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Work 4 Peace,Hold All Life Sacred,Eliminate Violence! I am on my mobile version of the door-to-door, going town-to-town holding readings/gatherings/discussions of my book "But What Can I Do?" This is my often neglected blog mostly about my travels since 9/11 as I engage in dialogue and actions. It is steaming with my opinions, insights, analyses toward that end of holding all life sacred, dismantling the empire and eliminating violence while creating the society we want ALL to thrive in

Thursday, May 19, 2005

portland bound! - to be continued

i left for portland in the wee hours of the nite - drove to about 30 minutes north of sacramento & crashed at the first rest area i came to. i was listening to a book on tape - the only reason i could drive until 1:30a.m.

this morning i woke at 5:00, brushed my teeth, jogged around the rest stop for too few minutes, and returned to i-5 to head up thru beautiful northern california and onto oregon.

i stopped in shasta city to gas up - no biodiesel in this part of california yet - grrrrr - soon i hope! several men came up to me & commented about the truck. the first man spoke passionately about imprisioning bush, ending the war - when i mentioned the national guard campaign, he was quite informed about the numbers of ng in iraq, the state of their training & equipment, and he thought it was a brilliant idea, to work on getting them home. when i asked him if he thought mt shasta city folks would be behind this idea also, he kinda stepped back while leaning forward to whisper in my ear 'they're all republicans around here'.

i said 'so? i know LOTS of republicans who also want the national guard to be returned to california.' he looked extremely doubtful & sadly reiterated the lack of consciousness among his neighbors. he said they were all too financially complacent to turn against bush & the war agenda.

another young man approached me, a white man this time, told me his 2nd cousin had just been killed in iraq. i told him how sorry i was for his loss. he said he didn't really know his cousin but he had known, when they heard he had signed up, that his cousin was going to return alive. he said how ashamed & sad he was that his family had contributed to the death & destruction in iraq & that he was committing himself to working his hardest to ending this war.