sorry, i gotta postpone "strike for peace" for my vacation the second week of october...i'll be @ church...and by "church" i mean the Boundary Waters. (does it count that i'll still be getting paid?)

unfortunately i don't have that luxury, and my bosses aren't as understanding as say, the owners of Third Street, the Green Merc or any of those other liberal hippie establishments.

I'm afraid i have other commitments that involve rent and groceries and light bills.

have fun though.

Lose my job to try and end a war? Stay away from the brown acid kids.

I'll try to make it to the building for women this afternoon,but I also do not have the option of "striking" for a day. However, I'll be preparing for the Alworth Institutes's first speaker, Dr. Marina Ottaway, who will be speaking next week about the war and the political conditions in the Middle East.

rally pics, dig it

http://picasaweb.google.com/reverendwelles

Thanks for the pictures Ryan!

We did not plan this protest to be something that people would lose their jobs over, nor did we encourage anyone to do so. It was well understood that this was not going to be some kind of massive general strike that would bring business in Duluth to a standstill (though it's nice to dream about that happening, and one day it very well could). We simply asked folks to do what they could, the goal being largely symbolic of what "could" happen. Over 300 people did respond by taking at least part of the day out from their regular routines to take part in the Strike for Peace. Thanks to everyone who did. Fortunately, there are still many of us out there who believe in our own power to affect change if we stand together as a movement.

I'm not doubting your message, but you don't protest war by punishing your community and your local businesses.

Much to the contrary, the "Strike for Peace" was indeed an encouragement to not go to work or buy anything for that one day...by its very nature and what it was being billed as..."Don't work, don't spend"

"Don't spend" hurts my family, because it potentially hurts my bottom line because it hurts the company I work for's bottom line...

as does "Don't work..." I don't work I don't get paid for that day and that's fewer groceries that I can buy for my family...If I also don't work and give an excuse such as the strike as a reason as to why I wasn't at work that day and I could be asked to leave...which REALLY hurts my bottom line.

zra, maybe you should study a little more history and social science. War continues because it is in the interests of our economic system (capitalism) and its current rulers (the business elite). War is fought by working people, against other working people; while that company you work for benefits from the military-industrial complex, none of those benefits are passed down to you, but you are asked to sacrifice your friends/spouses/kids to it. While the rich get fabulously richer than they've ever been, the gap between the rich and the rest of us is wider than at any time since the Great Depression, and getting constantly worse. The reasoning behind a "Strike for Peace" is the same reasoning behind a union strike - standing together, people can take away the benefits of war for the businesses that run the country precisely by effecting their "bottom line."

I think what bothers me most about your comment is the persistence of "I". You are worried about your bottom line. It's evident that you buy into the capitalistic "me first" mentality that so totally isolates people, wrecking any sense of community and basic human solidarity in this country. (Ever stop to think why Americans are so psychologically f***ed up, depressed and lonely?) But of course, every man (and woman) an island is how the powers-that-be want people to be; keep us all fighting each other for ever more meager scraps and we won't think of getting together to act in solidarity for the common good. Not to mention everyone trying to get on top of the dogpile and flaunt it is good for consumerism, that great engine of our economy which also happens to be destroying the planet.

I'm done.