Not just anti-war but pro-democracy

Yes, we're at the edge of a desperately unwanted war and that in itself
could lead to despair. But the global movement that has sprung to life in
these scant months should give us cause for modest optimism as well. Harriet
Barlow, a long-time organizer, suggests – quite correctly, I believe –
that, unlike at the onset of Gulf War I, this movement will not simply die
away in the face of a well-orchestrated (as well as sometimes perfectly
genuine) patriotic reaction to wartime. In fact, it could well be that the
Bush administration will "win" in Iraq and manage to lose the world in the
process.

What strikes me about the movement, as it has developed here and elsewhere,
is what Barlow calls its "joy," its festive, theatrical, creative, and
generative component which in itself inspires, attracts, and offers hope.
New ideas about how to protest – and so to spread the word (or perhaps the
words, many of them) – arise with staggering frequency. Only recently high
school and college students (including my own son) left their schools,
nationwide, sometimes under the threat of sanctions, to demonstrate against
the war.

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Ruth Rosen just wrote a piece about an
organization, launched by Medea Benjamin, called Code Pink (a gentle play on
the administration's manic coloring coding of every moment in our lives),
whose activists have staged a four-month long vigil in front of the White
House. "In a playful but passionate piece of political theater," she writes,
"San Francisco activist Medea Benjamin spent last Tuesday trying to hand
pink slips to President Bush and members of his war team for inflicting a
senseless war and a sinking economy on ordinary American families."


http://www.nationinstitute.org/tomdispatch/index.mhtml?emx=x&pidG1