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On one weekend in February of 2003, an estimated 10 million people in 60 countries took to the streets to protest the looming Iraq war. Never before in history had there been such massive, public opposition to a war before it began. But the war began anyway and the people – their numbers misreported in much of the media by a factor of ten, their opposition seemingly irrelevant – went away.

Are they back now?

None of the world-shaking protests of recent weeks – in Tunisia and Egypt, in Libya, Bahrain, Iran, in Wisconsin and around the U.S. – ostensibly have anything to do with the wars on this planet, except the ones that governments, including those in various state capitals, are waging against select segments of their own populations. What makes the current protests different from the protests that briefly flickered around the globe eight years ago is that they aren’t really protests anymore. They’re acts of self-defense. And that’s the link between Cairo and Madison.

But I think there is a link, as well, between the protests of today and the fiercely futile antiwar demonstrations of eight years ago. Both are a flaring forth of raw democracy on behalf of human rights and human dignity. The war machine has hurtled along essentially unchecked, wrecking nations and ecosystems, shattering the lives of millions and, in its extraordinary waste of national treasure, adding trillions of dollars to the U.S. national debt and contributing to our economic collapse.