M16 Candle Vigils in SF

When is moveon going to call for cd? Vigils, prayers, great . . . but then what? More signatures? More commercials?

Thank god we have England and places with real democracies not yet bought off. If it were up to America we'd be Nazi Germany on steriods 1000x over and nuke winter would have already wiped out most civilization. Americans would still be sitting in front of their tvs, lighting candles, going to work, signing petitions . . .

It's great work, but someone needs to have courage when the options run out. Congress doesn't care! Don't waste time with congress anymore. If you have money, just buy them, that's what they're there for. Don't waste time on commercials, just buy politicians.

They protest their way, you protest your way, and if we all do it at the same time we are going to get more traction than if we only did it one way. You dig?

As of right now (late Thursday morning) there are actually eleven different locations in S.F. listed on their website ( http://www.moveon.org/vigil/index.html ) having candlelight vigils on Sunday evening! 91 people have already signed up for the one at Dolores Park, 51 for Harvey Milk Plaza, and 47 for Tank Hill. Also, 77 have signed up for one at Union Square (not included in the post above).

For folks in the Bay Area outside of S.F., there are vigils in every Bay Area county -- 12 different vigils are listed in Oakland (the largest currently has 43 signed up), 6 vigils in Berkeley (largest is 30 signed up), 3 in San Jose (largest is 91), 2 in Santa Cruz (one has 46, the other 38), 2 in Palo Alto (largest is 41), one in Farifax with 41, one in Sebastopol with 53, one in Santa Rosa with 87, one in Walnut Creek with 84, one in Davis with 43, one in Sacramento with 60, etc., etc.....

Elsewhere, L.A. has 15 vigils listed (largest two are 79 and 72), San Diego has one with 171, Albuquerque has one with 110, Houston one with 103, Boulder one with 139, Chicago has 13 listed (largest two are 125 and 123), Philadelphia has one with 180, Manhattan has 25 listed (largest is 152), D.C. has 8 listed (largest two are 80 and 71), etc., etc., etc.....

Check it out -- it only takes about a minute to locate the closest vigil to you, and maybe another minute if you want to sign up!

On the other hand, if protesters pace themselves, they can make whatever it is that they do, last a whole lot longer than than they would if everybody blows their wad on the first move. There is NO WAY that war in Iraq will be over in a day, or even a week. Iraq is not Kuwait. Neither is it Afghanistan.

So here's the big questions:

Which will outlast the other, the war, or the efforts to stop it?

There are an awful lot of peaceniks. Actions could come in waves. Or, conversely, everyone could blow their wad on the first move.

Which will it be?

What would happen if theses approaches were synthesized? What if protesters, pacing themselves for a long haul, and timed their actions to come in waves. What if in each wave, there was a full spectrum of activities, ranging from candlelight vigils at one end to f*cking sh*t up at the other, going on all at once, but in widely scattered locations?

How would that work out?

On Wed., March 5 were the student walk-outs, which were fairly-wided reported on (at least the local walk-outs).

On Sat., March 8 was the Code Pink women's demonstrations, and also a few other demonstrations. Again, there was press coverage.

On Mon., March 10 the group "Win without war" delivered a petition with over a million signatures to the U.N. calling for peace, which received some press.

During this past week various direct actions have been taking place (including this morning at the Pacific Coast Stock Exchange), with various amounts of coverage by the media.

Tomorrow hundreds of demonstrations will take place across the country, in coordination with the march on the White House, including at the Civic Center in San Francisco, and the state capitol in Sacramento.

On Sunday over 3000 candlelight vigils for peace will take place in over 100 countries, as coordinated by the group "Move On".

On Monday more direct action will be happening around the country.

Yes, the wave is already happening!