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ANTIWAR MOVES
Gambling for peace
BY ADRIAN BRUNE

As the US keeps trying to get past Turkey’s boundaries, efforts to prevent war on Iraq have begun to border on the bizarre. To counter the mind-numbing rhetoric from ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism), one of the driving forces of the peace movement, a group of concerned citizens founded www.marchtowar.com, a new Web site that harnesses the power of Internet gambling to raise money for the civilian casualties of a US-led war against Iraq. It works like this: log on to the site, pick a date and a time when the war will begin by making a $5 donation, and the player with the winning guess (the one closest to the start of the bombing) receives prepaid gas cards valued at 20 percent of the total pool. The remaining money will go to humanitarian organizations devoted to cleaning up the mess President George W. Bush seems bent on creating.

" Blood for oil? You bet! " the site states on the first page. " While the rest of the country eagerly anticipates war with Iraq, one lucky soul will reap the benefits right away. That’s right, we’re giving away free gasoline to the winner of our Baghdad Bonanza Betting pool. So fire up the SUV — it won’t be long now! "

Marchtowar.org spokesperson Kelly Bundy says that war is imminent and that the site is providing ordinary people the tools to help its victims while having a little laugh at the irony involved in the impending Bush-Saddam disaster. " As Americans, we feel that it’s our duty to help those civilians — after all, this war is being carried out largely in our name, " she says. Payments may be made by credit card or check, and will be held in escrow until time of payout by the nonprofit organization Boston Mobilization. Although anyone may place bets and contribute to the pool, only Massachusetts residents are currently eligible to win the prize. Efforts are under way to expand eligibility to nonresidents, since news of the site is catching on quickly, especially among sarcasm-loving New Yorkers. The only people who can’t play are members of the United States armed forces and National Security Agency.

In other news from the protest front, more than 120 representatives from the antiwar movement in 28 countries convened in London this weekend to strategize and coordinate international efforts to stop the war on Iraq; the US was represented by a delegation from the ANSWER coalition. The London meeting issued a statement of international coordination calling for " a massive escalation of action in the next weeks to try to prevent war, " and announcing demonstrations, protests, and mass actions on March 15 in solidarity with the ANSWER-sponsored Emergency Convergence on the White House. This week, however, it’s Code Pink for Peace’s turn to demonstrate at the White House. On March 8, the women's group will convene at Malcolm X Park at 11 a.m., and then march down 16th Street at 1 p.m. to " encircle the White House in pink, " according to Code Pink’s Web site. Thus, they will celebrate International Women’s Day by protesting in the freezing cold in an attempt to get the big guy’s attention while he’s tucked away at Camp David. Then, on March 15, ANSWER steals the show again. The organization is directing protesters to gather at noon at the Washington Monument (located at Constitution Avenue between 15th and 17th Streets NW, just south of the White House) for a rally and march.

Issue Date: March 6 - 13, 2003
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