Kafir and Alan= MY 2 heroes. Total Diamondmove at the Peace Rally.. luv these guys.

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that follows U2.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
gabrielvox said:

But I wouldnt want to see it hijacked by people with ulterior motives than anyone else who would truly march for peace.

gabrielvox, I don't really think it's a question of ulterior motives. I think the people who are bringing other issues to the fore at these rallies believe those issues are tied to the liberation of all poor and oppressed people world-wide.

Still, you've got soccer moms with strollers coming to these rallies. Suburbia is showing up. I think it would serve the peace coalition better to stick to the issue of peace, narrowly defined.

I don't know. It's hard to say.
 
Oh, and when I say "other issues," I'm not talking about communism or anti-semitism or any of the other extreme fringe bullshit. I'm talking about rights for women, minorities and other standard "liberal" issues that are being raised at these rallies.
 
Pub I think we are on the same page, I believe that alot of issues sortof dovetail into and are intertwined with this Iraq concern...after all, as the planet becomes more of a global community there is no such thing as an isolated issue anymore.

Hence they should be there if its related to bringing about a more peaceful planet, I agree.

What I would draw the line at is someone there distributing 'Communism is Great' pamphlets or something. That to me is pushing the envelope considerably.
 
pub crawler said:
Oh, and when I say "other issues," I'm not talking about communism or anti-semitism or any of the other extreme fringe bullshit. I'm talking about rights for women, minorities and other standard "liberal" issues that are being raised at these rallies.

See, told ya! :up: ;)
 
pub crawler said:

Those two guys are calling the millions of pro-peace demonstrators morons. See the contradiction there?

anyone who calls someone else moron and cannot prove why is not doing the right thing. there is no contradiction as far as i can see.


pub crawler said:


That's a ridiculous and insulting statement.

It was just sarcasm. !!
 
gabrielvox said:
Pub I think we are on the same page, I believe that alot of issues sortof dovetail into and are intertwined with this Iraq concern...after all, as the planet becomes more of a global community there is no such thing as an isolated issue anymore.

Hence they should be there if its related to bringing about a more peaceful planet, I agree.

What I would draw the line at is someone there distributing 'Communism is Great' pamphlets or something. That to me is pushing the envelope considerably.


Unfortunately we did have people selling Trotskyist papers at our rally. I didn't like it but I didn't exactly want to tell them to go to hell. That was up to the rally organizers, not me. Those people were involved in organizing the rally.
 
gabrielvox said:
But what I'm unclear on is what evidence you have that this rally was organized by members of these types of elements or that they were represented in any sort of meaningful way by a significant number of protesters?

Were you there? Can you name any of the organizations involved and provide some background on them?

Before you answer please recall that I did use what I consider a more appropriate analogy, which you sort of ignored, about how in any large group setting, including a U2 concert, certain very small (in direct proportion to the total number of people involved) people with views and ideals on the fringes of social acceptability may choose to use such an event to propagate their take on things - and with all that in consideration, I ask you:

Does that make the aims of the general body of protesters READ: PEACE any less noble or to be doubted?

Here is an article that set me off about the background causes of some of the ORGANIZERS of the "peace" rallies. I have also pasted the text below. It is from msnbc.com and the Washington Post. It is perhaps a less controversial article than the one that us3 posted in another thread, but I am sure people will find it debatable. Let it be known that I acknowledge that most of the people at these rallies are not involved in International A.N.S.W.E.R. and other organizations that have advocated violent suppression by Communist governments. I just find this group's involvement to be a molestation of the ideal of peace that many of the activists are there to truly support.

Just as you tell people who disagree with you that what they say is "irrelevant" or "not necessary" or whatever, let me say this about your analogy of the U2 concert: that is an entertainment event one pays to go to for recreational purposes. Protests, political rallies, demonstrations and other events are quite different, in my opinion, as people either got perhaps to seek information on causes or more likely to make a statement.

~U2Alabama

P.S. Here is the article:

By Michael Kelly
WASHINGTON POST WRITERS GROUP

WASHINGTON, Jan. 22 ? The left in America has for a long time now resembled not so much a political movement as a contest to see how many schismatics could dance on the head of a pin, a conversation that has gone from being national to factional to simply eccentric. At some point, progressive politics reached a state where freeing Mumia was considered critical and electing a Democratic president was considered optional.

THEN CAME SEPT. 11, and the left found itself plunged into a fundamental debate on a subject of fundamental importance. And this was a debate in which to be of the left was to be, by definition, involved: In al-Qaida and in the Taliban and in Saddam?s Iraq, liberal civilization faced an enemy that represented nearly every evil that liberalism has ever stood against.

