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Antiwar ralliers march on Capitol, storm Kohl’s office
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After rallying down State Street, University of Wisconsin students from the Campus Antiwar Network and members of the Madison community stormed the office of Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wisconsin, and staged a "teach-in."
Several protesters expressed their displeasure with Kohl's voting record regarding the Iraq war.
"We're here to tell Senator Kohl we're not fooled by his little trick where he tells us he's against the war but then authorizes paying for it," said UW junior and CAN member Paul Pryse.
Kate Losey, one of the CAN event organizers, estimated that more than 200 people attended the rally. However, group members later estimated that approximately 100 people had filled the senator's office at one point.
The event lasted through the night, as protesters demanded a public meeting with the senator be scheduled and refused to leave his office until it was done.
"They aren't going to have coffee with Kohl in D.C. — they wanted to have it with him in Madison," UW sophomore Emily Harris said of her fellow protesters in Kohl's office.
In response to the protest, Kohl released a statement, saying he supports the protesters' criticism of President Bush's "broken war policy."
"I respect and admire the efforts of the UW students that have assembled today to protest the president's broken war policy and join them in calling for a safe return home for our brave men and women serving in the region," Kohl said in a statement late Wednesday.
The 1 p.m. rally, peppered with chants of "This is what democracy looks like," featured speeches from members of CAN and other antiwar student groups, as well as drumming and spoken word performances.
"We are boiling, but we are boiling together," said UW student Laurel Franklin, another CAN member. "We are boiling revolutionaries for change through counter-movements across the globe."
Immediately following the rally, a portion of the group marched to Kohl's office. Steve Burns, a member of the Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice and a UW faculty assistant in the Physics Department, explained the reasoning for the march and recounted the difficulty of meeting with Kohl in person.
"Some people call him Wisconsin's invisible senator," Burns said.
The group reached the senator's office around 3 p.m., where organizers connected by phone with antiwar activist Howard Zinn and antiwar sports columnist Dave Zirin, who addressed the group as part of the "teach-in."
At approximately 6 p.m., Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, later joined by members of the Madison police force, met with aides in the office and informed the group that only five people would be allowed to remain after 7 p.m. As of press time, roughly 25 people remained in the office.
Assistant press secretary to Senator Kohl Joe Bonafiglio said protests have occurred in the senator's office before.
"Our staff does what they can to accommodate free speech per the senator's request," he said.
Also at the rally, several members of Iraq Veterans Against the War spoke about their firsthand experiences at war.
"How many more people need to die for us to learn that our troops being there are not going to do anything but cause more death?" IVAW member Patrick Wilcox said.
Wilcox also related Monday's Virginia Tech shootings to the war, asserting that Americans have "relative apathy toward death of anyone not from our own country."
"This happens every day in Iraq," Wilcox said.
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Where you at, Ashok?
"We are boiling revolutionaries for change through counter-movements across the globe."
You guys are hilarious!
you protestors are geniuses. So not only do you vote for “Wisconsin's invisible senator” but you also schedule your little protest on the same day as the day of silence. where you planning on having a low turnout and quiet voice? get a life.
If you think a lot people died when the USA cut and run from SE Asia just wait until the death toll is in if IVAW has it’s way.
The USA can only lose the Iraq war in Madison, not in Baghdad.
You guys were awesome. Sory I couldn’t get arrested with you, but my thoughts are with you all. Even though we were treated like animals, and that one cop in white (the “cracker”) pushed us around a hell of a lot, I had a good time, and I really think that we at least got the message out that Kohl is not as anti-war or friendly to his constituents as previously thought.
Keep on fighting!
“You don’t need birth control!”
….
7:50: not only do you vote for “Wisconsin's invisible senator”…
This may be hard for you to understand, because your brain apparently only has room for “Democrats” and “Republicans”, but many people, given the choice between continue-the-war Herb Kohl and his continue-the-war Republican opponent (what was his name again?) voted for neither.
“We are boiling revolutionaries”
Sounds about right, but broiling might work better. Depends on how tender they are.
It’s easy to criticize.. harder to act. I have nothing but respect for young people who instead of plugging into their Ipod, plug into politics.
that is absolutely fantastic, keep up the good work!!
I don’t care what anyone else says, I like antiwar protests… that’s what Madison is all about. You will always have the theme of dedicated, enthusiastic and outspoken people on both sides of the argument. Unfortunately, most of these people will be uneducated on the majority of the issues. It’s a sad thought that the most politically active people are often the least in touch with the needs of the community, country, and world.
You righties have always hated veterans.
(Corrected for spelling) You people who are giving us the same old tired mis-statements about: “if we pull out now, the bloodbath that will take place will make the current bloodbath look like a tea party…, etc., etc.,” never cease to amaze me. Well, guess what? You and your policy of incessant aggression and escalation to the tune of a hundred billion dollars at a crack are largely responsible for the continued death and destruction in Iraq. The (officially) more than 3300 US soldiers (probably considerably more) and 655,000-plus dead Iraqis this war had killed died BECAUSE of the US invasion and ongoing occupation, NOT in spite of it.
This kind of protracted sectarian war is unprecedented there; we’ve only seen it on this level since March 2003. You’re being highly irrational, to say the least. As if an entirely justiable US withdraw, something quite in line with widely accepted norms of international law, couldn’t happen beacuse things will get worse - all obvious indications are that things are just the opposite of what you claim. Things ARE worse, and worse, and will only continue to get worse until the American people force the intransigent militarists and their appeasers to bring this US-inflicted horror to a richly deserved close. Within the last days, the world has witnessed some of the bloodiest bombings in recent years in Iraq, just as the surge really gets surging in all of its wasteful, murderous intensity. Today Harry Reid, rightly called the Iraq war “lost.”
I am proud to have been one of the people who occupied Kohl’s office; it was the least we could do - to call attention to this supporter, both ideological and fiscal, of policies that have resulted in incalcualble harm to Iraq AND the US. Will you enablers of the neocon militarists ever be satisfied? Will you have to deplete the entire US treasury and leave this nation utterly at the mercy of international financial institutions that are, in effect, underwriting this trillion-dollar disaster?
Many of the protestors I talked with during last night’s occupation noted how Herb Kohl has repeatedly failed to respond to his constituents on this vital matter. Are you yahoos so “Howard Sterned” out of your so-called minds that you think this is some trivial matter? Wake up and fight against the injustice and the violence done to other peoples in YOUR name before you have the world pulled out from underneath you, before it’s too late!