Re: Re: Sacramento anti-war rally

[joanna bujes]

Hey Ravi,

Thanks for the NYC report. Chuck Grimes, Sabri Oncu, and I spent about seven hours at the SF demo today. That's more or less how long it took for everyone who wanted to show up, to walk from the ferry building up Market street to the civic center. The speeches, as usual, were awful. One of the reasons I rue the decline of sunday religious services is the decline in the rhetorical skills of speakers: mumbo jumbo, psycho babble, radical posturing ....endless droning. The words were not there, but the feeling was. It is quite amazing to me to see all these people out on the streets ahead of the actual fact. It is quite amazing to me that entirely unpolitical people came to the demo (my 19 year old son's first). It is quite amazing to me to witness this groundswell of incohate sentiment.....I said to Chuck: "OK. I'm ready for the sixties again. It has been a long time between drinks." I would say, conservatively, there were about 300,000 people out there -- all ages, but not too many black folks. Nearly no cops in sight. All peaceful, though my son told me there was a bit of rock throwing toward the end.

Chuck brought his new camera and took about a hundred shots and possibly, if any are good, he'll digitize them and post them. There's one of me looking like a CIA agent (my glasses get dark in bright light) and Sabri. We were very, very tired by the end. Everybody's back hurt and Chuck and I groaned about our right hip joints.

I'm at the office now, going through email and printing out yet more tax forms. On the Ides of March, I'll be 49. That's when they say the war will start. This mad, addle-brained crew is ready to go no matter what. The other night they were boasting about how the "shock and awe" tactic was the most awesome thing since Hitler leveled Poland. Perhaps this is the way it was right before the French revolution.

Love,

Joanna