Beginning A Dialogue.

Last weekend as I sped through the heart of our local Teeming Megalopolis® of Greenfield, I paused at the light in the Heart of the Theater District (well, ok, there’s only one movie theater there, so let’s go with “center of town” instead) to give a “thumbs-up” and a thank-you to the weekly anti-war protest on the common (Saturdays, 11am ’till noon,) and noticed a counter-protest across the street – a few gentlemen with large and, to my cardboard-and-crayon mind, impressive signs with somewhat inflammatory messages like, “Want to piss off a Liberal? Try defending your country!”

Well, not being one to shy away from conflict, and having spent altogether too much time in the last year commiserating with like-minded individuals about our disdain for King George The Lesser and our disgust for the direction his idiotic ideologies have taken Our Country in the last seven-plus years, I decided I’d go back this weekend and see if they’d be there again.

You know, for a little friendly get-acquainted chat.

Well as 11 o’clock rolled around, the Peace-niks began to assemble on the town common, many meandering out of the weekly Organic Farmers’ Market where I’d just purchased some heirloom tomato plants and a few other goodies for my (soon-to-be) garden. I’m sure you’re familiar with the scene- Birkenstocks, pony-tails, braided armpits (j/k) and Sunflower Sparkle-Pony serenading the crowd with a guitar and a lilting trill, something about peace and love and shit.

I’m actually not a big fan of folk music, but hippy chicks give me wood, and I can put up with quite a bit of Sonic Pablum in deference to my Little Man.

Anyway, at The Appointed Hour the anti-war protesters came…

…and came…

…and came…

…and in fact, the number grew considerably as time passed, though this was the last picture I took of them.

Meanwhile, and more to the point of my foray, the anti-Anti-War-Protesters protesters had set up their counter-demonstration across the street:

On this particular occasion, it appeared at first glance that four guys and six five-gallon pails of sand were deeply disturbed by the Un-American Activities going on over on the town common.

But first impressions can be deceiving, and besides, four guys had given the middle of their sunny Saturday over to expressing their views, indeed, defending their viewpoint, and I thought they deserved a fair hearing. So after a lively round of how-ya-doin’s with the Peace Folks, several of whom I know and love, I headed over to the other side of the street to get to know the Anti-Anti’s.

They were at first understandably suspicious, having no doubt just watched me hugging other men, fer Gawd’s sake, but I began the interaction by thanking them sincerely for taking the time to represent their views in this decidedly “blue” venue, asking them if any of them were veterans, and thanking the one who was for his service. And in the interest of full disclosure, I told them that I disagreed with pretty much all of the viewpoints espoused by their signs.

But before they got to taking that too personally, I also shared the reason for my being there: my belief that what we have in common far outweighs what separates us.

What followed was a half-hour conversation between them and me, during which they expressed their frustration and anger at being misquoted, misrepresented and made to look like idiots by the local press (this I believe, as the local print media are indeed self-righteously liberal to a degree which far outpaces their national counterparts) and got to summarize their primary beefs with their counterparts across the street, those being that 1) protesting the war is unsupportive of our troops in Iraq at a time when they need our unequivocal backing, and 2) Us Lefties® are socialists, and socialists are bad, antithetical to The American Way.

And while I disagreed with them on both of these points, I bit my tongue and listened. And that earned me the right to ask them some pertinent questions.

Like, How come the rest of the First World Nations can provide Universal Health Care to ALL of their people for way less money than Americans spend on health insurance which doesn’t even cover all of our children?

Like, how can we defend prosecuting a war of aggression against a country which never attacked or even threatened us?

Like, why are we believing that high gas prices are The Arabs’ fault while Exxon-Mobil logs all-time World Record Profits quarter after quarter after quarter?

Like, where have all the patents for 100mpg carburators gone?

Like, why are American CEOs making hundreds of millions of dollars a year while their employees are losing their jobs in cost-cutting maneuvers?

And many others. It’s presently late, and I’m losing steam here, so I’ll cut to the quick:

We need to talk to each other. Not just to people who see things as we do, but most especially to people who see things differently. Because these people are Americans too, and they truly care about their country, our country, just as you and I do. And it serves no purpose to assume they’re idiots because we think they’re ill-informed. They VOTE based on what they believe, on what they think they know, and if they’re wrong, their children, our children, will have to live with the consequences.

I hope to make it back to the Other Side of The Street next Saturday, and the Saturday after that, and the Saturday after that, for as long as we can talk to each other, listen to each other, get to know each other as Real People who want to make the world a better place for our kids.

We have an awfully long way to go; perhaps we ought to get started.