Portland rally
Jeremy and I joined in the Portland peace rally yesterday downtown. Apparently, there were somewhere between 5-10,000 of us marching against war in Iraq, President Bush, and corporate interests running the show in this country. The pre-emptive action Bush and Congress propose to take in the Middle East is NOT supported by the majority of Americans, and serves ONLY to protect big oil and further foist our jingoism on the rest of the world. Are we willing to possibly start WWIII and another draft over that? All weekend, cities across the U.S. had impressive turnout against the war. 1000 in Santa Fe. 20,000 in New York City. 8000 in Seattle. 1000 in Eugene, OR. 12,000 in Los Angeles. 1.5 million in Italy. etc.
We marched alongside older folks, middle class families, punks, high schoolers, Republicans, students, Christians, hippies, Jews, white collar joes… Looking through my photos, I am really moved by the diversity that was present. The crowd was a true representation of Americans.
I slapped up a quick gallery of pictures I took. Read more about the awesome Portland rally here. And while you’re at it, drop to a line to your representatives if you haven’t already. No matter which way you feel about the issue, it’s important to let them know.
Kari-Ann said,
October 7, 2002 @ 4:44 pm
The fact is, Saddam Hussein is a dictator of the worst kind who would rather see the people of Iraq suffer and die than give up his power. I used to be a bleeding heart liberal, but my awareness of the realities of middle-eastern life has grown and I have changed my mind about initiating a war there. Women are subjegated and have no rights, chaos and anarchy reign, there are no possibilities for these human beings in the conditions under which they are made to live. Things are brought to change through major events. War is a major event. I fully support killing people who are making other people suffer for their own personal power. I firmly believe the US is not doing that. I believe we are trying to make changes for the unity of the world and I am behind it 100%.
Jeremy said,
October 8, 2002 @ 10:14 am
Kari-Ann,
I agree with your view of Saddam Hussein, however I disagree with the tactics you suggest. Attacking Iraq unilaterally will create more problems then it will solve, doubly so if we attack before weapon inspections are allowed to run its course. Attacking Iraq will very likely mean Saddam Hussein will either use the weapons of mass destruction on the neighboring countries, our troops or hand the weapons off to other terrorist groups. Attacking Iraq because we think Saddam is a very bad/evil man, basically means that country X can attack country Y if X really hates the leaders of country Y.
steve said,
October 10, 2002 @ 6:04 pm
A friend of mine who’s in his 80s went to a peace rally in London at the weekend, so it seems that these were goin on all over the world not just in the US. He travelled about 250 miles to get there, but I don’t know how many people he said were there.
Kari-Ann said,
October 15, 2002 @ 9:15 pm
sure, why not? It has been so throughout history, why stop now? Unfortunately this country was not founded on authenticity. Of course, to get it that way, you have to start somewhere, but I don’t believe here is the appropriate place.