More Protesting

I was leaving work late and passed the monday evening anti-war protesters. Normally I'm not on that road and I get out earlier so I rarely see them. But yesterday I saw them and even saw my former english teacher that I think very highly of so I said what the hell, I've got nothing going on. So I stopped and chatted for a few, then grabbed a sign. As I would have expected the vast majority were indifferent, but there were far more honks, waves, thumbs up and peace signs being thrown than I had expected. There was also more negative feedback than at the last event. Some we could simply laugh at like the guy who yelled, "watch the news, we're winning!" as he drove away. I turned to my former teacher and said, "you can no more win a war than you can win an avalanche." She liked it and I admitted it wasn't mine but could not recall who said it. I then realized that I think the quote was earthquake not avalanche but it doesn't really matter. And for the record it is earthquake and it was said by Jeannette Rankin, although I don't know who she is/was.

The only negative feedback that was tough was the guy who said his cousin had been killed in Iraq then sarcastically thanked us for supporting him.This is a view I simply can't wrap my head around. I know people want to think that their loved one died for a good cause but sadly thats not the case, allowing more people to die doesn't make the cause any greater it only makes the pain greater.

On a total side note I find great irony in the fact that when looking at quotes on war at the bottom it has the previous subject as Violence and the next subject as Wealth. It's only because of the order of the alphabet but its still disturbing how those go together, but not for the same people.

Call me Oblio 'cause I'm going back to the point, those who claim that leaving would be an insult to those who have died seem to miss the fact that the wrong doing is not those who struggle to prevent unnecessary war but those who send others to fight in war that was never justifiable. Your friend and relative was not killed by peace activists, nothing we do can change the sacrifice that they made, but we can prevent others from having to go through what you've been through.

One thing that always pisses me off but I understand why its done is how we always have to talk about the sacrifices of our troops first then if you want mention the Iraqi children killed. To be fully un-PC about it I care a whole lot more about the innocent people in Iraq being killed than the soldiers, I know its blasphemy to our nationalistic fervor to say that but its the truth. As a humanist I care about people I don't give a shit about granfalloons, so when an innocent child is killed I care, when a soldier is killed fighting in a war they chose to be a part of then I still care, but not as much. Some will argue that most of the soldiers did not chose to be there, well they joined the military, even if they did it during peace and only wanted the military to pay for college they still made a conscious decision and joined the military. It's sad that I know there are places where I would be threatened with violence for the mere suggestion of what I just said.

I'd catch hell for that last paragraph but.... Ah the joys of low readership, I can say whatever I want. In the words of Mitch Hedburgh, "They said you can swear on XM radio. No shit, ’cause nobody can hear it. You can swear in the woods, too."