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http://www.pulsetc.com/article.php?sid=99
Rally in Loring
Park draws more than 200 Saturday
by Ed Felien It
was a beautiful Saturday afternoon.
A perfect day to spend in the park listening to good music and meeting with old friends.
The only downside to the event in Loring Park last Saturday was that it was to protest the preparations for war against Iraq. The brilliant sun was not strong enough to dispel the shadows of war, to stop the cries of the 5000 children a month dying from malnutrition or lack of medical supplies.
The organizers couldnÕt get electricity
to the stage, so they led the audience in chants until the power came on:
ÒNo Sanctions! No Bombing! No War on Iraq!Ó
ÒSmash the Pentagon! Not Iraq. Time to stand up and fight back!Ó
The power came on and, what a surprise, the Knotwells band started to play. They were amazing. They were talented musicians, but, more than that, they were having way too much fun to be a movement band. None of the grim ÒEve of Destruction,Ó ÒweÕre all gonna die and be unhappy besidesÓ stuff. This band wanted to kick out the jams, put the blame where it belongs and get on with having a good time. Their first number made them seem like an electric rock and roll jug band. It included an electric washtub bass. The next number was a cross between Indie Rock and Kentucky Bluegrass. I asked the drummer/mandolin player what kind of music he would call it. He said it was Punktry, Country Punk.
Jason, drums, mandolin, vocals and guitar; Arik, lead singer and lyricist; Joel, bass guitar and washtub bass; Crystal, violin, harmonica and banjo; and Brian (not shown) lead guitar and accordian.
They will be playing at The Entry on September 5. Listen in on it!
Kathy Kelly spoke. Twice nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for her work with Voices in the Wilderness, a group she founded to bring peace activists to Iraq and break the embargo by bringing in medical supplies, sheÕll probably be canonized by the Catholic Church before the U. S. government admits sheÕs doing the right thing. Standing in bright sunshine, on the seventh day of a 40-day fast, she looked ethereal, so fragile you were afraid she would catch fire and go up in a white puff of smoke.
It was only when she talked that she brought you down to earth. She described conditions in Iraq as much worse than before. The poverty is deepening. The trauma and depression is manifest in everyone she met. Children she had met and loved and given toy harmonicas were now dead. She told of walking down hospital aisles. On the charts was written ÒN/A,Ó medicine Not Available.
She told of her faith being shaken by a family in Basra that told her they loved her. She was their little mother. They knew she loved them, but, ÒWhat difference does it make?Ó
She told of a meeting with Iraqi intellectuals, and a woman told her, ÒTell your people history did not begin with 9/11.Ó
She spoke with anger about the U. S. history in Iraq, how Rumsfield, now Secretary of Defense, in 1983 delivered a handwritten note to Saddam Hussein from President Reagan pledging his support for the Iraqi war against Iran on the same day Hussein was using U. S.-supplied poison gas against the Kurds. She spoke of Kissinger saying about the Iraq-Iran war, ÒIt couldnÕt be better. TheyÕre killing each other with our weapons.Ó
She told of meeting a young child who had drawn a picture of a plane flying into twin towers. The boy told her, ÒWe love the people in America, and we want them to be our friends. But Allah wanted to show people in America what happens when you hurt people in other countries with bombs.Ó
Phil Steger and others from Minnesota have just returned from Iraq. We will continue to write about their experiences.
http://www.startribune.com/stories/1405/3155474.html
Antiwar demonstrators urge peace, political action during Minneapolis rally
by Chris Graves, Star Tribune, Published Aug 11, 2002
Days after returning from his third trip to Iraq, Phil Steger told more than 200 antiwar demonstrators at a Saturday afternoon rally in Minneapolis to keep up the fight for peace.
"A war will destroy Iraq," said Steger, who was at the rally with two members of a delegation that spent 10 days in Iraq. "There is no such thing as a war against a government or a president.
"War is against people," he said, "Only people."
The rally marked the 12th anniversary of the imposition of sanctions on Iraq and the 57th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. It came as the Bush administration is saying it might use military force to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Saddam has barred U.N. weapons inspectors from returning to the country.
Iraq remains under tight U.N. sanctions until inspectors are allowed back in the country to ensure that Saddam no longer has chemical, nuclear or biological weapons or missiles to deliver them.
Steger was joined by Kathy Kelly, founder of Voices in the Wilderness, a campaign aimed at ending economic sanctions against Iraq. She has gone there 16 times.
Kelly said that children are most affected by the sanctions and that about 5,000 children under the age of 5 die every month in Iraq. They are poisoned by contaminated water; die from dysentery, cholera and diarrhea, or die from respiratory infections, she said. She talked of visiting schools and hospitals, neither with enough supplies to do their work.
"We have a huge responsibility," she said. "Cuff yourself to your congressperson's desk and say, 'We don't need a new war."
Samantha Smart, who attended the rally with her two children, ages 7 and 5, said she thinks her generation has failed in the fight for peace.
"If we were doing what we should, there would be 100,000 people in the park today," she said. "It is up to our children to carry the struggle for justice."
-- Chris Graves is at cgraves@startribune.com.
© Copyright 2002 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.
For more info, read Bush's "Weapons of Mass Destruction" Hoax: Big Lie Masks Real Motive for Iraq War
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