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Every Saturday afternoon, at the intersection of Main Street and South Illinois Avenue, they are still there.
Still holding their weekly vigil, still holding signs, the Southern Illinois Committee Against War is still trying to spread the message of peace.
The activists stand still and strong as motorists alternately give them peace signs and the middle finger.
The SICAW has endured the changing seasons and a turbulent political climate on the corner of Route 13 and Highway 51; however, neither has stopped their message. Now, on a hot July Saturday, their task continues.
Yuki Kobiyama of Carbondale has been attending the weekly peace vigil since they began in December 2001. She holds her sign that reads, "Support farms, not arms."
Kobiyama, who has a doctorate in plant biology from SIU, attends the vigils to promote the spread of peace, as well as to bring light to other social issues.
"In order to change the world, you must begin on a community level, all of which begins at your dinner table," Kobiyama said. "Influencing each other is the only way to spread peace."
As well as the over-encompassing mission of spreading the idea of peace, Kobiyama uses the afternoon vigils to voice other concerns.
"I believe our government is spending money on war that they should invest in social services and education," Kobiyama said. "Instead of creating peace, our foreign policy is creating new enemies."
While her passion for social justice boils just below the surface, Kobiyama speaks calmly and openly about the need for better information from the media. Her husband Scott Schuette echoes his wife's remarks.
"People need to look more critically at the information they are receiving," Schuette said. "The mass media has their own influences."
The biggest perpetrator of slanted news, according to Schuette, is Fox News.
"The blatant bias of Fox News is unbelievable," Schuette said. "They don't act like journalists, just pretty faces on the TV."
Schuette is not alone when it comes to inquiring deeper into information about the war with Iraq and our reasons for beginning the conflict.
Inquiries into the accuracy of President Bush's 2003 State of the Union Address have revealed that flawed information made its way into the speech. The line "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa" caused questioning of the claim.
CIA Director George Tenet issued a statement Friday saying his agency should have prevented the false claims from entering the Presidential speech. In his statement, Tenet gave a laundry list of reasons why he was the one at fault.
"First, CIA approved the president's State of the Union address before it was delivered," Tenet said. "Second, I am responsible for the approval process in my agency. And third, the president had every reason to believe that the text presented to him was sound.
"These 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the president."
Whether the president had knowledge of the claim being false when he delivered the speech is unclear. What is clear is that a new wave of questioning White House credibility and intelligence may again muddy the waters in the case for war with Iraq.
News of the false claim in the State of the Union Speech does not surprise Schuette.
"President Bush obviously did not tell the truth," Schuette said, " but the White House is a larger institution than one man."
While questioning the way that the U.S. government conducts its foreign policy is a common thread at the vigil, anti-Americanism is not.
"The thing that hurts the most is the misunderstanding that we are un-patriotic or anti-American," Schuette said. "I vote. I do normal things. But I also question how things are run."
In addition to the weekly peace vigils, a day of remembrance is scheduled for Aug. 6 in honor of Hiroshima Day. The remembrance vigil will take place from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the corner of Main Street and Illinois Avenue and will have speakers, a street vigil and prayer-flag making.
The goal of the evening is three-fold - to remember those who died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945; to prevent the proliferation of more nuclear weapons; and to think about the real meaning of peace.
Until then, the Saturday peace vigils will still take place from noon to 1 p.m. and will continue as long as there is a need for them, said Schuette.
"We will continue as long as there are people comfortable with preaching the message of peace," Schuette said.
