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Hundreds Rally at State Capitol for Peace Friday 17 Jan 2003
author: Mark Dunlea, IMC (dunleamark@aol.com)
summary
More than three hundred peace activists began the Martin Luther King holiday weekend by braving the frigid weather to rally and march for peace at the State Capitol. Later that evening, thousands of Capital District residents climbed into buses, cars and vans to travel to DC for a rally against the Bush war against Iraq.
More than three hundred peace activists began the Martin Luther King holiday weekend by braving the frigid weather to rally and march for peace at the State Capitol. Later that evening, thousands of Capital District residents climbed into buses, cars and vans to travel to DC for a rally against the Bush war against Iraq. More than 17 buses were expected to head to DC from the area, including from Hudson, Kingston, and Poughkeepsie.
The rally began with a march that stretched around the state capitol. The crowd lit candles to listen to speakers evoke the words and memory of Martin Luther King. “Without justice, there is no peace, no freedom,” was a common refrain. A flyer from the Capital District for Justice and
Peace coalition highlighted a quote from Dr. King: “I refuse to accept the view that mankind is strategically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war, that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.”
Yunus Fiske began the rally with the Muslim Call to Prayer, followed by a song from Ruth Pelham.
The first speaker at the rally was Dr. Alice Green, the Director of the Center for Law and Justice and former Green Party candidate for Lt. Governor. Dr. Green spoke of the need to stop Bush from launching another war for oil. Green urged her African-American brothers and sisters to follow the leadership of Dr. King and to speak out against the war.
“Polls show that less than 20% of African-Americans support the war, but only 6% view it as an important issue. But we need to remember that young African-American men will die in this war. Martin Luther King opposed war because he knew that the money needed for housing, educating, health care will be diverted to military spending. Let’s not be fooled by the Bush propaganda that he is concerned about people of color. As young African-Americans in Oakland have noted,
killing innocent people in Iraq and putting more police on the street to profile and harass people of color from foreign countries is not going to solve the problems of the inner city. We need jobs,” noted Dr. Green.
Green added that Martin Luther King knew that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Justice is indivisible. Silence is a form of complicity. Tell George Bush that he can’t raise a war in our name,” said Dr. Green.
Barbara DiTommasso spoke on behalf of the Peace and Justice Center of the Albany Catholic Diocese. Barbara noted that even though “the US was founded as a revolution against
colonialism, we have become the greatest colonizer, draining wealth and resources out of countries that need them badly. Our country too often crushes those who struggle for a better life.”
DiTommasso asserted that Bush’ effort to make America more secure was having the opposite effect. “The Bush administration is pushing to use nuclear weapons as part of its strategic policy to fight the war against terrorism. His effort against weapons of mass destructions leads us to
weapons of mass destruction. In response to the alleged threat of terrorism to our way of life, the Bush administration is destroying our way of life.”
An African-American pastor from Schenectady explained that “we believe that God’s way is the right way and that way is the way of peace. Some people argue that the peace movement now is weaker than the struggle against the Vietnam War but I believe it is stronger. Back then, we didn’t get excited until the body bags came back. We are not waiting until the body bags come back this time. We are not waiting until our loved ones come back in parts we can’t recognize,” he added.
Doug Bullock of the Albany labor Council and Labor for peace told the crowd that the “Bush war is for oil, it is not about weapons of mass destruction. Bush and his family has a vested interest in oil. This is a Bush war, the country got bushwhacked and we got to stop it.”
Bullock noted the strong labor opposition to war. The Albany and Troy Labor Council voted unanimously against the war, The Saratoga and Glens Falls Labor Councils also recently overwhelming passed resolutions against war.
“We have a long history of labor coming against war, with labor leaders like Eugene Debs spending a decade in prison for speaking out against WWI. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney has come out against this war and for Bush’s first strike policy. We don’t need the ruling class to tell us to go to war. Let’s stop this Bush war now,” Bullock urged.
