01/29/07: Post by Franklin Stein
Posted by: BLOWBACK
Saturday's March was GREAT!!For the record: ILOVE CODE PINK.Beautiful day, a little brisk, people of all ages, shapes, colors, sizes, etc. marched around the U.S. Capitol at one point completely encircling it. Hundreds of thousands? Half a million? Who knows? Who cares? The fact is that there were a ton of people, saying End the War NOW! I caught glimpses of Tim Robbins and Jesse Jackson. Although i saw Jesse many times during the 80s during the anti-war demonstrations then (Central America folks, at the time the US was very buzy buzy buzy arming and helping Saddam Hussein), i first met Jesse in Port au Prince the day that President Aristide was returned to office by ... the U.S.! Yes, I was very happy with the U.S.A. that day. I saw Jesse take a couple of Haitian generals aside (presumably the very same generals that up until very recently had been supporting the putschist Cedras) and said to them "Now don't fuck it up! Don't fuck it up!" An unedited moment of diplomacy.Yesterday, Sunday, there was a training for possibly 500 or more activists who stayed after Saturday's demonstration to lobby the Hill today. The members of the assembly were of 47 states of the union. Veterans, union members, students, college professors, ministers, again, you name it. I stuck around and helped a delegation from a far-away state get their bearings - they were impressive, including a former navy intelligence guy who was capturing the signals at the Gulf of Tonkin -yes that Gulf of Tonkin at that fateful moment - so he's got a little experience on how pre-war intelligence is manipulated. Along with his fellow delegates, i am sure they are doing a great job lobbying their reps and Senators as i write these very lines! United for Peace and Justice did a great job, both with the march and with the lobby day. Ahh, I love the smell of democracy...