I'll excerpt a bit more from my e-mail exchange with a colleague about solutions to warmongering.

If you read the earlier installment, you know I was mystified by objections to ALL protesters being violent. My correspondent didn't mean that, but it turns out she doesn't believe in some kinds of civil disobedience (blocking doors), but does believe in others (Rosa Parks' refusal to change seats, leading to her arrest). So now I've got a new topic to be mystified over, but at least I'm learning more about an alternative point of view. So, to continue, here is her response to my long answer (we'll call this installment 2):

The protesters did not stop the war. It seems to me that more peaceful protests would have fostered a climate in which more people might be encouraged to resist the use of force. All the protesters did was indicate that the use of force is OK if it's in a good cause. That's an easy and risky path to go down. By rejecting the use of force to resolve disputes we can hope to increase peace in the world, encourage others to do the same, and create a climate in which we may hope to reduce violence. Violence in a good cause is still violence.

Longer answer to follow next week.

This is tricky. On the one hand, she had suggested that we should all recycle and be nice to each other, which didn't stop the war, but then points out that protesting didn't stop the war, which means we shouldn't to it, so it is a flaw that is worse for peaceful protesting, somehow. She'll elaborate on this in the next installment. First, my part of installment 2:

I look forward to your longer answer!

The protesters elsewhere in the world stopped their countries from participating in the Iraq war. If you're asking why ours didn't, it's a VERY good question, and merits much more discussion. But it doesn't mean that civil disobedience and all the teachings that you and I both respect about civil disobedience are dead.

I also ask that you consider the priests and monks who were arrested that day, and consider what the "violence" was that they were doing by blocking streets and the entrance to the Federal Building. If stopping immoral commerce is violence, if sitting peacefully in the street is violence, if holding a group prayer is violence, than we have a very long route to tread!! There is much documentary evidence that most protesters where acting in the spirit of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., however unnewsworthy their peaceful actions may have been.

I added more references to non-violent protest here to make sure she wasn't wildly generalizing, and would give me a conditional response like either 'I didn't mean THOSE people' or clarify that her position is 'all people are violent.'

On to installment 3, in which the comments in quotation marks are mine (from my installment 1 message):

" If stopping immoral commerce is violence, if sitting peacefully in the street is violence, if holding a group prayer is violence, than we have a very long route to tread!!"

People have been killing people in wars and other violent situations for some considerable time. Protests can sometimes deter specific acts of war or other violence but have never eradicated them. While eradication of war and violence are goals we must work towards, we need to deal with the probability that most of us won't live long enough to see the entire human race experience the metanoia that could bring about universal and lasting peace on earth. We have to be prepared to endure frustration and failure along the way and history suggests that the way will be very long. All the more reason, therefore, to practice peace along the way.

Should we therefore not work for peace? NO -- we must work for peace in ways that will remove the causes of war and violence and will increase peace along the way. We must practice peace in the situations in which we find ourselves (crowded laundromats and buses, long lines at the produce market, etc) and attempt to build consensus for peaceful resolution of conflicts at any and all levels. YES, write to senators, representatives and government officials. (By the by, you might enjoy Colm McCarty's "I'd Rather Teach Peace.") YES, hold peaceful demonstrations that respect the rights of others. And any efforts along the lines of recycling, buying fair trade coffee, using mugs instead of styrofoam or paper cups, turning the heat down or off, eschewing (as opposed to chewing) meat and practicing courtesy for others at all times couldn't hurt. (Barbara Kingsolver's "Small Wonder" has some good ideas about conserving fuel by not buying products that have to be shipped a long way.)

The protesters I observed on my way from the metro to work that morning (and saw photos of in the newspaper the next day ) were not behaving in ways that promoted or demonstrated a commitment to peace; they demonstrated instead a belief in their right to coerce and pester other people. Blocked traffic seldom increases peace as anyone who's been in traffic jams will testify. It increases tension and irritation, even when it is accidental. When the blocking is deliberate, tempers rise and the potential for physical violence increases. Leaping up and down in an intersection, beating on drums, blowing horns and howling does not increase peace; it is quite unnerving to have to cross the street in the vicinity of such antics, while wondering if these poor confused people might be confused enough to expand their tactics to physical attacks. The impression I received was of people who had not got their way and were throwing tantrums. They were not building consensus for peaceful solutions, they were attempting to disrupt.

