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ERICH SCHLEGEL / DMN
Dallas was not the only Texas city in which anti-war rallies took place Saturday. In Austin, Shawn Rice and about 10,000 protesters turned out to show their feelings about war on Iraq.Posted on 02/16/2003 3:51:01 PM PST by Stultis
Dallas adds its protest cries
With signs, speeches, area residents rally against Iraq war
02/16/2003
The signs didn't beat around the bush: D = Dubya, Dictator, Destructive. Don't Trade Blood for Oil. Warmongers are Evildoers. Girls Say Yes to Boys Who Say No to Bombs.
Such words, along with speeches, songs and satire, sent a message to the White House on Saturday from downtown Dallas: Don't attack Iraq, or at least give weapons inspectors a chance.
Complementing a weekend of protests around the world, hundreds of Dallas-area residents of far-ranging ages and ethnicities took their disgust to the streets in a mostly peaceful demonstration against war.
The Dallas Coalition Against War in Iraq, sponsors of the event, said about 3,500 people joined in the hourlong march from the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center to the Kennedy Memorial plaza. Dallas police put the turnout at 1,100.
ERICH SCHLEGEL / DMN Dallas was not the only Texas city in which anti-war rallies took place Saturday. In Austin, Shawn Rice and about 10,000 protesters turned out to show their feelings about war on Iraq. |
Whatever the number, organizers said they were elated by a showing that, while hardly matching an Austin crowd estimated at 10,000, recalled Vietnam War-era rallies.
1-2-3-4 – We don't want your stinking war. 5-6-7-8 – Stop the killing, stop the hate.
Hadi Jawad yelled those words into a microphone, and the marchers yelled back as they stepped away from the symphony center. Drummers and a replica of the Statue of Liberty joined Mr. Jawad on a pickup-drawn trailer at the procession's fore.
1-2-3-4 – We don't want your daddy's war. 5-6-7-8 – Stop the killing, stop the hate.
U.S. flags, homemade Iraqi flags, peace signs rose above the line as it moved down Ross Avenue, through the West End and on to the Kennedy Memorial. Police and protesters on bicycles roamed the sides, as did many a video chronicler.
Hoping to be heard
Paige Christensen, 6, led the way for a spell on her pink Barbie Jazzy Jeep Wrangler, complete with peace sign license plates.
"This is her third protest," said Kevin Christensen who walked beside his daughter. "I want her to know there's more to citizenship than voting and that she can make a difference."
No, no, we won't go. We won't fight for Texaco.
Others came, hoping to at least make a statement.
Arie Raysor: "We are exacerbating the problem of terrorism."
Isabella Russell-Ides: "There's nothing more scary to me than a war with no protests."
Ann Ross: "I didn't march during Vietnam. I was conflicted and confused."
"I'm not conflicted or confused at all," said her friend Carol Riddle, who described herself as "another middle-aged housewife against war." "This country is not about first strikes."
Harold Jones, a senior citizen against war, came armed with a sign: Brains Not Bombs. "I think Bush is being too impatient. It's a cowboy mentality," said Mr. Jones, an 81-year-old World War II veteran. "But I'm afraid it's going to happen whatever we do."
Saturday's protest was a first for Pamela Rivera, who accompanied her son. "I came because he inspired me," she said. And because of all the words of war: "It's disgusting. It's unbelievable that it's happening."
Eben Lee Hall rode a bicycle with his face painted white to resemble a skull and his dreadlock-style headdress to symbolize peace.
Mr. Hall said he served five years in the Air Force, never seeing combat. "I want people to understand that war is death."
Hunter Hall "wanted to articulate my argument. I wanted to see people of like minds come together," said the Hillcrest High School student who hopes to enlarge an anti-war effort on campus. And if called to military duty, "If I have to go, I will go."
The people united will never be defeated. The people united will never be defeated.
Support for Bush
All weren't united along the parade route.
Mariah Holt learned of the protest Friday night and put together a sign: Fight Terrorism Stop Iraq.
"They haven't given up and they have weapons of mass destruction over there," said Mr. Holt, 26, who stood alone as the marcher's assembled.
At the end of the route stood Jack Hall (USA Love It or Leave It) and his wife Jane (Veterans for Kicking Ass Now). They and other war supporters, such as Chuck Herman (Pacifist Marxists Suck), did not go unnoticed.
Kathryn Square threw a handful of military enlistment papers at the group, telling them, "Why don't you enlist."
Amanda Clarke tried to reason with a dismissive, increasingly agitated Mrs. Hall.
"It is not worth it to bomb innocent people. I'm asking you to let the peace process work."
"It's not working," said Mrs. Hall.
"This has been going on for 12 years. Why do you think it will work now?"
A rally near the Kennedy Memorial included speeches, chanting, rock and folk music, and a "mockumentary" of the President. MacBush, written by longtime community organizer John Fullinwider, has President Bush visited on the day of his State of the Union address by three witches – former Presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George Bush, masks and all.
"This is far more than we expected," said Mr. Jawad, who helped organize the event.
"What is significant is the crowd. It crosses all boundaries, all economics, all religions and ethnicities. This is a great mix."
E-mail rappleton@dallasnews.com
Billions stayed home.
Les'see, too stupid to understand politics but smart enough to avoid AIDS? Yeah, right. Sexual politics at its finest.
Hadi Jawad [who helped organize the event] yelled those words into a microphone, and the marchers yelled back as they stepped away from the symphony center.
