Why all the smiles? Because the police permitted you to march where they told you to while they surrounded you on all sides and at all times? Because the state ALLOWS you to voice your opposition to the war in a peaceful, legal and utterly non-confrontational manner?

So long as people are content to march around the loop in circles chanting "Stop Bush" and "Peace Now" the powers that be will concede nothing and history has proven this to be true time and time again.

"Feel good" demonstrations such as this are a step backward from the achievements of the past 3-4 years and rather than continue to advance the struggle most people are just going through the motions these days.

People need to get serious about ending the war and all forms of exploitation if we're ever going to see a change. People like Cindy Sheehan and Juan Torres have been putting themselves on the line and others are beginning to up the stakes as well. What's ironic, and sad frankly, is that they're taking things further than the so-called radicals and militants. Where are all of the direct action advocates these days? I'm not a fan of the kind of passive civil disobedience that some groups advocate but they too are silent and MIA these days. So WTF?