Today’s AJC story on the Aug 17th Decatur "Stand with Cindy" vigil

Below is today’s Atlanta Journal Constitution story on the vigil in Decatur. If they say over 700 then there were more than the 800 we were told about by an organizer at about 8:30, and over at a Blog for Democracy post a woman is saying she was told it was around 1000 in attendance. I have more on it in the post below with some pics. Really was surprising, as I was saying, the lack of counter-protest from cars. Since I wasn’t able to move around from corner to corner because of H.o.p., and because, as you can see from the pics, the corner is huge, the crowds on each corner were far removed from one another and you couldn’t get that great an idea of what was going on elsewhere except for the presence of candles and signs etc. But on our side, until when we had to leave, I simply didn’t see any counter-protest and there was minimal minimal counter-protest from cars. I’d expected at least a couple of counter-protest cruising cars to show up at some point, bedecked with pro-Bush, pro-war gear, but it didn’t happen, at least not from what I observed. It was too dark to do a movie, but I wish I’d done one just for the audio file, so one could hear just how loud and continual the support from cars was, the non-stop honking.

Anti-war vigil draws 700-plus

By SAEED AHMED
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 08/18/05

They stood shoulder to shoulder, mothers all. One was the first in Georgia to lose her son to the ongoing violence in Iraq. Another worried daily that her active duty daughters could be sent to war any day. A third pleaded for an end to the fighting to spare more parents heartbreak.

They were among more than 700 people who lined a busy Decatur intersection Wednesday night — some waving signs with the names of fallen soldiers, others holding aloft paper crosses identifying themselves as friends or neighbors of those who have died.
Jenni Girtman/AJC
(ENLARGE)
Rana Hasan and husband Sid denounce the Iraq war with more than 700 protesters Wednesday at Medlock and North Decatur roads in Decatur.

The vigil was one of several hundred nationwide Wednesday as a show of support for Cindy Sheehan, who lost her son to the war in Iraq last year and has been holding her own vigil outside President Bush’s Crawford, Texas, ranch since Aug. 6.

Other vigils in metro Atlanta included ones in Marietta, Little Five Points and Midtown, Jonesboro and Douglasville, said Susan Keith of Georgia for Democracy, one of the organizers.

Randy Aronov, who along with his 14-year-old son stopped by Sheehan’s Texas camp during a road trip from New Mexico to Atlanta last week, said Wednesday night’s numbers stunned him.

“She [Sheehan] is the Rosa Parks of this movement,” said Aronov, who lives in Atlanta. “I think the pendulum is swinging and we’ve reached a point where people see the fallacy of this war and are fed up with it.”

Critics of Sheehan say she is exploiting her son’s death and vigils such as the ones Wednesday promote a left-wing agenda. They say many Americans who have lost family members in Iraq support the president and his plans to keep troops there.

In Decatur, participants lined alongside Scott Boulevard and North Decatur Road for more than three hours, urging passing cars to honk or waving signs such as “War is Full-Birth Abortion.”

Next to a sidewalk, someone arranged into a peace sign paper cups that held candles and bore the faces of all the Georgia soldiers who have died.

One name was missing — that of Spc. Jamaal Addison, killed in March 2003.

Addison’s 4-year-old son and namesake cradled that cup lovingly in his hands while his grandmother discussed her planned trip to Texas on Friday.

“When my son died, I grieved for him. These days, it seems I am grieving for more and more sons everyday,” said Patricia Roberts, Addison’s mother.

Barely a couple of feet away from her, Cassaundra Cain of Decatur fretted about her two active duty daughters being called up. “Every day the phone doesn’t ring is a good day,” she said.