Today's exhortation:
Call your members of Congress.
What is missing in Washington DC are the intense and passionate voices of the people.
We ( 70 percent of Americans) opponents of the current war policy outnumber the 535 in Congress. We can make them hear us.
Stop the war. Impeach the President and the Vice President. Take our country back.
Thanks for reading my first diary. I hope you are encouraged by what I report - I'm jazzed by the enthusiasm generated by the crowd.
I'm home from a rally in a blue oasis of the red Sahara known as Alaska.
It was good to see people I knew.
The occasion for this gathering of people opposed to the war of aggression and concerned for the state of our country was a visit. Now, in a tourist boom town, with thousands of cruise ship passengers on shore today, who were these people?
They were staff, writers, and supporters of The Nation welcomed by the Juneau chapter of Veterans for Peace.
It was a joyous, uplifting, loud, encouraging rally. There was a good crowd ( easily fifteen times as many as come to stand vigil weekly) and we stood in the rain (so good for our rainforest trees) and clapped.
We heard from members and supporters of VFP: a welcome by Gary Waid sharing an ancient song, speeches from a State Representative and a City Assembly member and a career Navy guy (retired), songs from musicians who contributed to the local VFP cd, Wounded Dove. We heard from Katrina Vanden Heuvel, Ralph Nader, and Rocky Anderson.
There will be news stories in the paper (Juneau Empire) and on radio (I saw KTOO-FM for sure and probably KINY) and the event was recorded by volunteers for later broadcast on KTOO
I'm going to stop writing this and start writing the Congressional delegation. Thanks for reading my first diary
Also want to finish reading Quickening of America to lend to a friend I stood with at the rally (that was the neat part, we saw each other cheering for change).