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POLITICAL DIARY -Special Edition
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Joyce Lynn, Editor
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Apr 22, 2002 19:42 PDT
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POLITICAL DIARY
-The Inside Source for News
Joyce Lynn, Editor
Politic-@hotmail.com
A newsletter about the truth-telling power of dreams--how dreams can
report the news, help readers make informed choices, and--by reporting
the truth--bring healing.
SPECIAL EDITION, The Peace March
April 20, 2002
FROM THE EDITOR:
I had originally planned to extend a March visit to the East Coast to
cover the April 20 peace march in Washington, D.C. But my Inner Travel
Agent (same Guide as my Inner Source) told me in clear terms to return
to San Francisco to work on a project investigating the events of
September 11. Because of other logistical reasons, I was still in San
Francisco at the time of the bicoastal marches. Here is my report of
that West Coast event.
BE PEACE
A Reporter’s Notebook on Protest, American Style
APRIL 20, 2002
By
Joyce Lynn
San Francisco
1:30 p.m.
Corner of Church and Market Streets
A river of marchers heading north on Church from Dolores Park. A
peaceful wave of people crossing Market overwhelms the irony of the
intersecting street names. Overwhelming irony, the congregation of
groups into one mass. A myopic cacophony of causes is now a blending of
humanity.
The signs and the procession, not the speeches, hold the message(s) of
the day.
Stop U.S. aid to Israel.
Free Palestine.
Stop Bush’s war at home and abroad.
Your tax $$ kill.
People walk their bikes.
A woman wearing a blatantly purple wig and six people of diverse body
types walk side by side holding hands.
Free Mumia.
U.S. out of the Middle East.
War is not the answer.
The ridiculous article in the morning Chronicle about the WDC March
Friday – 40 bikers arrested for going the wrong way; park rangers tying
down tables, anything those protestors might want to throw . . .
US out of Columbia.
Bush, a swastika poking out of the h.
Jenin is Sharon’s shame.
Arab Americans protesting the war in the Middle East, small children,
women, distinguishable by their garb and their signs; young people you
see hanging around Haight Street, modern-day Vietnam protestors, fill
the ranks.
I voted for Bush – never again.
Co-existence-answer to the Middle East.
Global justice, not global war.
A plethora of red octagonal signs imprinted with Stop Bush.
Bush/Cheney Inc. out of the Middle East.
Drumming, dogs, a small sized band. Ah, the sweet smell of . . . that
60’s weed.
One earth.
An American flag atop a peace sign.
The sign holder carries a baby in a pack on her back.
Chanting: 2-4-6-8. We don’t want your _____________ war.
A girl wearing a gas mask and fatigues carries more irony. Her placard:
We want a democratically elected government like Chavez/Venezuela
Three violinists. Teach Peace. Three Buddhist monks wondering where to
go next.
1:45 p.m.
The procession at the corner of Church and Market ends. Fifteen minutes,
a capsule of the hour that went before.
Across Market another section of the March. How many? The policeman in
the nearest car shrugs and rolls his eyes, Thousands, he finally
estimates.
There’s the standard street actors dressed in vintage clothes. This part
of the March is through the Castro after all.
“Arrest Bush,” a marcher yells good-naturedly to the phalanx of police
cars bringing up the end of the March. Everyone laughs.
People on rooftops, people looking out of windows. A couple sitting
close to each other on their front steps. She holds a small sign:
Generate kindness.
Right on Haight Street.
A couple talking about the crowd at Dolores Park: he thought there would
be more war protest; she, not so much about Palestine.
No Israeli flags in sight. Jewish congregations in the Bay Area
sponsored a rally to support the people of Israel the weekend before.
Someone said it had reaffirmed the possibility of peace.
Former “protestors” crowd the cafes on lower Haight Street.
Revenge is not justice--Civilian deaths: 4000 Afghanistan; 2825 WTC
Love your enemy; Do good to those that hate you. Luke, 6:27.
An American flag upside down, a red SOS sign on top.
End American terrorism.
US/Israel partners in terrorism.
Bush-Sharon axis of death.
1-2-3-4, we don’t want your oil war.
Be peace.
Patriots protect the Constitution.
Past the Victorians. A famous “painted lady” wears a huge turret tipped
with a gold ball.
A yellow flyer urges Join the Emergency Delegation to Palestine to
prevent the massacre of the Palestinian people. They call it Grassroots
Protection Program; they are soliciting human shields.
