"In Washington, D.C., [Photographs 97-107] as many as 500,000 protesters rallied outside the Capitol . . . Huge numbers of people also turned out on the West Coast. Media estimated that anywhere from 50,000 to 200,000 people were present in San Francisco, with 20,000 in downtown Portland. In Canada, tens of thousands marched in Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, Edmonton and Halifax. Tens of thousands more protested in France, Japan, Pakistan, Britain, Sweden, Syria, Belgium, Egypt, Lebanon, New Zealand and elsewhere."

Laderman notes the recent observation of H. Bruce Franklin, the distinguished author of numerous works on the American war in Vietnam, who said that "Last weekend's unprecedented demonstrations in the United States and around the world go beyond the anti-Vietnam War demonstrations in size and also, I believe, in consciousness. It is now commonplace knowledge that our government and its foreign policy are controlled by multinational corporations, and this consciousness was widely shared only in the very late stages of the movement against the Vietnam War. Of course no sensible person could possibly believe that the aim of war in Iraq is the welfare of the people of that country." Today, Franklin continued, "our government's motives are blatantly clear. Hence the apt slogan, 'No blood for oil.'"

98. A large contingent of Minnesotans participated in the January 18 march. The colorful banner above was completed enroute to Washington, D.C., on one of the almost thirty buses that traveled from Minnesota.

"The world is cold, but our hearts are warm," the Rev. Jesse Jackson told the half million gathered in the wintry weather on the Capitol Mall. Jackson noted how George W. Bush had bowed to demands that he negotiate with North Korea and asked why such negotiations were not being conducted with Iraq. "We're not talking about peace and security," he said, "We're talking about oil and hegemony."

99. Steve traveled from Minnesota for the January 18 "National March on Washington" on one of the eight buses organized by the Minneapolis-based Anti-War Committee.

Another Minnesotan in attendance was Academy Award-winning actor Jessica Lange. "I address this assembly as a mother--an American woman--determined that the legacy passed on to our children is not shame, greed, bloodshed," she said. Later in her speech, Jessica accused the Bush administration of using the September 11 terrorist attack to "keep us mesmerized with the war, the Patriot Act, the Homeland Security Act . . . It is an excellent cover, as they turn back the clock on civil rights, women's rights. We cannot be silent."

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100-101. The nationwide and worldwide protests honored the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. whose Riverside Church Speech on April 7, 1967, helped transform the anti-Vietnam war movement into a majority movement.

108. A week after the "National March on Washington", the Anti-War Committee organized a talk-back in Minneapolis. One of those who spoke was Tony, who shared some poetry inspired by his trip to Washington, D.C.

At around the same time, Haroon Siddiqui, editorial page editor emeritus of the Toronto Star, published an insightful article entitled "World Rebels Against America" on January 26, 2003.

Siddiqui notes that "Having positioned enough U.S. troops and equipment all around [the] Persian Gulf neighborhood, George W. Bush can launch a war on Iraq any time, with or without United Nations' approval. But he has already lost the political war.

". . . There already is a global rebellion against America, separate and apart from the recent terrorist attacks on U.S. civilians and soldiers in Yemen, Pakistan and Kuwait. Governments everywhere are dreading the dawn of American imperial unilateralism. They are even more scared of their riled-up citizenries. Most Muslims are characterizing American designs on Iraq as racist. Others are calling it a colonial endeavor--the return of the Ugly American.

"From Europe through Africa and Asia to the Far East, public opinion is solidly ranged against America. The dissidents include the Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Nelson Mandela. This anti-war movement may be more potent than the one against the Vietnam War. It is worldwide and it has gelled before the war has even begun.

"North American pundits have it that Bush has a small window of opportunity for war because a delay would push it into the unbearable heat of the Middle East summer. The greater truth may be that his options are closing because of growing people power, even in America.

"The president's poll numbers are dropping. Public skepticism is rising, as is a chorus of influential voices, including those of Senator Ted Kennedy ("This is the wrong war at the wrong time"), Jimmy Carter, Gulf War veterans, stalwart Republicans, Hollywood celebrities and unions.

"The longer Bush delays the war, the more difficult it will be to launch it. But the only way he can go quickly is to abandon the fig leaf of the United Nations, proving that his enlisting of the U.N. was a sham all along. But with 150,000 troops and equipment lined up and so much rhetorical capital invested, how can he not proceed?

Bush is in a box of his own making. His biggest mistake has been to try to undermine the U.N. inspectors every step of the way. Chief inspector Hans Blix, a seasoned Swiss diplomat seeped in U.N. culture, wasn't going to blink under American bullying. When Americans and Britons charged that their intelligence showed Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, Blix said: 'Show me.' When Bush called the discovery of a dozen empty Iraqi warheads 'troubling and serious,' Blix said: 'It's no big deal.' (Anyone who covered Saddam's 1980-1990 war on Iran would have seen dozens of such spent Iraqi shells all along the border.)

