Sitting it out

Hundreds -- only "hundreds" -- are protesting today in San Francisco to mark the one-year anniversary of the Iraq war. For radical-friendly reports, go to SF Indymedia; for the straight poop, go to the local paper's website.

Even though a year ago, I was down there demonstrating, I skipped it today; as I wrote a friend, "I don't know what I'd be protesting." I'm not sure what they want -- for the U.S. to get out of Iraq? That would be an unmitigated disaster. Just as a comparison, people in Kosovo are still gleefully killing each other, and that's with an international peacekeeping force. Imagine what people in Iraq would do without a stabilizing force -- it would turn into Somalia, notwithstanding all the U.S. money invested in the country and the consequent interest in keeping it stable. The corporations and banks need Bush's occupation to keep the place stable enough for them to make megabucks; any safety and stability that comes with it is just a beneficial and PR-friendly side-effect. If they could make money off anarchy, believe me, they'd pull out in a fucking second.