Local War Protesters Find Reception Growing Warmer

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Local War Protesters Find Reception Growing Warmer

Published on Sunday, September 25, 2005 by the Orlando Sentinel (Florida)

Local War Protesters Find Reception Growing Warmer
Central Florida anti-war groups rally in Orlando and say passers-by are more supportive than in the past

by Sandra Mathers

More drivers were honking this time. Chris Field was sure of it.

"Before the [presidential] election, it was 50-50. People would flip us off," said Field, one of 60 Orlando-area residents demonstrating against the Iraq war Saturday. "The number of one-finger salutes have been decreasing every time we come out."

Field, an Orlando software-company office manager, and the other protesters gathered under a sweltering sun at the intersection of Colonial Drive and Bumby Avenue to hoist homemade signs.

Some were members of groups, such as Orlando's CODEPINK: Women for Peace, which sponsored the rally; Greenpeace in Orlando; and Progressive Focus from Sanford. Others came after hearing of the event from friends or Web sites.

Their cardboard messages, which drew frequent horn blasts, peace signs and hoots of support, ranged from "Indict Bush for War Crimes" and "How many troops per gallon?" to the 1970s anti-Vietnam War slogan, "Make Love, Not War."

Field, 49, a veteran protester and member of CODEPINK, held aloft a plain, white cross with the numbers 1912 in black. That's how many American soldiers have died fighting in Iraq, she said.

The women's organization, according to its Web site, is an international grass-roots peace and social-justice movement.

"Every day I look at the news, and somebody's dead," Field said. "I don't agree with this war, and I never have."

She and her fellow protesters mirror a growing anti-war sentiment in America. A recent AP-Ipsos poll found 61 percent of those who did not know anyone in Iraq thought the war was a mistake, compared with 36 percent who thought it was the right decision.

The Orlando protesters -- from a 78-year-old Hungarian woman to a 24-year-old state employee -- said they consider the Iraq war illegal, immoral and strategically impossible to win.

Scott Tess of Orlando, the 24-year-old state-agency worker, called the war "another recruitment poster for extremism." Frances Gabor, 78, who immigrated to the U.S. from Hungary in 1959, said she doesn't want soldiers "killed for unnecessary things."

And on this Saturday, not a single war advocate showed up to dispute them.

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