Wake up America! No more wars. File photo by Luke Thomas.
By Luke Thomas
Editor’s note: This is re-posted today to remind everyone to attend what is expected to be a thought provoking event.
August 19, 2010
Former Board of Supervisors President and Vice Presidential Candidate Matt Gonzalez, Congressman and former Presidential Candidate Ron Paul, and 8th Congressional District candidate John Dennis (GOP), are scheduled to speak during a non-partisan, antiwar, anti-Washington and anti-incumbency free speech rally, September 4 in San Francisco.
“I think its important to build alliances, especially with others whom we may disagree with on other issues, in order to achieve the critical mass we need to truly end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and to keep these conflicts from expanding, as they currently are, into Yemen and Pakistan,” Gonzalez said in response to FCJ inquiry.
Former Board of Supervisors President and Vice Presidential candidate Matt Gonzalez. File photo by Luke Thomas.
The event which is expected to draw participants from as far away as Southern California and Washington State, will be held on the east side of San Francisco Civic Center Plaza from 2pm to 4pm. Members of the media are asked to arrive 45-minutes prior to the event for credentialing and set up.
Luke Thomas
Luke Thomas is a former software developer and computer consultant who proudly hails from London, England. In 2001, Thomas took a yearlong sabbatical to travel and develop a photographic portfolio. Upon his return to the US, Thomas studied photojournalism to pursue a career in journalism. In 2004, Thomas worked for several neighborhood newspapers in San Francisco before accepting a partnership agreement with the SanFranciscoSentinel.com, a news website formerly covering local, state and national politics. In September 2006, Thomas launched FogCityJournal.com. The BBC, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox News, New York Times, Der Spiegel, San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Magazine, 7x7, San Francisco Examiner, San Francisco Bay Guardian and the San Francisco Weekly, among other publications and news outlets, have published his work. Thomas is a member of the Freelance Unit of the Pacific Media Workers Guild, TNG-CWA Local 39521 and is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.
Follow Me:
The Hunger Site
September 5, 2010 at 6:00 pm
Why wasn’t Cindy Sheehan permitted to speak at this rally? It’s one thing to grab a microphone or show up for a photo op on Wall Street, and quite another to do the necessary work to build a movement. Women like Cindy Sheehan and Medea Benjamin have been out in the trenches challenging the corporate warmongers on a day-to-day basis. It seems to me that the women should have been the ones to speak. How insulting to create a campaign event for John Dennis (in his bid to unseat Pelosi) and bill it as an “anti-war rally” or “pro liberty” event, and then shut out the women.
Liberty for who? John Dennis and Ron Paul would like to jettison our policy of granting citizenship to the children of undocumented immigrants (forget the 14th Amendment). Ron Paul voted for the war against Afghanistan. He is only coming out against these wars for the most cynical of reasons (his opposition to the UN). In fact, the war is being fought on more the one front: there is the war abroad but there’s also the one being waged here at home. Dennis and Paul are hawks in the war on immigrants and people of color.
The next time you hold a rally like this, give the veteran politicians a pass, and invite Cindy Sheehan to speak. Then perhaps more of us will attend your so-called “anti-war” event.
September 4, 2010 at 11:09 am
I am rather disappointed in the exuberance over this travesty which will make a continuing mockery of being “anti-war”.
(And at the continued illusions about other politicians such as Dennis Kucinich who capitulate to ruling interests time and again, always at the twelfth hour. Alas, I would add people like Ralph Nader, and the “Socialists” of the ISO.)
If one is antiwar one must divest oneself of all these illusions which lead to token victories at best.
I would be impressed for once if a politician refused to appear on MSNBC or for any other apparatus of the thoroughly corrupt and fascist system that rules our country today and wreaks mayhem from the Gulf of Mexico, to the sweatshops of Asia, to the hellish pits, prisons and salt mines of Africa.)
Anything less smacks of opportunism or naivety.
What Jerry White and Jeff Lincoln wrote in 2008 about Ron Paul and “leftists” who see him as an attractive ally is as applicable today as then:
http://tinyurl.com/3xchb8
I will not go to this noise polluting event.
For those who do, I hope you keep your skepticism intact in spite of all the “feel-good” vibes you are bound to encounter.
I am sure Paul’s spiel about legalizing marijuana will go over well, and provide proper diversion– even as whips crack elsewhere and children and families fall into despair.
September 4, 2010 at 10:39 am
Annie,
Just show up and yell your questions.
h.
September 3, 2010 at 9:30 am
I keep thinking about this now, with regard to the UNHCR mapping report that the Rwandan Army committed crimes that amounted to genocide of Hutu people in Congo in 1997. The report is hotly contested; Rwanda and Uganda are furious, but only Glen Ford of the Black Agenda Report and a few others including myself are pointing out that this implicates the U.S. in genocide in Congo because we armed and trained Kagame and the Rwandan Patriotic Army that committed these crimes in Congo then and continues now, though there is no documentation—yet—that the “genocide” word that so escalates the world’s response to war crimes applies to Rwanda in Congo after 2003, the last year of the UNHCR mapping report.
