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News :: Peace |
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Champaign-Urbana -- and World -- Still Say ‘No’ to WAR |
Current rating: 0 |
by Ricky Baldwin
Email: baldwinricky (nospam) yahoo.com (unverified!)
Phone: 217-328-3037
Address: 801 E California Av, Urbana, IL 61801 |
17 Mar 2004
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Local and national events mark the first anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq this Saturday, March 20.
Dr. Mohammad Al-Heeti, who has just returned from Iraq, will speak at the Urbana Middle School. Urbana City Councilwoman Danielle Chynoweth, community activist Imani Bazzell, and Meg Miner, a US Air Force veteran, peace and social justice activist, and local librarian, will speak at the Champaign County Courthouse. |
(Urbana) On Saturday, March 20, local anti-war activists will mark the first anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq with music, poetry, and local speaker Dr. Mohammad Al-Heeti, who has just returned from a visit to Iraq. The event begins at 3PM at the Urbana Middle School, 1201 S. Vine in Urbana.
The Middle School event will be followed by a Peace Walk from the Middle School to the Champaign County Courthouse, where there will be an Anti-War Rally featuring speakers Urbana City Councilwoman Danielle Chynoweth, community activist Imani Bazzell, and Meg Miner, a US Air Force veteran, peace and social justice activist, and local librarian.
"I'm speaking because I served during the bloodiest century this world has ever known,” said Miner. “I hope to get people thinking about why we pride ourselves on being a peace-loving people but spend half of our tax dollars on anti-peace programs. We have to start working now to keep this century from being worse than the last."
Miner is far from alone in this sentiment. Many thousands of Americans are expected to attend anti-war commemorations around the country on or near the Iraq war anniversary March 20. Chynoweth, who sponsored last year’s successful anti-war resolution before city council, says Americans have good reasons to be angry.
"In the last year, Iraq has seen blood, disease, and hunger,” says Chynoweth. “Americans have seen threats of WMDs revealed as fabrications, a ban on media at the funerals of dead soldiers, the linguistic sleight of hand that turned ‘body bags’ into ‘transfer tubes,’ the arrests of Americans and foreigners held for months without access to a lawyer. Where is the America that I love?"
The commemoration is sponsored by AWARE (the Anti-War Anti-Racism Effort). |
See also:
http://www.anti-war.net
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Related stories on this site:
Urbana Rallies Against Iraq War (photos)
Recap of the Global (and Local) Day of Action against the War and Occupation of Iraq
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This work is in the public domain. |
Comments
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Why demonstrate on March 20 ? |
by AmigaPhil
AmigaPhil (nospam) ping.be (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
18 Mar 2004
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Why it is important to participate in the global day of action against the war:
[English]
http://newswire.indymedia.org/en/newswire/2004/03/800876.shtml
[français]
http://newswire.indymedia.org/en/newswire/2004/03/800878.shtml
[español]
http://newswire.indymedia.org/en/newswire/2004/03/800895.shtml
[...]
http://newswire.indymedia.org/en/newswire/2004/03/800876.shtml
"Our life starts to end when we start to be quiet to events that we attach importance." - Martin Luther King |
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Re: Champaign-Urbana -- and World -- Still Say ‘No’ to WAR |
by Jack Ryan
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 15
19 Mar 2004
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The following comment was "hidden" by ML. Why??? It has no bad words, nor does it directly insult anyone. What it does is strongly disagree with the article. Okay, so some guy named Mohammad is in some way opposed to the U.S Liberation of Iraq. Wow! what a surprise!!!
The fact remains, that the Iraqi people overwhelmingly support a U.S. intervention as long as they do not remain in their homeland. We have no wish to do so. Remember when you said it was all about oil.
Is Iraq not better off without Saddam and his mass grave filling associates?
ML,
Censorship gets easier each time you try it. You run your web site like the totaliarian regimes that President Reagan defeated in the late 1980s.
Here is what I wrote which, by reflex, was censored.
Dear Ricky,
Thanks for conducting this rally on a Saturday so the school kids won't be subjected to this rabid anti Americanism.
I am sorry, that my tax dollars give you a facility from which to stage your event.
Jack
Show us how these words are a violation of a policy. Go ahead, we will give you time to rewrite it.