What was the left going to do? A pretty straightforward call, you might say. America has its flaws. But war involves choosing sides, and the American side ? which was, after all, the side of liberalism, of progressivism, of democracy, of freedom, of not chucking gays off rooftops and not stoning adulterers and not whipping women in the town square, and not gassing minority populations and not torturing advocates of free speech ? was surely preferable to the side of the ?Islamofascists,? to borrow a word from the essayist and former man of the left, Christopher Hitchens.

LEAVING THE LEFT

The left has hardened itself around the core value of a furious, permanent, reactionary opposition to the devil-state America, which stands as the paramount evil of the world and the paramount threat to the world.

Which is the point: Hitchens is a former man of the left. In the left?s debate, Hitchens insisted that progressives must not in their disdain for America allow themselves to effectively support the perpetuation of despotism, must not betray the left?s own values. Others ? notably the political philosopher Michael Walzer, the independent essayist Andrew Sullivan, New Republic writer Jonathan Chait and New York Observer columnist Ron Rosenbaum ? also made this argument with great force and clarity.

The debate is over. The left has hardened itself around the core value of a furious, permanent, reactionary opposition to the devil-state America, which stands as the paramount evil of the world and the paramount threat to the world, and whose aims must be thwarted even at the cost of supporting fascists and tyrants. Those who could not stomach this have left the left ? a few publicly, as did Hitchens and Rosenbaum, and many more, I am sure, in the privacy of their consciences.

Last weekend, the left held large antiwar marches in Washington, San Francisco and elsewhere. Major media coverage of these marches was highly respectful. This was ?A Stirring in the Nation,? in the words of an approving New York Times editorial, ?impressive for the obvious mainstream roots of the marchers.?

There is, increasingly, much that happens in the world that the Times feels its readers should be sheltered from knowing. The marches in Washington and San Francisco were chiefly sponsored, as was last October?s antiwar march in Washington, by a group the Times chose to call in its only passing reference ?the activist group International Answer.?
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International A.N.S.W.E.R. (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) is a front group for the communist Workers World Party. The Workers World Party is, literally, a Stalinist organization. It rose out of a split within the old Socialist Workers Party over the Soviet Union?s 1956 invasion of Hungary ? the breakaway Workers World Party was all for the invasion. A.N.S.W.E.R. today unquestioningly supports any despotic regime that lays any claim to socialism, or simply to anti-Americanism. It supported the butchers of Beijing after the slaughter of Tiananmen Square. It supports Saddam and his Baathist torture-state. It supports the last official Stalinist state, North Korea, in the mass starvation of its citizens. It supported Slobodan Milosevic after the massacre at Srebrenica. It supports the mullahs of Iran, and the narco-gangsters of Colombia and the bus-bombers of Hamas.

This is whom the left now marches with. The left marches with the Stalinists. The left marches with those who would maintain in power the leading oppressors of humanity in the world. It marches with, and stands with, and cheers on, people like the speaker at the Washington rally, Imam Musa of the mosque Masjid al-Islam, who declared ?the real terrorists have always been the United Snakes of America,? and then led the crowd in the Islamic bombers? chant ?Allahu Akhbar!? It marches with people like the former Black Panther Charles Baron, who said in Washington, ?if you?re looking for the axis of evil, look inside the belly of this beast.?

The Times? ?mainstream? Americans marched last weekend with people who held signs comparing the president and vice president of their country to Hitler, and declaring ?The difference between Bush and Saddam is that Saddam was elected,? and this one: ?I want you to die for Israel. Israel sings Onward Christian Soldiers.?

March on.

? 2003 Washington Post Writers Group
 
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verte76 said:



Unfortunately we did have people selling Trotskyist papers at our rally. I didn't like it but I didn't exactly want to tell them to go to hell. That was up to the rally organizers, not me. Those people were involved in organizing the rally.

I almost forgot to reply to verte76's post here! I live inthe Birmingham area as well, and I even saw some people I know personally quoted in the local newspaper about the demonstration; I admire them greatly but disagree with them, and I KNOW that they are not Trotskyists! But look, even if I were opposed to war at all times, I would personally have a problem sharing the podium sith Trotskyists, Stalinists, theocrats, and other types like that!

~U2Alabama
 
diamond, and in all seriousness, i actually enjoy the way you stir shit here and everywhere else at interference. it would be boring otherwise. :up:
 
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