Los Angeles marchers blast 'hate, war and racism'
By Jimmy Cho
Los Angeles
Over 2,500 enthusiastic participants convened at the
Westwood Federal Building in Los Angeles Sept. 29 to oppose the
preparations for war being planned by President George W. Bush
and his administration. They had responded to a call by the
International Action Center, the Coalition for World Peace and
the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. The activity
by this new coalition of peace activists and progressives was
endorsed by hundreds of local organizations.
Armed with chants such as "One, two, three, four, we don't
want your racist war" and signs reading "War is terrorism 5
1,000," the demonstrators showed the country and the world that
significant numbers of the people in the U.S. do not want
war.
Unity was a major theme of the demonstration. The organizers
succeeded in uniting a broad coalition of participants with
differing agendas and perspectives into a united force "against
hate, war and racism," as Magda Miller, an organizer for the
International Action Center, said.
Participant Patrice Bryan celebrated the success of the
march, saying, "I am happy with all the people who showed up
and all the differing viewpoints of people who want peace."
Everyone at the demonstration showed enthusiasm and conviction
that they would succeed in turning the United States war
machine around.
James Lafferty of the Los Angeles National Lawyers Guild
said: "We are uniting everyone into a peace movement as has
never been seen. We have to take on the most powerful military,
economic and propaganda machine in the world. No doubt in my
mind we can do it, but we must stay united!"
Another demonstrator, Sharon Lee, concurred: "I lived
through Vietnam, was against that action, protested and
believed it makes a difference. This is an example of the use
of military might rather than clear thinking."
During a spirited procession through the streets of
Westwood, led by a group of Korean drummers, the marchers were
met with a continuous honking of support from passing vehicles.
At the rally that followed, speakers from various sponsoring
organizations in a war of words cracked holes in the hegemony
of nonsense being spewed by Washington and the media.
John Parker from the International Action Center urged the
country to "question what you are hearing from the State
Department." Parker also painted a grim picture of what a war
would look like if it were allowed to happen. He explained that
the American military would use depleted uranium as they did in
Iraq and Yugoslavia, which caused thousands of children to die
from leukemia.
Michel Shehadeh, a leading activist in the struggle for a
free Palestine and one of eight people known as the LA 8 who
faced deportation for their political activity, took on
President Bush by saying, "Rumor has it that we are either with
the United States or with the terrorists. We are not for
either. We are for peace and ending the war."
All the participants were united in their conviction that
"the silent and soon-to-be-vocal majority for peace," as West
Hollywood Councilmember Steve Martin put it, would soon unite
with the activists to end the coming war.
Thousands of copies of a call for the new anti-war coalition
called International ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War & End
Racism) were distributed throughout the march and to onlookers
and were enthusiastically received.
Reprinted from the Oct. 11, 2001, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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