peace surge

Yesterday the House passed the two sentence nonbinding resolution recording disapproval for the surge. although it is nonbinding, politics is primarily about message, smoke and signals. 90% metaphor, if you will. and thus, in my opinion, it matters. surely, politics is simultaneously about getting shit done - about real policy that impacts lives. the charades and chatter are democratic action in process. i get annoyed when people whine that this or that is "only politics" - why deride political action as only political action? democracy necessitates deliberation and nonbinding chatter. the testing of waters and the pushing and pulling, testing of what is allowable, what can be done, is part of political discourse in a democracy. we have not had enough of this, we have not had enough questioning of one branch to another of our government. surely, questioning and chatter are not enough to change reality. but it is nonetheless important and of historical value. the pictures are from the march on washington a few weekends ago. living in baltimore is convenient in that i can decide in the morning that ill stop on over and participate. although i took a great number of pictures, i couldnt capture the size of it. but i certainly recommend a march on the mall with tensofthousands of people. passing congress and monuments with a throng of citizens with a message is pretty amazing. even if it gets a disappointing amount of news coverage.