Pro-war activists made a show of strength at an anti-war rally today in San Luis Obispo, California. The rally, which attracted 1,250 protesters in this community of 45,000 souls, was held at a local park, and concluded with a peaceful stroll through the busy downtown area.

Longtime local peace activist Dick Krejsa introduced several speakers who spoke out against planned aggression against Iraq, and who represented the broad coalition of local activists and interests who have come together to raise their voices against the threatened pre-emptive strike against Iraq and its dictator Saddam Hussein.

Passion For Peace, the Central
Coast Peace and Environmental Council, Mothers For Peace, Newman Catholic Center, Central Coast Friends Meeting (Quakers), HopeDance Magazine, Green
Party of San Luis Obispo County, Cal Poly Progressive Student Alliance,
Women In Black, Korean Veterans Against the Iraqi War, Information Press,
SLO Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, Social Justice
Committee of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, and the Environmental Center of San Luis Obispo were among the groups involved in today's rally.

Earlier in the week, the city council here joined scores of other municipalities around the nation in passing a resolution rejecting war on Iraq.

The local colleges were well represented in today's rally, and there were a lot of kids, but most of the crowd were older folks in their 30s, 40s and up.

Finally, I suppose you've been wondering if I was ever going to get around to that titular "show of strength" by those pro-war activists I mentioned.

Well it's true - those three guys showed up, were well-behaved, and caused no problems at all in showing their support for the planned war.

I thank them for their contribution to reconciling the vast difference between the mythical public support for war portrayed by our valient media, and the reality of the voice of the people on the street.

Today, those voices were 1,250 to 3, against war.

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