Baby Steps, Learning Quickly

Awareness is awakening in America and a movement is being born. If you only get your news from FOX, CNN, and the other corporate media outlets, you are missing some important things happening in America.

Which is exactly what the corporate news is largely about, keeping your attention focused on the wrong things. While painting a picture of the world that more nearly reflect what Karl Rove and the corporate/government theorists want you to see.

Truthout.org has a page of stories from actions around the country, here. I have spent some time today, searching out and reading info regarding protests and actions around the country, on this, the second anniversary of this war. It cheers me more than anything I've seen lately. I feel much less alone today.

Even Vancouver, on the draft less side of the border, had two thousand people marching in a steady downpour . Go here for pics of Vancouver march.

The number of actions and the average number of participants was much, much higher than this time last year. Actions leading up to the anniversary stepped up, around the country.

Students are fighting to counter the lies and deceptive tactics of military recruiters on campus. Many school administrations are assisting police in the on going attempt to silence opposition voices. In the process, those administrations are helping to build a campus movement. The more repressive their measures, the more heat generated. the faster resistence will grow.

It's all good.

Large numbers of veterans, and veterans and soldiers families, participated all over the country. In Fayetteville, NC, at Fort Brag, the demonstrations were three times larger than last year, with participants from a growing number of veterans and military family groups.

To have these people, representing the soldiers and the veterans, in such numbers, so early in the struggle, is very encouraging. The signs indicate the campus is starting to catch up.

Trade unions were involved, in a big way in many cities. For a list of cities where actions took place and a lot of the photos' go to Indybay.org

New faces appeared almost every where. I've received numerous emails from people in different cities telling me that they saw people out, this week end, that they had not seen before. In some places lots of new young faces appeared and others talked about the numbers of baby boomers who showed their faces.

The impression I get from the news one must look for on the net, and from what I have read from many participants, is that the anti Iraq War movement is well and truly arising among the American people.

It occurs to me that those who see the world only through the corporate media filtre have no idea something is happening, yet. That means George Bush doesn't know it yet either, I suppose. Until Karl lets some one tell him about it, he just won't know. I'd like to be the proverbial fly on the wall when he begins to figure it out. George doesn't handle bad news well. Especially this kind.

Staying with the reality community, we can not expect too much too quick. Therein lies the road to despair. Trust me, I know. Been there, done that. Don't go there.

One great day to celebrate the work that went into making those actions happen, will not stop the war. Won't even slow it, but some of the big steps have been taken now. There is a long siege ahead of us. We are like flees battling a Leviathan. It is a long fight that all together we will win, we will weaken the beast beyond repair. But it will not happen quickly.

We are in for a long fight and the casualties are yet to come, on the civilian side, but they are coming.

It will be interesting to see what effect the appearance of an anti-war movement, spawned before the reinstitution of the draft will have. It will certainly strengthen the no draft argument. The military reality won't go away and neither will a pesky, politically dangerous anti-war movement.

It's a pickle for the neocons and the war supporters in Washington.

If you have not already done so, I urge you to visit the links above. Read the stories, look at the many great pictures. Do a google search or go to your best news sites and read and see for yourself that a movement, is arising, among the people of America. It is just taking baby steps but it is growing and learning fast.

Then, find something you can do, something you want to do, to lend your shoulder to the wheel of democracy . It's a long trip, pace yourself for a long run. Something to give yourself a reason to be out on the streets.

Small, persistent, consistent, smartly applied pressures, can combine to topple anything. Even Bush, Cheney, and their neocon masters.

Here is a very personal idea about movement building. I believe it is profoundly important for us to have real gratitude and appreciation for anyone who steps up to plate in these times. I believe we should not hesitate to support each other in the ways that we reasonably can. The best way we can support the greater cause is to support each other, without undue regard for what we get out of that support.

Ideally, the support is mutual and strengthens us all. Making us difficult to break. Hard to isolate. More flexible in our responses to danger and adversity.


In contrast to despair, it pleases me greatly to see the stirrings of this movement in America. To see people in America reflecting the saner voices of Europe and the rest of the world. The cultural wall between Americans and the rest of the world is a very bad thing.

I have every reason to believe that the great majority of my readers are progressive thinking people. To you and to myself I want to say, have heart. We've only just begun to fight. In the long run we will win.

The constant flow of bad news, of lies, deceptions, crimes denied and wiped away, while innocents are condemned to prison, death, illness, and deprivation, can easily drive the strongest minds to despair and defeatism.

Beyond the dismal managed reality of FOX and the gang, there is something real stirring in America. The one thing Cheney, George, and the neocons are afraid of. A vibrant ground up movement of conscience, stopped Richard Nixon. George and Cheney are even more flawed than Agnew and Tricky Dick Nixon.

We are still living in the darker regions of Wonderland but the picture is much brighter than it was a year ago. Have heart, we will see it through to the other side of this toxic era. We can win. We might win back America.

A video of the large demonstration at Fort Brag in North Carolina.