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"I am just beginning to learn from what I expect to be a very intense tutelage," she wrote, "about the ability of people to organize against all odds, and to resist against all odds."

First Person: Hell no, I won't go - A fundamental deception lies at the core of the peace movement

"...I chewed over my Gulf war experience with activists while meeting the same people covering subsequent campaigns. At the core of the peace and justice movement, I believe there is a fundamental deception: Activists don't actually want to stop any war or get justice. If marches did stop a war, it would show that the government was listening. The purpose of peace and justice activism is to show that the power structure can never listen or change. Sincere and conflicted people become united in the idea that America is cruel and undemocratic.

This feeling is known as solidarity, and creating solidarity is what activism is all about. Join the struggle. And the struggle goes on: la lucha continua, win, lose or draw, por siempre. The idea that the struggle ought to accomplish something is not the point. The causes are place names, and allies come and go: Iraq, Chiapas, Palestine. The baleful power of America remains the eternal issue..."