As Always ML,
Your Good Friend,
Jack |
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Dear Jack, get a clue |
by 5
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 3
19 Mar 2004
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Learn to read whack job:
Hidden by Site with code: Rated Down
Notes: Rated below the displayable threshold by users
As you will see, each article and comment is subject to a rating system that each viewer can use. If an article falls below a certain threshold, it is hidden. Try actually reading before shooting your mouth off. I am sure that there is a set rating that automatically kicks the article/comment to the hidden bin.
Perhaps instead of screaming "totalitarian censorship" you should be screaming "why won't anyone listen to my drivel!" The answer of which for me is that you contribute nothing meaningful here. You bore me. And apparently enough other people feel the same. I think that is...democracy in action---am I wrong?
Oh yah,
Jack says:
"Show *us* how these words are a violation of a policy."
Do you have a mouse in your pocket? |
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Get a Clue, Jack |
by ML
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 3
20 Mar 2004
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As 5 has pointed put, your lack of basic reading comprehension is showing again, Jack. Just so that we have repeated it enough times, slowly, for you, from the header that accompanies your hidden comment:
" Hidden by Site with code: Rated Down
Notes: Rated below the displayable threshold by users"
It says nothing at alll about me hiding it. What happened is that enough people here were disgusted by your comment for it to be automatically hidden by the site. Since you are just a troll, you should be thrilled that your comments are automatically getting the attention they deserve from our software. |
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Re: Champaign-Urbana -- and World -- Still Say ‘No’ to WAR |
by JK
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 14
21 Mar 2004
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I for one would like to thank Jack Ryan for kindly re-posting his comments, in order to allow some of us to view and criticize them for the first time. The idea that local citizens who oppose the invasion and occupation of Iraq is either "rabid anti-Americanism" or somehow an inappropriate use of public schools is ignorant at best, and fatuous at its pungent worst. Setting aside the obvious hypocrisy of Bush's right-wing campaign and debate rhetoric that he "opposed nation-building," it is nothing short of obtuse to consider opposition to a controversial invasion based on lies an anti-American act. I contend that it is wholly American to try to come to grips with such policies and ideologies that manufactured this invasion. Indeed, I argue that it is more than citizens' right but their responsibility to fully inform themselves about this invasion that a vapid, lying administration and its radical cohorts have perpetrated.
Additionally, it is so typical of whiny right-wingers to snivel about how "their" tax dollars are spent on things which they oppose, while ignoring or rationalizing grossly rampant taxpayer-funded waste and naked price gouging that infects "their" pet projects, such as military contracts at home and abroad. Jack Ryan's message, noxious though it is, amounts to nothing more than that using publically-funded schools to meet for an antiwar event is wasteful not useful, and that interest and participation in such activities is tantamount to ideological treason. How parochial, how vacuous.
It should be no surprise to him that this site's rather informed readers should rate his turgid screed so lowly that it would not merit further attention. Censorship? Hardly. In fact, I posit that this site obviously offers Jack Ryan either a sense of catharsis or fulfillment of some warped sense of civic duty, or both, by allowing him to posts his opinions. It should not come as any surprise, especially to as frequent a poster as Jack Ryan, that one of his posts should be so downgraded by other readers that it was "hidden" by the site's software. This only shows that free speech is not only a right but also a responsibility with consequences. Surely this must not be the total surprise that Jack Ryan's post made it appear.
Jack Ryan has the right to post his ill-informed propaganda; in turn, this site's readers have the right to grade his comments and post their responses. Isn't this democracy in action?
Stop whining and make better arguments, Jack. |
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Re: Champaign-Urbana -- and World -- Still Say ‘No’ to WAR |
by pauly
gv (nospam) hotmail.com (unverified) |
Current rating: 5
22 Mar 2004
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This rating system is about as valuable as a popularity contest. It amounts to censorship. It stuns me that anybody who is a little bit liberal cannot understand this It is EXACTLY the same as white people suppressing black speech in the past -- majority rule does not mean that you can squash the minority. This only gives nuts like Jack Ryan a legitimate complaint. He is correct. Only people who agree with the mainstream get their words out. Dissidents need not post |
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NOT an Option, Possibly an Option |
by ML
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 2
22 Mar 2004
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One thing that is not an option here is the typical right-wing internet approach (Freepers, Rush, etc) where there is "no contest" and they just delete the entire post if you don't fit the "mainstrream" there.
