A friend left me a message the other day, mentioning that there's a protest march coming up on March 20 in San Francisco.
I went to several of these last year. I won't be attending this one.
Why?
Well, first of all, as opposed to the war as I was, it's now a done deal. I want the troops to come home, but I sure as heck don't want to see Iraq slide into civil war, either. And they're still reconstructing. So... we broke it, we pay for it, right? Of course, that's easy for me to say. I am not in the military and nor are any of my relatives or friends. But nor am I living in Iraq, where women can't hardly leave their homes because the crime rate has skyrocketed.
Another reason for not wanting to participate is more personal. I am Jewish, and there was an undertone to some of the things I saw and heard at those rallies that made me uncomfortable. One guy there made no attempt to be subtle about it — he dressed as Uncle Sam but with swastikas on his hat and a sign that said "I want you to die for Israel." I was enraged but my friend told me to try to ignore him. (Me being me, I didn't succeed in that.) The actually speakers were more subtle, but still, sometimes they made me feel out of place (or bored.) Ignore it? Well, Andrew Sullivan tried to ignore the right wing's positions on civil liberties and gay rights because he supported a bunch of other conservative positions. He seems to be now realizing the price of accomodation.
And I've basically come to the conclusion that International A.N.S.W.E.R. and their backing organization, the Workers World Party are pretty nutty in general, and that I cannot support many of their positions. For example, from the WWP website:
Tienanmen Square: "the June 4 events were a battle-not a massacre."
North Korea
More North Korea ("The land, factories, homes, hotels, parks, schools, hospitals, offices, museums, buses, subways--everything in the DPRK belongs to the people as a whole. No logos or brand names claim possession over any of it. When people talk about defending their country from the imperialists who would like to carve it up and swallow the pieces, they take for granted that it belongs to them, not to foreign investors or a wealthy elite, as in all the capitalist countries.") Kind of puts the Bush administration's spin doctors to shame, doesn't it?
Anyway. It sucks, because I'm very much for "money for jobs, health care, housing & education, not for war & occupation." I just utterly fail to see how these folks will get us there, and I don't like feeling uncomfortable because of who I am. I will be sticking to Moveon.org and Brit Tzadek V'Shalom... and getting Bush and his cohorts the hell of the White House. Yeah.
