Posted on 02/02/2003 11:51:27 AM PST by SeenTheLight
COME ONE, COME ALL TO THE 2/16, SAN FRANCISCO FReeper COUNTER-PROTEST!
THE PEACENIKS WILL BE IN FULL FORCE, STARTING AT JUSTIN HERMAN PLAZA AND MARCHING TO THE CIVIC CENTER PLAZA, WHERE WE'LL BE THERE TO WELCOME THEM WITH OPEN ARMS!
THIS IS THE ANTI-AMERICA MARCHERS ITINERARY:
Sunday, February 16 March and Rally in San Francisco
11 AM Gather at Justin Herman Plaza
1 PM March to Civic Center
2 PM Rally at Civic Center
FOR MORE INFO ON THEIR PLANS, CLICK HERE
OUR PLANS ARE AS FOLLOWS:
DATE: SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 16TH
TIME: 1PM
PLACE: CITY HALL STEPS (FACING THE CIVIC CENTER PLAZA)
BRING ALONG YOUR SIGNS, FLAGS AND PLENTY OF ATTITUDE!
Smart move! I'm Barting in too. Give yourself extra time...The trains were jammed last time...here is an article from today's CoCo Times
Posted on Thu, Feb. 13, 2003 | ||
BART prepares for peace rally crowd
Flash passes, extra trains will ease travel for those attending Sunday's anti-war march at Justin Herman Plaza CONTRA COSTA TIMES BART will provide extra service Sunday during the peace rally and anti-war march at Justin Herman Plaza in San Francisco. The opening rally begins at 11 a.m., followed by an anti-war march at 1 from Embarcadero to Civic Center, where organizers will host a second rally. BART staffers will sell round-trip flash passes from tables at the Dublin-Pleasanton, El Cerrito del Norte, North Berkeley, Rockridge and Colma stations. Transit officials urge passengers to buy round-trip tickets to avoid long lines at ticket machines. At 12 additional stations, riders may buy a round-trip ticket from the vending machines and the staff will convert it to a flash pass. Those stations include MacArthur, El Cerrito Plaza, West Oakland, Berkeley, 24th Street, Glen Park, Daly City, Fruitvale, Fremont, Bay Fair, Castro Valley and Lake Merritt. In addition, flash passes will be sold at the Y&S Check Cashing store across the street from the West Oakland station and at the customer service center in Oakland. To prevent overloading on escalators and elevators at the Embarcadero station, some trains may unload at the Montgomery station. Bikes will not be allowed on trains between the East Bay and San Francisco on Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., although they will be permitted on the Richmond-Fremont line. |
Please, maybe a few people can contact KSFO's Lee and Melanie, and, Brian Wilson tomorrow. I haven't been able to listen consistently, so, I don't know if they've mentioned our rally. If they have, great! If they haven't, the main points are:
Rally for America, and, counter the Leftists, Seditionists, and "Peaceniks." Sunday, February 16, 1 P.M. San Francisco City Hall steps (facing the plaza.) Stand up for America!
Thanks again.
Haven't been listening regularly either but it wouldn't hurt to repeat it. Maybe a good idea if several of us sent e-mails or phoned about the rally. Is this the Mother of all Counter Protests or what? Rally On!
BERKELEY - Brooke Casey hoisted a hand-painted banner and peered down through a light drizzle, surveying the reaction from the evening traffic on Interstate 80.
Perched on a pedestrian overpass, she watched drivers wave through windshields and lean on horns, East Bay commuter applause for the reminder of an anti-war rally that is expected to draw a massive crowd to San Francisco on Sunday.
"This situation has really awakened a sleeping animal," said Casey, 22, waving back at drivers through a chain-link fence. "It's going to get bigger and bigger and be impossible to ignore."
Just then, a head popped out from a car window.
"Give war a chance!" the head shouted. Then another: "Get a job!"
Casey smiled, acknowledging that the debate over a U.S. attack on Iraq has churned passions like few others.
"I have a job," she said.
She is among dozens of organizers who hit high gear this week in their final planning for a party of 100,000 or so this Sunday, one of hundreds of massive peace demonstrations planned this weekend.
