A War by Any Other Name Would Be as Horrific

Sitting in Barbara Lee's Town Hall Meeting in the Grand Lake Theater, next to me is an older gentleman. He did not know who Sean Penn was. But later on he shared with me that another speaker, Daniel Ellsberg, was someone he had shared a cell with for seven days, twenty years ago, protesting other political injustices.

All of us were showing our ages.

As I walked in, I wondered: where are the youth? They are the ones most affected by this awful situation (I feel it is unjust to call it a war...the "war" ended years ago, this is just an awful situation that has trapped our soldiers and all the iraqi civilians in an unending nightmare loop of killing and maiming and destruction.)

There were the youth working as volunteers in the lobby, clearly high school students. Where were the college students? So many grey heads have been fighting against this malicious, illegal occupation. They understand the history we are creating. We, we must take responsibility. We cannot blame a corrupt administration. We are the people of WE THE PEOPLE; we are responsible.

Then a young woman takes the stage. Ms. Martinez, from the Martin Luther King Freedom Center in Oakland, brought the house down, in my humble opinion. Mr. and Mrs. Martinez should be proud of their daughter and her ability to clearly breakdown what war and war mongering has wrought in all of our lives and the world it has created for our youth.

The price we pay for this action/inaction, for this war, for this "peace by any price," cannot be measured in gallons or barrels of oil.

It is the emotional toll we will spend a lifetime trying to heal.

When we say it's like Vietnam, that is what we mean.