A New Hope

It's been a long time since I've updated this political side blog. That's largely been because after the democrats lost the election in 2004 I've felt completely burned out on politics. I've kept up to date on most things, but I've had no interest in discussing them (outside of small circles of friends) and certainly not writing about them.

The Cindy Sheehan movement down in Texas caught my attention, in part because I like that kind of In-Your-Face refusal to sit down in the back of the room and just be quiet form of protest and because she was starting to get some national exposure for an issue that the current administration has been despirately trying to marginalize.

National coverage is one thing. Mobilizing that energy into personal action by individuals is another. The former could be simply a media-generated fad to generate news-interest during a slow period of the year; the latter would mean something really was out there and happening.

Early last week emails were sent out to organize Vigils in support of Cindy Sheehan all across the country. Given the short notice (emails went out on Monday, the vigils were on Wednesday) I wasn't expecting much. Still, we decided to go to the Vigil closest to us and hope for the best.

I took lots of pictures of our small Vigil on the bridge. The people were all very relaxed, peaceful and friendly. We all knew why we were there and were grateful to find that we each weren't alone in our opposition for the war in Iraq. It was a good evening.

I posted a selected number of my images up to my flickr account. Later in the day someone posted a Flash presentation slideshow of some of the best images found on flickr from Vigils all around the country. That slideshow, found here, was important to me -- not so much because the picture shown above is included, but because I was able to see evidence that there were over 100,000 people who were all willing to more-or-less spontaneously come together to peacefully, quietly stand in support of Cindy Sheehan and in opposition to an unjust and immoral war.

Looks like there may be hope for us yet.


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