Not in Our Name

I am very conflicted when it comes to peace marches such as this. As a kid I attended the huge anti-nuke march on Washington in 1982 (or was it 1980?) and was proud of it, and of our numbers. But now... I believe, roughly, in what these people are saying, but I worry that the way they say it is outdated. Marches and other protest events seem to be nothing but a punchline for the people they demonstrate against. Soon after Sept. 11 last year I was part of a short peace march in my small town, which ended with speeches at a park. Most of them were from overly-ernest, simplistic stereotypical hippies. We left soon after, because I was afraid, I joked, that soon they'd start singing Kumbaya. And later I found out that's exactly what they did. People, please. I know I wasn't the only person there who was embarrassed to hear about it. This is why the Left is so fractured and ineffective. The self-appointed leaders alienate the non-extremists and the realists and this is why you/we fail. Serious people who bathe and have real jobs need to lead this movement if it's to have any support outside the gang of usual suspects from the ACLU and Greenpeace and the like. The average Joe Schmoe only scans the crowd, sees a bunch of ragtag drug casualties from the 1960s and their children, and he chuckles and goes back to reading the National Review. And the anti-war movement will not succeed unless we have huge popular support because, let's face it, Bush and co. really aren't interested in what a small minority of the voting population thinks about it.

I don't want to sing soft little songs about how war is bad and peace is nice and love is the best ever. I want the public to hear the persuasive arguments about why this particular war is a very bad idea. They're political and financial reasons, which aren't as emotional and sexy as shouting "no blood for oil" which made sense in 1991 but doesn't apply, really, to this conflict. It's a post-9-11 world and you have to admit that yes, there are some very very bad guys in the Middle East who want to kill us and we have to stop them. But those bad guys are called Al Quaeda, not The Entire Country of Iraq.

Okay, I'm rambling. Go to this march if you feel like it but don't think it will change anything. At best you'll get a minute or two on the evening news probably closed with a couple of snickering comments from the newscaster. I think well-placed editorials and letters to your congressmen - or better yet, meet personally with your rep and tell him how you feel - would do better at getting the message out.