Anti-war activists leaflet on BART!

My first thought was that BART riders must be cringing at these 'wierdos' doing this chant. And I noticed in the video that people weren't really looking at the demonstrators, although they were obviously reading the postcards, which suggests they are sort of freaked out by it.

I think this is a great performance, but I'm worried it's going to freak people out more than anything else. If there was something slightly more mainstream, even having it not be a continuous chant but each person trading off saying something those lines, as though talking to each other.

Still, I appreciate that people are out doing this and getting the word out.

It's good to see people trying to break out of the ruts we are stuck in and trying to find new ways to reach out to people. I just went this morning and postered up an area where people line up in their cars in the mornings to go to work. I would suggest one thing and that is more lively chants, and like the other person said, maybe something a bit more mainstream. I think it must be intimidating trying to do something like that, I've thought of it before. But you should consider that the spirit with which you approach people will affect how they receieve your message. Also, I think there's better colors to paint yourselves than white, but hey, thats just me. :)

Um, try watching the video again. Few people were visibly annoyed by this, and the whole idea is that the leafletters were dressed as 'living dead', with white face paint, evoking the image of people who had been killed in a war. That was the idea behind the monotone chants. This is called drama, and it is usually more effectual than holding an ANSWER sign.

Secondly, the leaflets they passed out were written from the perspective that the recipient is probably already against the war. This is a reasonable assumption on the red line from Richmond. They were designed to boost participation for anyone who was sort of on the edge between going to the march on Sunday or not, or to advocate that people should just do more.

People leafletting in public are far more effective than adding one more person to a protest march. At the big marches, people often take the bus for 2-3 hours from far distances and then spend their whole day taking pictures of other people's signs. A lot of good your antiwar sign or speech will do among a big crowd of likeminded people, where the only onlookers are a few homeless people. The media will just go ahead and undercount you anyway. But I guess actually trying to do make a difference will insult that commenter up there.

"1.2 million deaths of Iraqi civilians related to the 1991 war"

Where do you get these figures, out your ass? I mean is there anyone in the "progressive" left that can double check figures, or at least provide a source, I know making up stats makes your case sound more important, however it also makes you a propagandist.

that it was sanctions. not just the war in 91. the usual figures are 1.2 million.

Yeah, that number is way off. That figure is several years old now...

--Seven years after the imposition of the blockade on the people of Iraq, more than 1.2 million people, including 750,000 children below the age of five, have died because of the scarcity of food and medicine. 32 percent of children under age 5, some 960,000 children, are chronically malnourished—a rise of 72 percent since 1991. 23% are underweight - twice as high as the levels found in neighboring Jordan or Turkey. (UNICEF, 1997)

--Approximately 250 people die every day in Iraq due to the sanctions. (UNICEF, 1998).

250 x 365 = 91,250 deaths a year. So add close to another half million to the 1997 figure, according to UNICEF.

Some more facts:

--Each month 5,000 to 6,000 children die as a result of the sanctions. (WHO, 1998).
--In the heavily-populated southern and central parts of the country, children under five are dying at more than twice the rate they were 10 years ago. “If the substantial reduction in child mortality throughout Iraq during the 1980s had continued through the 1990s, there would have been half a million fewer deaths of children under five” from 1991 to 1998.” (UNICEF, 1999).
--More than 4,500 children under age 5 die every month in Iraq. (UNICEF, 1996)
--There has been a resurgence of vaccine-preventable diseases, including polio, diphtheria and measles. (UNICEF, 1993)

I'm not really concerned with the obnoxious person who posted the question, but for everyone out there who is really interested in the sources, The 1.2 million dead figure comes from the Iraqi Health Ministry as of 1999 (they now put the figure at 1.6 million.) Similar figures appear in many articles on Iraq, but this was the only source I could find. It is possible that no other organization monitors total deaths within a country besides that country's government.

Of course, it is conceivable that, as part Saddam Hussien's Ba'ath regime, the government would exaggerate the figure, though an internet search did not come up with any mention of this, whether from the US government or any media. The statements from the Iraq Health Ministry were reported in the international press without any comment on their veracity.

The figure of 5-600,000 dead children under 5 years old comes from UNICEF and is frequently cited. Note, though this figure comes from 1996. In that year, when confronted by an activist with this figure on TV's '60 minutes' , then US-Sec. of State Madaline Albright did not dispute it. (She simply said "It was a hard choice, but we think the price is worth it")

UNICEF has also stated that between 5 and 7,000 children have been dying per month in Iraq (from illnesses directly caused by sanctions). Some quick math: its been at least 74 months since 1996. At 5,000/month, that would make 370,000 more deaths. This, combined with at least 100,000 killed during the 1991 military campaign, make the 1.6 million figure highly likely, if one includes the obvious reality of a large number of deaths of children over 5 and of adults from a varitey of sanctions and war-related factors (cancer from depleted uranium, for example.)

Info about children and maternal mortality at:
http://www.unicef.org/noteworthy/iraq/