" I also ask that you consider the priests and monks who were arrested that day, and consider what the "violence" was that they were doing by blocking streets and the entrance to the Federal Building."

I did not observe these protests but would suggest that if the priests and monks were blocking traffic, they were not choosing the most effective means of practicing peace. People have a right to enter the Federal Building -- or, for that matter, a hospital or clinic where abortions are performed -- on legitimate business. If the clergy and religious were blocking access, then they were violating that right. What could they have done instead? Courteously hand out leaflets, try to engage people entering the building in respectful dialog about the purpose of the protest, picket peacefully, hold pray-ins, as long as they respect the legitimate rights of their fellow human beings. The Dominican tradition of disputatio is a form of debate in which both sides try to increase the common ground between them. There's probably a way to apply that method to protests.

As long as they respect the freedom and rights of others, it is possible for people to practice civil disobedience in a way that can increase peace and promote consensus. Rosa Parks sat down in a part of the bus that the law said was off limits to her. She did not block the door to the bus and prevent her fellow human beings from boarding. Fr. Vitale at St. Boniface's was in a Federal prison camp not that long ago for trespassing at the School of the Americas. Numerous elderly lay and religious women and men have spent time in prison for the same cause. I would be honored to shine their shoes; I couldn't fill them. As long as they respect the rights of others while engaging in their protests, their examples will increase peace, even if they do not succeed in their short term objective.

The protesters elsewhere in the world stopped their countries from participating in the Iraq war.

Did the French government intend to go to war and was it dissuaded by protests that did not respect the rights of others? Sadly, I don't know enough about the intentions of either the French government or the nature of the protests to judge. There were protests. France did not go to war. Was there a causal relationship? I don't know.

Were there protests in the U.K.? There were British troops in Iraq.

Her message raises a variety of interesting questions, which I alluded to earlier. Why is Rosa Parks right but a bunch of priests outside the SF Federal Building wrong? In inquire about these in my very long response. Forgive how long it is: this was very early in the morning.

Thank you for your excellent, well-reasoned response! It's very enjoyable to read.

There appears to be a fuzzy line about civil disobedience in your approval of Rosa Parks which I'm not sure I understand. She did not block the door to the bus, but her refusal to move meant that the bus driver had to stop the route, delay all the passengers, and have her removed by the police. You approve of that, but had she laid on the ground in front of the bus to exactly the same effect, she would fall under your disapproval with others who disrupted traffic and caused aggravation. I don't see how the effect -- the annoyance and increase in hostility that the bus driver and riders experienced -- is any different whether she is seated indoors or standing/lying outdoors. She stubbornly held everyone up and disrupted the mornings of dozens of people! She had to be removed by police! She angered her fellow riders! So why don't you lump her into the same category of people coercing and disrupting others without respect for their rights?

Some clarification on this would help me understand your position. To me, metaphorically, all peaceful protesters were 'on the bus' whether sitting upright on lying before it, whether shouting slogans or quiet.

(My question applies to the trespassing at the School of the Americas, too, which is disruptive and keeps people from being able to go about their (evil) tasks as much as blocking a door would -- a security breach drags such places to a halt. It almost sounds as if the folks blocking our own Federal Building had entered and gone to the counter and refused to move, you would have approved of them, but something about the door itself is forbidden.)

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It's interesting to me that it's the protesters, and not the warmongers, who merit most of the criticism from you. Why is that?

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I have too much respect for the civil rights movement, which achieved many of its goals, to say that occupying a legally racist lunch counter is coercive and negative. Or that a peace march that ties up traffic makes too many enemies. If such actions are enemies of peace to you, then I will agree to disagree with your position. I think they are important, moral, peaceful tools. I also believe they achieved goals that obedience and acceptance of immoral laws had not, and never would.

I think you are, in some ways, arguing for civil obedience, rather than the civil dis obedience that leaders we both admire have advocated. I don't think you can take the "dis" out and have the principle remain the same.

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You didn't see peaceful protests on the news because the corporate media has no interest in promoting peace. They believe sex and violence sell, and their main business is to make money, not to inform. They won't report on your good works, but you'll certainly make the paper if you kill someone. Media reform is an area that the peace movement will be well served by participating in. Making information on peaceful solutions available to everyone will allow them to be implemented, and will publicize alternatives to much glorified war. (This is already effective in the non-corporate press, but does not reach enough people) Publicizing and glorifying violence does not serve us.

