Anti-war supporters organize in Bethel to rally against the war

On Saturday afternoon, supporters of Connecticut Opposes the War (CTCOW) from the Danbury area came together and held a meet-up at Bethel's Molten Java. The meeting was one of many meet-ups that were held across the state and part of CTCOW's effort to organize and strategize for the upcoming anti-war rally in Hartford on March 17 th.

While it's usually hard to get people to come together for anything, I was pleasantly surprised with the turnout who seemed ready to get to work. Impressing was the wide range of people who came out to show their support. From local officials, to student activists, union representatives, and people who just out of Iraq, everyone was able to express their views and with CTCOW spokesperson Josh Nessi  was able as assign people several key responsibilities. Not bad for first time meet-up.

Now, the event did not go without a few glitches as the telephone conference did not go as planned but in the end, people abandoned the new technology and opted to work the old fashion way, by signing people up, collecting money for the march, and getting people active and fired up about the march and moving forward.

While Nessi led the discussion outlining the effectiveness of speaking out against the war, State Rep. Jason Bartlett stopped in and reassured people that speaking out and communicating with your elected officials is an effective tool in activism.

In the end, I think organizers of the event were able to get across the message that it's important that we apply more pressure on our political leaders to do the right thing and work on passing a binding resolutions.

Here’s my video report on the meet-up.