Peace club preps for march

While many students will spend this weekend party-hopping or visiting friends, the members of Penn for Peace have something different in mind. On Saturday, they'll join thousands of others in a march in Washington, D.C. to protest the war on Iraq. They also say they will use the event as an opportunity to honor the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. Penn for Peace -- a campus organization that was founded in response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks -- along with Penn faculty, staff and community members, will pile into three buses and head to the nation's capital where they will bear the bitter cold to get their message out. Approximately 125 people are expected to make the trip from campus to Washington. According to Penn for Peace member and College of General Studies student Matt Grove, Penn for Peace is "an alternative to revenge as a response to Sept. 11." The group has been involved in protests, such as the one against Vice President Dick Cheney's visit to campus, and has also raised money for refugees in Afghanistan and people who lost their jobs following the World Trade Center attacks. While Penn for Peace members said the group has "no concrete ideology," its primary platform is its anti-war stance. The core members of the group met last night at Civic House to make their signs and discuss their views. Although not everybody who went will attend the march, they nevertheless went to the meeting to help out. At the meeting, discussion included serious debates about the war, interspersed with the usual college gossip about classes and professors. Although the members share similar views, there was no one message that they were told to put on the signs. As one member put it, "Write whatever you want," was their only instruction. Because of this, the signs varied in focus and design. They included serious, angry and humorous messages, such as "The Remedy for Destruction is Creation," "Jew for Palestine, Against the War" and "We Bombed Afghanistan... But Where Is the Democracy?" But the preparation began long before last night. Penn for Peace has been on Locust Walk all week getting its message out and selling bus tickets to the protest. Priced at $20 a piece, they are already sold out. College freshman Jen Coleclough, who was responsible for organizing the transportation, noted that Penn faculty donated money for student tickets, making it more affordable for students to come. Grove said he is impressed with how many people are supporting Penn for Peace's cause. "If there are 90 people who are willing to give up a Saturday to stand outside in the cold, then there's probably ten times that many on campus." Grove noted that although the "biggest reaction is not caring," there is also a significant anti-war sentiment on campus. "People are not convinced that Bush has provided any credible evidence that Iraq is a threat or that this attack will reduce terrorist attacks on the United States," he said. While many of those who support the war see anti-war sentiment as a lack of patriotism, College senior Anne Wadsworth disagreed. "Patriotism is wanting your country to be the best it can be," she said. College sophomore Milo Vandemoortele simply doesn't believe that the U.S. is giving a good enough reason to go to war. She thinks that the Bush administration should first deal with problems on the homefront and devote more funding to education, not war. Vandemoortele joined Penn for Peace because she feels that it takes action rather than just talking and making plans. "We actually do stuff," she said. And that's exactly what the group's members plan on accomplishing this weekend as they head to Washington, carrying their individual messages with them, whether around their necks or on a stick.