Over 200 Protesters Arrested

[lame54]

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=11140
March 20th, 2008 4:48 am
Over 200 arrested in U.S. antiwar protests

By Andy Sullivan / Reuters

WASHINGTON - More than 200 people were arrested across the United States on Wednesday as protesters marking the fifth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq obstructed downtown traffic and tried to block access to government offices.

There were 32 arrests in Washington after demonstrators attempted to block entrances to the Internal Revenue Service, while 30 others were arrested outside a congressional office building, police said.

Protesters had hoped to shut down the IRS, the U.S. tax collection agency, to highlight the cost of the war. Police cleared the building's entrances within an hour.

In San Francisco, long a centre of anti-Iraq war sentiment, police arrested more than 100 people who protested through the day along Market Street in the central business district, a spokesman said.

Sgt. Steve Maninna said officers had arrested 143 people on charges including trespassing, resisting arrest and obstructing traffic.

[TooBigaTent]

1. Little protests like this mean nothing, and will have even less effect. If thousands

could not stop the war (but then, even millions would not have been able to), what impact could these miniscule gestures possibly have?

What is needed is either massive and continuous peaceful protests or more focused actions that actually accomplish a strategic objective.

[lame54]

2. I'm counting on you to organize this...

I'll be checking back periodically

[TooBigaTent]

5. Personally, I don't think that massive protests, which do not happen in this country,

would even have any effect.

The only method would be direct, individual actions aimed at specific, targetted individual enemies.

Person-to-person is the most effective means of communication.

[tomg]

3. These 'miniscule gestures," while not

ending the war, continually remind us that there are men and women of conscience who assert again and again that they cannot stand by and do nothing. More than that, they feel compelled to take a stand, to take the consequences for that stand, and to bear witness. Incidentally, I agree that what is also needed are massive and continuous peaceful protests and more focussed actions that accomplish very specific strategic activities.

These men and women role model what people of conscience are.

[pleah]

4. These brave people do make a difference.

[malaise]

6. Was that in Tibet or the US?

Does Nancy Pelosi know this?