community-based, non-corporate, participatory media
Come to cleveland, shut it down!
by PassionReborn
Tuesday, Mar. 25, 2003 at 4:00 PM
passionreborn@mutualaid.org (216) 491-4513
Protest the War! Shut down downtown Cleveland!
ALL OUT!!! ALL ACTIONS!!! ALL OVER!!!
Protest the war!
Shut down downtown!
Let the war-makers know there will be no business-as-usual in Cleveland! Let's join with the people of San Francisco, Chicago, NYC, Spain, Great Britain, France, Palestine, Egypt, Italy and every corner of the globe, to say "no" to this atrocious war and "yes" to a world where innocent people don't die for power and oil! Let's show the world that Cleveland, OH, is against the war!
Not In Out Name Youth Network anti-war rally and march
When: Friday, March 28, 2003 at 3:00, with the march beginning around 4:00
Where: Convergence in Public Square and surrounding areas.
Who: EVERYONE! This is the time for us to all work and stand together!
We invite all anti-war Christians, Muslims, Jews, and those of all other faiths, newcomers, liberals, progressives, peace and social justice activists, radicals and revolutionaries to join us! Children and
families are welcome, too!
** There is room for all of us to do what we're comfortable with. If you would like to stay in Public Square and listen to the speakers, or to walk down the sidewalk (which is legal) alongside the march, that's okay!
If you would like to take to the streets, that's okay, too. Participation, at any level, is important!
Newcomers, as well as long-time activists, are needed to attend this crucial rally!
How: This demonstration will encourage and incorporate a diversity of tactics. We need people whose risk levels are at all different points on the spectrum to participate. There are numerous ways we can be involved in this critical action, and these are some suggstions for how to do so:
* rally in public square, while the march takes to the streets
* walk down the sidewalk holding a sign that tells the world your message
* march in the street
* street theater
* banner drops
* critical mass (bring your bicycle!)
* non-violent civil disobedience
* lockdowns
* blocking intersections, with trash, dumpsters, your body, your car, etc.
* black bloc, anti-capitalist bloc, anti-imperialist bloc, etc.
Get together with a friend or friends to decide what you'll be doing, or be spontaneous and decide what you'll do when you get there! Most importantly, let's be creative and effective!
For more information: passionreborn.org or 216-491-4513
Give it up!
by anonymous
Friday, Mar. 28, 2003 at 9:06 AM
Your protests are empty! We are already at war and Bush doesn't care about your protests! You are becoming more of a hindrance than a help. Everyone deserves to have their own opinion, but you are making everything worse than it needs to be! You're only going to get arrested. The war isn't going to end because you're protesting!
Can you People Actually Stomach the TRUTH?
by George K.
Friday, Mar. 28, 2003 at 11:00 AM
dodgerambler@yahoo.com
Why We Must Fight � and Now!
Wednesday, March 19, 2003
By William J. Bennett
Three weekends ago, millions of demonstrators across the globe protested on behalf of "human rights." Their marches, slogans, placards and speeches did not declaim against Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, did not cite the human rights reports detailing his tyranny and torture, did not take account the plaints of Iraqis fortunate enough to live in exile.
Rather, they protested the U.S. and the U.K. and their efforts to topple Saddam and liberate Iraq. Now, we are seeing more television advertisements along these lines, and even a "virtual march on Washington."
Just after the celebration of Abraham Lincoln�s birthday, it is appropriate to remember his lament: "The world has never had a good definition of the word �liberty.�" With Saddam flouting international law, and President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair attempting to enforce it, portrayals of Bush as Adolf Hitler � as we saw and heard in the "human rights" protests � betray an ignorance of liberty, an ignorance of right and wrong, an ignorance of commonsense. Because Bush and Blair are putting together a coalition of countries to oust Saddam, they are labeled the warmongers and tyrants. We live in a confusing time indeed.
Lincoln described liberty by a useful analogy: "The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as a liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty." Lincoln made it clear who the sheep was and who the wolf was. It is equally important to recognize who the liberator is.
Those who march against the U.S. and the U.K. today, those who condemn Bush and Blair and remain silent when it comes to Saddam, are in league with the wolf�s view that the shepherds are destroying liberty. The people of Iraq will soon know what Afghanis know. The true wolf was devouring Afghanis, the true shepherd saved them.
It is worth remembering what those in the former Soviet republics know and what the anti-American Western street has forgotten: It was, and is, U.S. and British resolve that truly liberates the oppressed and that defends the lives and liberties of the free against the appetites and ill-will of the world�s dictators.
In 1998 then-President Bill Clinton stated: "What if he [Saddam] fails to comply [with disarmament] and we fail to act? He will conclude that the international community has lost its will. He will then go right on building up his arsenal. Someday, someway, I guarantee you, he'll use that arsenal." Last year, former Vice President Al Gore stated, "[W]e know that he [Saddam] has stored away secret supplies of biological weapons and chemical weapons throughout his country."
It is not President Bush who woke up one day to discover that Saddam was making and harvesting weapons of mass destruction. Yet it is Bush who is blamed for doing something about it. Saddam may be mad, but he is not a scientist. He does not collect chemical and biological weapons for mere pleasure and intrigue. Just ask the survivors of Halabja. So when Saddam acts, it will be Bush and America who are blamed for inaction, for appeasement. We will be liable for such blame because we are the only ones who can do something about it.
