On Sept 29 at 7 a.m. I will be on an airplane heading to Washington D.C. I am very nervous. Not 'cause flying scares me, though six months ago that would have been the reason. I am nervous because there will be 100,000 other people planning to be in approximately the exact same area at the exact same time as me and lots of them are really angry.

The World Bank (more accurately, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will hold their General Meeting that weekend in D.C. I will be joining protesters from all over the world (though mostly the US) in exercising our political voice telling those organizations that they had better come down from Stratos* and start looking at the world from where the world lives. I am not part of any organized protest. I am going on my own. I am going because I want to hear what is said without the mainstream media coloring it with corporate paintbrushes. I am going because I am tired of always saying I want to do something and never actually doing anything but talk. I am going because I need inspiration.

There is a teach-in all day Sat that I will attend and the "permitted event" is a rally on Sunday which is actually billed as "kid friendly." I am not so sure it will be and I wouldn't ever consider bringing a child to something like this, but I am over-cautious on that account. I am concerned about the violence these protests generate. I am not going to be involved in any violence. I abhor it as a total breakdown of intelligence and an illegitimate means of expression. I don't really know what to expect. And it makes me very nervous. Though not nervous enought to not go.

* Credit for Stratos reference to When Corporations Rule the World, David Korten.