This post is dedicated to the students at Morton West High, Karen Kennedy @ Democracy Interactive, and all of us who stand up!

The recent news of Chicago area H.S. students who protested the Iraq War in their cafeteria was upsetting to say the least. I, as an American who agrees with the students, applaud them, and their parents who stood up for them. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/northwest/chi-mortonprotest_09nov09,0,3003640.story
Karen at www.democracyinteractive.com discussed this at length with friends in the chatroom. I have been ticketed, I have been threatened, I have been in jail for related reasons. She expressed reservations of protests, and though her heart and brain are properly being used, I say we need to stand up. These students did, Benazir Bhutto did in Pakistan, Dennis Kucinich has. With Bush's signing statements, the Patriot Act etc. we have our rights eroding as I type this. The neo-con agenda has long been, silence dissent, promote Democ"k"racy elsewhere! The longevity of protesting for decades has angered some and defined some,certainly defined a couple of generations of the last forty years. Because we are able to fear arrest, or being pepper sprayed, we hold the compassion to stand up. The odd thing now is that if you compare the icons that inspired us, Martin Luther King,Bobby Kennedy,Pete Seeger,Edwin Starr,Neil Young,John Lennon,David Crosby,Marvin Gaye or Rosa Parks to name a handful. Nowadays, we are threatened, but we have Mike Malloy, we have Thom Hartmann,we need look no further than Cindy Sheehan or Code Pink these days, or how about the Morton West students in Ill.? Karen, I offer this video to you and everyone else who has stood up, and we must continue the effort to make sure this @#%$%#^^ never happens again, not in my country!