I went skiing with some friends today. We spent a half day at Mount Wachusett in Massachusetts. It was corn snow, very few icy patches, better conditions than I expected considering how warm it was this week of January thaw. As usual, I wore my home-made Impeach the Bush/Cheney Junta button [paper laminated with clear storage tape and a safety pin attached to the back with duck tape, Bush/Cheney colored red, blue edging on a white background].
The first person to comment was a woman in the ski rental shed, "Either that or assassination."
"I don't hold with that," I said. "Impeachment, international war crimes tribunal, and Truth and Reconciliation Commission between the peoples of Iraq and the USA."
"That's a start!" she replied.
The lift attendants loved it. On the lift I used most often, the attendant and I had a running conversation. "Who do you like in the primaries?" he asked. The next run, I asked him who he liked. "Nobody. They're all just politicians."
There were about half a dozen people who told me they liked my button. Big smiles. Nobody took issue with it. I didn't notice even one dirty look.
That's the way it's been since I first started wearing an Impeach button just after the 2004 "elections." I've worn a big button on my jacket and a small one on my shirt in all that time and have gotten only one negative reaction, a deep scowl from a woman across the aisle in the subway. Everybody who's commented has been positive. Some have even thought I was "courageous."
In the past month or so, reactions have changed somewhat. I find people looking harder at my Impeach the Bush/Cheney Junta button harder and longer. As I wear it on my chest, it is a little discomfitting. Now I know a little bit of how large breasted women might feel. "Hey buddy, my face is up here."
I haven't seen very many other people who wear Impeach buttons but I think it would be a good idea. It's a little thing but it may, just may encourage something like democracy. It's certainly the practice of free speech and you know what they say: use it or lose it.
Impeach the Bush/Cheney Junta.
PS: The woman in the ski rental hut also asked me about the solar collectors on my backpack. I get that about once or twice a month, even though I have another home-made button on the pack reading Solar IS Civil Defense.