30

If I am ever brain dead with no chance of recovery please do not let Tom De Lay and Jeb Bush keep my body alive (yes, friends and family may print out this weblog entry and hold onto it if the situation ever arises - consider it my living will). My guess is that Tom and Jeb empathize with that Schiavo woman so much, because their own states of being aren't that different from hers.

On a brighter note, the antiwar march in San Francisco yesterday was better and larger than I expected. For one thing, it stopped raining, which helped. But I was also surprised at the turnout because of how confused, abandoned and under attack the antiwar movement has been lately. Confused - a lot of folks I've talked to in the past few weeks seem demoralized and unsure about what can be done to stop the war. Abandoned - there has been talk that Move On has moved on and I certainly didn't see the web banners on Common Dreams and elsewhere announcing the international day of action; also the mainstream media seems to be paying less attention (I didn't think it was possible). Under attack - as always, protesters are accused of being unamerican by the right and foolish by the liberal left.

But on to the brighter note thing. Scanning the news wires this morning, there were actually a lot of protests and a decent amount of news coverage globally. Hundreds of thousands marched in London, and I would estimate that 20,000 marched in San Francisco. There were a lot of smaller protests around the world, e.g., Malaysia. The global coordination, despite the lack of support I mentioned above, still amazes me. I don't think there has been anything like it on this planet before.

The question for me is what can we do with that coordination. The vast majority of people on this planet that hold an opinion on the matter are opposed to the war in Iraq. Even a majority of Americans think it was a mistake and that we should pull out our troops. Despite my wisdom at the age of 30, I don't have the answer. But I'm sure that we should stay in the streets, we should continue to kick military recruiters off school campuses, we should continue to connect with antiwar movements across the globe, and we should exploit the war machine's weaknesses as much as possible. Finally, I think the biggest issue that we must overcome in this country if we want a genuine antiwar, anti-imperialist movement to come alive in the belly of the beast is patriotism (or more accurately, American nationalism). This is one of those unpopular stands that I refuse to back down from - I am an internationalist, not a patriot. How do I convince others that this is o.k.? Again, my vast wisdom holds no clear answers.

Today: I will drive! Not a car I own, but a car I share. City Car Share has made it possible.

One last thing - check out this article on the Syria/Lebanon situation. It really helps put things in perspective.