported and who helped Bin Laden to get to the degree that he try to impose his radical Wahabi thinking?
Best of luck and thanks for your efforts. Whenever I am in danger of getting angry at all Americans for what their government is doing to the world, a post like yours reminds me that there are good (and, alas, bad) people everywhere. I agree, however, that bringing many people down from their current delusion of national near-omnipotence, hopefully without a violent backlash, is not going to be easy.
Somebody on another blog was speculating, by the way, that eliminating baseball from the Olympics was yet another instance of waning US influence.
"A Federal District Court heard additional oral arguments today in the case of activists with the campaign Voices in the Wilderness who openly violated the U.S. economic embargo against Iraq."
http://accuracy.org/newsrelease.php?articleId=1082
You know why?
This ponishment for the report about Iraq money and 1991 war compensation scheme
Great links, Salah, thanks for those. The Quakers also participated in the "civil disobedience" campaign against the sanctions, primarily by sending water-treatment mechines to Iraq. VITW is so far bearing the prosecution load on behalf of us all.
The reuters report from geneva that you cited was also really interesting. According to that, the Kuwaiti government is insisting that it continue to receive regular "reparation" payments from the Iraqi oil revenues. Poor babies!! Do they want to tell us they can't get along by living solely on their own bloated oil revenues and the rents etc they get from the US military? Maybe it's time for a few more Kuwaitis to actually work for a living, clean their own homes, look after their own children, etc. That way they could maybe manage without continued blood money from Iraq?
The George Washington University's (GWU) Jack Morton Auditorium witnessed a ceremony to extend an honorary doctorate degree in law to Kuwait's Prime Minister his highness Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah.
President of GWU Stephen Joel Trachtenberg praised achievements of Sheikh Sabah in the service of humanity!!!!
http://my.gwu.edu/mod/news/view.cfm?ANN_ID=16934
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