Up in DC

Friday was a good day to schedule a business trip to Washington, and hang around for the protest march today.
I am hoping that 45 million people will march, but if 100- to 150,000 show up why that's just fine.
Staying at the Braxton Hotel, which is very nice... in an RCrumb kinda way.
But the whole idea of peace marching fits an RCrumb cartoon world. Sorry Jack Kerouac: at the end of the "Road" it aint pooh bear as gawd... but rather Mr. Natural and I actually saw him standing in line at the Whole Foods on P Street, Friday evening.

I came here with a friend in late September 2001 -- a psychotherapist who has been one of my best friends for about a decade, and i'm never quite sure when he's got the meter running -- to the first post-911 peace march.

P and I went because we wanted to express our strong belief that the imbeciles in the White House need not go all "War is the Answer" over the rage and the grief and the shock... That figuring out and telling the people what justice would look like, as in bringing-those-responsible-for-these-crimes-to, would be a smart idea and a good thing to do. P and I were fairly cognizant of what the Taliban had been doing in Afghanistan, and how they came upon power after the USSR left... and who the "freedom fighters" were who had morphed into al-Queda over the years... runnin' off the "Rooskies" and turning on the "Murikins."

Anyway, I think that first rally for a saner and wiser America had about 50K folks. And everybody went back home to organize. P was more than me instrumental in getting a bunch of people and groups to come together as the Greensboro Peace Coalition.

Now, six and a half years later, the feeling is different for me. The leaders in Washington aren't so much imbeciles as certifiable war criminals and their enablers. The sadness and hopelessness that always tinged these things has an edge to it. I dunno. Are the Dems gonna come thorugh with anything to stop this war? They need to stretch those haunches they been sittin back on.

We'll see what happens today. Time to walk on down to the Mall, in front of the Capitol Reflecting Pool, which is in front of the Capitol building. Which has that statue of Liberty at the very tippy top... put there by slave labor way back when...