M19 Anti-War Protest Photos

An uncle sam who is not J. Webb!
a good sign.

In some other regions of the internet, people were discussing whether ANSWER and UFPJ and NION should hold small marches that aren't centered around an upcoming threat, but around ongoing discontent - It risks letting the media and the Whitehouse have an opportunity to compare a pretty big march with the peak huge 200,000 person march of 2003, and then say that people don't care - even though showing up clearly isn't an indication of the prevailing sentiment. After all, the polls are all showing that support for the intervention now is well under 50% while it was 70% in March 2003.
But the other side of the coin is that if there is no ongoing presence of organized anti-intervention, that it will be doubly hard to scrap a network together that has the infrastructure to notify potential participants over a large region, get contacts with media and so forth. We all know that the groups behind ANSWER are not generally popular and the 'movement' has to deal with this reality somehow, but it is important right now to keep a presence up.
It is true that the antiwar movement during Vietnam probably didn't alter the course of the Vietnam war very much. It actually ended after ten years because the Vietnamese fighters (they lost 2 million) finally killed enough americans (i.e. the death toll that counts - 69,000) that the army was having a hard time getting drafted soldiers to willingly participate. however, the antiwar movement did succeed in doing quite a few things. It changed U.S. society quite a bit, and future interventions during the 80s and 90s were kept much more discreet so that most U.S. residents didn't even know about them. Instead of sending the army, they send guns and money to Nicaraguan contras, and the authoritarian gov't of El Salvador, and had lots of smaller sets of CIA and Marines advisors (such as my cousin in Panama and Columbia) in lots of places that only conspiracy theorists care about.

It has been amazing. I watched all the network morning news show and there was not one mention of the protests. One show that had Rumsfield on it did mention the 2nd anniversary of the war. The 2nd anniversary of the troops dying, and the killing of thousands of innocent lives. The networks can’t even seem to honor the troops who have died. Instead we get to see Congress hold a hearing on steroid use, and debate on a bill to keep a woman alive who is in a vegetative state. Bush is rushing back to D.C. to make sure this one woman is not let to die…because it is the moral thing to do. Yet the news ignores how many lives have been lost in Iraq and Afghanistan. How many kids are starving right now? How many people will die in the US this week because they can’t afford to go to the hospital?

As I click through each city on the Indymedia site, I see hundreds and in some cities thousands who took to the street. I see incredible signs and street theater. Many events had Iraq Vets and family members speaking out against this war. Yet, what is on the news? Terri and whether or not they will replace her feeding tube. One severally brain damaged life vs. hundreds of thousands.

I hope many people plan to call and write the networks and the next rally/march is held in front of the TV, radio, and newspaper buildings/offices.

I totally agree. I think Shiavo's life is valuable and she needs to be kept alive. But I value ALL human life. Why in the world doesn't Congress have this much outrage and morals concerning Iraqis and Afghans??

I like both of your comments. These are the kind of intelligent dicussions which make a difference. I feel really sad when racist people post in Indybay. I wish those comments would be deleted.