Peace Marchers of the Loneliest Kind

[babylonsister]

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/07/09/2400/

Peace Marchers of the Loneliest Kind
by Colleen Mastony

LOVELAND, Colo. — Against the majestic backdrop of the Rocky Mountains, in the far eastern corner of Colorado where the land begins to flatten into a vast golden prairie, two teenagers trudge along the weed-bitten edge of an isolated highway. Blistered and sunburned, they endure wind, rain and searing heat. But still, they slog forward in what has become a quixotic journey across the country in an effort to end the Iraq war.

Ashley Casale, 19, and Michael Israel, 18, are walking 3,000 miles from San Francisco to Washington in a trek they once had hoped would rally the nation and lead thousands to join them in their epic March for Peace. But, nearly halfway through their trip, the teens remain alone, wandering the vast landscape of America, where few have paid them any attention. 0709 02

“It seems like the country is asleep,” said Israel, a rail-thin young man with deep-set blue eyes, walking the roadside on a recent morning, his voice sometimes drowned out by the roar of huge trucks zooming past. “A lot of people we meet are against the war. But it doesn’t seem like many people are doing anything about it.”

Sometimes cattle grazing in a nearby field are their only audience, the chirping of crickets their only encouragement. They are the loneliest peace marchers, sleeping in parks or behind abandoned businesses, surviving on granola bars and peanut butter, hoping that more people will hear of their protest and join them.

Their youthful idealism comes in stark contrast to a sense of complacency in America, where polls indicate that a majority of Americans oppose the war but relatively few of them have taken to the streets in active protest. Even Cindy Sheehan, the longtime face of the anti-war movement, has abandoned her quest, saying she feared her efforts had been in vain. “I shudder to think what it is going to take, after everything that has happened in this country during the Bush administration, to get the country to rise up,” she said.

With the Bush administration resisting the tide of public opinion turning against the war, “there’s a sense that simply carrying a sign to show opposition isn’t very useful today,” said Lawrence Wittner, a history professor at the State University of New York at Albany and author of the book “Peace Action.”

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[Ron Green]

1. There's no widespread sacrifice in the US.

Without a draft, it's "somebody else's kid." As long as there's plenty of cheap shit to buy at Wal*Mart and non-stop sports on TV, those kids will walk a lonely road.

[MADem]

2. They won't wake up until there's a draft, sorry to say.

Look to history, the lessons are there.

People don't give a shit so long as it doesn't affect THEM. Their kid isn't going, so, well, who cares? The only time they'll care, absent a draft, is if a WAR TAX is instituted. Then you'll see REPUBLICANS in the streets complaining!

It's why we don't see people in the street demonstrating in large numbers each and every week of the year like we saw during Vietnam--instead, we see these huge, twice a year or so, demonstrations that are organized by groups that have other agendas, and dilute the antiwar message with a bunch of side dishes that cause the goals of the antiwar activists to be questioned or tainted. Not every person who opposes the war, for example, feels any particular solidarity with Hugo Chavez, but these semi-annual mega-demos sure make it seem that way.

[shenmue]

3. Good kids

:patriot:

:loveya:

They have my respect.