Joe Lombardo, Secretary of the Albany County Green Party, talked about an online poll being conducted by Time magazine to determine which country is the largest threat to peace in the world. 215,000 people have voted so far. 8.4 % said North Korea was the greatest threat to
peace, while 9.6 % Iraq said. 82% said U.S. was the greatest threat.
“Those of us who want peace are the majority and don’t let the media or the pollsters tell you anything else. People are opposed to the war because we are in a recession and they don’t want the Bush administration to invest $300 billion in war instead of in this country and economy.
People are against war because we believe in fairness and truth and justice. This nonelected president is going around the world bullying people to get what he wants, and he is bullying people here in the U.S. People are against this war because it is an attack on our civil liberties,”
added Lombardo.
Lombardo talked out how when individuals went to Crossgates Mall wearing T-shirts that spoke of Peace during Christmas time, they were thrown out. But it was ok to wear a T-shirt that said Nuke Iraq.
“We have a moral revulsion against the murder of people in Iraq if we go to war. If we go to war, it will primarily be African-American service men who are killed because they go into military service because they have no other options for jobs,” joe added.
When Lombardo told the crowd that this is not a war about terrorism or weapons of mass destruction, a young child sitting behind him in snow piped up that this a war about oil. “This is a war about globalization, about ensuring that US corporations are dominant throughout the world
and that they will be backed up by our military might. This is not only a war against the people of Iraq but also a war against the people of the U.S. We are the ones being hurt by this globalization movement. We are losing jobs in the capital district, as our jobs go to places where it doesn’t
matter about child labor or cut down trees or labor rights,” he added.
Lombardo concluded by noting that Ralph Nader, the Green Party Presidential candidate in the last election, had pointed out that in the last 30 years the economy has doubled, that wealth in the country had doubled, but wages have remained the same. The top 1% is wealthier than the bottom 95% of the country. “This war is in their interest and against our interest,” he stated.
Hanadi al-Atwi, a Palestinian peace activist, spoke of the need for dignity. “I want more dignity as a Palestinian, as an America. I have two nations in my head, in my heart. I lived through the war in 91. I saw blood everywhere, in my home, in Iraq. I don’t want to see more mothers cry. I lived in Bethlehem all my life. Does Bush know about Christ, about religion? Does he know that when he gives the green light to Sharon it means that he will kill my people, that Jewish people will be killed? The Jewish people are victims just like us,” she added.
She urged the President to “think about something positive, not negative. We need you to see Palestinians as human beings.”
Dan Wilcox, a member of Veterans for Peace, told the crowd that he had been drafted into the military in 1969, so he didn’t get a chance to go to Washington in protest of the Vietnam war. Unfortunately Bush the father gave him a chance in 1991 and now his father was giving him another opportunity. Dan read a poem about peace marchers at the Vietnam War memorial. He spoke about the 58,000 points of light etched into the black wall and how we need to make sure that their lights did not go out again by allowing Bush to lead us into war.
Joe Quandt, who recently returned from Iraq, began his speech by holding up a picture of a young girl, saying “this is who I am fighting for.”
“Dr. King’s dream included the dream of freedom from violence. King sadly pointed out however that it was his own country, the US, which was the greatest purveyor of violence in the world,” Quandt noted.
Quandt also spoke of the hypocrisy of Bush naming other countries as the axis of evil when so many other countries consider the US the epicenter of evil. Quandt criticized Bush for “shrinking of our civil rights under the pretense of securing them. Bush on a daily basis seeks to spread fear
among our citizens, banging the drums of war against a nation the size of Idaho. This is a war to support bottomless greed, to demonstrate our ever more magnificent weapons of mass destruction”
“We should be holding up to the America people the goal of feeding the world’s population rather than terrorizing them. We need to hold up the goal that no child will ever die again for want of food and water,” Quandt concluded.
In addition to traveling to DC for the major rally on Saturday, local peace activists will be participating in Martin Luther King events in Troy, Schenectady and Albany this weekend.