With the five year anniversary of the war in Iraq approaching, anti-war protests took place in major cities around the country yesterday. The second anti-war event I have attended, the rally in southeast Houston (Mason Park) attracted close to 100 supporters and two counter-protestors. Aside from hearing the typical chants and speeches, I had the opportunity to chat with some interesting people: a Green Party supporter collecting petition signatures and a self-described Communist. A couple of officers in a police van monitored the scene from a distance, but the gathering was peaceful, lasting barely an hour and a half.
I was eager to sign the ballot access petition but was told that anyone who had voted in a major party primary would not be considered eligible to sign, which I found troubling, enough so that I will seriously consider not voting in a major party primary next year. I’m pretty sure I had read this a long time ago in the course of my Texas Green Party research so I was disappointed in myself for glossing over this. The discussions I had at the rally also left me thinking about whether or not I was compromising some of my more strongly-held (but extreme) positions by supporting Obama. I imagine some conservatives are dealing similarly with regard to support for McCain.