No school tommorow! STRIKE FOR PEACE.
 

I might agree with that if I'd actually heard about it, and I wasn't dying to find out what I've gotten on the HUGE math test I just took. But the "war" in Iraq was idiotic from the start. The US should never have gone there.

I do support it, and will be going to school. Honestly I highly doubt that any more people will skip classes than do every day.

And what will that actually accomplish?

I mean, honestly? What does it accomplish?

Assume that I was scheduled to work tomorrow (I'm not) or that I had school (I don't). If I stayed home, what would that accomplish?

Would soldiers in Iraq not die that day? No - they'd die or not die just as they would have if I'd gone to work/school.

Would innocent civilians be safer? No.

Would the terrorists/radicallists/people providing reasons for there being American (and who knows how many other nations' worth of military service people) to be in Iraq think, "How wonderful that these American school children and civilian workers want the war to stop - I'll put away my guns, bombs, and knives."? As if.

Do you think that policy-makers will go, "Oh. The nation's school children didn't take a math test today in protest. And a few thousand people who were so inconsiderate to their co-workers as to not show up on a day they were scheduled to work don't think there should be a war anymore. All right - war's called off! PROBLEM SOLVED."

Do you really think that this walk-off accomplishes anything at all other than make you feel better that you don't like war?

What do you learn by not going to school? That you can try to "get your way" by not doing anything?

What do you gain by not going to work? The ire of your co-workers, managers, or other people counting on you to be responsible?

Yes. This is a peaceful demonstration of your distaste for the war.

But isn't there a more proactive, still-peaceful, more practical way to show your lack of support for the war?

My school actually had a very successful peace ditch day before the war started, which was organized by the teachers and students together. We marched and held a peace conference. It was great.

Baring such like activities, I'm afraid the point might get missed if you simply ditch and stay home. Unless people know why you are ditching, you'll just get an absent mark and with no one any the wiser.

Has this event been announce anywhere? Is there a website or something I can look at? Forgive me, but I want to be sure this is real before I miss any more of my English classes.

Day.
 

I'm a second-generation military brat. My father wasn't sent into Iraq - he'd already retired from the military before 9/11. I think maybe my cousin might have been sent to Iraq, but our extended family is not extremely close so I can't remember if he had been or not.

You could very well say that I have nothing "personally invested" here. But I've had friends whose friends came home from Iraq and killed themselves. I've seen potential romances (not my own) die because as soon as they started getting off the ground, they got shipped off. A co-worker's former fiance is in Iraq. And my dad has worked personally on projects that have made our soldiers in Iraq (and elsewhere) even a little bit safer. So, actually - I do have ties to the people in this war. I may have gone to school with dozens of them. I may have taken aikido with some of the older ones. I probably have met many of the servicemen and women over there now at some point in my life. So I am not 'apart' from the war.

I don't want there to be a war.

And I don't think walking off from my responsibilities tomorrow will do a damned thing to make anything even slightly better for anyone.

So I deeply resent the only two poll choices being, "I do not support the war, and therefore will walk off from my responsibilities" or "I AM A BLOOD THIRSTY GUN TOTING PSYCHOPATH."

Great show of neutrality on the issue. And maturity. The radicals have you well-trained. You're either against the war or you want everyone in the world to die. Good.

At least you'll get a nice clap on the back from someone.

Well, CK more or less said it all. Not much more to follow up on that with. I really agree about the poll, though!

I agree completely with CK. I do not support the war in Iraq, yet I can not afford to stay home from school. Who will know, anyways? Nobody around here has seemed to have heard of it, and probably won't care if it is just me staying home to "protest" the war.

But, I do wonder, what does this accomplish? I really don't see the point. So the teachers don't get as many students that day, you'll just have to make up the work the next day. How is this going to effect people? Is everyone who is absent going to a peace rally or something?

These sort of protests only really work if everyone walks out and cause whole systems to shut down. Like if everyone stayed home from work, therefore shutting down the economy. Then when the government demanded to know what was up, we could say that it was a measure of how much we hate the war and want it ended. It would be a demonstration of your power, if only we put our minds to it.

That is totally idealized though, and it rarely ever works that way. For all number of reasons that I don't want to get into/think about.

Mainly because there are not enough people who are insane enough to drop their responsibilities for a pointless gesture.