Lately, left-leaning activists have been joined by a broadening cross-section of people opposed to a unilateral U.S. attack on Iraq, from church groups to veterans to labor unions, a movement that cuts through the political center.
"It looks like you've got everything out there. It may be the largest expression of anti-war sentiment in history," said Michael Nagler, founder of the Peace and Conflict Studies program at UC Berkeley. "It's also the speed with which it collected. Where we are now probably took 15 years in the Vietnam era."
A coalition of peace groups, churches and others have joined in a full-throttle campaign of phone banks, "blast" e-mails, fliers and banners. At San Francisco-based Global Exchange this week, a cadre of young organizers worked the phones, arranging last-minute speakers, painting slogans on signs, dispatching volunteers to post fliers and drape banners above bridges and ramps.
Their low-budget efforts belie a savvy coordination among disparate activist groups with tactics that run from silent vigils to in-your-face civil disobedience.
Many of Sunday's marchers are expected to be first-timers. Organizers say they have crafted messages to reach a range of political views and levels of tolerance for diatribe.
"The simple message is: We're not ready to go down the primrose path to destruction," said Ted Lewis of San Francisco-based Global Exchange, part of a broad coalition of march sponsors. "There's going to be a big bridge-and-tunnel contingent. People want to express themselves."
The growing show of opposition comes despite recent polls that show a majority of Americans think the administration has presented enough evidence to justify military action against Iraq.
Protesters have learned from the Persian Gulf War, when the "No Blood for Oil" message dominated. That message remains, but organizers now are looking to themes that will challenge efforts to label the anti-war crowd as unpatriotic.
The message will be anti-Bush, but not anti-soldier; it will focus on concerns that an attack on Iraq would make the country less safe. Some organizers are urging no confrontations between protesters and police. Lewis said they are less worried about violence than climate.
"What we don't want to see is rain and small numbers of people."
In some ways, the global protests over the weekend are to build momentum for post-attack activism, said Nancy Snow, assistant professor of communications at Cal State Fullerton.
"It's not just focused on preventing this war this time," Snow said. "I don't think everybody's going to go home when the shooting starts."
Labor unions, which have suffered setbacks under the Bush administration, are among those taking a vocal stance against unilateral action, saying they fear it will harm relations with key trade allies and hurt workers.
"You have Vietnam War veterans who are very skeptical of this, some very conservative folks saying this is not the right thing," said John Dalrymple, executive director of the Contra Costa Central Labor Council. "I can't think of an example where there's been such a rapid escalation of opposition to a foreign policy initiative."
Nagler, of UC Berkeley, credits the expected turnout less to the savvy of activists and more to an administration that has pumped up the volume on terror alerts and the specter of unilateral U.S. military action.
Just what impact the protests might have on the administration is far from clear. The last round of peace marches, held in January in San Francisco and Washington, D.C., garnered little administration response. Nagler said protesters need to convey clear consequences to a U.S. attack.
"There have to be at least some of the protesters saying if you attack that country, I will perform civil disobedience," he said. "I think the administration won't stop unless it has strong reason to believe the country will be ungovernable."
Already, anti-war groups in San Francisco have planned actions for the first business day after a U.S. attack. Planned efforts range from peaceful vigils to blockades. Among the targets: the Pacific Stock Exchange, the Shell office, federal buildings and a military recruitment center.
"Just having a constant presence in the city is going to be disruptive," said Michael, an organizer for the United for Peace and Justice coalition. "The message is that this is not business as usual."
"LEFTISTS! The BLOOD of Saddam's victims is on YOUR hands!!" (don't forget the bloody handprints).
