The American Anti-War Crowd

"We should not want to propagate the negative energy of war. We should be sending more energy of peace and of love to heal our planet and to heal our people." -- Darlene Dancy, community activist and anti-war protester.

Several hundred protesters recently gathered outside the White House to galvanize the nearly dormant U.S. anti-war movement.

Protester Darlene Dancy also sold $10 tee-shirts printed with slogans which read "Peace," "Bring U.S. troops home," and "We need a peaceful solution for a difficult situation in Afghanistan."



She said money from the tee-shirts would be used to support the peace effort, as well as groups helping the needy in America.

"We must rally, protest, and march to exercise our civic capacity to bring about real change," said the keynote speaker, Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich.

A former U.S. presidential candidate and constant critic of U.S. military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, Kucinich asked the crowd: Where is America's security when millions in the United States face joblessness, foreclosures, and out- of- reach health care?

Many of the protesters said they had voted for President Barack Obama in 2008, but now oppose his decision to send more troops to fight in Afghanistan.

Several protesters also disagreed with his recent Nobel Peace Prize, and they didn’t like his Oslo acceptance speech, during which he said war is sometimes needed to defeat evil and establish lasting peace.

The protesters seemed energized and promised more demonstrations in the months to come, even though their numbers at this rally were quite small.

Blessed are the Peacemakers

"You don't fight fire with fire. You fight fire with water. So I'm carrying the water and trying to spray it around a little bit. Am I getting anywhere? I don't think about that." Colman McCarthy, journalist and founder of the Center for Teaching Peace.

In this quote, fire means war, and water refers to peace.

McCarthy is also referring to his efforts as a peace teacher, trying to push back the education in violence he says people are receiving. He says they watch countless murders in movies and on TV, and history classes in school talk mostly about wars and generals and those who pursue military force, rather than those who try to make peace.

For the past three decades, he has been riding his bicycle to high schools, universities and adult learning centers in the Washington, D.C., area, to teach about topics like conflict resolution, successes of non-violence, ending the death penalty, and making peace with animals.

When asked why he is often portrayed as an extremist by others, McCarthy quotes a line by one of his favorite authors, 1948 Nobel Literature Prize laureate T.S. Eliot. "In a world of fugitives, those who run in the opposite way are seen as madmen."

He also quotes Jeannette Rankin, the first woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, who voted against the entry of the United States into both World War I and World War II. "You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake," she said.

The video ends with the story of the only lawmaker who voted against the current U.S. war in Afghanistan.