One more thing, in lieu of answering Christina's questions with my own blather (which I will provide later), I am posting this link to a commentary by Desmond Tutu and Ian Urbina of South Africa that eloquently raises similar concerns.
the Mail and Guardian http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=12304

Yes, Happy Belated Birthday Pete.

"What does Democracy look like?"
-- This is what Democracy looks like:

Thousands and thousands of people shouting these words. I was among them. It was the most empowering act of solidarity that I have ever been apart of, it was the only one really. I could say I've been to protests before, as I could say I've been to Indiana even though I've only zipped through the state on a drive to somewhere else. In France our group wielded it's way in and out of a crowd of protesters expressing their discontent for France's involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I was the only one in our group that wanted to stay. But we only zipped through to get to Le Metro.
Tonight was different.
Ok, this is how it started. Last night there was a march downtown and down Lakeshore Drive. Around midnight, it was on the news. Fox said that the protesters were blocking traffic on Lakeshore Drive, that they started rioting and the by the end, the police arrested 200 or 400 of 'em I can't remember which. Decided to check it out today. I was unsure if anything was going on, but I wanted to go to the mother-library downtown, so either way my trek would not be in vain. Got off the train and was hit by this intense feeling of joy or anticipation or both. I really didn't see any anti-war activity, but the masses of police officers and 10 manila school buses lined up on Dearborn with "Cook County Department of Corrections" painted on the side, caught my attention. I walked to the library checked out some books. Then walked to the Dirkson Center, where the protest started last night. The Dirkson Center is full of government offices. There is public square that hosts lots of big events like the lighting of the Christmas tree. Lots of officers not many protesters. I walked to Walgreens for a pack of cigarettes, hoping the crowd had not dispersed for good.

There was a boy behind me in line at Walgreens, probably around 16 or 17 he wore a carrot-top of curls and a green jacket. His chubby cheeks were sprinkled with freckles and his jovial blue eyes widened as he talked. He asked if I was going to the protest. Then said that it was starting up again at 5 before I could answer. I was relieved and aching to go. The boy continued. "I was here yesterday. Did you see the news?" I nodded. "Oh, well this is what really happened we the police surrounded us. They wouldn't let us out and everyone started freaking out because they couldn’t go anywhere and it got crazy. They tear gassed us and I spent the night in jail." I was floored; this wasn't what they said on the news. "Wow" I said. I mean, what else could I say? Maybe it didn't happen that way? I'm not sure if I wanted to believe it. I purchased a horribly expensive four dolla pack of cigarettes and a disposable camera and walked out. My cousin lives 4 el stops from where I was, so I called her on the only pay phone that exists and convinced her to come down. After a bite to eat we headed back around 5:30 and oh what a crowd there was. There were a couple of weak speakers too. Before we headed out a women rather antagonistically reminded the crowd that the police did not want us there and that their badge numbers were on their helmets if they tried to hide their badge. And of course, "that this was a peaceful nonviolent march." The riot police contained the crowd to the street. Crystal and I walked out to the sidewalk where there were some marchers, reporters and supportive bystanders. The crowd shouted and chanted. It asked, "What do we want" and answered "Peace". There were banners, signs, and drums, but mostly two raised fingers in the air. The crowd was so diverse, I wouldn't expect anything else in Chicago. I also saw what one does not expect from protests. Men in overcoats outside of hotels and women clad in powersuits from office buildings held up the peace sign to the crowd. It was amazing, when the el would pass overhead, we would cheer as passengers leaned against the window giving us those two fingers. Heehee.
I was so exhilarated to be there.

Crystal (my cousin) and I decided that if we saw a reporter talking to a camera that I would turn to Crystal and shout, "You mean the pro-war protest is tomorrow." (Which it is btw) When we did pass one caught in the moment and seriousness of what has befallen our country, I shouted, "War is shit, rub your clit. Masturbate for Peace." Brilliant. The correspondent rolled his eyes, one person gasped, and Crystal along with the elderly woman next to me was rolling. At least two people thought it was funny.

I wonder what kind of scene I am trying to set for you. We walked for three? four? hours it was not long, but slow. Since, Crystal and I were on the sidewalk we could race to the front, wait until the end of the crowd caught up, and start marching again over and over. Two manila busses and a group of police officers led the crowd in an organized fashion down Dearborn across the bridge and down Clark back to the Dirkson Center with about 5 busses at the tail. There were so many fucking cops. If there was ever a night to commit a crime, tonight was it. Some of them were jerks, as were some of the protesters (four or five were arrested tonight).

