This Saturday the 22nd, at the Westwood Federal Building on Veteran and Wilshire at Noon will be a protest to stop the War Moves of the Bush Administration.

The event is sponsored by the Stop The War Coalition, a group which named itself tonight, September 18th at its meeting at the Peace Center in West LA. The groups press release will start with “We mourn the lives lost on September 11th and through our actions we hope to prevent the further loss of lives.” Ideas such as wearing green ribbons and carrying banners with the globe on it in addition to the stars and stripes were greeted with enthusiasm.

The meeting had a raucous air created by the mix of people new to activist meetings with people who have been doing this sort of work for a while. Punctuated at times with heartfelt statements both sympathizing and empathizing with the pain terrorist action brings and the anger of an administration and system that seems to neglect the respect for humanity, the meeting was a put-together affair. The passion of the moment joined with the prospect of a revitalized anti-war movement made a few people sweat.

Noticing that at the moment those with similar feelings are a minority, there was much debate over what should be said and seen. It became clear to many that the march did not want to appear on the defense because their field for action is as wide as the space the Bush Administration has taken for itself; and they say anything is on the table, from diplomacy to nuclear bombs. With discussion, it became clear that the group needed to clearly define where they stand on things so that they would have the ability to cut through the mediated rhetoric, thus a statement on the sounds of war has been added too. “The US government intends to use public revulsion at the massive deaths and destruction on the September 11th attacks to create a war hysteria…”

Some were especially sensitive to the task at hand. “This is a country in mourning. This is also a country that watches Rambo. It will be hard but we have to stop this cycle of violence.” Unfortunately, others in the meeting were more interested in claiming territory, creating lists of speakers and drafting themselves in. When discussing the fact that other groups are working on issues with an affinity to this event who should be contacted, it was heard in the room, “They should be here.” It is this sort of territoriality that, in addition to hearing someone flatly stating “we are not going to stop a war” upset this reporter. These did not seem like the appropriate attitudes in creating a long-term coalition to stop this madness.

Ending up the meeting a new meeting was announced for the continuation of this coalition after this march. Their next meeting will be September 28th at the First United Methodist Church on Alvarado in Echo Park.