On the Road again


So. Another year another trip to DC . Three trips in four years.

Marches don’t stop wars. The boomers can laude themselves for ending Vietnam but they didn’t. It became economically undesirable and it then ended. This current “They” doesn’t even belive in public opinion – so the belivers got together and voted “Them” out and damn it! The war goes on. And we are back in the streets.

See, I march because you will see us marching, you will see 300,000 thousand people out there marching and not feel alone. Maybe not you in the big towns, but it’s for the people in the little places who don’t know anyone else agrees with them. It lets the little guy know he’s not alone. It’s for all the people watching Jon Stewart on the little black and white TV in the back room with the sound turned down because the big TV is tuned to Fox News. I’m going because some other woman some other place knows better than to even think about going.

Wars are about economics. As long as the war is profitable the war goes on. The war may be costing the American public billions but it’s making billions for Buschco and they see no reason to stop making a profit. Their is money falling from the sky, along with assorted body parts but it doesn’t matter. “They” don’t stop sending troops into the meat grinder because the sights of a couple hounded thousand people with home made signs made them feel bad. “They” don’t feel anything and they never even see the signs. Do you think that Cheney and Bush feel bad about anything? Do you think Nixon felt bad? Of course not. But that woman does. She feels bad, she’s angry and she can’t go.

She can’t. So I’m going.

We do a lot of bitching about our rights and yet we so rarely exercise them. It’s no wonder they are being taken away from us, those rights might be self-evident but what you don’t lose you use. That woman doesn’t want her children to lose theirs. She doesn’t want her children to die in the desert.

The rest of you lose your rights because you allow them to atrophy. At one point you noticed a tightness, that something felt a little off but think you’re too busy or too old or too something. And then one day you hear an echo on your phone line and the day after that your mail arrives in a baggy and the day after that you can’t go anywhere without your ID card and there are cameras everywhere but you don’t mind because you don’t think you’re doing anything wrong. But hey! The trains are running on time! I notice and that woman notices and 300,000 other people notice.

Bad things happen because we’re too lazy to notice. It’s what “They” count on. We Notice. Me and that lady and the 300,000 others.

So. I’m going to trudge through the streets of DC, and yes, marching is made up of trudging and standing and getting sore feet and after a while it is very uncomfortable. And it’s going to be cold and loud and unpleasant. And I’m going to have to drive in the dark in the middle of the night to some strange place and try to be friendly with strangers and then leach on to the friendliest stranger because I’m there on my own and you don’t want to be alone with 300,000 others. Somewhere, that woman wishes she was there with me.