:: NEWS COCKTAIL aka BlahBlahBlog ::
"Everything is being compressed into tiny tablets. You take a little pill of news every day - 23 minutes - and that's supposed to be enough." -Walter Cronkite, RE TV news. The Web has changed that for many, however, and here is an extra dose for your daily news cocktail. This prescription tends to include surveillance and now war-related links, along with the occasional pop culture junk and whatever else seizes my attention as I scan online news sites.:: 3.19.2004 ::
:: The war @ home: one year later ::
March in San Francisco Starts Weekend of Anti-War Protests
From the NY Times:
SAN FRANCISCO, March 19 — Several hundred people marched through San Francisco's financial district during the morning rush hour today to protest the one-year anniversary of the start of the war in Iraq.
The action, led by the anti-war group Direct Action to Stop the War, kicked off a weekend of demonstrations across the country by people opposed to the Bush administration's policies in Iraq. The biggest protests are expected Saturday here and in New York.
The San Francisco police said the demonstration was progressing peacefully, with eight people arrested for blocking sidewalks as the group assembled outside the headquarters of the Bechtel Corporation about 9 a.m.
A security guard at Bechtel said the company had encouraged employees to arrive early so as to avoid the protesters. About 25 people sat in a line on the sidewalk outside the building, hands locked together in a challenge to the police.
One of the people in the line, Cissy Sims, a retired gardener and a member of the anti-war group Code Pink, said she the expected more people would be arrested as the day progressed..
"I am angry at the administration for spending tax dollars on war and imperialism and spreading suffering," Ms. Sims said. "I think the world is less safe today as far as terrorism."
Last year during the early days of the war, thousands of people were arrested as they blocked intersections and disrupted commerce in a scene that one police official described as anarchy. This time, scores of police officers dressed in riot gear stood on the periphery of the demonstration, and officers kept most of the marchers within crosswalks on busy Market Street.
"Stay on the sidewalk!" one officer shouted, as the pedestrian signal turned from green to red. The leader of a protest group from Seattle, marching with musical instruments, began sounding his whistle and waving the marchers off the street.
Though one organizer with a loud speaker encouraged participants to take "autonomous action" and engage in "civil disobedience," the police described the crowd as largely cooperative and most demonstrators seemed intent on making a peaceful statement of their opposition to the war.
"We want to show the world there is not total acquiescence in the United States in support of Bush," said Dr. Michael Kozart, a physician at San Francisco General Hospital who marched under a banner, "Health Care not Warfare." "We are exercising our constitutional right to free speech. There has been a criminalization of dissent in this country."
MORE ANTI-WAR INFO:
Switzerland prepares for anti-war rallies
Madrid tremors reach Italy
Anti-war protests planned across Australia
Thousands Expected At Anti-War Rally, March
Anti-war protests expected at U.S. bases in Europe
From the Vancouver Sun:
Anti-war protesters get early start on rally
Saturday main event to feature Noam Chomsky
posted by me
:: 6:08:00 PM [+] ::
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