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I was under the impression that disputatio involved two parties willing to have a dialogue. When a violent power has the upper hand and refuses to participate in a dialogue, it is useless. There are similar Buddhist traditions which I have much respect for, but which are ineffective when one party sees no advantage in participating. To support such a system, we need a COMMUNITY to support and require it of its members. If you have a way of making our government leaders part of a moral community of nations, I would encourage you to share those suggestions widely. If our government is choosing to be part of a community of arms merchants and bombers, or only willing to see the world as a community when it wants some concession from others, as the current situation appears to be, all of our hopes for peace will be set back. In fact, they have been set back by just such anti-community behavior on the part of our government. The international community was ready to prevent war, and the US had to leave the community to start war.

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Yes, England had massive anti-war protests, and the government didn't listen, and now is crumbling: a lead weapons expert killed himself, senior officials are being forced to step down, and Blair's resignation is being openly demanded by members of his own party. Germany and France had protests, and their governments listened are now more popular and influential. I'm sure there are lessons to be learned there. People better informed than I have discussed the causation issues you raise, and have found positive influence, but I cannot improve upon their original work here.

I completely agree that public assembly-style protests are not enough. I think we are agreeing that there is no one complete solution. Quakers' illegal aid to escaped slaves didn't end slavery; protests didn't end slavery; and even the Emancipation Proclamation didn't end slavery. In my mind, American slavery didn't end until 1964 when additional rights were legally put in place, but even so racism and the aftermath of slavery exist. None of the individual positive steps leading to the end of slavery were a complete solution on their own.

But I differ from your position in that I think being a peaceful person is sufficient . We're back to recycling (or safe soap, or any other small, personal decision at home). Recycling is not sufficient to stop war and injustice. It saves resources, it saves money, it saves energy, and it makes us feel self-satisfied. In those ways, it's nice . But it is not changing the culture of war. It is not limiting the profitability of warmongers. It is not in any way challenging the Bush Administration's might-makes-right doctrine.

I believe many people throughout history have lived peaceful, pious, non-disruptive, environmentally friendly lives, and did so through holocausts, conquests, disasters, and wars. But their personal peace bubbles did not extend to the people in the death camps, or the aboriginal peoples, or the slaves down the street. Making the world .00001% more peaceful is worthy. It is needed. Every incremental step helps. But it doesn't help ENOUGH.

It's time for a bad analogy! Recycling to make the water cleaner is nice, but when someone is drowning in that water, more must be done. You may be satisfied with the water's clarity. The drowning person needs more. Under many belief systems, it is a moral crime to allow someone to drown if you could have intervened to save their lives. Ensuring that the water they drown in is a tiny percentage cleaner than it would have been (thanks to recycling and other eco-conscious domestic decisions) does not meet the moral standard.

I put to you that none of the excellent suggestions you've made are life preservers. And while you may take issue with the lifesaving efforts of others, your criticism saves no lives. The world needs a life preserver right now.

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Because you are full of good ideas, I hope that you can come up with some new approaches for the larger problems at hand.

Approving seated indoor protesters and criticizing standing outdoor protesters won't solve our problems.

Many protesters, whether they met with your approval or not, have already tried the leafleting, the praying, and friendly overtures, and were dissatisfied with the results. What do you propose next? They see someone drowning, and while you're telling them not to throw particular sorts of life preservers or harass the people who threw the victim in, they don't see you offering anything they haven't already thrown. So what will you tell them? Please, please, please, not that recycling will make drowning more comfortable!

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[If you want specific questions: how can we make selling weapons less profitable? How can we make occupation less beneficial for warmongers and scaremongers? How can we keep Bush campaign donors from benefiting from Bush's wars? How can we get our government to promote actual democracy, rather than forbidding Iraq to have elections that might be unfavorable to our interests? It isn't enough to criticize blocking the streets for newspaper coverage. It isn't enough to recycle. Specific solutions are needed for these specific problems. Please consider putting your talents to work in a manner focused on these problems. A solution that is specific enough will allow it to be easily and briefly explained: "We can make weapons sales less profitable by _______ because it eliminates profits through _________." The more direct the solution, the clearer and shorter the explanation.]

What I'm looking for are effective and specific alternatives to protesting, which only works when you have a civil government, or non-specific good deeds, which don't effect the situation at all.

I'm hoping her response is truly applicable.

