Thanks, Stephen,
Powerfully written. I, also, would like to know how it felt at the other
demonstrations.
Your saying that there was "a deep sense of collective violation and
lament - that we, the Republic, have been almost irreparably damaged by the
behavior, decisions and consequences of this regime," struck me, too, as the
reaction from folks across all socioeconomic strata. Your choosing the word
"lament"---seldom used in any context anymore, let alone a political
context---carried the feeling forward dramatically.
Though I understand frustratingly well your wondering whether new leaders
CAN be found to help us repair, I'm strongly heartened by the weight of the
numbers of us who protest, both vocally and silently. That's our real
strength, and it has pushed itself up from wise patience, in many instances,
to righteous rage---not an easy stance to sway.
Don't you feel, then, that our political process has been and is being
revisited in ways that've been missing for years? That the dynamic is being
reborn?
I'm counting on it, working with it.
Blessings,
Judy
----- Original Message -----
From: "Stephen Vincent" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, September 24, 2005 9:12 PM
Subject: [POETRYETC] Anti-War Demo San Francisco - a little report
> Brilliant Indian summer day in San Francisco. Parade route from Dolores
> Park
> over to and down Market, up Van Ness to Turk, West to Jefferson Park.
> Definition of a Post-Modern Demonstration is Don't listen to the speeches
> at the Start, Don't Listen to Speeches at the Finish. Walk and enjoy the
> costumes, signage, other people's conversations, the drumming, the
> cat-calls
> in unison up and down the parade, salute the City. Of course, take umbrage
> at the Police with numerous surveillance cameras operating in full view -
> umbrage because the equipment was no doubt bought with Homeland Security
> Federal Grants to the local police - that's Homeland Security, the
> Federal
> Agency that somehow could not use its surveillance equipment to see that a
> hurricane was coming dead on to the Gulf Coast.
> One of my favorite signs:
> Read Between the Pipelines
> The weirdest:
> Free Hinkley
> The day's tone: Unlike three years ago, in the build-up before the war,
> and
> the one in New York before the Republican convention, instead of an
> optimism
> that the demonstration might work to alter Administration policy, or
> produce
> a new Administration, one senses two things:
> 1. The built-up rage is much more focused on Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld -
> their lies, deception, and what many have become to openly declare as
> criminal behavior.
> 2. A deep sense of collective violation and lament- that we, the Republic,
> have been almost irreparably damaged by the behavior, decisions and
> consequences of this regime. A hopelessness - in the process of the Demo -
> negated to a degree by walking, walking between the speeches, between
> Start
> and Finish. Even as this so-called leadership begins to openly implode,
> there is fear that the damage and debts incurred may be ones from which it
> will take great leadership to recover. And, 'pray tell us', I suspect many
> of us are asking, where on the political horizon is such leadership?
>
> If interested, I got a few Demo photographs up on my blog:
> Blog: http://stephenvincent.net/blog/
>
> Love to hear an account of what things felt like in Los Angeles and
> Washington, D.C. And London
>
> Stephen V
>
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