n With reference to Adan Berkowitz ("On the Common, searching for '60s protest," Mar. 28, p.5), I find some agreement that the rally and march on the Boston Common against the war could have been less jovial and more focused. However, such an event is the expression of those who attend it.
If Berkowitz thinks the attendees weren't angry enough, what should be said about the students and faculty of the Boston-Cambridge area who were not at the march? They, and much of the citizenry, could have been found in large throngs at places like nearby Newbury Street shopping, strolling, cell-phoning, eating, parking their Iraqi-oil-guzzling cars and so on.
The war, soldier deaths and injuries, so-called "insurgents" and civilian casualties in Iraq march on. Before people are too critical of those who attended and participated in the demonstration, they should ask, "Where are the masses of caring individuals?" At least some citizens -- whether they fit the view of what a protest should or should not be -- are practicing democracy and not just capitalist consumerism, two concepts often falsely intertwined by individuals.
And yet another question, where would many people we have admired -- Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Emma Goldman, Cesar Chavez or even Robert Kennedy -- have been for that hour or two last Saturday? Would they have been at the march or in the usual consumer and self-focused world?
So, Berkowitz shouldn't waste so many words and space pointing at those who try to participate in democracy and try, in whatever small way possible, to halt this criminal war. Rather, he should take his case to the bystanders around him and their overwhelming sounds of silence.
Douglas Zook
Professor of Science Education
Boston University
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