Our nation is at a very strange place historically, where the 'cold war superpower era' has ended, and 'the lone superpower with cowboy and defense contracting corporations in charge' era has begun. And I don't think the solution to every problem lies in recycling. I'm viewing it as if I'm in a study group working on a quiz, and the completely hypothetical quiz question is:

Your wonderfully sweet Pakistani neighbor has been 'disappeared' by the FBI, leaving her family terribly worried for her condition. The appropriate response is:
(1) recycling,
(2) using environmentally sound dish soap,
(3) marching with a sign,
(4) other____________.

And I know with absolute certainty that 4 is the right answer, and that we should concentrate our energies on working up a list of actions for 4, but another member of the study group is already on to the next question, convinced that 1 or 2 are the best answer in all situations, and unwilling to discuss what goes in that blank.

There's got to be more to this! The Quakers who smuggled escaped slaves out of the South weren't concerned about dish soap. People who went to jail in the non-violent battle against Apartheid in South Africa weren't using all of their energies to focus on being nicer to people in the laundromat. I may not be able to persuade my colleague, but perhaps this discussion can help me focus on what I think the right answer to 4 is.

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Yes, I do have some ideas as to what potential answers to hypothetical situation (4) are. Express sympathy and support to the family (this would include plying them with food, of course); publicize the event to all local newspapers and TV organizations; organize to get legal help for my neighbor; try to network with others in a similar plight; work with organizations who are tracking this sort of abduction by the government, and add this information to their database; start a support action (like a letter writing or representative phone call campaign) to demand justice for my neighbor...

And yes, I have been pondering what peaceful activities I can do to stop warmongers. I'm working up a list, and will work with the discussion group that's forming to see where we can take it.

Something to contemplate: columnist Mark Morford's reflections on the second anniversary of the September 11th tragedy.

Do you remember? The days immediately after 9/11? That rich feeling of global sympathy and sincere concern and this powerful, overarching sense that maybe, just maybe, if we work together and reach out to each other without snide bias or prejudice, we can re-make the world in an entirely new, politically purified, blazingly conscious, peace-seeking vision? No? It's OK. Neither does anyone else.

The article is a reflection (as irreverent as all of his columns) on the choice that was given to us, whether we knew it or not, to respond to tragedy with a headlong rush to peace, or a headlong rush to war, not just nationally but also in our hearts.

Something beautiful: a lovely collection of September 11th, 2001 tributes and memorials from around the world days after that tragedy. It has been reposted to remind us of the love the US received in the aftermath of our loss.

Today is the second anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center, and there are several very cynical comments about how that event has become obscenely politicized. My favorite cynical comments are Mark Fiore's "A Nation Remembers II" (markfiore.com) and John Carroll's 'A Special Speech to the Nation' (SF Gate).

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Today's World Views Column (SF Gate) is even more excellent than usual. The first portion points out that the US isn't the only country that ever suffered on a September 11th, discussing the US-backed overthrow of Allende in Chile. There is then a compilation of both sympathy and concern around the world for the US, which now seems bent on using the terrorist attacks as a pretext for expanding its control by force around the world.

The latest World Opinion Roundup (Washington Post) may be even better. It has more translations from the foreign press, including comments like:

"In the last two years, has the U.S. found more opponents or sympathizers, more friends or enemies, more stability or insecurity? . . . This is what needs to be evaluated by the people of the United States."

"Somehow when Asians or Arabs commit terrorism, that is a crime against humanity. When Americans, Europeans and Israelis bomb, burn and brutalize the colored people, that is a war against terrorism or (as in Iraq) a war of liberation. Such hypocrisy and racism must be condemned."

It is a terrible burden for Americans to be so completely convinced that we are always on the side of GOOD that anything our forces or government does, not matter how bad an atrocity, must be justified and rationalized, no matter how implausibly.

The overthrow of Allende; the training of death squads; the arming of dictators, including providing chemical weapons to Saddam Hussein; - so many sad examples come to mind...

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Speaking of arming dictators, the Project Censored folks have released their latest collection of important news that was ignored or mishandled by the mainstream, corporate media. A great summary is available as The San Francisco Bay Guardian's latest cover story. There's a lot that's important and worth knowing about, but one bit that especially ticked my fancy:

...the U.S. government covertly removed 8,000 of the 11,800 pages of the weapons declaration the Iraqi government had submitted to the United Nations Security Council and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

But the Iraqis released copies of the full report to key media outlets in Europe. It turns out that the missing pages may have contained damning details on 24 U.S.-based corporations, various federal departments and nuclear weapons labs, and several high-ranking members of the Reagan and Bush administrations that, from 1983 until 1990, helped supply Hussein with botulinum toxins, anthrax, gas gangrene bacteria, the makings for nuclear weapons, and associated instruction. Among those implicated: Eastman Kodak, Dupont, Honeywell, Hewlett-Packard, Bechtel, the U.S. Department of Energy and Department of Agriculture, the Livermore, Los Alamos, and Sandia nuclear weapons labs, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfield.

