Saturday, March 10, 2007

No RSVP required...

...for your virtual attendance at any of our anti-war vigils. If you want to sign up to be an in-the-flesh part of the vigils MoveOn is facilitating, just register with MoveOn. Email will then point you to sign-up pages as times and places are set. Almost any peace activist organization you may already belong to will be at these vigils as well if MoveOn is not to your taste. Virtual attendence is accomplished by having your sentiments at the rally even though your physical person cannot attend.

In my best "Tom Sawyer describing the excitement and challenge of white washing fences" salesmanship, I am soliciting a little help. It fell to me to make the placards we will hold up at the rallying places. We have chosen a few busy urban and suburban interesections and will be carrying shortest meaningful messages we can paint on foamcore posterboard. So...here is your chance to get in to the action: Wit is appreciated but terse and unambiguous and potently motivating slogans win the prize. Leave your suggestions in the comments and I will get back to you after the rallies to say which flags flew. Or, you could tune in to the Boston area evening news on March 19th and see if your words made it to the small screen.

Thanks for the thinks,
Greensmile

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I received an invitation to march with some friends on that Saturday a few months ago when the anti war march took place in D.C. (I hadn't been to one since anti-apartheid marches in the seventies!) Because their call was last minute, I had no time to make a sign.
Once there, it was inspirational to see all the ex-hippies getting excited about this. Signs, the beating of a drum, placards with soldiers' names, peace flags and temperatures in the teens all contributed to a feeling of cohesion; it was a feeling I didn't expect to have, given this was held in a po-dunk town of 5,000 and I didn't know anyone except my two friends.
Anyway, one of the niftiest signs was a two-person one (the kind that stretch open) that had a large peace sign and the words, "Back by popular demand." We all liked that.
You could use duct tape to attach two pieces together; that's a respectable 64" long. Tape/tie your poles on each side. And make sure the poles are long enough so they are easy to carry. And place the message on both sides.

Anonymous said...

Oh, and the duct tape can be the center vertical element of the peace sign.
Better yet, use a double-layer white cotton cloth--double so that you can still put the message on both sides without having see-through problems. Cotton of course has the added advantage of being flexible.

GreenSmile said...

Hadn't even thought of the banner. Thanks.

And yes, independent of the cause itself, in which you may imagine your lone self pitted against the hideous mistakes of your nation's leader and any of your neighbors in the alleged majority that voted for that leader, there is a great lift when you show up and find that indeed MANY understand the need to speak up, MANY are nowhere near as afraid of contradicting the president as they are of contradicting their own conscience...most uplifting.