Give peace a chance

Note (added later): I'm not happy with the sarcastic tone I seem to have taken while writing this post. On the whole, I was quite moved by the event, and impressed by those who made the effort not only to attend, but to organize and speak at it. (I am only ever, if anything, an attendee.)

I am short on time these days, but wanted to write something before memory fails me about the "peace march" I attended last weekend. This being a very. small. town. the march, from one end of downtown to the other, lasted all of about 5 minutes, so the real event was the open forum discussion that followed.

I was the youngest person there (I'm in my 40s); average age, I'd say, was around 65. Made me wonder, do all the left-leaning Gen-Xers end up living in cities, leaving small towns to the family values crowd and retirees? Then again, perhaps people my age and younger have their own events around here, or limit their activism to signing online petitions and making online donations. I know I, for one, am more comfortable in very large crowds than in crowds of 50 or so, where anonymity is nearly impossible. (Though large crowds freak me out for different reasons.)

At the risk of being age-ist, and of over-generalizing, I can report that the senior citizen peace activist community of my small town is split between wise, eloquent, Quaker-ish pacifists and very angry, conspiracy-theory-obsessed, "radicals" still hoping for the return of the 60s. The former hold regular peaceful vigils, organize letter-writing campaigns, and are phone-banking to get out the vote; the latter seem interested only in bashing Democrats along with Republicans for selling out entirely to "big money" and being therefore entirely corrupt. Their other defining issue, apparently, is the looming threat of electronic voting machines, which are obviously all about disenfranchising regular people. Their strategy: civil disobedience on election day. Refuse to vote, or to leave the premises, unless you are given a paper ballot. Hopefully, they said, you will be refused and eventually carted off to jail, thereby attracting media attention and headlines like: Little Old Lady Jailed for Trying to Vote! (Is it just me or is this strategy just a little bit self-defeating?)

While I too am concerned about the new voting machines, I am more upset by widespread, continuing efforts to disenfranchise low-income, immigrant, and disadvantaged voters which, as far I as understand, do not center around electronic voting. (Am I wrong?)

And I'm simply fed up with Democrat-bashing at this particular historical moment, when our only hope right now lies with Democrats, imperfect as they may be.

That said, I felt quite comforted and inspired by the pacifist contingent, even though I don't entirely identify as a pacifist. Of course, no solutions to world problems of the world were offered, except the very-compelling-when-you-think-about-it-though-rarely-taken-seriously notion that the massive defense budget could go a long way toward easing some the global economic problems that fuel violence.

I'm glad I went, not only for the event itself but for the very lovely coffee I had afterwards with an acquaintance I've always wanted to get to know better. We were on the same page about the event, as were probably many of those who didn't end up speaking but still felt compelled to show up.

Oops, that ended up being MUCH longer than I'd intended, so I'll stop there.