It's been a while...

since Colleen and I went to an anti-war protest together. Today's the day. Due to things our kids have scheduled, there's no way we can get up to San Francisco, but there's a march in San Jose starting in an hour. Colleen will drop me off at the start, come back home to take chaoswolf to an SF convention meeting, then park near the end-point of the march to wait for me.

Colleen was pretty active picketting the local Federal Building during the first Gulf War, and I did the same after Dmitry Sklyarov was arrested. But I think this is the first protest we've been to together since the 1970's.

Pre-emptive peace march

Well, it was the peace movement who launched a pre-emptive march today. Good for us: the best time to stop a war is before it starts. Not that it's likely to work this time.

There were a thousand or so people in San Jose today; far more than that ("tens of thousands" was all the BBC would say) in San Francisco and DC. Not to mention Japan, Russia, and various places in Europe. And dozens of little gatherings in towns and cities across the US, most of which won't make the news outside their own area -- San Jose was of course one of these. I think everyone I know went to San Francisco.

Most of the speakers referred to Martin Luther King, whose birthday is being celebrated this weekend; seems appropriate. Somebody pointed out (I'm paraphrasing here) that, in a world where any terrorist splinter group can build weapons of mass destruction in a backyard shed, the only way to defend ourselves is to make sure that as few people as possible have reason to hate us.

Who was it who said "whoever wants peace must work for justice"?