The Seattle Times front page headline says, “US Commanders willing to pay ‘very high price’ to take Baghdad”. Of course, none of their sons and daughters lives are on the line – not only had the diplomacy been a failure, the war plan seems to be heading in that direction, too.My friend Jillian’s in town for a couple of days with her friend Carrie from New York. I met three people who are moving to NYC in a few weeks. When I asked them why, they said “Seattle has a populace that’s hard to get excited. There’s so much apathy and complacency.” While he’s right about the first part, I strongly disagree with the rest. We had WTO, and although most of the protestors were imported, it set the stage for a mostly-peaceful protest environment.
A local writer, Clark Humphrey, opines: “Around here we don’t have to escalate Bush-bashing protests into disruptive confrontations, because we’d rather try to send a more positive message out to the world.”
He might be right, but it seems that having “potlucks for peace” is too passive a stance to take with a world at war.