As of today, fifteenth of February 2003 hundreds of thousands of people have gathered across the globe to show their desire for peace and justice, and their opposition against the possible war on Iraq.

I was one of them. I wonder, did any other people in SP participate in any activities today, or, seeing as we are on different time zones, are you going to participate?

I made myself a nice big sign (That I got ready 20 mins before the rally started, thankfully, just a block away) with a silver/gold pentagram on a blue background and a nice big red peace sign over it. Too bad the pentagram was so smufgy it was unidentifable.

Why pentagram? We occult loonies need representation, too.

The rally was awesome. We marched thorough the streets in the busiest downtown Oulu, I was near the back right in fron of a bunch of people from the Finnish Green Party, some of which are running for office in the next elections. One of them, especially, a guy whose name is Orava (=Squirrel :D )was really nice and not to mention good-looking (What?) He kept picking up and handing me all the leaflets people gave me and I dropped because I had the damn sign.
He is sooo cute! I am so lobbying for people to vote him! His ideas are reasonable, his party goes for the green values as in for nature, not cash, and he is cute. And nice, too. He even said "bye" to me personally when I left! *swoons*

But seriously... I think the rally was great. People sang, things like "We shall overcome", shouted slogans on the lins of "War is evil" and everyone had fun. When we all gathered in front of the City Hall, there were some seriously good and well-thought out speeches by represtentatives of the local Christian and Islamioc community, the local youths and a member of the Oulu University faculty.

After the rally part of the activities ended, there was an ecumenic Peace Prayer ceremony at the Oulu Cathedral (I think it's a cathedral... a really big church anyway... The dictionary I have says a Tuomiokirkko is a catedhral....)
I participated, even if I am not a Christian. Ecumenic, all the same. In the part where we shook each other's hands and said "peace to you", I even shook hands with a priest!
It felt didicately weird. Really, really, REALLY weird, you know. I looked at my hand for a long time after that.

There was even more of the event, some singing of songs and some peace partying later tonight, but I doubt I will be going... I am more interested in resting right now. Also, tomorrow will have a large-scale event, including the Grand Old Lady of peace ed in finlad, Helena Kekkonen and some more politicians and talks about Finland and NATO, and lots more trhings including live music and such. It'll be a blast :)

I am going there, too.

Anyone else, rallying?

(The lobbyist-goth-econnomist)

There were two absolutly HUGE gatherings in London. One in Hyde Park, the other on the Thames Bridge. I didn't go, I wanted too, but didn't incase there was a riot (the British seem rather prone to rioting at events like these :) ).

Well, Arabwel, sound like you're having fun.

There were some people miffed around NYC here, last week, as some woman wrapped herself in a US flag (and nothing else, not even a hair scrunchee or makeup or at least a choker necklace) and chained herself to something.

My point is a lot of people weren't miffed because it was the American flag. They were miffed because she was ugly, without makeup, and naked except for the flag.

Wear makeup when you protest. ;)

Here in Istanbul,thousands of people gathered and walked.

I had a sign all ready to go, because I feel that this "War Effort" could be resovled without conflict. Anyway, I had my bag packed and all, at the train station ready to catch the train to London and the demonstration; but the train was cancelled due to it!

Needless to say, I was pretty peed off. Still, it's the effort that counts, right?

well we had just over a million people march through london, fifty thousand in Scotland, and thelve thousand in wales, a pretty good turn out i think :)

I do think some of the early estimates were of numbers were off by at least 50%. What I mean is, instead of a million rather a still very impressive 500k or so. These things are almost always exaggerated.

As a libertarian, this pretty much sums up my peace rally sentiments and even is about the potential war too, pretty amusing:

Observations from a Reluctant Anti-Warrior
http://www.reason.com/0303/bagge.shtml

I watched the protests around the world in the news. It was awesome! My hats off to the Brits though. One had a sign saying, "Make Tea Not War." :D

[ February 16, 2003, 09:32: Message edited by: Charlie ]

Point on Laches, I can also identify pretty much with that cartoon. The price of choosing a side in any conflict is that you get alot of morons on your 'side'. Especially when it is something that can disturb the confused anarchist contingent of the world that is anti-everything. For some reason your stance dont seem as valuable and important when you have idiots such as those agreeing with you.

