‘No blood for oil’ resounded throughout Park Street last night, as about 150 anti-war protesters filed into the Paulist Center Chapel for an evening of speeches and songs supporting peace in Iraq, in response to President Bush’s State of the Union address.
Brian Corr, board member of the American Friends Service Committee and master of ceremonies of the rally, referenced the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
‘We’re here to remind our country what [Dr. King] taught us nearly 35 years ago,’ Corr said, ‘that the bombs we drop will not only explode in Iraq, but right here in America.’
The speakers often quoted and analyzed the words from the president’s address.
Dr. Randall Forsberg, director of the Institute for Defense and Disarmament Studies, addressed Bush’s treatment of Iraq’s alleged stock-piling of nuclear weapons as a cause for war, saying our country contains the nuclear capabilities to ‘blow up the world 17 times over.’
Dr. Joseph Gerson, program director for the New England American Friends Service Committee, said that before speaking he was ‘admonished against being angry,’ but that he was ‘a little too sad to be angry tonight.’
Gerson said he has spent much time in Iraq talking to families and promoting peace. He still keeps in touch with several of the families, saying that he received a phone call earlier in the evening from a family in Baghdad.
He said the mother of three children was asking him for help in obtaining visas so she could leave the country before the bombings begin.
‘The focus is on Saddam Hussein,’ Gerson said. ‘But as we step back, his face gets smaller, and we see people like ourselves.’
Commenting on Bush’s argument that the United States seeks to ‘liberate’ the people of Iraq, Gerson said Iraqi people ‘do not need a savior,’ saying Bush has ‘a thirst for war.’
Kristina Olsen, a member of the Sept. 11 Families for Peace Tomorrow, described her visit with Gulf War bombing victims at Ann Mariah’s shelter in Baghdad as ‘one of [my] most difficult and painful experiences, yet [also] the most meaningful.’
Olsen said that she was met with ‘understandably angry’ citizens who asked her, ‘Why does America do this to us [when] we just want peace?’
City Councilor Felix Arroyo also attended the rally. Despite being new to his office, Arroyo is aggressive on the issue of peace.
‘We are confusing a lack of respect for life with patriotism,’ he said.
Arroyo said his efforts to raise the issue of war on Iraq to the City Council have been futile. According to him, the council’s philosophy is ‘if it’s not germane to the city, then we are not supposed to talk about it.’
‘However,’ Arroyo said, ‘if America goes to war, Boston goes to war with it.’
Arroyo has proposed a ‘Fast Against War’ to protest any action. His plan, which will be explained in a meeting today at City Hall, will consist of fasting from sunrise to sunset on the first and third Friday of every month.
The fast will officially be held at City Hall, but Arroyo encourages all that wish to participate to e-mail his office.
Arroyo stated that the ‘Fast Against War’ is a part of his promise to ‘do everything [he] can to prevent [war] from happening.’
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