After “listening” to some “speakers” we decided to leave when the woman who started the crowd marching said what I could not hear over chants of “Fox lies” and such. I’m sure the only thing we missed was our friends rushing home on the train . On the el a man with dark hair and a slight accent asked us what we thought of the protest, I said it was great, but that I wished there were real speakers. “Not me, I just want to march he said.” He was at the protest the night before and enlightened us to what happened. He said that the media did not report accurately what happened on Lakeshore Drive either. Apparently, drivers were not as pissed by the hold up as the media reported. The honking was in support and the people who got out of their cars were shouting with the protesters, not at them. He said that we were lucky and thought it was peaceful tonight because the choppers were out earlier and that the cops would not react against the crowd with them there. I forgot to mention earlier that a women randomly came up to Crystal and me while we were marching and confirmed what the boy in Walgreens said earlier. She also said that undercover cops were going around telling people that the protest was moved to various different streets, to break up the crowd. This is why people were all around by the end. Chaos people. Nothing but peace tonight, though. ; ) I’m grateful for it.
So, there’s my story.
G’nite folks.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PETE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (yesterday) i love being surrounded by all the green. when i left illinois it was brown hopefully something will have grown by the time we get back. here everything is blooming! spring flowers and cherry blossoms. green grass, green trees, green bushes, the green party.... ( ; so what does everyone think of the attack on iraq? what should we do? anything? is there anything we CAN do? i almost cried when i heard that bombs were being dropped. i just want to fold myself up in spring and never come out of my left wing hippie hidey hole.... but then i remember that i would miss you all too much... PLUS what good would i be doing hiding here? none DUH!!!!!! time to go eat curry for dinner... mmmmmm curry.......

It's 1:50 pm eastern standard time and i am sitting in my brother's room in north plainfield new jersey. It seems impossible that i went from Chicago to New Jersey in an hour and a half, but i did. Airplanes are crazy. Everything looks like it's drifting by lazily... but you read a few pages and you are there. The bastards kept the lights on in the plane for most of the flight so i couldnt see out the window very well. I was not too happy about that. Chicago looks crazy from the air--like cim city. Lake Michigan has big chunks of ice floating in it that must be a mile wide. Midwestern cities and towns are set up in perfect, scary grid patterns while eastern cities and towns are windey and random.

I also can't believe that, in six hours, we are going to begin a $100,000,000,000-- that's a ONE HUNDRED BILLION DOLLAR campaign to take over a small dictatorship halfway across the world and attempt to set up some sort of democracy there.

Amy! I miss you Amy. I want your dad to drive you back to Knox... or at least i would if you diddnt hate it so much... Almost all grand schemes end in failure. A moderate amount of moderately grand schemes end in failure too. But the good thing is that you have a damn-near unlimited amount of grand schemes to attempt in a lifetime. One will work out ok.

The choice of what school to go to is ultimately your own. I can see you as a psycologist and not a political whozawhatzit but that's probably just because i hate political anything. Is a psycology bachelors good for stuff without psycology grad school? I think you would be a great teacher too. You wouldn't fuck up the children. They would love you. The liner job also sounds pretty cool. I'm not helping i guess. But you probably don't need my help. You probably already made up your mind since your letter was written weeks ago.

As for Bastian, yes. I think you have to move on. Keep it in the back of your mind though. See how much you miss each other by the summertime... or a year from now. That will tell you all you need to know. I suck at giving advice. I should shut the hell up now. I like talking to people in person. It makes me give better advice. Blogger is worthless. OK, not worthless, just not good for this.

Oh, come on Adam, just go get shitfaced on that thick European beer. Oh, and bring me back some of that dandy Spanish cocaine while youre at it. Thanks man.

I'm not getting any of my fucking work done for my independent major proposal and shit. I've just been sitting around, playing the piano, and wandering around town with people. Relaxing, but not productive. Damn i am a waste of flesh.

Enough rambling. Peace.

Hello everyone, í´m writing this in a internet cafe in spain. We´re having another concert in (let´s see everything is in military time here....) I think about an hour and a half is when we get on the bus. Being here has been amazing, the people are so cool, we sing this song to them and they just love it death! it´s called l´´Emporda and its a catalonian folk song and we sang it at random in this big square for people, and they all gathered around and went wild when we finished. They were actually crying they liked it so much. And this old guy said that we were giving the world the best thing we can give.... Beauty.... yeah that was overwhelming. The only thing I kinda wish is some of my friends were in choir, because i don´t really fit in with many people here. some of them are really stupid drunks and the others are people i just don´t get along with. i went to an irish pub with some people last night and i met a guy who goes to knox but is here right now, his name is Petey, heheheheh, yeah and he was cool. But in the end there really isn´t much to do at a bar but drink so i left around 1 a.m. because that didn´t sound too pleasing to me. so yeah, being here would be so much better if i was with drew II people, but oh well, beggars can´t be choosers. but yay for barcelona. i saw Rachel once and