Joan Baez joins protesters along High St. near Spring. - March 20



Women  in Black at 15th and High. - March 14



The sound of protest.



Downtown protesters line the street.



NO BLOOD FOR OIL!



Protesters line both sides of the street.

Contact Larry Fairbanks

Photos by Mike Gruber:



Joan Baez at the rally.



Baez and Gruber at the rally. Peace!

Propaganda has been used for as long as people have been around. Mankind uses propaganda to make it easier to kill one's enemy. When you convince your people that the enemy is subhuman and a threat, a threat that must be stopped, then it is very easy to kill your enemy because you are doing the right thing. This method of dehumanizing your enemy is as old as time.

There are many examples of this in American history. American propaganda against the Japanese in World War II and the communists in the Korean War, Vietnam, and the cold war are examples of this. In World War II we told American that the Japanese are a mindless evil and told Americans that every gun made kills a Jap and every tank made kills a Jap and so on. Propaganda doesn't just happen between two enemy nations, but also between different cultures, races, and religions. The Klan and other White Power Aryan Nations used propaganda against blacks, hispanics, Jews, homosexuals, and communists.

They try to portray African-Americans and criminals and white-woman rapists. They constantly bombard people with the idea that Afriacn-Americans are sub-human both through art and racial slurs.

A nation that prides itself on its adherence to the "rule of law" has violated that commitment in launching a patently illegal war.[1]

Under fundamental international law, military force is permissible only in self-defense or when authorized by the U.N. Security Council.

The administration does not attempt to argue that self-defense applies. Iraq poses no imminent threat.

The Bush team's new doctrine of "preventive war" simply has no legitimacy under international law. Nazi leaders offered the same defense at the Nuremberg Tribunal.[2]

Rejecting the claim, the Tribunal found the Nazis guilty of the crime of aggression. As the Tribunal said, "To initiate a war of aggression, however, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."

Dear friends,

In Baghdad, as I write, things are relatively quiet. Today IPT delegate Wade Hudson had a chance to take a limited drive around Baghdad with a driver and a government minder. After passing by the still smoking Ministry of Foreign Affairs building, he drove to a residential neighborhood where he reports having seen a bomb crater 8 to 12 feet deep "in the middle of a wide, divided street. Traffic in one direction was blocked." He also reported passing by "many small homes in the neighborhood with all of their front windows blown out, presumably from the blast that created the crater."

A few hours ago, we spoke with Kathy Kelly at the Al Fanar hotel in downtown Baghdad. Kathy told us that they will be going around and visiting some hospitals tomorrow where there are apparently quite a lot of children. It is expected that the worst is yet to come.

Today at Noon, on March 20th 2003, 76 or more Columbus Alternative High School students stood up for what they believed in. Inspired by Anti-Flag, The Clash, Henry David Thoreau, Thomas Paine and their own beliefs they walked out. United from different social groups, different races, different everything! They called the Media, and it seemed to be a pretty good turn out. It all begun with a few Amnesty International meetings at the school and wound up making high school history. The protest was to coincide with the national International Answer Walkout at 12:00 PM. The leaders of this cause, despite strong discouragement by their principal led the walkout peacefully and silently. They knew the consequences and were willing to face them. All in the name of freedom, peace and unity. The students gathered in the school's courtyard and proceeded to the front lawn of the school, for the sake of thought that it may "disrupt" the fellow student's learning environment. They stood out there playing Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley, Tupac Shakur, Bob Dylan, and many other peaceful musicians' works. They carried signs, made tee shirts and put the peace sign up every