American Stories

The People by DGC

I leave this town of Washington as I have found it...exhausted. I first arrived worn out from a thirty hour bus trip and I now return to my undisclosed location weary and worn from a wonderfully moving experience. My first impression of Washington was of a cold and sterile city and for the buildings, at least, that remains true. But the people of D.C. whom I have met are warm and friendly. The type "A" personalities still roam the streets with their faux Secret Service stone faces and they do look and dress an awful lot like Karl Rove and David Gergan, but to the real people in Washington D.C. they are largely ignored.

The "Stop the Machine" rally was for me a huge success; it has restored my faith in the general goodness and wisdom of the people of this nation. I have met Americans of every age, race and station and they are good. They have put down the tools of their lives; they have left their jobs and their loved ones and traveled thousands of miles to come here to address their government. Yet even more so, they had come here to share their experiences of this American life in twenty first century America.

Most vividly, I will remember the mothers who have lost their children needlessly and senselessly, either through insurance executive's greedy ineptitude or Pentagon general's deadly incompetence. How carelessly they throw away a mother's child for transient or illusionary gain, "The generals sat as the lines on the map they moved from side to side."