More pictures to follow...
Thanks for all the pics though, looks like you guys did do a good job.
|
|
|
Marchers for peace should be peaceful Editor -- What does it say when a group of people need to be protected from "peace" demonstrators ("Thousands march in S.F. protest," April 21)? Is someone unclear on the concept of peace? The threatening "peace" demonstrators were Palestinians, Arab immigrants and their supporters. The endangered persons carried Israeli flags and were dispersed by the San Francisco police "for their own safety." No one was ever imperiled by Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr. Those leaders based their movements for social justice on the principle of nonviolence and were recognized for holding the moral high ground. If the Arab Muslim world were to produce a leader who could persuade with the principles of nonviolence, the moral equation would be turned upside-down to its favor. However, that possibility is unlikely, given a culture that glorifies the terrorist Osama bin Laden as a great hero. People who say that they are for peace, but intimidate with violence, are merely unprincipled thugs who are probably too benighted to recognize the hypocrisy of their own actions. Persons who demonstrate in the name of peace should act in peace.
DANA GARCIABerkeley A PEACEFUL CROWDEditor -- While I appreciated The Chronicle's coverage of stories this Sunday on historical atrocities in South America, I was disappointed with the cover photo of the rally held last Saturday portraying it as extremist and hateful. I was at the rally all day -- I'd set up a place for people to paint their own signs and it was wonderful: teenagers cautiously approached and painted, people needing more tape came over, people adding peace symbols to signs they already had, even a homeless person painted his own sign -- and I never saw anything as full of hate as your photo made it out to be. I really worry about our city, our home, when the truth of our rally is subserved by profit or bias through a photo of one burned flag in a peaceful crowd of more than 20,000.
VICTORIA ASHLEYOakland A SENSE OF FAIRNESSEditor -- I am glad to see that readers' representative Dick Rogers acknowledged the serious oversight of The Chronicle (Opinion Pages, April 21) to provide equal coverage to a pro-Israeli rally (received no coverage) and a pro-Palestinian rally (received front-page coverage). However, if The Chronicle is weighing the opinions of the readers in its decisions as implied in Rogers' article, The Chronicle will continue to lose a sense of fairness. That is because of a simple fact; Palestinians and many Arabs are taught hatred from childhood and do not possess a sense of fairness and will always say that the news is biased against them. Jews, on the other hand, are taught fairness, tolerance and compassion. That is why some Jews speak out against Israel. That is why Jews fought for the cause of civil rights for American blacks. You don't see any Palestinians condemning terrorism. What you see is rationalization.
RICK KOHLLos Gatos INSIGHT ON POLICYEditor -- Saturday, thousands of protesters with anti-Israel and anti- American sentiment marched in San Francisco. Their pictures and story dominated the front page of The Sunday Chronicle. Last week, a similar number of pro-Israel, pro-American demonstrators rallied in San Francisco. The Chronicle gave that rally not one word, not one picture of coverage. One reason for this, Chronicle readers' representative Dick Rogers suggests, is that the pro-Israel rally was not violent. I guess that was our mistake: Perhaps we should have attacked police or tried to burn some buildings. Thank you, Mr. Rogers, for such illuminating insight into Chronicle reporting policy.
SCOTT ABRAMSONSan Mateo |