Ahhh, another day, another protest march.

And no, I didn't go. Everyone's asking me if I went or if I wanted to go. A friend even tried to talk me into it. And all those people read this thing.

This time, I'm not gonna make fun of all the people marching. Part of me enjoys that it's happening. As I've said many times before, anytime someone wipes the smirk of W.'s face I'm down. Especially now when he's in full "I'm King of the World!" mode and everyone in his Administration is talking like John Wayne on a 'roid rage.

As much as I love snarking on the Bush administration for their whole Masters of War thing, I'm actually kind of ambivalent about the Iraq. The thing is that Hussein is, as someone once said of James T. Kirk, he's a "tin-plated dictator with delusions of grandeur" (except of course, that Kirk rocks and Saddam is Evil, except for alternative universe Kirk, so you could say that Saddam is like Alternate Universe Kirk except Alternate Universe Kirk is still way cool). And he has been for a long time. There is no doubt that if left to his own devices, he's fully capable of fucking things up. He's like the puny, obnoxious twerp you knew in school who kept on trying to get attention, kept on failing, and out of his frustration wound up doing something psycho just to get to get attention. If he were in high school, he'd either be head of Young Republicans or scheming to blow it up. Keep in mind, his people are starving and dying due to the sanctions the U.N. set up after the first Gulf War, yet he has shown not a whit of concern for his people. If he really cared about his people, all he'd have to do is let the U.N. play their little games. Instead, he builds more palaces, more statues of himself, and thumbs his nose at everyone.

If the Hawks are right and that Saddam falls within days, that the Iraqi army will run and that the Iraqi people would welcome us with welcome arms, and that we'd start up a democracy that works and nothing else bad would happen, I'd be down for it. The problem is I don't think it's gonna go down that way. I see nothing but bad mojo going on with this. Nor do I really think this is the time nor the way of going about dealing with this whole thing. Besides, the North Korean's are jumping up and down like a kid on ADD and shouting to the world "hey, look at us, we're bad, we're bad! Pay attention to us!" and they're definitely crazier than Saddam is. Then there's the Syrians and Iranians who are actually the countries arming and financing terrorist groups.

Which is why I'm so ambivalent about the whole thing. I'm kind of down with Regime change, I just have no frickin idea whether it's gonna work. And I'm pretty damn sure that the people who are the most behind it are liking the idea a little too much. I'd feel better if half of the Bush staff act like they think "Dr. Strangelove" was an inspirational movie. My feeling too is that most people- people here, people in Europe, people in the Middle East- all probably feel the same way. Except, of course, for most of the people who are marching.

Whenever I seem them out their protesting or read their pamphlets or Letters to the Editor, I just don't get any sense that they're really aware of the fact that Saddam is actually a bad guy. There's no sense of the reality of the situation. It's just a bunch of "war is bad" sloganeering, with a little anti-globalization and anti-Americanism on the side (not to mention anti-Israel stuff, but that's a whole other story). Most of the people, the hard-core protestors, were out protesting the bombing of Serbia during the Kosovo crisis and they were protesting the war in Afghanistan- two military actions I was down for. I mean, sometimes you gotta fight the good fight. And that's some of the saner things they believe in.

Which is probably the main reason I ain't marching. I know whose organizing it. I know what they believe and what they espouse. Hell, their headquarters are a couple of doors down from me. I ain't marching with the Socialist Party. I ain't marching with the Free Mumia fanatics, the Zionism=Racism people, nor the Queers Against Capitalism Against the War.

If there was a huge march for "Confused, Ambivelant People For Slowing Things Down" I'll be there for that. I'll even be there for the "People Who Have a Bad Feeling About This March" or the "We Just Want to Stick it George W. Bush March." But as for these rallies, I'm staying out of it.