[Peace-discuss] Fwd: AFSC In The News

[Jay Mittenthal]

>From: "Dawn L. Rubbert" <auntdawn at i1.net>
>To: <Undisclosed-Recipient:;>
>Subject: AFSC In The News
>Date: Tue, 22 Oct 2002 22:18:44 -0500
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>Dear IYM Friends, David Zarembka brought this article to my attention.
>Thought many of you would like to see it.
>
>Dawn Rubbert
>St. Louis MM
>IYM Representative to AFSC Corporation
>
>
>Anti-War Protests Get Louder In Calif.
>By Evelyn Nieves
>Washington Post Staff Writer
>Monday, October 14, 2002; Page A01
>
>SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 13 -- In all the years he has spent on street
>corners, talking himself hoarse trying to convince the world that war is
>hell,
>Jeff Grubler has never been so popular.
>
>Life has become one big anti-war rally. Last Wednesday, Grubler, a
>volunteer with the American Friends Service Committee, agreed to lead a
>rally of 200 students at the University of California, Berkeley. On
>Thursday, he joined 200 people on a march to the Federal Building here
>to protest the congressional resolution authorizing President Bush to
>attack Iraq. On Saturday, Grubler spent a good part of the day sifting
>through
>a mountain of e-mails about upcoming anti-war events. Today, he led a
>teach-in at Stanford University.
>
>The prospects of a U.S. war on Iraq have prompted so many teach-ins,
>protests, marches and forums that he can't keep up. "In the Bay Area,"
>said Grubler, a 34-year-old bartender who began working for the Service
>Committee about five years ago, "there are literally multiple events
>every day."
>
>In the Bay Area, bastion of the most liberal Democrats in the country,
>speaking out against unilateral action on Iraq is like preaching the
>dangers of binge drinking at an Alcoholics Anonymous convention.
>Anti-war rallies on two consecutive weekends drew 10,000 people each, and
>hastily called protests draw several hundred. Unlike the rest of the
>country --
>or even the rest of California -- activists here can boast that most of
>their
>elected representatives (10 of 13) heeded their thousands of phone calls
>and voted against the resolution on Iraq.
>
>But the Bay Area is not, as some pundits would have it, "out there"
>alone. It is simply the most obvious place, veteran peace organizers say, to
>see a burgeoning national anti-war movement that is gaining momentum by the
>day.  Peace groups believe they can still avert a war by convincing
>politicians
>that the majority of Americans oppose unilateral action against Iraq.
>
>Most Americans -- about 61 percent, according to a recent Washington
>Post-ABC News poll -- support using force to remove Iraqi President Saddam
>Hussein, but anti-war activists contend that is true only when people are
>asked the question in the broadest terms. When voters in the Post-ABC poll
>were asked whether the United States should launch an attack over the
>opposition of its allies, for example, support dropped to 46 percent.
>Most polls find that a majority of Americans believe the United Nations
>should be allowed to try diplomacy first.
>
>Approval of the resolution on Iraq, though disheartening to groups that
>spent weeks organizing citizens to inundate members of Congress with
>thousands of phone calls and e-mails registering opposition to a war, was
>expected, peace organizers say. (Even before the final vote, anti-war
>groups planned national protests on Oct. 26 in San Francisco and the
>District, hoping for at least 100,000 participants.) In fact, the
>resolution has increased the anti-war effort, organizers say. Some say
>politicians who ignored the will of their constituents and voted to approve
>the resolution will face repercussions, such as more protests and sit-ins
>at their offices -- and possible retribution in the next election. But the
>greater effort will be in convincing Congress and the president that war
>  is not the way to go, said Mary Lord, director of the national
>peace-building
>  unit for the American Friends Service Committee.
>
>"I think that the Democratic leadership made a mistake in thinking that
>voting for the war would get them off the headlines," Lord said. "Now
>there's going to be accelerated troop deployment. This issue is not going
>to go away."
>
>The latest Pew Research Center survey, taken early this month, found
>that 88 percent of Americans are following the Iraq debate very or fairly
>closely.  No one can say what will happen to the peace movement if Bush
>does launch strikes on Iraq and the nation is plunged into a sustained war.
>But time-tested organizations such as the Service Committee, which is run
>by the nation's oldest pacifist institution, the Quakers, as well as groups
>that have sprung up in response to the threat of a U.S. invasion, talk in
>elated terms about how overwhelmed they are with the sheer number of
>people who want to join their effort, as well as the multiplying number of
>anti-war activities. They talk of a rising tide of student activism, of
>protesting by people who have never protested before and of an
>engagement on the issue that was absent prior to U.S. involvement in
>Vietnam.
