75 Attend Teach-In on Gulf Crisis

Reminiscent of teach-ins during the 1960s, clusters of college and high school students lounged quietly on the grass at Ventura College Sunday, listening to rock bands and applauding activists speaking against war.

The group of about 75 students did not carry placards or march, chanting, through town. Instead, the rally’s organizers said they wanted to give a history lesson on the Mideast conflict and point out the social and environmental reasons not to go to war.

“We didn’t want the ‘Hell no, we won’t go’ attitude,” said Cathy Sparks, a religious studies major who organized the event with her husband, Jeff. “This is an educational forum. . . .We thought we’d give people a day to get together for peace.”

She added, “I’m hoping more people will get together and have teach-ins.”

Mindy Lorenz, the Green Party leader who ran as a write-in candidate in the 19th congressional district in November, spoke to a group of about 75 students about her activism in college more than 20 years ago.

“It’s tragic that we didn’t learn some of the lessons of Vietnam,” Lorenz said. “We can no longer solve conflicts through military means.”

The Green Party supports removing troops from Saudi Arabia and replacing them with a United Nations peacekeeping force, Lorenz said. The party also advocates continued use of economic sanctions against Iraq, she said.

Armando Zumaya, who heads Sane Freeze, a Santa Barbara-based organization for nuclear disarmament, told the students not to be discouraged by the small size of their crowd. “This is how it starts,” he told the students gathered on the campus lawn.

If war breaks out in the Middle East, Zumaya said U.S. troops will be fighting to benefit the oil interests in the region. “This is not about democracy,” he said. “This is not about freedom. This is about people’s profit margins.”