[Protoclown]

I know what you mean, Spad, but I think the best thing we can do is hang onto whatever hope we can and keep loudly voicing our dissent.

There was an interesting tidbit from that collection of news clippings that I posted in that other thread:

"If bombs start falling on Iraq, peace activists say, expect insurgency at home.

"Demonstrators are planning to shut down San Francisco's Financial District, to gather by the thousands in New York's Times Square and stage sit-ins in Washington, D.C. Others are ready to try to breach security at Vandenberg Air Force Base in Southern California, where many of the military targeting operations will be done for an Iraq bombing campaign. They're going not just to protest, but to interfere. 'We have the possibility of disrupting operations that feed directly into the Iraq war in a limited but very real way,' says Peter Lumsdaine, coordinator of the Military Globalization Project, the group that's organizing the Vandenberg action.

"Until now, most of the big antiwar demonstrations, especially in the United States, have been peaceful, preplanned, law-abiding events. Permits have been secured, routes mapped, and stages set up. The next phase in the antiwar movement is likely to be far more spontaneous and chaotic. Frustrated by a government they say is ignoring their voice, galvanized by the imminence of war, activists are moving from protest to direct action. . . .

"Paul Berman, author of the recent book 'Terror and Liberalism,' is a veteran of the '60s peace movement and an opponent of the Bush administration, but he believes no good can come of war opponents rampaging through the streets. 'This is just going to create a real crisis within the country,' he says. 'It's a completely destructive thing to do.'"