Pass the projects. Right on Grove. The gold-plated dome of City Hall
comes into view. Regalness won over the hungary and homeless.
Why no route map as for any and every marathon in the Chronicle? The
only story about the March on A3, a small sidebar buried in “Protestors
March in D.C. Streets/Numerous Causes draw Activists.” What are they
hiding?
T -shirt: Corporate polluters ate my brain.
On the side, a guy says to his girl friend, “You know, the press is
going to be understating the facts.” A dog marches with sign pleading,
“Biscuits not bombs.”
Pass the restaurant Citizen Cake, stuffed with people eating…
There are no 9-11 signs, like the graffiti in Oakland (“Bush did it”).
Peace, not Bush.
A blue and white flag like the Israeli flag but a swastika where the
Star of David should be. Death and destruction, the situation in the
Middle East has inflamed anti-Semitism around the world. Part of the
Bush plan?
The March passes Davies Symphony hall on the right. A throng of
people--boys with helmets stand with one foot on micro scooters, small
children--look stunned as if seeing death for the first time. Two “dead”
guys in black lay on the pavement in front of a bronze sculpture.
“Blood” flows from under them, darkening the sidewalk. A sign against
the Henry Moore: How many dead corpses do you want to see: 3,466
Afghanistan; 826 Palestine; 306 Israel, 1631 WTC. A mother tells her
children, “It’s fake, like theater.”
Cross Van Ness. the Civic Center is on the left.
Democracy in distress.
Undo the coup/Get Axis of Evil out of the White House.
Child care not war fare.
Like the yellow flyer from an Oakland café announcing the March:
Saturday, April 20, National Marches in Washington, D.C. and San
Francisco. Protest the REAL Axis of Evil War, Racism, Poverty. Pictures
of Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld in the same black box.
The rally in full blast. Dancing and drumming.
Fight corporate media.
$ does not equal truth.
At the Veterans for Peace booth, Speak the Truth to Power. Wage Peace.
A few nude protesters. Police, a respectful distance across the street
on the steps of the Civic Center, miss this part of the demonstration.
Buttons and bumper stickers at the free speech booth. Where else a
button, F—Bush. Also, “Live simply so others may simply survive.” And, a
post card, “Let us not become the evil we deplore.”
Know that the other person is U. Western converts from the Buddhist
Peace Center meditate on the grass.
Veterans say not in our name.
More street theater. Three couples do the Tango. Their shirts proclaim:
Tango for peace, War is terror, Embrace peace.
Veterans say bring them home alive. Stop the war.
T-shirt: Democracy, we deliver. The graphic, a fighter jet.
Mumia’s voice, a diving spirit, flows from the speakers. Reporting the
drastic state of the world from death row….
The only allusion to 9-11. A couple veterans of past protests:
He: They planned this thing deliberately in order to get this war – the
same gang that wiped out the two Kennedys and blamed it on individuals.
She: Yeah, yeah.
He: I wondered when the anthrax thing came along.
She: That was so fishy.
He: Then when someone said it was American grade, you heard no more.
They say there are more terrorist attacks to come. How do they know
unless they’re planning them?
What about Cynthia McKinney speaking out about 9-11?
A woman gives them a flyer about the “government” using her child as a
human experiment. The woman’s name is Cynthia, too.
Death is the only winner in war.
4:00 pm.
A breeze cools the crowd. Meet activist and columnist Don Paul in front
of Veterans for Peace booth. There were the placards and Mumia’s voice .
. . He says 75,000 people marched in WDC.
He points toward the Bay, east on Market Street. A huge sign as if
descended from the sky hangs on a grayish-brown edifice. The official
unveiling/revealing is Monday. For Angola. Multi-storied black letters:
T-R-U-T-H.
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The POLITICAL DIARY is archived at www.topica.com/lists/politicaldiary.
Go to Read this List.
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C Joyce Lynn 2002
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JOYCE LYNN is a journalist including eight years as a political reporter
in Washington, D.C. After she moved to San Francisco, she turned he eye
from the politics of social welfare issues to matters of the mind. Her
articles have appeared in numerous national publications such as Ms.
Magazine, Washington Journalism Review, and Intuition Magazine. Joyce
teaches Inner Journalism: Writing, Dreams, and Telling the Truth through
Writers on the Net (www.Writers.com).
She founded THE POLITICAL DIARY in the aftermath of the 2000 election
when her dreams and those of others she interviewed predicted with 100%
accuracy the outcome and imparted information about behind-the-news
events.
She can be reached at Politic-@hotmail.com
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