Vigil News and then some...

It's been a week to the day since I have posted anything, or even thought about posting anything.

I attended the local vigil for peace and came away with an array of mixed emotions.
An array of mixed emotions. Is that redundant? Who cares.

Here is coverage of the event by the local news. The coverage was fairly lame in my opinon, but I believe it was last minute, much like the event itself.

Here is a link to some photos of the event. I am not armed with a digital camera, and this caused some disappointment for myself. Not being a limousine liberal, it's just not on my 'need' list at the moment. Any personal pics on this website are done by my sister.
ANYhow, those are the photos from the event that a guy with a camera took, and volunteered to send me the link.

Additional news and photos from around the country regarding that particular evening can be found via this Democratic Underground link.
There are some pretty good shots there, like the one I ganked and posted above. That picture is worth a thousand words and then some. (click for larger pic)

I talked about the Silent March idea with a couple of people there, and of course everyone is thrilled with the idea. Getting it to happen of course, is another story altoghter.

September 24th, 25th and 26th there is this event, which I plan on attending. My grandmother is having her 85th birthday on the 25th so that's one day I'll be skipping.
Fortunately I live close enough to be able to drive to a satellite Metro station, and head in from there. So, looks like Saturday and Monday I'll be in DC practicing civil disobedience or something like that.
I will talk to, or attempt to talk to, the organizers of the UPJ event that weekend about the Silent March.

Classes started for me last night, and that yields both excitement and disappointment. I'll save that diatribe for another day, but let me say I cannot for the life of me understand how a student can come to class without a writing utensil or anything to write on. I truly worry for the future of this country, the current debacle aside. That was just the first class, can't wait until tonight and tomorrow night. Oh joy.
I'm sure it will get better, it always does. Long about the drop/add time period there will be more parking in the deck, less noise, and fewer people wasting the professors and dedicated students time.

Over the last week, since attending the small peace rally in front of the Virginia Museum, I have perused many websites that hail from the right. I was tempted to post some of the comments that I came across, but asked myself why? We all pretty much know the postions of the right and the left political spectrums in the good 'ol USA.

What I don't completely understand is the viciousness of what is passing as debate anymore. It's rather depressing observing citizens of a democracy engage in near violence verbally, heck, advocate violence verbally.

I ran afoul among some of the peace protesters at the event I attended by not advocating a wholesale pullout of Iraq. There is no way we can just up and leave, we fucked that place up royally and we own it. We have to own it, and we have to own it for a long time.

What I would like to do, is start formulating real solutions to this debacle we are in. Wholesale pullout is as ignorant as the genius behind going in there in the first place. I would like to ask anyone that reads this blog, and that might be nobody after a week of not posting, to offer real solutions or ideas to solutions that might get us out of Iraq and not leave that place in shambles. Apparently Bush is incapable of doing so, as is his whole entourage. There is no debate on that issue anymore.

There is no debate on WMD's: non-existant.
There is no debate on Iraq being tied to 9-11 and Osama: non-existant.
There is no debate on whether Bush had plans to invade Iraq prior to 911, which again had not one thing to do with Iraq.
If you are still debating any of these topics, you're lost.

The real and only debate now is how we get out of Iraq, not leave that country in shambles, and repair any and all damage that has been done regarding relations with the Muslim community in the middle east.
That's a tall order and one that may never be realized. Much like the ideological extremists that exist in the Muslim world, we have our own ideological extremists here, and they will always want to kill each other off so their ideology can reign supreme.

If Bush is impeached, yay and big deal. He is what he is, everyone pretty much is aware of this except for the diehards. The diehards are just that and will never change.
If Bush committed treason by bullshitting America into war, then his just reward will come. Same for Rove and the other cronies in that gang.

The real question now is what do we do after the dust is settled on the Bush administration?

What's the next presidential election going to bring us? How is the Republican party going to right itself after being hijacked by the religous right? That hijacking has take some time and organization, and even with looney Pat Robertson spouting off and Bush promoting un-intelligent design, it's not going to go away easily.

What if we as a nation re-elect the party that brought all of the current chaos and turmoil front and center? How many theocratic idealists can this country absorb? How much bullshit has to go down before people wake up? In this country, only the economy will do it. Capitalists could care less if our people are dying in a senseless war, until the their pocketbook is affected. Just a guess, but I'm bettin' that capitalist vote Repbublican by and large. Is that a partisan and biased statement? Sure is, but ask yourself is it true?

What will it take to get the 80 million voting age people in this country that did not vote in the last eletion to get involved, to see that by not involving themselves they only add to the misery?

Perhaps this is the course of a free and open capitalist society. We lose our souls slowly at first and then it snowballs into all out war. Our nation is relatively young on the world stage. We have bullied, bullshitted and exploited our way to the proverbial 'top' in a relatively short amount of time.

Look at our nation, look at what is being debated, and look at who is in charge.
How can anyone with a grain of common sense like what they see?

I'm off to class. ,