We are not at war with Muslims or Arabs around the world; we are at war with some Muslim and Arab leaders who misinterpret their religion and put a primacy on war over peace and slavery over freedom. But among the leadership in the world�s moral democracies there is no misinterpretation, and nowhere is that more true than in the case of the U.S.
This is not a new role for us, but is a unique role we proudly inherit as the world�s liberator. As Wolf Blitzer pointed out: "Over the past two decades, almost every time U.S. military forces have been called into action to risk their lives and limbs, it's been on behalf of Muslims. ... [T]o assist the Afghan mujahadin � during the Soviet invasion in the 1980s, to liberate Kuwait following the Iraqi invasion of 1990, to help Somali Muslims suffering at the hands of a warlord in Mogadishu, to help Muslims first in Bosnia and then in Kosovo who faced a Serb onslaught, and more recently to liberate Afghanistan from its Taliban and Al Qaeda rulers."
Those who protest against the U.S. just now are legatees of those who protested against the U.S. in the 1980s, when we fought the focus of evil then, the Soviet Union. But ask a former Soviet, or East Berliner, if he is better off now than he was, say, 15 years ago. Ask a Nicaraguan. Ask a Bosnian Muslim. U.S. resolve can be thanked for all that, even as those who protested our defense and military postures marched in favor of appeasement.
Indeed, we live in a strange time when the anti-nuclear movement and its leaders of yesterday can today suggest a course of inaction such that Saddam will be able to join North Korea in becoming a nuclear power. The only logical conclusion one can reach is that for the protesters today, weapons in the hands of the U.S. are to be met with outrage while weapons in the hands of Saddam are to be met with silence.
We seek to liberate Iraq today, not only because for Saddam "[t]orture is not a method of last resort in Iraq, it is often the method of first resort," according to Kenneth Pollack, President Clinton�s director of Gulf Affairs at the NSC. We seek to liberate Iraq because after Sept. 11, 2001, we were put on notice. We were put on notice that civilized people can no longer live in a bubble and hope for the best. We were put on notice that there are fanatics and tyrants who want nothing from us but our death. And this notice requires action: the action of the brave, the action of the unthanked, the action of the free.
In Iraq as in other contemporary situations, the responsibility to act has been ours because the ability has been ours. The responsibility has been ours because oppressed people look to us for their deliverance. There is a duty in being the nation that Abraham Lincoln, speaking of our Declaration of Independence, called "a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the very harbingers of re-appearing tyranny and oppression." That is who we happen to be. And it is an honor.
Is this my fault?
by A simple business man
Friday, Mar. 28, 2003 at 2:27 PM
No, this war was not caused by me. I am a simple business man that is trying to make money to support my family. I go to work, provide for my family and try to live a good life. Despite this, many people feel like they need to try and shut down business in my city so that there voices can be heard. How about listening to my voice, if you want to protest...go ahead and do it in a park, on TV, at a public forum....but do not do it in the streets that prohibits me from trying to live my daily life and doing what is best for my family. Do you have a right to be heard, YES, but how about doing it with some class. If you want to be heard then do it the right way, do not step on the toes of people that are just trying to live there lives. You seem to think that the war is wrong, well that is fine because it is your opinion and you as an American citizen have the right to carry your own opinion, but don't I have the right as an American citizen to live my life without having to be held back because some people can not figure out a way to be that does not including screwing up other peoples rights. How about looking in the mirror, you are mad at the government and you think they are wrong, but you feel that this gives you the right to be in the wrong and mess up my life. If you take part in trying to shut down Cleveland then you are nothing but a hypocrit, two wrongs do not make a right. Grow up!!!
A Real American
by A Real American
Friday, Mar. 28, 2003 at 2:36 PM
I am a real American, I know that we as a country are the most powerful nation in the world. With this great power comes a great amount of responsibility. We as the United States of America need to help out other countries like Iraq when they are being tortured, raped and killed like the people of Iraq are. We are not trying to invade and take over this country, but rather we are trying to give the people that live there a taste of the good life and also remove a political regime that is responsible for acts of terrorism all around the world. No one seemed to mind when the United States came to the defense of European countries when they were being take over my a man that acts like Saddam Hussein, his name was Adolph Hitler. Both of these men are evil and deserve to be treated in the same way. They need to be removed from power by any means necessary and that includes war!!! God Bless America, and God Bless President Bush!!!!
Let's March!
by anonymous
Friday, Mar. 28, 2003 at 2:46 PM
If you marched on Sept 12. to let Osama bin Laden know your against his actions. Let's March!
If you marched every time Saddam Hussein killed or tortured his own people. Let's March!
If you believe that you are safe in this world with these types of mass murderes running around and that we, the fortunate, should NOT help some one who is less fortunante than us, Let's March!
But, If you believe in freedom, and the right to control you own life then let's march in show of support to the men and women who are defending this country and our world against people who would not let this type of demonstration take place!
hmm...
by jwg
Friday, Mar. 28, 2003 at 2:49 PM
if i believe in "right to control you own life " then I don't have to listen to what you tell me to do
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