There is certainly nothing wrong with people standing up for what they believe in, though I don't think many protests do much good. In fact, more than not in my opinion, they make people look like complete idiots.
Someone says "protest" and the younger genereations thinks its something cool to do. One person starts it and others jump on the baandwagon so they can be part of the group. They do it for publicity. Take PETA for example. Do they ever protest the small puppy mills out in the country? No. Why? There's no money or media attention in it. But go watch Ringling Brothers Circus, in the states, and you can almost always see a PETA protester there. When I worked at the Birmingham Zoo, the Oscar Meier Wienner Mobile was there. They were doing a national search for a kid to sing the theme song. Guess who was there? PETA. Why? It was a big media day at the zoo. I honestly don't think a lot of the higher ups in that organizartion really give a damn and most of the workers are brainwashed. I met someone who was involved in PETA. They were telling me I shouldn't eat meat. I asked them to give me a good argument why I shouldn't. All they could say was it was cruel to the cows. I presented my side to them and from what they told me the next day, they quit working for PETA.
A lot of the time, people don't even know what they are protesting about or no much of the facts.
There was a protest up in LA a few weeks ago. It was a big walkout of one of the highschools. I think it was protesting the upcoming war. A news station was interviewing one of the kids. They asked them why they were protesting. The teen said something like this, "Well I think its to protest Bush bombing Iraq or something. But its cool. We left school and now we have a free day off to hang out here with all our friends." :lol:
If you're going to protest, study the cause. Know what you're protesting about. As Arabwel seems to have demonstrated.
But even so, I honestly don't think a simple protest will do the trick.
You need to do more. Here, call your state senator or representative. Petitions with enough legal signatures can work wonders. If you politician knows he or she will NOT get re-elected, that is a very powerful tool. Of course another effective tool? Vote. You can't complain if you didn't vote.

Well done for going, Arabwel. I didn't go to the one in London (though did go to the last one a few months ago), and feel quite ashamed.

hundreds of thousands? the count was more like 6 million, there were over 1.5mil in london alone

i was there... in my fatigues with my berret on, and a nice little sign with that picture from the cover of the sun with bush and blair kissing saying "make love, not war"

So ... I'm guessing the folk out in Europe had nothing better to do this weekend :spin:

Great idea ... why don't all ya go over to Iraq and give Sadam a big 'ol hug.

While you're there take a stroll through an alley or two and see the condition that he forces his people to live.

How can we say that we have peace when hundreds of thousands are dying or being persecuted?

How can we say that we have peace when he has authorized the use of chemical weapons against us?

My two cents from a red-bloody yank.

Plenty of protesters in the US as well. :)
It wasnt an isolated european thing.

There are dozens of dictators on par with Saddam in the world shall we wage war on them as well? And why do you want to punish the iraqi people with a war for the crimes of their supressor?

saddam doesnt force people to live in the streets, despite what your media tells you, people live in teh streets because they cannot afford housing, the same as the US.

he's authorised the use of chemical weapons against us?... interesting..

The protests even spread to Antartica!

Police estimated 50 people but they're just fascist pigs, it was really 10's of thousands!

http://uk.indymedia.org:8081/front.php3?article_id=54095&group=webcast

I guess we don't really know how many people were at these things, London for example: police estimated 500k but organisers insist there was more like 800k (still well short of 1.5 million.) Whatever it was, it's impressive but it always amuses me how these numbers seem to
grow exponentially.

Edit -- link
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uklatest/story/0%2C1271%2C-2406779%2C00.html

Edit part deux -- okay, okay, I wish someone had responded to this because this link is too funny not to be seen. It's a bunch of pictures from the SF protest. Now, don't get upset, it is a conservative place a friend sent me but the pictures are classic -- more pics at the bottom of the page via links too:

http://www.right-thinking.com/comments.php?id=P508_0_1_0

[ February 18, 2003, 04:13: Message edited by: Laches ]

@ Laches - Classic site. That Mill quote is right on. Why is it that the fact that our military is voluntary never impinges on the mindset of most of these protesters? (I've actually had one tell me that it's not really voluntary, and that it's inordinately made up of minorities who have nothing else to do and are "forced" into the military -- in response to a factually devoid statement like that, I only shrugged my shoulders and agreed to disagree.)