This is what democracy looks like (part 1)

Well my little snickerdoodles, I'm back from the anti war march and rally that I helped organize and let me tell you something kids, it was a smashing success. I honestly thought that if we got 50 people out on this bright warm sunny Saturday that we'd be doing good. But wouldn't you feckin' know it, we ended up with over 200 people at our little anti war/truth surge soiree!!!!!

The idea for the march was cooked up a few weeks back at my friend Sandra's house. She had a bunch of us from TN Concerned Citizens over to her place for a pot luck, and I need to apologize to those fine people for my sorry ass casserole that I brought that day, I promise I'll make it properly the next time we do the pot luck thing. Anyway, a new monkey friend Travis and I got to talking about the upcoming progress report from General Betrayus and we felt like we needed something to counteract the swill he was going to spew, so we cooked up the idea for a truth surge march and rally. We knew too things right off, one was that we were on to something, and the second was that we had to have help, major help, the kind of help only one person could provide, so we called over organizer extraordinaire and all around woman of the year, our hostess that day, Sandra.

Your pal and mine, the rich transplanted Minnesota goodness that is Sandra G.

Travis and his beautiful wife. This picture does not do her justice, she is one beautiful woman, and to be fair, Travis is not so bad himself.

Micki.

Sandra quickly brought in Micki, a super chick in her own right, Frank, an older dude who went to high school with my gf's mom (small world huh), Jim, the owner of The Acoustic Coffeehouse, and some others and we hit the ground running. We spread the word through fliers, the local media, the interwebs, and through most means of communication except smoke signals.

Being the stressed out worry wort I am, I fretted over our turnout all this week. Which is why I was so happy to see all those people who showed up for our march.

Ready to roll.

Please do not feed the protesters or they will follow you home.

Peace loving people from Asheville, NC who rode over to join us, how cool are they?

"C'mon, let's get going, this war won't protest itself."

The guest of dishonor, our Idiot in Chief, King George The Worst.

Just before we were all ready to get going I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around and this nice guy said to me, "You're the guy who writes that Monkerstein blog, right?" Let me tell you folks, I nearly pissed my self with surprise that I had a reader, besides Sandra and Joseph, who lived so close to me. His name is Keith and not only did he come to protest the war but he brought his two young sons with him to help protest. Keith's son Cameron. Would you look at the sign he's holding? How much do you love that kid? Ladies, I'm not sure but he may be "available" if you know what I mean.

Not interested in Cameron you say? Well how about Keith's other son Quinn. His shirt pretty much sums up my life, "It seemed like a good idea at the time." If you marriage minded parents want to lock in good looking progressive boys for your daughter, then I'd suggest you give Keith a call before someone snaps up his sons.

Seriously, it was an honor to meet you Keith and your kids, especially since you had such nice things to say about this blog and since you all got out to help us protest the war. I've got a feeling we'll run into one another at more progressive events sometime soon.

A little bit after 1:00 PM Miss Vanessa, or as I refer to her as, The Smartest Woman In The World, laid down the law, I mean, she spoke softly to us about the rules of the march, no marching in the street, no provoking anyone, no jaywalking, no walking against the lights, and no littering. That's her husband Joseph, or as I refer to him as, The Super Intelligent Husband Of The Smartest Woman In The World, who was a speaker at the rally, on her left. After Vanessa's kind words we began our 2 mile march to the campus of East Tennessee State University.

On the march for peace and to end the insane war for oil.

Keep it moving folks, there's a war on.

Check this cutie and her great sign out. How cool is she?

I loved this kid and his sign, "Find a President with a real brain." Man what a kid! His whole family was at the march.

And here they are! I showed that younger kid my sign, which also said, "No more war!" and I said, "Hey dude, we're like related or something." He gave me one of those 'Why is that idiot talking to me?' looks.

Hey, what's Notsoccermom's son doing here in east TN? Ahh, who cares? He's working that sign!

For part of the way I marched beside this cute woman. My camera skills did not do her justice, she is as cute as a button.

I may have been too shy to ask her her name but I wasn't too shy to ask her to hold my sign so I could take more photos.

After marching beside Brown Dress Gal I spotted one of my favorite people in east TN, Miss Frances. She's one of my heroes because she's an older gal, lets just say she's been able to become an AARP member for quite sometime now, who is at every progressive event in my area. She's an agitator from way back and I found out today she also writes a weekly column on environmental issues for a local paper. She is orignially from Germany and now she lives in our area, I think we're lucky beyond belief to have her in our midst. I hope I'm still hitting the bricks to make the world a better place when I'm her age.

Okay, this has been one long ass post and we still haven't gotten to the ETSU campus yet. So, I'm gonna bust up the full report into two parts and I'll post about the rally tomorrow. I promise more pictures, more pithy comments, and more monkey love in part 2 of "This is what democracy looks like."