Get on the Bus (from Dallas to 1/18 anti-war rally in DC - lib meets hard-left)
To mobilize local activists, Burnam, a Quaker who also doubles as a state representative from Fort Worth ("I may be the only pacifist in the Texas Legislature," he says), called a meeting that led to the birth of yet another coalition: the Dallas Coalition Against the War in Iraq, which would stage weekly demonstrations outside City Hall. Hadi Jawad, a Dallas Peace Center board member, agreed to help coordinate the coalition.
Jawad was born in Pakistan and has lived in this country since 1972. "I am as American as macaroni and cheese. Baseball, football, apple pie--the whole bit," he says.
A gentle man who writes poetry and calls everyone "friend," Jawad says he was "radicalized" several years earlier after he received a phone call from his sister informing him that their uncle had fled Iraq and showed up in Pakistan. "Life under sanctions had become unbearable," Jawad says. "My uncle shut down his watch-repair business; he sold his car, his possessions. Except for a few elite, the entire Iraqi society has been devastated by sanctions."
But doesn't Saddam bear responsibility for those sanctions? Hasn't he prolonged the agony of his own people by playing hide-and-seek with U.N. inspectors?
"We have imposed the most comprehensive sanctions in modern history," Jawad argues. "I have to wonder about the value of Arab and Muslim lives to our government."
The more Jawad learned about the sanctions, the more he began to speak out publicly. The Peace Center heard about his activities and asked him to help coordinate the Committee in Solidarity with the People of Iraq. Apart from educating the public about sanctions, the committee helped raise funds to rebuild four Iraqi water purification plants.
Jawad's anti-sanction campaign, however, has gone beyond the charitable and includes a harsh indictment of what he perceives as this country's uneven policy toward Israel. "Iraq is in violation of 16 U.N. resolutions, while Israel has thumbed its nose at 70," he says. "Even if Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, so does Israel." His anti-Israel position has fermented into yet another group he helps coordinate, United for Peace and Justice. That committee--also led by African-American activist and perennial municipal candidate Marvin Crenshaw--appeared before the city council in August, asking that the council divest itself of all business dealings with Israeli companies, much like the council had with South Africa under apartheid. Not only is this divestment group pro-Palestinian, but it also struck an anti-Semitic tone at the council meeting.
"The speakers [Crenshaw] publicly attacked Mayor Miller and two other city council members from the podium, saying they were not neutral on the Israel/Palestinian question because they were Jewish," recalls Cliff Pearson, then a Green Party member who was present at the meeting. "When the mayor said the issue wasn't a local one that the council could do anything about, she was attacked as being a Zionist."
Jawad says he is not anti-Semitic and believes the group was making its case against the Israeli government, not the Jewish faith. But Pearson says that after the meeting he rode on an elevator with the group whose members spoke freely about Miller's membership in several Jewish charitable organizations. "I would expect Jewish people to give money to Jewish charities," Pearson says. "This group seemed to be doing some very frightening surveillance of the mayor," Pearson says.
And just where do suppose he came from?
By the way, whats up in Texas?
With the exception of Bill Clinton, of course.
There was a major campaign for this in the public schools, with flyers sent out high school students. If this is the best they can do even with free publicity, then they are more to be pitied than scorned... nahhhh, let's scorn 'em.
ALLIES AND FRIENDS
The Dallas Peace Center has many allies and friends in advocating for peace and justice and social change. Although we do not necessarily endorse all of the ideas or policies of the groups below, we share enough in common with them to be pleased to be networked with them:
The real "free press" is here, on the internet folks - the "professional journalists" are no longer free, but are really just paid agitprop-spouting shills. Don't believe what you read, and don't sponsor those you know are bought and paid for by anti-American interests: look for the truth instead.
The truth? Americans are standing by our troops and by the principles upon which this Nation was founded. If you believe what these "journalists" would tell you, you'd never know it, though...
The Trojan Horse. The Fifth Column that betrays a nation unprepared for treachery.
Spies, saboteurs and traitors are the actors in this new strategy. With all of these we must and will deal vigorously.
But there is an added technique for weakening a nation at its very roots, for disrupting the entire pattern of life of a people. And it is important that we understand it.
The method is simple. It is, first, discord, a dissemination of discord. A group --not too large -- a group that may be sectional or racial or political -- is encouraged to exploit (their) its prejudices through false slogans and emotional appeals. The aim of those who deliberately egg on these groups is to create confusion of counsel, public indecision, political paralysis and eventually, a state of panic.
Sound national policies come to be viewed with a new and unreasoning skepticism, not through the wholesome (political) debates of honest and free men, but through the clever schemes of foreign agents.
As a result of these new techniques, armament programs may be dangerously delayed. Singleness of national purpose may be undermined. Men can lose confidence in each other, and therefore lose confidence in the efficacy of their own united action. Faith and courage can yield to doubt and fear. The unity of the state (is) can be so sapped that its strength is destroyed.
All this is no idle dream. It has happened time after time, in nation after nation, (during) here in the last two years. Fortunately, American men and women are not easy dupes. Campaigns of group hatred or class struggle have never made much headway among us, and are not making headway now. But new forces are being unleashed, deliberately planned propaganda to divide and weaken us in the face of danger as other nations have been weakened before.
These dividing forces (are) I do not hesitate to call undiluted poison. They must not be allowed to spread in the New World as they have in the Old. Our moral, (and) our mental defenses must be raised up as never before against those who would cast a smoke-screen across our vision.
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