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CounterPunch
February
17, 2003
More Than a Million Protest
in Australia
"Somewhere
in Texas a Village Has Lost Its Idiot"
by VANESSA JONES
"Somewhere in Texas a village has
lost its idiot"
Placard at Sydney rally 16-02-03
The most beautiful sight after the Sydney "No
War" rally on Feb 16, 2003, attended by 250,000+ people,
was a pregnant woman drying off after a swim down at Clovelly
Beach in eastern Sydney. Clovelly Beach is a tranquil, rocky
beach with a quiet sandy splashing area for kids, nestled between
Coogee and Bronte beaches. The artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude
"wrapped" the nearby Little Bay in 1969. The name of
the artwork is called "Wrapped
Coast". (see for images of this project and of this
environment).
The woman seemed fully pregnant- she
had a splendid round belly of ?8 + months. She was wearing a
bikini top around her breasts and a long stretch skirt around
her hips and legs. Her belly- so round and full, was open to
the world, and at the base of her belly, where the baby's head
was probably positioned to come out, (unless it was breached,
like my second son's!), there was the image of a peace sign.
With the sea behind her, and her hair wet, and that great belly
full of beauty and hope, she seemed to sum up all the hopes and
aspirations (and anxieties) of the people who have rallied around
the world this weekend, against Bush and Blair's war.
We had baklawa full bellies, from the
baklawa shop in Lidcombe, and sticky hands, so we ran down to
have a splash and a paddle in the sea, and to build tunnels and
sand castles, as it rained after a drought stricken, long, hot,
bush-firey summer.
Rally attendance in Australia, population
1.9 odd million:
Melbourne Feb 14: 200,000 (pop. 3mill)
Sydney Feb 16: 250,00- 300,000 (pop.
3 mill) Biggest march in Australia's history.
Brisbane: 50,000 (pop 1 mill)
Adelaide:100,000 (pop 1mill)
Canberra: 16,000 (pop 300,000)
Perth: 10,000
Darwin- (in monsoonal weather)- 2,000
Various regional rallies around smaller
towns. The Melbourne and Sydney rallies were the biggest since
the Vietnam moratorium marches.
Vanessa Jones
can be reached at: post4@bigpond.com
Yesterday's Features
CounterPunch News Service
Slow
Lerner: It May Not Help Kids in Iraq, But It Sure Got Michael
Lerner Airtime
Andrew Murray
Tony
Blair Versus the British People
Ben Tripp
President
A**hole
Peggy Thomson
My
Close Encounter with Saddam
Gary Leupp
Meet Mr. Blowback:
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, CIA Op and Homicidal Thug
Saul Landau
Bush and Corporate Fraud
Adam Engel
A Civilian Occupation:
The Politics of Israeli Architecture
Anthony Gancarski
Jacksonville in Crisis
Rick Giombetti
Specific Threats to Democracy
Jean-David Levitte
A Warning on Iraq from France:
Make War the Last Option
Ian Gurney
Whose Side is Bush On?
Maria Engqvist
Did
the FARC Shoot Down a US Military Plane in Colombia?
Ron Jacobs
This Madness Must Cease
Josh Frank
Call to Washington:
Stonewall Bush
Website of the Day
Rock
Out Against War
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February 15
/ 16, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
Colin
Powell and the Great "Intelligence Fraud"
Rep. Dennis
Kucinich
The Whole World is Watching
Edward Said
A Monumental Hypocrisy
Wouter Hijink
Report from Amsterdam
"War: Do Not Feed!"
Linda Heard
At Last! Proud to be British
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Taking a Stand on Iraq
Robert Fisk
The Case Against War
Lev Grinberg
Lessons from Israel
A War Without Legitimacy
Chris Floyd
Cold Fronts:
Bush War Profits
Ahmad Faruqui
Stepping Back from the Brink of War
Norman Madarasz
French Kisses from the Citizens of France
Adam Lebowitz
Scott Ritter in Tokyo
Kurt Nimmo
Bring Us the Head of Osama bin Laden
Forrest Hylton
The Revolt in Bolivia
Col. Dan Smith
Irrelevance and Credibility:
Bush, NATO and the UN
Wayne Madsen
The Lies of Tom Lantos
Ranjit Hoskote
The Invisible Modernities of the Islamic World
Emily Zitter-Smith
Who's Safe Now?
An American in Cairo
Rich Procter
Anybody Remember the Powell Doctrine?
Poets Basement:
Eliot
Katz, Scott Handleman, and Bruce Tomczak
Website of the Weekend
Anti-War
Posters
Read
Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
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