Posted on Fri, Feb. 14, 2003 | ||
Troops cheered from the sidelines
SUPPORTERS MOBILIZE TO SEND CARDS, CARE PACKAGES Mercury News And now, the silent majority. With the anti-war movement getting most of the attention, Bay Area residents who back President Bush's campaign to disarm Iraq or want to show their support for U.S. troops have begun to organize as well. And, as reservists head to the Persian Gulf, they are mobilizing with urgency. Among their efforts: Small counterprotests are becoming more common at anti-war rallies. Two Southern California businessmen have collected nearly 1 million Valentine's Day cards, and are delivering them to military personnel around the world. A Silicon Valley group is gathering paperback books, toothbrushes, socks and sunblock for care packages that will be mailed to soldiers stationed overseas. ``We want to make sure that the anti-war side is not the only side that is out in public,'' said Jim Robinson, a Vietnam War veteran who lives in Fresno. ``There is a group called Peace Fresno, and they protest every Friday. A few of us decided to go out and counterprotest, and we've kept it up. As long as they are there, we are going to be there.'' Robinson is active in a conservative organization called ``The Free Republic,'' which has chapters around the country. ``Operation Infinite FReep'' is dedicated to ``show support for our troops, President Bush, the families and victims of the recent terrorist attacks, and the United States of America.'' Robinson supports using military force to disarm Iraq. But like many people interviewed, he is most concerned about the tens of thousands of men and women who are being deployed for possible combat. ``We don't want this to turn into the 1960s,'' said Robinson, who served on Navy destroyers. ``When we came home we were treated like dirt, and we want to make sure that that doesn't happen again.'' A majority of Americans -- nearly six in 10 -- support attacking Iraq even without the approval of the United Nations, according to two national polls released this week. Christina Clark, a 23-year-old teacher's aide at Holy Spirit School in San Jose, was 15 when a close friend joined the Marines. She sent him a care package, and soon got letters back that his buddies also wanted care packages (Note: Candy is popular). She formed ``Christina Cares,'' but recently merged her efforts with ``Operation Yellow Ribbon.'' Clark and Jared Sowards are collecting donations from valley residents, and volunteers will gather at a San Jose warehouse Feb. 22 to assemble care packages. ``It's not about whether you are for a war in Iraq or against it,'' said Clark, whose fiance was deployed recently from the Navy base in San Diego. ``It's for the troops. These men and women are moms and dads and aunts and uncles. Everyone who is out there is someone's someone.'' Similar support-the-troops efforts took place during the gulf war in 1991. But e-mail and the Internet have made it much easier to publicize efforts. In Southern California, two businessmen are close to their goal of distributing 1 million valentines -- many of them handmade -- to U.S troops. The valentine campaign was an offshoot of letter writing that Michael and David Fleming started during the 1991 gulf war. This time, they have spread the word on their Web site -- www.valentinesfortroops.com -- and have gotten a far greater response. ``The post office has to use a special truck to bring us all the cards,'' said Michael Fleming, the owner of an ice cream parlor in Santa Clarita. ``We've received valentines from all over the country.'' Another support group is ``Marine Moms Online,'' which debuted in July 1997 and has about 3,000 members, many of whom have become close friends. Zeta Peterson has an 18-year-old son in the Marines in Pensacola, Fla. He probably will not be sent to Iraq, but Peterson still mailed nearly 75 Christmas cards to sons of other moms she had met online. ``We're mostly a support group, but it's an amazing group,'' said Peterson, who works for Hewlett-Packard and lives in Morgan Hill. ``In January, my nephew was murdered in Michigan. A Marine Mom in New Jersey gave me a free airline ticket so I could fly to Michigan and be with my family at a time when we needed each other the most.'' Sunday, another big anti-war demonstration will be held in San Francisco. Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to attend -- including Cinnamon Stillwell, a self-described ``former liberal'' who recently joined the Free Republic. ``I want people to know, and I'd like our troops to know, that the anti-war movement does not speak for everyone in the Bay Area, and they don't have a monopoly on the streets,'' said Stillwell, a freelance writer who plans to counterprotest with 30 or 40 others on the steps of City Hall. ``I question the claims that this is about anti-war; it seems like it's anti-everything.'' Stillwell, 33, was born and raised in Marin and jokes that she ``used to be on the other side.'' ``I'm an ex-hippie child,'' she said. ``But Sept. 11 blew my mind, and seeing our country attacked like that was a big shock. It led to a conversion of sorts. It really woke me up to Islamic terrorism and the ideology behind it. It's out there, and it's very real, and it's very scary.'' |
Yes, bigtime. BUT I think about some of the conditions our troops are in, then I know I'll be there...
BEDFORD - Nearly 1,000 North Texans braved wind and rain Thursday night to show support for President Bush and his push to take military action against Iraq. Thread link
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