Honking for peace

If you think that, as the Stones sang, going to a peace demonstration will only get you your fair share of abuse, think again. Each Friday, a coalition of groups gathers at noon at Colony Square, where under the third floor office windows of Sen. Zell Miller, scores of people, from teens to grandparents, have a very merry demonstration.

“They’re going to spend $100 billion on the war — at the least,” one of the leaders, Cicely Gay, told the crowd last Friday. “A lot of children could have health care with that money.”

Perhaps of note to Miller, many of the demonstrators carried signs saying, “Honk for Peace.” The cacophony of horns from hundreds of cars never stopped.

Meanwhile, virtually every congressional office that will admit it reports the number of callers opposing the war far outnumber those who want to kick butt. (U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida reports anti-war calls are more than 10 times pro-war). In Italy, considered with Britain to be one of the few nations that are with Bush, 1.5 million people went to the streets on Saturday to demonstrate against the imminent war.

Some of Miller’s colleagues have sufficient principles to withstand Bush’s war-or-you’re-not-patriotic scam. Minnesota’s Paul Wellstone said last week that preventing war was more important than winning elections.

West Virginia’s venerable Robert Byrd commented: “This administration, all of a sudden, wants to go to war with Iraq. The [political] polls are dropping, the domestic situation has problems. ... So all of a sudden we have this war talk, war fervor, the bugles of war, drums of war, clouds of war.”

Maybe Zell should start listening.??