in good company

Tue Feb 18 00:02:43 CST 2003

Right on, Doug!

Kudos to all you Bay area people who held off a day out of respect for the
New Year.

on 2/17/03 6:19 PM, pynchonoid at pynchonoid at yahoo.com wrote:

> Millions worldwide rally for peace
> Huge turnout at 600 marches from Berlin to Baghdad
> 
> Angelique Chrisafis, David Fickling, Jon Henley, John
> Hooper, Giles Tremlett, Sophie Arie and Chris McGreal
> Monday February 17, 2003
> The Guardian 
> 
> Huge waves of demonstrations not seen since the
> Vietnam war jammed more than 600 towns and cities
> around the world over the weekend as protesters from
> Tasmania to Iceland marched against war in Iraq. Up to
> 30 million people demonstrated worldwide, including
> around 6 million in Europe, according to figures from
> organisers and police, although most conceded there
> were too many people in too many places to count.
> 
> Action began on Friday when 150,000 protesters filed
> into Melbourne, with thousands more gathering across
> the rest of Australia and in New Zealand. Protests
> were still swelling yesterday in Sydney, San Francisco
> and in Oman - where 200 women filled the streets in
> the sultanate's first all-female demonstration.
> Smaller demonstrations choked streets from Cape Town,
> Dhaka and Havana to Bangkok.
> 
> Tens of thousands filled the streets of Iraq. In
> Baghdad, students, housewives and volunteer militia,
> many waving Kalashnikovs and giant pictures of Saddam
> Hussein, were presided over by leaders of the ruling
> Ba'ath party and watched over by heavily armed police.
> 
> 
> US
> 
> Last night's protest in San Francisco was the last in
> a weekend of American mass demonstrations.
> 
> In New York on Saturday organisers counted 400,000
> demonstrators who, forbidden by a court order from
> marching, rallied within sight of the United Nations
> amid heavy security. They were joined by the South
> African archbishop Desmond Tutu, and actors Susan
> Sarandon and Danny Glover. In Chicago 3,000 gathered
> and in Philadelphia 5,000 more carried anti-Bush
> banners. Other marchers massed in more than 100 towns
> and cities, including Seattle, Miami and Los Angeles.
> 
> Australia
> 
> Yesterday's anti-war protest in Sydney was the biggest
> demonstration in Australia's history, surpassing even
> the record set by Friday's demonstration in Melbourne.
> Around 250,000 marchers were addressed by American
> singer Jackson Browne, journalist John Pilger and
> Green party senator Bob Brown.
> 
> There was a typically Australian strand of irreverence
> about parts of the protest, with organisers giving out
> prime minister John Howard's office phone number.
> 
> The prime minister was unimpressed by the protests. "I
> don't know that you can measure public opinion just by
> the number of people that turn up at demonstrations,"
> he said. 
> 
> Spain
> 
> Two marches in Spain - in Madrid and Barcelona - each
> brought out around a million people on Saturday
> evening, with dozens more gatherings countrywide,
> taking the total number of protesters towards the 3
> million mark. 
> 
> It was the biggest outpouring of popular political
> sentiment - with the possible exception of some
> anti-Eta marches - since Spaniards took to the streets
> to protect their fragile young democracy after a coup
> attempt in 1981. 
> 
> The protest was not directed so much at George Bush as
> at his faithful ally, the conservative Spanish prime
> minister, Jose Maria Aznar. "The Pope says no to war,
> the People's party says yes", "Aznar, Bush's doormat"
> and "USA global coup" were among the slogans on
> display. 
> 
> "We don't understand the concept of a preventive war.
> The only preventive war is called peace," film-maker
> Pedro Almodovar told the Madrid march.
> 
> France
> 
> Between 300,000 and 500,000 anti-war protesters
> marched through some 60 towns across France on
> Saturday, many carrying banners declaring "Proud to be
> French" and waving US flags scrawled with the words:
> "Leave us in peace".
> 
> Police said 200,000 people attended a Paris march, the
> largest such gathering since the anti-National Front
> protests of last spring. Some 15,000 gathered in Lyon,
> 7,000 in Toulouse, and 5,000 in Strasbourg, Rennes and
> Marseille. 
> 
> President Jacques Chirac said yesterday that "no
> option was excluded" if the UN weapons inspectors
> failed or were unable to complete their task, but a
> new survey found that 81% of the French wanted him to
> use the country's UN security council veto against any
