The crowd was really diverse and consisted of everyone from 80-something WWII vets wearing their campaign hats and stickers demanding an end to the war, to self-styled revolutionary socialist types complete with really cool buttons and no awareness that the whole revolution schtick didn't work during the last anti-war demonstrations of the 70s and is not likely to work again. Anarchists and radical socialists can be endearingly dorky in their naive belief in the essential goodness and selflessness of people -- all we have to do is get rid of the old government and something new and wonderful will rise up in its place! Power to the people! I'm more of a "power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely" type, and believe fervently that the checks and balances found in our constitutional system of government, while grievously flawed, are the best we can do under the circumstances, those circumstances being that people are people and bound to screw up, to behave venally or stupidly or parochially, and that any time power is concentrated in a few hands those hands should be divided into competing entities (executive, legislative, and judicial), each carrying sticks with which to whack each other from time to time.
Through casual encounters I spoke to people about Senator Webb's work and gave them some background on him. They were from places like Connecticut and New Mexico, and knew very little of him, but all were impressed with his rebuttal of the SOTU and happy to hear about his BornFighting PAC.
Next came the FreeRepublic counter-protesters, a group of mostly guys, mostly vets, standing with a lot of American flags and signs accusing the protesters of being against the troops.
Some people were just leaning over the fence screaming invective at them (one guy in a bicycle suit was really very abusive and told the young man with one leg that he "deserved" what he got because he was part of the "war machine", which made me want to break the leg of the creep in the bike suit). Shades of Vietnam! It's just great to hate war and all that, but we do NEED the people in the "war machine" to protect us and our country and the clown in the bike suit who takes his freedom to be an a**hole for granted.
After telling several people around me that it was not only unproductive but plain wrong to attack the counter-protesters I got into a heated discussion with them. Initially they called me an idiot, but then I began to make some headway by telling them that I honored their service and patriotism but felt it was being misused by the Administration, using Senator Webb's points about the lack of an endpoint and asking them pointblank what our strategic objective was. By the way, listening to the Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committee hearings has done wonders for my grasp of these issues. One young man said he had just enlisted and was going into basic training shortly. He was surprised when I congratulated him on his sense of duty and wished him well, but told him that his job there will be to play whack-a-mole with people who won't want him there. A woman standing next to me then joined in saying her son is a Marine near Tikrit. She was almost crying in her worry over him and kept telling the enlistee he was in for a rude awakening. I asked why we haven't gotten Osama yet and pointed out that we created a vacuum in Iraq which has been filled by warring parties whose only agreement was to produce a constitution forbidding any government action "contrary to Islam". They were getting a little confounded at that point. Our disagreement continued, but they did seem less hostile. Unfortunately, the police then came along and told everyone to break up the demonstration and go home. Time was up and I could not continue the conversation.
My sense of the counter-protesters was that they have bought into the O'Reilly reality and believe "that if you're not for us you're against us". One guy uttered that very phrase to me, and I asked him how we as free and independent-thinking Americans can park our consciences and our brains at the door and let our President do all our thinking for us as if we were in some authoritarian state, without any concern about whether his course of action makes sense. No answer to that one.
I don't know how many photos I got, how good they were, and whether I'll be able to upload them to this diary. If I can I will.
Anarchists and radical socialists can be endearingly dorky in their naive belief in the essential goodness and selflessness of people -- all we have to do is get rid of the old government and something new and wonderful will rise up in its place! Power to the people! I'm more of a "power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely" type, and believe fervently that the checks and balances found in our constitutional system of government, while grievously flawed, are the best we can do under the circumstances, those circumstances being that people are people and bound to screw up, to behave venally or stupidly or parochially, and that any time power is concentrated in a few hands those hands should be divided into competing entities (executive, legislative, and judicial), each carrying sticks with which to whack each other from time to time.My main reason for missing the rally was because I had other things to do. I would have liked to go, because I do like camaraderie and the excitement, but I come prepared for being disgusted with some of the same people who agree with me on some or all issues.
"I'm more of a "power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely" type, and believe fervently that the checks and balances found in our constitutional system of government, while grievously flawed, are the best we can do under the circumstances, those circumstances being that people are people and bound to screw up, to behave venally or stupidly or parochially, and that any time power is concentrated in a few hands those hands should be divided into competing entities (executive, legislative, and judicial), each carrying sticks with which to whack each other from time to time."