At IMC, when Jack disgusts people so badly they do something about it, he is not deleted, but put where you can still go and read him, in the "Hidden Files". Sometimes he actually acts in a civil enough matter that he doesn't provoke people and he stays visible. However, since his game in being here is primarily trolling, that ruins his fun. So that is one reason why you're seeing less and less of Jack.
FYI, the site rate down feature was a default setting with the updated software install. We haven't gotten around to making a decision about whether to leave it on. So Jack should behave himself, just to be sure he gets the visibility he seems to desire by what we've seen of his constantly acting out his angst at being unable to resist his preoccupation to troll Indymedia again. |
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Re: Jack |
by 5
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 9
22 Mar 2004
|
You can call it censorship if you like...but his comments are still visible in the "Hidden" bin.
As for Jack, I tire of him because:
1. He claimed to be shipping off to Iraq---a lie:
http://www.ucimc.org/newswire/display_any/10369
2. He "claimed" to be a marine:
http://www.ucimc.org/newswire/display_any/9861
"I submit to you, that as a Marine, I have seen brave and I have seen courageous,stuff that would make your head spin to be honest. "
3. Then he incorrectly refers to something a Marine should know:
http://www.ucimc.org/newswire/display_any/10463
"Semper Phi, my brothers" when, if he were a Marine, he would know it is Semper Fi....
4. He threatens those he disagrees with:
http://www.ucimc.org/newswire/display/14587/index.php
5. Arabs are usually referred to with slurs:
http://www.ucimc.org/newswire/display_any/15008
6. Posts erroneous comments, like we "found WMD in Iraq":
http://www.ucimc.org/newswire/display_any/11036
7. Posts generally disgusting material that contributes nothing to this site:
http://www.ucimc.org/newswire/display_any/10186
8. Women are also usually denigrated:
http://www.ucimc.org/newswire/display_any/9443
http://www.ucimc.org/newswire/display_any/15748
9. Other he disagrees with similarly meet with insults:
http://www.ucimc.org/newswire/display_any/10904
http://www.ucimc.org/newswire/display_any/11103
http://www.ucimc.org/newswire/display_any/11431
http://www.ucimc.org/newswire/display_any/11049
http://www.ucimc.org/newswire/display_any/11943
http://www.ucimc.org/newswire/display_any/11875
http://www.ucimc.org/newswire/display_any/11030
If you search for "Jack Ryan" on this site, you will come up with innumerable posts of his, most of which are not hidden. What I have supplied here is merely a sampling of the first 500 posts out 1500 that came up in the search.
People with various viewpoints are members of the IMC and people with various viewpoints are welcome to post articles and comments here, just as you and I have posted to this article. But to think that Jack is some poor victim is ridiculous...as any good Republican will tell you, all actions have consequences---and Jack is reaping the consequences of his behavior. People who use this site have tired of him. |
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Re: Champaign-Urbana -- and World -- Still Say ‘No’ to WAR |
by pauly
demonospam (nospam) yahoo.com (unverified) |
Current rating: -4
23 Mar 2004
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I think George Orwell would enjoy
"his comments are still visible in the "Hidden" bin.":
or the invesrse of Talking Heads, "seen and not seen" |
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Re: Champaign-Urbana -- and World -- Still Say ‘No’ to WAR |
by Ricky Baldwin
baldwinricky (nospam) yahoo.com (unverified) |
Current rating: 13
30 Mar 2004
|
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My suggestion is that people should in general not waste much time arguing with Jack Ryan (whoever he is) or his ilk. And to be clear, it's a waste of time NOT because it is so rightwing, but because it's very purpose clearly has nothing to do with open discussion and rational problem-solving, but more to do with niggling and distracting compassionate, thinking people from worthwhile activities. |
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Re: Champaign-Urbana -- and World -- Still Say ‘No’ to WAR |
by NRA4Freedom
nra4freedom (nospam) hotmail.com (unverified) |
Current rating: 12
28 Apr 2004
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How conceited! "Champaign-Urbana says no to war"!!! LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In the first place, there probably really are far more REAL Americans in Champaign-Urbana than there are people like you who are woefully and willfully ignorant of history to the point of being blind to what is actually happening in this world today. Here is clue, try reading the writings of people who actually forgot more than you will ever know, and maybe you can grow some brain cells...
http://www.newsherald.com/viewpoint/phillucas/040404.shtml |
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