Peace movement growing below U.S. radar
Anti-war protest hits Washington streets tomorrow
`We're not about to send
children to die for oil'
Alan Thompson, Toronto Star Dec 9,
2002
WASHINGTON—Jane Coe says she cannot sit home any longer and listen to
the drums beating for war against Iraq. So, tomorrow, she'll take to the
streets of the U.S. capital to join this country's growing anti-war
movement.
"I'm not an activist really. I much prefer letter-writing to
marching,'' the 64-year-old anthropologist said this weekend. "But I just
couldn't sit at home any longer amid this drift, and all the buildup
to a war in
Iraq that we don't need."
Coe is helping to organize a peace march in downtown Washington on
International Human Rights Day, a rally expected to bring together
faith groups, seniors and peace activists.
"The public discourse is: `Bomb 'em. Gear up for war.' But in terms of
Iraq, they didn't have anything to do with Al Qaeda, so linking them to
terrorism is stretching it. And we need to give weapons inspections a
chance to work. That's a chance, that's a hope,'' Coe said.
(The Bush administration blames Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda terror
network for the Sept. 11 attacks against America that killed about 3,000
people in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania last year.)
Saturday morning, Coe attended a meeting of the Washington, D.C.,
chapter of the Gray Panthers, a group dominated by seniors that has
lobbied for decades on social justice issues. It's part of a growing
coalition
against war with Iraq.
In an auditorium foyer at the University of the District of Columbia,
about 20 people pulled their chairs in a circle for the meeting; the
Gray Panthers moved their chairs closer together when one complained she
could not hear.
"My motto is health care, not warfare,'' said Abe Bloom, 89, from his
wheelchair, a magnifying glass hanging on a cord around his neck to
help him read the handouts.
"It seems to me that Bush is determined, no matter what, to get a war
out of this; but we're not about to send our children to die for oil,''
said Ethel Lubarsky, 85, who sat next to Bloom and leaned on a cane.
As the Gray Panthers met, President George W. Bush used his weekly
radio address to make clear he believes Iraq is hiding weapons of mass
destruction, despite its submitting thousands of pages of documents
disavowing such weapons to U.N. inspectors last week. "Inspectors do
not have the duty, or the ability, to uncover terrible weapons hidden in a
vast country,'' he told listeners.
Largely below the radar of mainstream media, the anti-war coalition is
gaining momentum and members. They range from key labour unions,
religious movements, campus groups and such groups as Black Voices for
Peace to traditional Marxists.
John J. Sweeney, president of the 13-million strong AFL-CIO labour
union has joined the movement, as has the National Conference of Catholic
Bishops and the National Council of Churches, representing 36
Protestant and Orthodox denominations.
United for Peace, the Web site a San Francisco-based human rights group
set up to track events commemorating Sept. 11, now has evolved into a
clearing house for anti-war groups.
Pat Elder, who owns a real estate title company in Bethesda, Md., says
he got involved with a Quaker group after attending an anti-war protest in
October.
"A third of the people there were over 50 and I thought, `Jesus, man,
that's not what I remember from Vietnam. I'm 47 and I was a teenager
when the big Vietnam demos were going on."
Now, he said, it merges "the person in the suburbs, the conservative
crowd and the traditional activists ... to strike a tone that is more
palatable to middle America. So we're not 20-year-olds in bandanas,
shouting that Bush is a bastard."
