5 Years Too Many Tallahassee Iraq War 5th Anniversary observation

To commemorate the beginning of the sixth year of the illegal, immoral, and unjust war of aggression against the people of Iraq, local political activists and citizens of all stripes gathered at Lake Ella in Tallahassee on Wednesday March 19th as evening fell.


The names names of Florida's war dead were read to the tolling of a large Buddhist bell echoing through the neighborhoods surrounding Lake Ella.




Groups represented included TNJP, Tallahasseans Who think Its Time To Come Home, Vets for Peace, Vietnam Vets Against War, CodePINK, MoveOn.org and regular citizens including at least two active-duty members of the military.

Turnout was lower than expected due to a driving rainstorm. Still, approximately one hundred turned out to raise voice and witness to the disastrous (pick your adjective) misadventure in Iraq.

See the full photo album on Picassa

More below the fold...

Go to www.WexlerWantsHearings.com and join Congressman Wexler's call for Cheney Impeachment Hearings

Sign the petition here...

Rigid voter law still being enforced
Posted on Thu, Dec. 20, 2007 BY GARY FINEOUT
TALLAHASSEE --
Despite a federal judge's order, state election officials have told Florida's 67 election supervisors to keep following a controversial voter registration law.

U.S. Judge Stephan Mickle earlier this week ordered state officials to stop enforcing the 2-year-old law that requires information filled out on voter registration forms to match numbers maintained in state and federal databases.

But Sarah Jane Bradshaw, the interim head of the state Division of Elections, told election supervisors to maintain their current procedures for verifying voter registration forms while the state prepares an appeal of the ruling. ''We will advise you as soon as we have determined whether the Supervisors of Elections will need to take any action to comply with this injunction. Please do not change any of your procedures until further notice,'' Bradshaw wrote in an e-mail that was sent out late Tuesday.

A spokesman for Secretary of State Kurt Browning contended that state officials were not defying the judge's order.

''I would disagree with that statement,'' said Sterling Ivey.

Art meets protest at the Peace Crane installation that Tallahasseeans Who Believe It’s Time to Come Home have set up at Tallahassee's Railroad Square. Nearly 4200 origami peace cranes have been displayed and strung up lining the street and winding through the trees. On Friday evening Dec. 7th hundreds and hundreds of folks passed through the display during visits to the local arts enclave.



The local CBS affiliate graced the event with a 22 second report on Friday...

more pics below the fold...

More videos below the fold....

Protest activities announced By Paul Flemming November 24, 2007
Here are some of the events of the week announced by organizers on Friday:

• 6 p.m., Sunday at Free Spirit Community Church in Springfield for a mass meeting.


• 7 p.m., Monday at Providence FGME Church in Springfield for a political forum.


• 7 p.m., Wednesday at Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church in Panama City for a prayer meeting.


• 7 p.m., Friday, at the Glenwood Community Center in Panama City for a youth rally.


• 9 a.m., Dec. 1, beginning at Redwood Cemetery for a march to the Bay County Juvenile Courthouse, with a rally set for 11 a.m. at the courthouse.

PANAMA CITY — Six weeks after the verdict in the Martin Lee Anderson case, ministers and activists announced a week of events to mark their outrage at the outcome.

Seven former drill instructors and a camp nurse were cleared of all charges in the death of Anderson, a Panama City teen who died Jan. 6, 2006, after he was struck, kneed and forced to breathe ammonia capsules at a Bay County juvenile boot camp...

Keith Olbermann gets it. With a not insignificant dose of irony he narrates the protesters being led off the stage at Alberto Gonzales' speech at UF. First, civil liberties were led off the stage w/o noticeable reaction from Gonzo. Second, Habeas Corpus was dragged away to the same lack of effect...

As far as I'm concerned those arrested weren't committing any crime. As citizens we have the obligation under international law to resist the criminal actions of our government. Especially torture-mongers the likes of Alberto Gonzales... The real crime is the University of Florida payin' war criminal Gonzales $40,000 for showing up to be abused!
Protesters arrested at Gonzales speech
By DEVIN CULCLASURE, Alligator Writer
In his first appearance at a university since resigning in August, former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was met at UF on Monday with a mixture of cheers, boos and scattered interruptions by protesters, two of whom were arrested.

Gonzales, who resigned from his position after a controversial tenure, spoke to more than 800 people at the Phillips Center for the Performing Arts.

During his prepared speech, Gonzales largely avoided discussing the controversies he faced in office, including his dismissal of nine U.S. attorneys.