Yes, a lot of it is that good. Yes, you should read the article. If you like it, you should probably also buy the book, which contains additional details on their top stories, plus great essays about media control, fake celebrity news that dominates your local outlets instead of information that's relevant to your life, and more.

I'm going to try really hard to make this the last item of the evening, but there's just too much good stuff out there: this is This Modern World on the false linkages between September 11th attacks and Iraq, plus actual linkages between terrorism suspects and the Saudi government. It's a fascinating and worthwhile compilation. I'll restrain myself to print just one excerpt, from a great article at the Christian Science Monitor

In his prime-time press conference last week, which focused almost solely on Iraq, President Bush mentioned Sept. 11 eight times. He referred to Saddam Hussein many more times than that, often in the same breath with Sept. 11....Polling data show that right after Sept. 11, 2001, when Americans were asked open-ended questions about who was behind the attacks, only 3 percent mentioned Iraq or Hussein. But by January of this year, attitudes had been transformed. In a Knight Ridder poll, 44 percent of Americans reported that either "most" or "some" of the Sept. 11 hijackers were Iraqi citizens. The answer is zero.

Truthout and the Independent present a new article dated today on the US and UK backing down on their WMD claims.

The "current and serious" threat of Iraq's WMD was the reason Tony Blair gave for going to war, but last week the Prime Minister delivered a justification which did not mention the weapons at all. On the same day John Bolton, US Under-Secretary of State for arms control, said that whether Saddam Hussein's regime actually possessed WMD "isn't really the issue".

I'm glad I don't take heart medication, because the threat of popping over this about face would be high. Also on the same page: a revelation that the unaccounted for weapons may be mere bookkeeping glitches.

Ex-inspectors now say, five months after the U.S. invasion, that the notorious "unaccountables" may have been no more than paperwork glitches left behind when Iraq destroyed banned chemical and biological weapons years ago.

Elsewhere on truthout you'll find a Newsweek poll shows a drop of support of Bush's policies in Iraq, and a great speech by Senator Byrd, which I feel compelled to quote a tiny bit from here:

Does it really come as a surprise to anyone that many of our allies are reluctant to commit their own troops to the aftermath of a pre-emptive war, considering how the Administration tried to bully them during our headlong rush to war against Iraq? While the White House was furiously trying to twist arms in Berlin, Paris, Ankara, and Moscow to gain acquiescence to a war in Iraq, millions took to the streets to protest the President's policy toward Iraq.

According to polls released by the Pew Research Center on March 18, 2003, the day before the war began, opposition to a war in Iraq was at 69 percent in Germany, 75 percent in France, 86 percent in Turkey, and 87 percent in Russia. Yet the White House scoffed at this opposition and belittled the need to unify the world in confronting Saddam Hussein. Could it be that our troops are now paying the price for the Administration's bullheaded rush to war without the broad and active support of the international community?

[Feel free to act out raising your hand and desperately trying to get the teacher's attention to answer that one.]

A friend has been forwarding me excerpts from the blog Cal Pundit. Entry I like best so far: Democratic Foreign Policy, a very short list of very big policies that Democrats suggested, Bush rejected, and now Bush is attempting to use.
He has many other good entries in the September archive.

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Another item from the reading of the same friend: a subscriber's only Salon.com article amusingly entitled "Would you like some freedom fries with your crow, Mr. President?" about Bush's belated attempts to drag the UN into Iraq now that things aren't going well.

International ANSWER already has commentary up about Bush's address today. In short: Bush lied, Bush lied some more, and Bush is lying now. A 'Bring the Troops Home' protest is being planned for October 25th in Washington, D.C., which will coincide with the anniversary of the hopelessly misnamed "Patriot Act." Regional rallies are planned for September 25-28 for an end to all occupations, including that of Palestine, whose 2nd intifada has an anniversary that weekend. Follow the links for additional details.

