[Peace] Go Champaign/Urbana

[Matt Reichel]

	I think that Thursday, March 20th will go down as an important day
in the history of C-U peace activism!

	The noon rally was fantastic: a superb speaker list that was
topped off by a surprise visit by the legendary Jello Biafra. You simply
can't beat that.

	Then, the peace community successfully heeded the call for civil
disobedience throughout the country. While 15,000 protestors in Chicago
shut down traffic on Lake Shore Drive and the Kennedy Expressway, 20,000
protestors closed down the Financial district in San Francisco,
Berkeley students occupied administrative offices, and UT-Austin students
caused all campus classes to be cancelled for the remainder of the week,
at the University of Illinois Urbana/Champaign campustown traffic was
ground to a halt for the better part of four hours. Peaceful protestors
occupied several intersections in the immediate campustown area, while
also marching through and disrupting normal operations in several
campustown buildings. The spirit of these protestors was pristine, caring,
and uniting. Never did anyone act in a way that hindered the overall
effort, and, amazingly, there were zero arrests.

	My personal favorite moments:

	1) Seeing one of the large accordian MTD buses unsuccessfully
attempt a U-turn on Green street.  An MTD tow truck had to be called in.

	2) Marching through the Union despite the doomed attempt of Union
Administration to stop the 400 person march. It turns out that the reason
for wanting to stop us is that a Corporate media job fair was being held
in the main ballroom. We ended up marching through the job fair, which
caused several of the outfits to pack up and leave. The pro-war Chicago
Tribune left in a heartbeat.

	3) The return to the alma-mater. After about 2.5 hours of
marching, the protest returned to the alma mater where several students
jumped on the statue. One fellow jumped on the shoulders of the alma mater
and waved his upside-down American flag. I held an "Impeach Bush" sign and
led the crowd in a brief "Impeach Bush" chant.

	4) The March through Beckman Hall, where 5 floors of supporters
came out to cheer on the effort.

	5) Suffocating the front of WCIA with protestors who were
demanding to know why the Corporate media wasn't out to viedotape the
shutting down of Green Street traffic.


	In all, the whole thing was beyond words. I talked to a professor
who said that he's been here for 13 years and never seen anything like it.
I've been here for 4 years, and certainly seen nothing like it.

	Hopefully we can keep this immense peace movement we got going on
over here alive and strong and that we can end this war SOON and
importantly leave a legacy that says "The American people will NOT put up
with violent and undiplomatic foreign policy from its leadership. We are a
people that want principled leadership that sees human dignity as a
central goal."


	At SPA, we want to fill our website with pictures. Unfortunately,
we took very few pictures ourselves. We know others were taking pics.
Please send them along to reichel at uiuc.edu if they are in electronic form.
Give me an e-mail if you have regular pics.


	thanks much,
	Matt