A rally against the Iraqi War at the U.S. Capitol, on Tuesday, September 26, 2006, led to the arrests of 71 protesters by the police, according to a spokesperson for one of the organizers. The passionate demonstration was co-promoted by the "National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance" (NCNR) and the "Declaration of Peace" organizations. These conscience-driven advocacy groups, antiwar and/or religious based, endorse the laudable principle of nonviolent resistance to and noncooperation with "the U.S. government, the military, the corporate merchants of war, and all institutions that feed" the War, Mayhem and Death Machine of the Halliburton-challenged and Big-Oil-oriented Bush-Cheney Gang. The specific focus of the activists today was on pressuring the U.S. Congress to "develop a comprehensive and rapid peace plan" for ending the Iraqi conflict and for bringing the troops home.
One of the protesters arrested was Max Obuszewski of Baltimore. He's with the NCNR. He demanded to know from the police before being cuffed by them: "What about the First Amendment?" Obuszewski, with eleven other activists, was arrested on the west side of the Capitol for trying to deliver a symbolic coffin to the U.S. Congress. As they were carrying the coffin along the sidewalk, the activists were yelling out slogans like: "This is what democracy looks like!" "We demand an end to the occupation of Iraq!" "No more killing!" "No more war!""We are not afraid!" and "No more war in the name of 9/11!" Prior to the start of today's event, Obuszewski told me: "We want to bring the war home to the Congress. Unless you cut off the funding, the war is going to continue. More money for the war means more dead U.S. soldiers and more dead Iraqis. We are taking this coffin to the Capitol because they [the Congress] are the people responsible for all the deaths."
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