Instead, he focused on encouraging students to consider a career in public service while describing his own experiences in that field.

About 15 minutes into his speech, two UF students, Richard Gutierrez and Kevin Hachey, climbed onto the stage wearing orange jumpsuits and black hoods on their heads...

Hecklers dog Gonzales By JACK STRIPLING Nov 20, 2007
Hounded by hecklers and protesters, former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales defended an admittedly imperfect record before a raucous University of Florida audience Monday night.

Gonzales devoted much of his speech to encouraging students to enter public service, despite the criticism that public officials like himself endure.

The fervency of that criticism was readily apparent as several protesters stood with their backs turned toward Gonzales throughout his speech, frequently interrupted him with calls of “liar” and “treason” and, in some cases, stormed the stage...

FLORIDA FOR PEACE CONFERENCE CALL
Thursday, November 15, 2007

Attendees:
Cactus Pat
Carol S.
Hillary (not Clinton)
Lydia V.

Lydia gave a report on the legislative call with UFPJ last week. Basically the plan is to continue the effort to get democrats in the House to sign the “showdown letter” - 90 members have signed. The goal is 117 (half of the dems in the house).

The “showdown letter” and those who have signed it can be found here... (thank you Hillary for that). For a more detailed report on the UFPJ call please contact Lydia at codepinktally(at)yahoo.com.

The main purpose of this conference call was to decide what, if anything, Florida For Peace can do during the months of November (which is almost over) and December...

We had our Veterans Day die-in protest today at 11am (11-11-11). It was a powerful experience with 16 people "dying" 10 minutes at a time... 2 different locations on busy touristy St. George St. In St. Augustine, FL). We had some wonderful support and encouragement but way too much of an angry response. Still, people were yelling.."We got rid of Saddam"," We are fighting for freedom" and a cop overheard calling us "idiots".

However, I know we made an impact, we made people uncomfortable and reminded them that people actually do die in a war. Here are pictures on Webshot and also here is an article written for our Independent paper, The Collective Press.
Enjoy...
Marilyn/PPJ/St. Augustine (memeber of www.solidarityandpeace.org)

Why, Mommy?
By Mary Lawrence
Why indeed. I died on Veterans Day 11/11/07 at 11 a.m in St Augustine as one of 3860 US soldiers, 141 journalists and 1,100,000 Iraqis. Lying on the hard ground, seeing nothing and hearing footsteps and muffled conversations, throughout it all, one child's plaintive voice broke through: "Why, Mommy?"

"Because they're tired, honey."...

This brings back memories of the Tallahassee Veterans Parade circa 2003 (see story below), when local anti-war veteran Tom Baxter and 30 others were kicked out of the Tallahassee parade...

Veterans and Military Families Barred From Marching in Veterans Day Parade

The L.A. chapter of Iraq Veterans Against the War was recently denied permission to march in the Long Beach Veterans Day Parade on the grounds that they do not "represent the spirit of the parade." On November 7 members of IVAW, Veterans For Peace and Military Families Speak Out (whose local contingents were also denied permission to march) spoke before a meeting of the Long Beach City Council and asked the Council to overturn the Parade Committee's decision to ban them from the march. The Council denied their request...

Please turn the SOUND DOWN before you check out this video - the microphone on the camera gets saturated at several points.... Tallahassee's Lydia Vickers leads the CodePINK Florida women in song at the Oct27th protest on Orlando.

On December 7th 2007, the First Friday in December, the local grassroots organization, "Tallahasseeans Who Believe It's Time To Come Home" will hang approximately 4,000 white origami cranes in the sculpture garden at the entrance to Railroad Square. The debut of this installation will be from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Friday night although we hope to keep the cranes up for as long as possible.

The cranes, a universal symbol of peace, will also represent the number of soldiers who have died in the Iraq war. This installation has a personal, local significance as well; it will serve as a memorial to Julian McMackin Woodall,a local Marine who was killed in Iraq in May, who loved to make these cranes as a child...

Mike Gravel at the Oct. 27th Orlando Protest - Some videos of his radio interview and a partial transcript of his comments...
On the Iraq War and Oil

On the National Initiative...

partial transcript of speech at the protest, big H/t to Eileen Fleming for Gravel's comments (and ADS for pointing the way)...

"You bet I am angry! If you have a heart you would be angry too!...It boggles the mind how one human being can kill and dismember another's body and Congress sits in their air conditioned office and says it's just Foreign Policy [when] its murder!...