Bring the Troops Home Rally & March: March 17, 2007
When someone is asked to speak they are asked to provide knowledge, comfort, or an explanation. Even with the documentaries I've seen and the literature I've read I don't feel I know enough about conflict. I have no right to comfort and say everything will be okay. And there is no just explanation for why there is an Iraq conflict. But maybe there is an explanation for why people who don't favor the conflict aren't doing anything and why people think it's okay. An American poet by the name of Jean Toomer wrote, "[People] adjust to what they should not; they are unable to adjust to what they should." We are all able to adjust to conflict, but somehow we are unable to adjust to peace.
People, especially young people, don't do anything unless they really want to. Unless something really makes them desire it. Maybe the youth of today are too lazy or uninformed. Maybe they're too self-involved or maybe this conflict isn't affecting them because there isn't a draft. Yet. But it's not enough to care or to feel a certain way. You have to do something about it. It's not enough for a political leader to think about something. What counts is what he or she does.
At the same time I myself perhaps like many of you, often feel I'm not really doing anything at all. I wish I could take all the money I earn and really contribute to the peace movement with all the energy I have, and make it not just a part of my life, but my whole life. But it's not the only thing I think about. And I am just as selfish as anyone. I'm going to use that money for college and whatever, but I can take time to go to a peace march like anyone else. I can pass out fliers and I can vote in the next election.
As some of you might already know there were 378 million more votes for American Idol than there were for who would be our American President in the last election. And I've heard again and again, that what one person does doesn't matter. One vote doesn't matter. If you feel that way, then get a group together and vote. Or you should come up with something creative if you're not old enough.
Until what feels like recently, I was always more apathetic that action-oriented. It was a combination of things that finally made me feel like really getting involved, but the three most prevalent are this Peace Coalition I'm involved in, a class I take called Peace Studies taught by Mr. Michael Baker at East High, and when I was finally able to register to vote a few weeks ago. It's great if people think a peaceful way is the best way to live, but unless they do something, anything, it does not matter what they think.
Go to a Peace Coalition meeting on Saturdays at 2 at Crescent moon Coffee House n the Haymarket. Write letters to our political leaders. Protest at the federal building on "O" Street for an hour at five on Wednesdays. Pass out fliers for a cause. Make youtube videos like a young girl has on Peacetakescourage.org. Lend books or movies to people you know who don't know enough. For all of the adults here, it is your responsibility to get the youth you know to feel the need to do something. And for all of the youth here, use that ability called peer pressure to get your friends to do things like coming to this march. Every one should at least invite people to think about what's going on in their world with a discussion. Because when you invite people to think, you are inviting revolution.