War and Peace 1

On Thursday at noon, November 9th, two days after the extraordinary U.S. elections that have finally given millions of people hope once again...



...the Code Pink antiwar group assembled for a rally in front of San Francisco's Federal building to urge Nancy Pelosi to be militant about getting the troops out of Iraq.



They assembled a small version of the Quaker public art/protest piece that has been sprouting all over the country, involving boots with the names of dead American soldiers attached, along with every other kind of shoe to commemorate the Iraqis who have been killed since the United States invasion.



Medea Benjamin was doing lots of speaking and trying to rouse the crowd into chanting symplistic rhymes.



I complained about Medea's annoying, amplified voice to the Peace Vigil folk who were standing at their usual spot on the other end of the plaza, and their wise response was on the order of "Code Pink? We cut them a lot of slack because they have such energy!"



It's good Code Pink is out there because getting out of Iraq is not going to be quick or easy, but for the sake of just about every human in Iraq right now, the sooner the Americans are out of there, the better for everyone.