Peace Rally in Helena, Montana
an article by CPNN Coordinator

Peace activists in Helena, Montana, also demonstrated for peace at the time of the Republican convention, as described in the following story by Virginia Muszkiewicz sent to CPNN from Helena's free weekly newspaper, the Queen City News and slightly abbreviated here.

"The World Says No to Bush” peace rally at Women’s Park on Saturday was not quite the caliber of New York’s [See CPNN report on New York]. At its peak, maybe 80 protesters filled the grass in front of the semi-permanent canvas Quonset-hut stage cover, holding signs ranging from “Regime Change Starts at Home. Vote out Bush/Cheney,” to subtle hand-drawn peace signs waved by youngsters. The two-hour rally was held in conjunction with like-named demonstrations throughout the nation.

Helena Peace Seekers member Frank Kromkowski said he was very happy with the turnout on Saturday. “We had representatives from a lot of different sector and solidarity with people across the whole nation. The rally gave us new energy to fight against the Bush agenda for health care, the poor and the repeal of the Patriot Act,” he said.

Rick Penca, holding a pro-labor sign, took the microphone to urge people to vote for John Kerry regardless of his faults, rather than voting for a more idealistic third-party candidate. “To vote for a powerless third party-well, you might as well flush your ballot down the toilet,” he told the crowd.

Paul Edwards said he was there to talk about the “sentiment spreading about the current unelected government that is moving toward unilateral control,” calling this election the most critical of his lifetime. Edwards also noted a petition going around the crowd was gathering signatures for a new resolution against the USA Patriot Act to be brought before the Helena City Commission on Monday evening. “Our own civil liberties are under attack today,” Edwards said. “The Patriot Act is 340 pages of gobbledy gook and junk that potentially interferes with the First, Second, Third and Fourth Amendments."

Two representatives of CAJA (Community Action for Justice in America), a Missoula-based group, took the microphone to denounce the Coca-Cola corporation for its repressive labor practices in Colombia.

The rally concluded with a member of the Helena Peace Seekers saying, “Just imagine the millions standing with us across the nation. With them, we are strong."

For more information, go to the website of the Helena Peace Seekers.

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In doing the research for this report, just like the one I did earlier about the February 15 demonstrations around the world, I was struck by the fact that the mass media is being forced to be more responsive because of the presence of independent media on the Internet, like Indymedia.

But Indymedia, like CPNN, depends on volunteer labor and that requires a different attitude by people towards the news.  People need to learn to write the news and not just wait for it to be given to them by the professionals of the commercial media.  That's not easy, as you can see from the following exchange between readers and someone named Will at Indymedia.UK: "come on, Will - you can do better. Indymedia Uk is made up of volunteers ... This kind of full-on reporting is not something anyone wants to do every weekend.  Indymedia volunteers are not machines.. . ...more.

This report was posted on September 6, 2004. The moderator is CPNN Coordinator.

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