Noon rally against the escalation
If you haven't been to a peace rally since Obama took office then today is your chance. There's a Springfield rally against the escalation of troops in Afghanistan today (12/2/9), 12-1pm, in front of the Federal Building on 6th & Monroe.
I expect that people will have different reasons for going to the rally. Some people think a war that kills or injures thousands of innocent Afghan civilians, many of them from US bombing campaigns, is the wrong response to an immoral attack on American civilians. Others may simply want Obama to know that he doesn't have a blank check of support for continuing the war indefinitely. More will remember the last President who promised to get out of a war by sending more troops in. It will be interesting to see if the rally is joined by partisans who oppose anything that comes from Obama.
During the campaign, Obama promised to withdrawal troops from Iraq and send more to Afghanistan. So this move isn't a big surprise. What many of Obama's supporters in the peace movement hoped for is a President who would at least listen to the public when they speak out against war, instead of manipulating public fear to start new ones. He has less than three years to end the war if he wants to keep those voters in the Presidential primary.
If nothing else, it's a refreshing change to have a President who can look our troops in the eye and give them an honest answer about why he's sending them to war. It feels good to have national discussion with a press that no longer stifles dissent, and public debate that goes beyond merely countering the lies of a President. This is what America must have been like before George Bush.