Editor's Blog

By 9am this morning people were busy setting up 100 tables of literature, Latin American Crafts, and Fair Trade Coffee to keep us going. The morning begain with the arrival of the Living the Dream March that walked from Montgomery, AL. All morning buses and vans and cars brought people from across the country to Ft. Benning. A beautiful sky was occassionally marred by the helicopter that flew over the base and the rally. The Rally went from 11-5pm, with music and speakers. The Puppetistas put on a great show as they paraded up and down Ft. Benning Road. This is a very participatory event, with hundreds marching in various costumes, beating buckets to make music that makes you think they're a marching band. People kept talking about how many more people were here today than are usually here on a Saturday. In the evening we heard Eric LaCompte of SOAW staff say they estimated 18,000, the largest number who have ever attended the Saturday rally. Lots of people who have never been here before have come. At the same time it feels like a reunion for many others.

"After ridding the world of a few more liquified dinosaurs, and trekking about 1100 miles along the way, our crew arrived in Columbus, GA yesterday.  We reached our destination just in time to gather our things and set up for the first nonviolence training of the weekend.  Considering it was two days before the action we were surprised to have a good 20 people show up!  This was just a small precursor to todays trainings, though, as we had almost 200 people participate in a number of trainings throughout the day.  These are all minute numbers in the context of the weekends activities but considering there will be 93 planned workshops happening, it's a good start.

Some emerging articles:

ePluribus Media has a good introduction and overview.

One of Peacework's sister magazines, Toward Freedom, published an analysis of the importance of this year's demonstration in the context of the history of the strugge. Another sister publication, Z, focuses on the preparations in Columbus, GA.

- Sam Diener

Technorati Profile

The School of the Americas Watch site, is of course, primary. If you're new to the issue, please see their Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page. Also see their excelllent links page for links to local and regional SOA groups and to sister organizations.

The National Catholic Reporter has set up an excellent "In Solidarity... at the School of the Americas" blog to chronicle the events of SOA Watch Fall 2006.

March 2006:

4 Crying Out Against the Despair of Militarism:
On "Crossing the Line" at the School of the Americas
by Donte Smith
Not in my name will this institution continue to torture, rape, massacre, batter, harass, and threaten el pueblo del mundo. No mas.

Blogging from the protests for Peacework (our first hosted blogs!) will be Bill Sweet, Joanne Sheehan, Patrick Sheehan-Gaumer, and perhaps others.