>
>The Institute for Policy Studies, a liberal Washington think tank, had
>compiled a list of more than 250 anti-war events planned throughout the
>country over the next two weeks, only to discover it had missed at least
>150 others. "People are organizing at all levels," said Amy Quinn,
>co-director of the institute. "I'm hearing from the older generations that
>there was nowhere near this level of activism at this stage in the Vietnam
>War. I'm not surprised that people are coming out against the war. I am
>surprised at how organized and vocal people are."
>
>Global Exchange, the San Francisco-based human rights organization that
>has been leading many of the anti-war efforts, created a Web site,
>www.unitedforpeace.org, just before Sept. 11 so that peace organizations
>could list their events. In the past month, as Bush began increasing his
>arguments to wage a war on Iraq, the list of anti-war events "in every
>state" has been growing by the day, said Andrea Buffa, a Global Exchange
>organizer. "Teach-ins, sit-ins, rallies, you name it -- I think that  the
>nation is seeing a growing peace movement the likes of which we have not
>seen in a long time."
>
>Not In Our Name, an anti-war group based in New York, has been receiving
>more than 25,000 hits and more than 1,000 e-mails a day from all over the
>world on its Web site, www.notinourname.org, said Miles Solay, an organizer
>with the Refuse and Resist Project, an arm of the organization. A call from
>Not In Our Name for national rallies on Oct. 6 led to more than 40 rallies
>involving more than 85,000 people, he said. Although those rallies had
>hoped to affect the outcome of the congressional resolution, Solay said,
>many more activities are planned. Not In Our Name is organizing the Oct. 26
>rallies and others. "There will be lots of response to the no-surprise
>resolution," he said. "On the day the bombing begins, there will be
>organized protests across the country. There's a new student movement
>growing all over the country. Thousands of youth are organizing and getting
>involved. . . . We are coming together."
>
>The American Friends Service Committee has launched an ambitious effort,
>organizing war protests by faith groups as well as student teach-ins,
>coalitions among anti-war organizations big and small, and citizen
>involvement in campaigns where candidates have expressed support for a
>U.S. attack, Lord said. "We'll be encouraging people to go to candidate
>meetings and campaign forums to tell them that this is not the way to get
>elected."
>
>That also will mean more calls to more politicians, as well as more
>protests directed at political leaders. Alpesh Patel, who has been  leading
>protests at the San Mateo, Calif., office of Rep. Tom Lantos, one of
>the first local Democrats to support the resolution on Iraq, said he has
>found that there is almost unanimous opposition to war in the district.
>"With
>the vote done, we are not done one bit," he said. "We will be back in front
>of Lantos's office. We want to make it abundantly clear that everybody in
>this district who speaks for anybody is opposed to Lantos's war."
>
>Bill Ramsey, a coordinator for the Human Rights Action Service in St.
>Louis, who has been leading sit-ins at the district office of House
>Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) and the state Democratic
>Party headquarters, said those protests will continue and multiply. "There
>are hundreds of people here engaging in action they are initiating
>themselves,"
>he said. "The kinds of responses we're getting are astounding us."
>
>In San Francisco, groups are planning sit-ins at Sen. Dianne Feinstein's
>office to protest her vote for the resolution after the California Democrat
>expressed opposition to it a few weeks ago. Efforts to persuade her to
>oppose the resolution failed despite 11,000 calls that her office logged
>in the week before the vote, with only 150 of those calls supporting the
>resolution.
>
>Even House Minority Whip Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who opposed the
>resolution (after receiving 12,000 calls from constituents in three weeks,
>with only 20 of those supporting the resolution), is getting calls
>complaining
>about Feinstein's vote. Brendan Daley, Pelosi's press secretary, said her
>office
>had received a few hundred angry calls regarding Feinstein's vote Friday
>morning.
>
>Grubler, who had expected the resolution to pass, said he would probably
>participate in a few sit-ins in the next few weeks. He specializes in
>dressing up
>and performing skits, which explained why he was wearing orange coveralls,
>a hard hat and rubber boots last Thursday -- his weapons inspector outfit --
>as
>he walked through downtown San Francisco to meet members of the Service
>Committee at a weekly peace vigil. He was hoping to squeeze in some street
>theater, but as usual these days, he had no time. "I am sleep-deprived," he
>said,
>sighing at the current state of affairs for
>  peace activists.
>
>  © 2002 The Washington Post Company