Shades of the '60s, '70s

By Staff
Feb. 16, 2003
Anti-war protests weren't limited to the more traditional places this weekend. Even in Mississippi, peace rallies broke out in opposition to any U.S. military action against Iraq, and they took place in cities like Jackson, Oxford, Starkville, Biloxi and Hattiesburg.
Protesters, for example, gathered on the lawn of the Oxford courthouse to sing, pray and generally show their support for giving weapons inspectors in Iraq more time. They held signs with slogans such as No War'' and Killing Iraqis will not set them free.'' They lined the sidewalk in front of the Town Green in Biloxi, carrying signs that read, Stop war'' and No blood for oil'' and waving at passing cars.
Just a handful of people in conservative and very pro-military Mississippi unlike hundreds who gathered in places such as New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Miami, Seattle. But even this handful of people was exercising the American right to try to shape public opinion.
In some cases they were joined by U.S. military veterans. One of them was Bill Spalding of Biloxi, who served in the Navy during World War II. He said war would not solve the nation's problems with Iraq.
War begets war and hatred,'' Spalding said. It begets a troubled nation. Let the United Nations determine this. That's what it was set up to do.''
In Jackson, about a dozen protesters gathered at Ridgewood Court and East County Line Road, toting signs that read, No War in Iraq'' in a peaceful demonstration.
Is the impending war with Iraq turning thoughts back to the 1960s and early 1970s when another war in Vietnam was taking its toll on the American psyche?