I was drawn to San Jose by an email talking about the above vigil. Click above to see what I saw there.

  

Every Friday since a bit before the Iraq war started, there has been a peace vigil at the corner of 2nd and San Fernando in San Jose. I have been there many times, but never with my camera. This Friday I finally took pictures of all the signs there. Click the above to check those out.

  

I hate to call that blue graffiti, because it just seems like there must be some meaning to that stencil. Anyhow, I saw them walking from the peace vigil to Cindy Shehan's speech in the church on 3rd Street.

     

I'm sorry to say I didn't get a good picture during the meeting. Cindys talk was good. It's been a few days since I heard it, but let me share some of the high notes with you.

She said that the November election was an important step forward. The Republicans got their path repudiated. It wasn't that people were voting for the Democrats, because they aren't really worth it. What they were voting for was change. However, to really get change out of the situation, we are going to have to keep applying pressure to the incumbents. With this in mind, her next big action is to walk the halls of Congress on January 3rd and 4th, explaining to the incumbents what issues need to be on the table. She would welcome support, if anybody wants to go to Washington in three weeks.

Bush needs to be impeached. He has done huge damage to the credibility of the USA overseas. Cindy is worried that if we don't impeach the entire Bush regime, it's going to look like we all support his agenda. She doesn't want that to happen. She admitted that she also has a personal axe to grind with the guy, and expects to be getting in his face with her feelings about his wrong headed war for the rest of their lives.

Cindy asked an assortment of important Iraqis what they want from the USA, and they told her "get the US troops out of Iraq." She feels that we need to be setting up Peace Camps all over the USA over the next year. She suggested people call them "Camp (Name of local gold star mom's dead child)" or whatever. Camp Casey in Crawford Texas was just the first, to really change US Policy is going to take much more than that.

Cindy thinks that to change the way the USA works enough to prevent another war like this one is going to take profound activism of many kinds. She thinks we need a long term strategy to do it.

During Q&A somebody asked her what to do if you have a kid that has just signed up for the military. Cindy said that if they have a delayed entry you can talk them out of enlisting until they report for duty. The recruiter is going to complain, but just let them. Also, she thinks more people should know that recruiters lie about what opportunities are available. Her son Casey wanted one thing but got another.

When asked about the 2008 Presidential race, she said her support is going to Dennis Kucinich, who she expects to run a much better campaign than he did in 2004.

I found this article about the event in the next Metro: