[Peace-discuss] Saturday's demo report

[Ricky Baldwin]

Just thought I'd let folks know, Saturday we had a wonderful demonstration with lots of new faces.
 Hopefully some of them will return.  I did take email addresses from the willing, who have since
received an invitation to our other activities, lists, website, etc.  (One of the "RP" people
asked if I wasn't going to twist arms for email addresses, but we decided that torture doesn't
produce accurate info, so, no.)

We had about 50 people total, including about 20 "RP" folks and another half dozen or so ISO folks
and a smattering of Greens, plus of course us "usual suspects."

With the help of one of the Ron Paul folks we handed out a couple hundred flyers about the
upcoming referendum vote (and, oh, yeah, some candidates - a summary of some of their views on
war-related issues from the web).  We had some new signs, as well as the old favorites, and the RP
folks had some big ones but it wasn't overwhelming in my humble opinion.  No Clinton or Obama
supporters seemed to show up with their candidates' signs.  Hm.

One nice policeman did inform our RP friend that he was not allowed to hand out leaflets by
stepping into the street even when traffic was stopped.  WRONG!  There were no other incidents,
but  maybe we should dig our our old copies of AWARE's famous accord with the Champaign police
concerning our polite exercise of our legal rights under the Constitution and Champaign City
Ordinance.  I think mine went thru the wash.

The RP folks also brought coffee, and were very respectful of our aims.  Personally I think it was
a very good thing overall, and we are likely to get some new blood out of it.  I did overhear one
passerby on her cell phone describing the event as a "Ron Paul demonstration", which it wasn't,
but I also think that if there were a few misunderstandings like that it's not the end of the
world.

Peace,
Ricky




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