| Covering the above the fold front page of today's Home News was this picture from our Monday night vigil for the 4th anniversary.
Next to it, was a story about her uncle's friend who died Saturday. The DOD announced it yesterday. So we will be adding him to our Central Jersey Coalition memorial for the NJ fallen, which was displayed at the protest yesterday, motivating a few people to stop and join us:
We had a captive audience, since snow removal equipment was parked on the Albany St. bridge, snarling traffic through New Brunswick.
Today the students did a great job with their walkout, rally and march through downtown New Brunswick and onto Route 18, creating traffic jams that the Home News covered. The walkout and rally will be covered by the Star Ledger, Home News, Targum, local abc, and an AP photographer was there! A photo is up under breaking news at nj.com now. There will be plenty more tomorrow. Here's yesterday's front page Targum story anticipating the demonstration.
Also, the NJ Occupation Project launch yesterday in Newark was covered in the Star Ledger by their military reporter:
Barbara Webster protested the Vietnam War as a teenager and, now, as a senior citizen, the war in Iraq. So Webster, 64, of Montclair marked the fourth anniversary of the Iraq invasion yesterday by joining a dozen other peace activists in asking New Jersey's Democratic U.S. senators, Robert Menendez and Frank Lautenberg, to sign a pledge to end the war by voting against an upcoming spending bill that will pay for it.
After dropping off the pledge forms at the senators' Newark offices without receiving a commitment, the activists left the Gateway Center and walked into the blustery air with their anti-war placards in tow. They vowed to return next week, prepared to be arrested in an act of civil disobedience if the senators don't sign the pledge...
Some of the people strongly opposed to the Iraq war are willing to face jail to bring back one tactic of the Vietnam era -- civil disobedience. In the past month, war protesters have held sit-ins in offices of Democratic politicians ranging from Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland to Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York. Several were arrested. The activists who left the petitions with Lautenberg and Menendez said they will do the same thing next week if the lawmakers haven't signed the pledge to vote against additional money for the war.
"I'm willing to be arrested," said Michael Paris, 46, a Montclair resident who teaches political science at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. "I have two children. Cutting off funding for the war is our only hope."
Staff members for Menendez and Lautenberg said the senators have not decided how they will vote on the upcoming spending bill... |