"America has been clutching at other straws, such as looking for an Iraqi scientist or two to supply a plausible excuse for U.S. action - in return for immigration to America or, in one reported case, a bribe of free medical care for an ailing wife. But with no smoking gun, no proof of any Iraqi terrorist links, no weapons of mass destruction, Washington changed its tack. The issue was no longer weapons but Iraqi deception. (When was the last time a war was launched over a lie?) Or Saddam himself.

"American commentators duly obliged with essays on the benefits of bringing democracy to Iraq. But people across the Atlantic just laughed. Aren't America's best allies in the region autocrats, monarchs and assorted potentates? Didn't Donald Rumsfeld, now defense secretary, meet Saddam in 1983 to convey American moral and material support in the jihad against Iran? Didn't America acquiesce when Saddam used Western-supplied chemicals to kill Iranians and his own Kurds?

"Circumstances change, of course. But the American track record at nation-building is not good, either, as witnessed in Afghanistan twice: post-Soviet occupation and post-Taliban. Nor, as noted recently by Human Rights Watch, is its record in protecting the most fundamental human rights of Arabs and other Muslims on American soil since September. 11, 2001 . . . In promising democracy to Iraq, Bush is dealing with devalued American moral currency.

"Most inconveniently, regime change in Baghdad is not part of U.N. Resolution 1441, the ostensible basis of all the current American activity. Even if it were, the idea of killing Iraqis to give them democracy does not hold much appeal. People in the Mideast have noticed that, in the plethora of Pentagon war scenarios, there is none on how many Iraqis are likely to become collateral damage when B-52s start bombing.

"Arabs are not the only ones to flinch at the thought of more pain and death on a people already suffering under American-led economic sanctions. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees envisages 'a human disaster,' with about 1 million refugees spilling into neighboring nations and between 4.5 and 9.5 million Iraqis inside the country needing emergency food rations.

"Complicating the Bush-Blair mission have been two unforeseen events since November 8, 2002 - the Israeli election and the defiant nuclearization of North Korea. Bush had to bench a proposed American plan for Palestinian statehood until after the election. Blair was embarrassed by Israel Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's refusal to let Palestinians go to a peace conference in London. Meanwhile, suicide bombings and counter-measures continue, with Palestinians by far the bigger victims.

"Bush's conciliatory approach to North Korea raised cries of double standards. 'Why is the U.S. dealing with them differently?' asked Al Sharq newspaper in Qatar, one of the more pro-American emirates and, in fact, a key staging area for an American attack on Iraq. Such is the sad backdrop of the fateful days ahead.

"Should Americans fail to swing Security Council support, Bush may proceed with 'a coalition of the willing' - reluctant allies who cannot afford to anger America. What would follow is anybody's guess. A surgical war that topples Saddam quickly and liberates the Iraqi people would nullify all the naysayers and make a hero of Bush. The nightmare scenario is of heavy Iraqi civilian casualties and a long siege around Baghdad, with Saddam ordering people on to bridges and other infrastructure as human shields.

"Reports out of London speak of Whitehall being inundated with cables from British missions abroad warning of widespread fury. European diplomats I spoke to talk of 'long-lasting enmity in the Arab, Asian and African world against the Western model,' in the words of one. And over at the staid Davos [World Economic Forum] conference in Switzerland, Malaysian Prime Minister Mohammed Mahatir told the corporate and political elite of the world Thursday: 'People want revenge. You kill our people, we will kill you.' He was not issuing a threat."

109. Frank joins with close to 1500 others for the weekly peace vigil on the Lake St./Marshall Ave. Bridge - January 29, 2003. The largest turn-out ever for the vigil was due to the presence of a BBC film crew that day on the bridge, and to George W. Bush's "State of the Union" address the night before, in which he stressed his regime's determination to "disarm" Iraq.

Commenting on the American flags on his placard, Frank said that "During the Vietnam War when I was thirty-some years younger, I felt that the government and military took over the flag and national anthem and tried to paint us all as unpatriotic for protesting what was going on in Vietnam. I feel that the real patriots are out here protesting."

110. Students from Hamline University--Louis, Laura, Alex, and Catherine--participate in the January 29 "Bridge Peace Vigil".

"It sounded like empire-building to me," said Alex of George W. Bush's State of the Union address the night before. "He was trying to scare everyone and he kept going on about 'Saddam has this weapon . . . Saddam could kill millions . . .' [Saddam's] not trying to take over the world. I mean, he's a fascist dictator--I'm not going to deny that--but I think he's just trying to keep control of Iraq. I don't think he poses a threat to America or the world in general."