My e-mail exchange with my colleague who considered all San Francisco anti-war protesters on Day X to be violent continues. (Her perception will require considerable discussion, as it's not based on available information. I've canvas(s)ed a few other folks, and they are likewise mystified. If the interfaith prayer service and yoga demonstrations were violent, we aren't using the same definition of violence!) Here is some of the text of my discussion of our exchange on one of my mailing lists:

As an alternative to blocking traffic and chaining oneself to Bechtel HQ, such activities as 'practicing peace,' reducing consumption, and going to the farmer's market were suggested [by my correspondent].

I've been doing those things most of my life, yet I've noticed that wars keep happening anyway. So I want to try a new approach. I'm attaching my last missive in the discussion, which proposes a collaborative project beyond just plain e-mail writing. If you're interested, opt in my sending me a message at home.

---------------[body of the response sent to correspondent follows]

I like ALL of your suggestions!! And I share your values on these activities. I don't own a car; I volunteer in my community; I support organic farmers. But... Did doing these stop the war?

None of my personal good habits stopped the war. I think many of these things benefit us, and benefit those around us. I think they make the world a better place. But I don't think they make war profiteering less profitable. I don't think they keep the poor from being exploited or bombed. I don't think they are enough to preserve our wild places or ensure that we breathe fresh air.

Every day we come to work on public transit and eat our organic lunches, while Bechtel makes millions of dollars in Iraqi oil trust fund money. I let them do it. You let them do it. Our elected representatives let them do it.

Years from now, I'll be explaining this to my niece. "Well, Bechtel made hundreds of billions of dollars in Iraqi oil money, profiting directly from the US' illegal attack on a sovereign nation, while I was eating organic yogurt and cleaning up my local park." And she'll look at me like I'm speaking Hungarian. And then she'll open her textbooks, and read about how we - grown ups like you and me - did nothing but pen a letter to our congressman once or twice and then went back to using environmentally friendly soap on our dishes, disassociating ourselves from the wars that we're funding.

If people are to criticize people who blocked traffic or chained themselves to Bechtel's front doors, forcing the company HQ to close for a day and costing the company hundreds of thousands of dollars in ill-gotten gains and interrupting their self-righteous, pro-war posturing for a day, I think we'll need to come up with something better than environmentally friendly soap, or not wasting food.

The protesters had a direct impact on a company engaging in a crime. You or I shopping at the farmer's market did not.

We are CONSENTING to the way the world is being run. We are CONSENTING to the way our country is being run. We are RESPONSIBLE for the state of the world around us. I respect the little steps, but that's what they are -- little steps. The personal gestures you have described are little steps. This mailing list is just a little step. It is not a solution. If we are satisfied with the little steps, if we stand still to admire the path we've taken, we will never arrive at our destination - a better, just, peaceful world.

I don't want to discourage you. But I want you, and all of us, to think bigger. We cannot afford to be self-satisfied while landmines maim children in Afghanistan and warmongers get rich off the resources of the poor. We're all in this together.

In the spirit of making a bigger step forward and doing it together, I'm going to make a proposal. I'm going to distribute this proposal to the mailing list, and encourage the people on the mailing list to find like minded friends and involve them. My proposal is that we develop a list of strategies that directly impact the war situation in a concrete way, that we involve others to make our efforts more significant, that act upon our ideas to test their efficacy, and that we publicize our effective ideas widely to encourage others to join us. I would be willing to submit the results of our efforts to magazines and on-line journals for publication.

The ideas would have to be original and on-topic: ideas about topics like conservation that we are already familiar with would have to have some unusual and direct application to make them apply. Some of the ideas may involve some effort -- some time to appear at public meetings to promote a resolution, some time and money mailing educational materials to a group willing to support our effort, money to take out an ad in a newspaper contesting misinformation about the war, evenings spent volunteering with a group that's doing effective peace work. But if our ideas are worthwhile, the effort is worth it.

So that was my response, and I'm opening up the options of our mailing list to see what we can come up with.

Protesting works elsewhere, and is a longstanding traditional method of expressing public dissent. I don't think it should be abandoned (although my correspondent notes that the protests didn't stop the war). Nor do I think letter writing (the point of this particular mailing list) should be abandoned: it's a favorite tool of the right wing, because it's simple and it works. But I'd like to brainstorm and work up other options.

I was up until 1 this morning discussion options with S. I spent much of Friday afternoon discussion options with another motivated colleague. We have a few good ideas. It will be worthwhile to discuss our options and see what we come up with.