[Peace-discuss] discussion please

[Lisa Chason]

Dear friends,
I don't know about anyone else but I am having a really hard time getting
behind our plan for a picnic and parade on 9/11. We tried to discuss it a
bit at Sunday's meeting and ideally I would have been more clear and
resolute at that time, but alas I wasn't, and I find that as the plans
progress I'm more and more uncomfortable. On Monday I was asked to submit an
item for the community calendar that the Walk for Peace group is organizing.
I sent them the following blurb, thinking that our Protest for Peace would
contrast nicely with their Walk for Peace:

AWARE and Student Peace Action will hold a Protest for Peace Picnic and
Parade on September 11 starting at 12:00 noon on the main quad of the
University. Booths and activities will highlight the political impact 9/11
has had, followed by a march through downtown Champaign to the building that
houses the local FBI to demonstrate against the curtailment of civil
liberties and the homeland spying movement.

My problem is with the 'picnic and parade'. Frankly, I find the jovial
quality it elicits in serious bad taste for that day.

Maybe a 'Protest for Peace Rally: 9/11 and its after-effects' that continues
to have booths and tables on the quad, perhaps even cut out the parade thru
Champaign and instead stay on the quad with some speakers, and have one of
the booths concern the FBI-related issues...

I'd like to open this up for more discussion. Not because I want to talk it
to death but because I think it matters WHAT we do, and it's especially
important to get it right on this day.

Lisa