New tonight

[mantis]

OOPS that should read News tonight
.
On the S & C board there is a disagreement over how many people the various TV stations said attended the anti war rally in Melbourne today, so what did people hear, was it 10,000 or 100,000.

 

[JUBJUB]

150,000 last I heard.

 

[Damp Squarie]

Does it really matter? It aint gonna change the direction in which we are heading....I wish.
Still, well done to those who attended

 

[mantis]

Originally posted by topjars
Does it really matter? It aint gonna change the direction in which we are heading....I wish.
Still, well done to those who attended

Well it does matter to me, because ewok & m29, both said that they only said 10,000 on the news & I was wrong saying it was 100,000 odd.

Just trying to prove a point, after ewok was pretty quick to gloat over the figures that another poster said, which I am certain was a typo by her.

 

[Lionheart2]

Initial reports suggested 10,000 however the rally was set to start at 5pm....By 6pm the march towards Federation square had barely started and by that stage it was evident the figure was much closer to 100,000.

I've been to many rallies/protests and i'll tell you they dont get much bigger than this!!

 

[Lionheart2]

Just heard quarter of a million in attendence (Channel 9)!!

Either way it appears to have been a success and strongly supports the fact that only 6 percent of Australians are in favour of a war. I'd strongly encourage those in other states to get along to one of the many rallies being held over the weekend.

 

[mantis]

Originally posted by Lionheart2
Just heard quarter of a million in attendence (Channel 9)!!

Either way it appears to have been a success and strongly supports the fact that only 6 percent of Australians are in favour of a war. I'd strongly encourage those in other states to get along to one of the many rallies being held over the weekend.

I will be at Forrest Place WA tomorrow at 11am, wearing my BF t shirt, if you see me come & say hi .

 

[Bomber Spirit]

Originally posted by Lionheart2
Just heard quarter of a million in attendence (Channel 9)!!

Either way it appears to have been a success and strongly supports the fact that only 6 percent of Australians are in favour of a war. I'd strongly encourage those in other states to get along to one of the many rallies being held over the weekend.

NineMSN starts its report talking about "tens of thousands", and at the end of the report says police wouldn't comment on numbers but organisers put it at "close to 200,000". In other words, 10,000 was a chronic understatement but probably still well short of 200,000. But even so, it must have been a huge crowd of people there.
And no, I won't be going on Sunday. I'll be at another place in Sydney where the Bombers flying up will be a good thing.

 

[BomberGal]

I would like to kill the lot of them for not allowing any traffic through. I was late for my train, my friends and teacher actually managed to hold it for three minutes as I was unable to get through the traffic and protesters. And I ended up with too many brochures, all of which went in the bin without even being read.

 

[Squeak]

Protesting is all well and good when you have a chance in hell of making a difference, but sadly or unsadly that isn't the case here.

 

[PrideofSA]

Protesting is all good but what is there answer to the solution?

They have to think of this? Because John Howard and Bush etc have to think of a solution. Ppl saying no to war doesn't help because it's not fixing the problem.

 

[knuckles]

Originally posted by Lionheart2
Just heard quarter of a million in attendence (Channel 9)!!

Either way it appears to have been a success and strongly supports the fact that only 6 percent of Australians are in favour of a war. I'd strongly encourage those in other states to get along to one of the many rallies being held over the weekend.

And you have stripped the protestors of any credibility. How the hell does 200K people with slogans support the fact that only 6% want war? The formula should be interesting. Black-Scholes stuff.
Any bras on the outside?

 

[PrideofSA]

Can anyone who is anti war please come up with a solution to problem instead of just saying no-war. I have yet to see anyone make a valid point for no to war. The challenge is set.

 

[Lionheart2]

War will have a devastating impact on the lives of innocent people including children in Iraq. This war is illegal, immoral and a primitive way of resolving issues of global security. Disarmament can be achieved but it requires all nations including the United States, United Kingdom and Australia to strengthen their commitment to the international treaty processes.

One of the United States' real motives for drumming the war machine is their desire to control Iraq's large oil reserves. Yet they refuse to limit use of fossil fuels or ratify the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, and is opening up its remote parks for oil exploration and drilling.

I'm opposed to war and believe that non-violent methods should always be used to solve conflict.


War is not the solution in Iraq. The reasons are simple:

· A war in Iraq would have devastating human and environmental consequences.
A conventional war (one in which no nuclear, chemical or biological weapons are used) could kill over a quarter of a million people, most of them civilians (the last Gulf War killed 200,000 Iraqis). Famine, disease and social dislocation could kill another 250,000. If the war escalates to involve chemical or nuclear attack, casualties could be as high as four million people, and there would be a legacy of toxic and nuclear contamination to deal with for generations to come.

· War will not eliminate weapons of mass destruction and is likely to increase the possibility of terrorism.
Military strikes against states possessing or suspected of possessing weapons of mass destruction do not provide a stable basis for controlling or abolishing them.

Peace-abiding nations must push for collective international arms control and disarmament through the frameworks that already exist with formal bodies such as the UN Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, and treaties such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Comprehensive Test Ban treaty, the Biological Weapons Convention and the Chemical Weapons Convention. The US is increasingly detaching itself from such treaties.

· War will not increase global security.
War will not solve the issues facing our planet. Real security will not be built on military power and political and economic oppression. Security depends on tackling the causes of conflict: poverty, injustice and competition for scarce resources.

 

[bulldogs1]

Sandie, we both can be fairly sure that this figure, however inaccurate, is about 9,000 more than could be mustered for a pro-war rally.

A pro-war rally in a telephone booth would be the more-likley scenario.

Originally posted by mantis
Well it does matter to me, because ewok & m29, both said that they only said 10,000 on the news & I was wrong saying it was 100,000 odd.

 

[myee8]

They can protest all they like for all i care, but one thing they must realist to respect the other people on the streets. What i mean is that if they spill out onto the paths, roads, streets and that, they are blocking the paths of people who have got other business to attend to - work, interviews, shopping, basically people with deadlines to meet. Sure they can say they have a bigger issue at stake, it shows their frustration about the war issue etc etc, but all that does is cause more anger towards their protest methods from the people with places to go who are blocked, which in turn doesn't exactly help their cause.

I mean there was some nude demostration recently where the protesters formed a love heart around a 'no war' letters also formed by them. Fair enough they say it shows their frustration at the government, but does it really do anything? Maybe in that it gives attention to their views. More importantly, would the government be swayed by a group of nude protesters? No. They are narrowminded in that they all say no war, give peace a go etc which is fair enuff, but they often do not say how to do it or give alternatives.