> US-led military attack on Iraq.
> 
> Among those marching in the capital to support Mr
> Chirac's stance were some of his most bitter political
> opponents, including the Communist leader Marie-George
> Buffet and the anti-globalisation activist Jos? Bov?.
> 
> Germany
> 
> Berlin's peace march turned out to be five times
> bigger than expected by police and organisers - and
> twice as large as the biggest previous demonstration
> in post-war Germany.
> 
> By the time Saturday's protest reached its peak, an
> estimated 500,000 people were packed into the
> Tiergarten, Berlin's central park. Three members of
> Chancellor Gerhard Schr?der's centre-left cabinet
> defied his express wishes and joined the march.
> 
> Italy
> 
> Rome's ancient monuments were draped with peace flags
> on Saturday and the city swarmed with anti-war
> campaigners, producing what organisers said was the
> biggest turnout in Italy's long history of mass
> popular protest. 
> 
> The music of Bruce Springsteen blasted over a crowd of
> leftwing opposition politicians, film stars, Catholic
> church representatives, human rights groups and Iraqi
> exiles. March campaigners claimed three million
> pacifists "invaded" Rome. Police said the true figure
> was around 650,000, though it was "difficult to
> count". 
> 
> The centre-right prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi,
> who has pledged Italy's support for a US-led war, made
> no official comment on the march. His deputy and
> leader of the far-right National Alliance, Gianfranco
> Fini, said the protests had brought the world no
> closer to peace because "ideological anti-Americanism"
> and "totalitarian pacifism" would not convince Saddam
> Hussein to disarm.
> 
> State television, RAI, did not broadcast the protest
> live, saying it would put "undue pressure on
> politicians". 
> 
> Saddam Hussein's deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz, on
> a controversial trip to rally support for Iraq, was in
> Assisi to see the tomb of St Francis, the patron saint
> of peace. "May God the almighty grant peace to the
> people of Iraq and of the whole world," Mr Aziz, a
> Chaldean Catholic, wrote in the visitor's book.
> 
> Israel
> 
> The small turnout for Saturday's peace march through
> Tel Aviv confirmed that nowhere is there more support
> for an American attack on Iraq than in Israel.
> 
> About 1,500 people rallied at the Tel Aviv museum of
> art. Some were Arabs whose chants were anything but
> peaceful, with calls for retaliation against America
> and denunciations of George Bush and Ariel Sharon as
> terrorists more dangerous than Saddam Hussein.
> 
> Other protesters included Jews who focused their anger
> on the policies of their own government.
> 
> <http://www.guardian.co.uk/antiwar/story/0,12809,897098,00.html>
> 
> 
> ...enjoy!
> 
> -Doug, enjoying the thought that these protests plus
> UN action have probably spared the lives of the
> thousands of innocent Iraqis who will be killed if
> Bush the Butcher follows through on his threats and
> escalates his ongoing war on Iraq with a full-scale
> invasion, and preferring to read Pynchon and the
> newspaper than to read Pynchon criticism regurgitated
> as Mr T's gibberish ...
> 
> 
> "the chaplain, the doctor, your mother hoping to hang
> that Gold Star, the vapid soprano last night on the
> Home Service programme, let's not forget Mr. Noel
> Coward so stylish and cute about death and the
> afterlife, packin them into the Duchess for the fourth
> year running, the lads in Hollywood telling us how
> grand it all is over here how much fun. Walt Disney
> causing Dumbo the elephant to clutch to that feather
> like how many carcasses under the snow tonight among
> the waite-painted tanks, how many hands each frozen
> around a Miraculous Medal, lucky pieceof worn bone,
> half-dollar with the grinning sun peering up under
> Liberty's wispy gown, clutching, dumb, when the 88
> fell--what do you think, it's a children's story?
> There aren't any. The children are away dreaming, but
> the Empire has no place for dreams and it's Adults
> Only in here tonight"
> Gravity's Rainbow, pp. 134-135
> 
> 
> "There's something still on, don't call it a 'war' if
> it makes you nervous, maybe the death rate's gone down
> a point or two [...] but Their enterprise goes on"
> GR 628
> 
> "Don't forget the real business of the War is buying
> and selling." 
> GR 105 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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