If you only go to one demo this year...

...make it this one.

I know many of you are cynical about marching. Is it just self serving? It is utterly futile? And I know there is one every other week. I know there are hypocrites and hacky sacking hippies and wannabe anarchists and fashionistas. There are silly songs and silly signs. There is the ubiquitous reggae music. There is the immature marijuana smokers who think getting high is still rebellious. There are the communists, the Trotskyites, the Maoists, the Lenninists, The Stalinists, the Marxists, the Marxist-Lenninists, the Marxy-Lenninish-slightly Trotsky-Stalinesque-socialists. (The Judean People's Front versus the Peoples Fronnt of Judea!) There is the awkwardness...

But this is about international solidarity with like minded people. This is why we are marching. This is about showing support for Cindy Sheehan's march on Washington. In light of the lapse in security following hurricane Katrina as a direct result of a limited National Guard who were busy in Iraq, as well as a cut to FEMA funding and even a cut in Levee funding for Louisiana to pay for the war in Iraq (see the Republic article here); and in light of the recent arrest of British soldiers were caught wearing Al Qaeda-style clothing and who killed Iraqi Government Policemen only to have the British army break them out of jail; in light of the US banning the great journalist Robert Fisk from the country.

Do it for those brave men who refuse to serve the corporate and ideological agenda of the ruling elites; the war resisters who have come to Canada to seek asylum. March because maybe Chretien didn't go to war in Iraq, not because he was at the end of his term and it would be 'good for his legacy', but maybe because he listened to the thousands of us who resisted. Do it in light of the Downing Street Memo. Do it because Vancouver is very much involved in the war in Iraq and are not isolated from it and it is not just the big bad Americans. We are making the bullets that kill innocent Iraqis and our civil servants' pension plans invest in these companies. Do it because Pat Robertson called for the assassination of Hugo Chavez. Do it for those killed in London and Madrid. Do it for... I don't know. Do it to impress a girl or a boy. Do it as a joke. I don't care. Don't do it. Yeah, that's right. Don't march. Maybe reverse psychology will work. Hell, protest the protest. Hold a sign up that says "everything is fine".

Featured Speakers:
Tim Louis -Vancouver City Council
Kyle -US War Resister
Bud Osborne Poet and Activist
... and representatives from the BC Labour and Student movements, Indigenous and Muslim community.

Endorsed by
Hospital Employees Union

3pm Saturday September 24th
Vancouver
Art
Gallery (Georgia St. @ Howe St.)