Beware the ides of March
by JC Torry

I attended the anti war protest on March 15 in Washington D.C. It was a great gathering of reasonably like-minded people. I have no idea how many people were there, but there were a lot of us. It was so gratifying to be around hoards of concerned, compassionate and well-informed folks. Every age group and ethnicity was represented, from infants in prams to the elderly, from Caucasian to Japanese and Middle Eastern. Many religious groups were also present; Muslim, Pagan, Christian and god only knows what else. We were all united in the effort to send a clear anti war message to the international warmongers.

Harper Lee wrote in To Kill a Mockingbird, °∞ I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what.°± Well, I did not feel all that courageous, but I did and do feel like nothing can stop this military action. I want to be very, very clear within and without myself, that I knew it is/was wrong, and I did not do nothing, even if marching around with signs and singing songs and shouting lame slogans is much of anything. This is the kind of action that allows me to live with myself, as I reap the rather dubious rewards of living in a country that flourishes at the material, physical and emotional expense of so many millions of others.

I am a warm body, for now anyway, against the war that will ultimately reveal the true face of the capitalist, imperial, multinational corporate greed and exploitation conglomerate we so fondly call America and fund with the hard earned money of our excruciatingly overburdened, rapidly shrinking, middle class. Yes, there is nothing unpatriotic about peace, but there is a great deal unpatriotic about this war for dominion over oil that will benefit so few, so much. It is a human shame, and an international tragedy. Civil rights must be fought for, as they are only granted grudgingly and under great mass social pressure. Let us do that, because after all, we are expendable, and there is nothing sacred about life in a global economic system concerned only with profit.