I’m trying to get hold of the organizers of this event to see if they can include the Congo War, the most lethal conflict since WWII, which so few Americans understand as ours because American soldiers don’t die and drone bombers don’t rain death from the air. Instead milliions die for Congo’s vast resources, but most of all for the mineral resources required to build the drone bombers and otherwise manufacture for war.
Anyone know how to call the organizers of this rally?
August 31, 2010 at 8:02 am
If you lie down with dogs, you will get up with fleas.
mark barnes
August 26, 2010 at 11:03 pm
This is being billed elsewhere as “Pro Liberty, Defeat Pelosi” rally.
I got no problem being anti-Pelosi, but, then again, I’m not posturing myself for a run for Mayor.
-marc
August 26, 2010 at 10:07 pm
i am also curious – yellow – green – purple or blue
August 24, 2010 at 12:29 pm
I finally looked up John Dennis. Anti-war, gay friendly Republican running against Nancy Pelosi here in our 8th District, according to the B.A.R.
http://www.ebar.com/news/article.php?sec=news&article=4962
This finally made him hit my radar. I’d like to know a little more.
August 24, 2010 at 7:31 am
Hey,
Y’all see Ron Paul’s comments yesterday? Said we’re still in the Middle East and Afghanistan only for oil. Got lots of heavy play. Especially on MSNBC (have TV access – no phone for vacation). This is gonna be a great event with Matt and Paul. If they could get Kucinich to show up with his waif they’d fill the square.
h.
August 22, 2010 at 8:10 pm
KPFA News re the faux withdrawal from Iraq, and private contractors recruiting Ugandan mercenaries to replace U.S. troops, and worse: http://goo.gl/VaL9
Posted in the interest of seeing covert U.S. war in Africa enter into this discussion on the 4th.
August 22, 2010 at 10:30 am
Groovy dude. Enjoy the sun.
August 22, 2010 at 10:14 am
@Patrick, I prefer to post comments from individuals who provide there real names, but make exceptions for pseudonyms as long as the comments aren’t ad hominem attacks.
August 22, 2010 at 9:43 am
@Luke.
Morning matey. Wondering if you have instituted a policy requiring posters identify themselves. I notice when I go to SFBG that most of the nameless knuckle-dragging neanderthals seem to have settled there.
While there are many divergent opinions expressed here, that is healthy, and leads to free, honest, open debate and discussion (unlike the recent D6 debacle).
Freedom of speech is sacrosanct and imperative, but is devalued by those lacking the courage of their convictions who lurk in the shadows of anonymity.
August 21, 2010 at 8:04 pm
@marc: If we can agree to disagree on this, I’m still trying to get you on the phone for a KPFA News soundbite, tomorrow, re the meaning of the widening split between the D Triple-C and federal Dem officeholders evidenced by Pelosi and Speier’s endorsement of Weiner, this week, and the D Triple-C’s endorsement of Mandelman the week before.
August 21, 2010 at 12:33 pm
Main stylistic difference between Paul and Gonzalez is that Paul nurtures a grassoots base while Gonzalez runs from one.
Gonzalez wants to be seen as relevant, Paul does what it takes to make himself relevant.
I’m glad that Paul is one of the few right of center who makes the connection between US foreign policy as a contributor to retaliatory asymmetric attacks on the US:
http://www.antiwar.com/paul/?articleid=2372
But what’s all this about a anti-abortion libertarian? I suppose that it is the mirror image of Gonzalez as anti-labor progressive.
Paul would probably be somewhat receptive to a grand coalition between left and right for removing duopoly control over politics. I don’t see where there is a progressive partner of any stature.
-marc
August 21, 2010 at 9:43 am
I only wish that Matt (4 Mayor) had included the expanding covert U.S. wars in Africa, and, e.g., Ugandan mercenaries replacing U.S. soldiers in the faux “draw down” in Iraq, here:
“I think it’s important to build alliances, especially with others whom we may disagree with on other issues, in order to achieve the critical mass we need to truly end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and to keep these conflicts from expanding, as they currently are, into Yemen and Pakistan,” Gonzalez said in response to FCJ inquiry.
Africa, in December 2007, surpassed the Middle East as a source of U.S. oil imports.
August 21, 2010 at 9:21 am
Second, third, fourth, fifth, yes yes yes: Matt for Mayor. Maybe there should be some signs to that effect in the audience on the 4th.
August 21, 2010 at 6:27 am
MATT 4 MAYOR
August 20, 2010 at 3:02 pm
Cool,
Gonzalez has always been able to talk to all sides. I’d love to see the BOS vote him as interim Mayor once all of the Democrats have slashed one another down to skeletons. It would be a real irony.
Giants in 9 minutes!
h.
August 20, 2010 at 1:10 am
People give me all kinds of grief for liking Ron Paul but the Republicans nominating Ron Paul instead of Sarah Palin in 2012 is probably the only thing that could make me bother to vote in that year’s presidential election. And, that’s so unlikely that I don’t expect to be voting.
Nothing could be more anti-racist than wanting to pull U.S. troops and bases out of the Global South, i.e., the non-White world. Our first African American president, Barack Obama, has no such plans.
August 19, 2010 at 4:48 pm
Interesting. Hands across the water can sometimes be a bridge over troubled waters.