Added Louis: "If anyone's being a terrorist, the U.S. is being a terrorist. We're just trying to go in everywhere and take over."

"[Bush] is [pushing war] as a stimulas for the economy," said Laura. "In a consumerist-driven nation you put fear in people's hearts and they consume."

On their presence on the bridge, Catherine noted, "It's important that we stick our neck out . . . I've had people tell me that it's not worth all this protesting, but the community here [on the bridge] is worth it."

111. Longtime activist Don Olson at the Independent Media Fair - Minneapolis, February 1, 2003.

Organized by the Counter Propaganda Coalition (CPC), the Independent Media Fair followed the groups's "Trial of the Corporate Media" at Peavey Plaza in Downtown Minneapolis. At this trial, a "Summary of Charges" against the corporate media was read:

In this time of ever-increasing militaristic fervor and economic hard times, we, as citizens, charge that the corporate mass media have failed in their responsibility to report the news fairly, completely, and without bias, and in their responsibility to the public to serve as a monitor of the centers of power. These charges of irresonsibility and failure are sustained by the following characteristics and practices of corporate media:

The corporate media, owned primarily by large national and transnational corporations:

(i) Promotes the so-called "War on Terror" by failing to: examine the root causes of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States; expose the brute military expansionism of U.S. foreign policy; and critically address the economic interests that benefit from this expansion.

(ii) Fails to critically question the Bush administration's focus shift from Osama bin Laden to Saddam Hussein and the motivations for such a shift and increase in war rhetoric.

(iii) Demonizes leaders of other nations while failing to thoroughly examine and critique the policies of the U.S. heads of state.

(iv) Collaborates with the Bush administration's action to undermine and abolish civil liberties through limited and uncritical coverage.

(v) Participates in the trivialization of union struggles and the work of labor unions. Is complicit in the Bush administration's attacks on the working class and labor unions, which are often disguised as being in the interests of "national security."

(vi) Fails to examine war profiteering, especially among arms manufacturerers. (Who profits from the war machine?).

(NOTE: Charges continue beneath Photograph 112)

112. Michael Cavlan, co-founder of the Counter Progaganda Coalition (CPC) and long-time Green Party and media activist - February 13, 2003.

Continuation of charges read at CPC's "Trial of the Corporate Media":

The corporate media:

(vii) Dehumanizes innocent victims of US expansion and militarism by failing to challenge the US military and Bush administration about the human consequences of war, including civilian casualties.

(viii) Is complicit in promoting an unjustified war with Iraq to divert U.S. citizens from important economic and other domestic issues and concerns.

(ix) Reports only superficially on the persecution and scapegoating of immigrants--especially Middle Eastern and Somali people--and fails to examine the root causes of U.S. government persecution of these groups.

(x) Provides limited and biased coverage of the national and global anti-war and justice movements and the information, issues, and concerns the varied groups in these movements expose and espouse.

(xi) Minimizes or ignores threats to ecological sustainability, allows polluters to greenwash their corporate images, and reports biased industry research as fact.

(xii) Reports without investigation the official police version of events, thus facilitating police brutality and abuse without accountability and preventing police brutality victims from obtaining justice.

113. Lydia Howell, anchor and commentator with KFAI community radio and reporter for Pulse of the Twin Cities.

In February 2003, Lydia responded to the Minnesota Daily's criticism of the Counter Propaganda Coalition's "Trial of the Corporate Media". "Thomas Jefferson observed that 'Democracy cannot survive, much less thrive, without an informed citizenry'," wrote Lydia. "Questioning how we get our information is crucial to Jefferson's idea, which is exactly what the Counter Propaganda Coalition (CPC) is doing. Media of all kinds has been deeply shaped by the public relations industry and the escalating concentration of information-sources in fewer and fewer, wealthy, corporate hands. This results in narrow, pre-determined 'debate' parameters, a reliance on a few carefully chosen 'experts' and propaganda--primarily by omission of more progressive perspectives, dissident voices and marginalized groups.

"Locally, I see this pattern of what I call 'press release journalism': reporters regurgitate governemntal press releases without further investigation; the issues are almost totally defined by that 'official' view; 'balance' is asserted with a one or two sentence quote of dissent, at the end of an article. Whether, housing issues, police misconduct or continued racial discrimination, (to name some issues I regualrly cover), this is the corporate media patten I see and try to counter in my own work. In matters of foreign policy, these tendencies are intensified, as most Americans know little about the rest of the world, and are even more vulnerable to manipulation. Facing war, isn't it obvious that vigorous, real public debate is critical?"