[Peace-discuss] Fitgerald mtg

[Margaret E. Kosal]

At 16:43 2/2/2003 -0600, Lisa Chason wrote:
>I've just gotten home from the Senator Fitgerald town meeting at 
>Centennial High School in Champaign. There were around 400 people there. 
>At first I was rather concerned that I hardly recogized anybody. There 
>were no signs to be seen and I counted only 7 people that I knew from 
>anti-war work.

i'll echo Lisa's observation of recognizing few faces, which was fine ... 
because a slight majority of the audience expressed anti-war sentiments  - 
my judgement based on volume of appluase & lack of pro-war statements.  It 
was yet another indication that middle America is not "with" the Bush 
administration in pursuit of war at Iraq.

In addition to Lisa's "Support SR32" sign -- which did elicit a number of 
questions(!), Sarah K created two beautiful 8.5 x 11 inch mock postcards. 
One side showed the CU women baring witness for PEACE image and the other 
side had a text encouraging Fitzgerald to work for peace.

Flanked by Mary Lee S. (holding up a postcard for all to see) and Lisa, i 
spoke about a group of central Illinois women -- "scientists, librarians, 
journalists, teachers and homemakers" -- who want peace.  In responding to 
Morten Russel's question, Fitzgerald had ended with emphasis on Hussein's 
attempts to build a nuclear bomb.  The implication that those efforts were 
possible justification for war.  Playing off that i asked him what he was 
doing to insure the security of actual nuclear material around the world 
(furthering Nunn-Lugar Act and the G-8 initiative) rather than just 
worrying about Saddam Hussein's desire to have a nuclear bomb.  Without 
fissile material, all the aluminum tubes he want are inconsequential.

We plan to send one of the postcards to Fitzgerald and remind him of our 
questions and concerns.

See http://wendypolyploidy.com/nobush/index.html for our image and all of 
the others :-)

Namaste,
Marg

"Listen, kid, we're all in it together."
-- Harry Tuttle, _Brazil_