MINNEAPOLIS, MN -- They weren't carrying signs. They didn't have loud speakers. They didn't even need a group of guards in riot gear to make sure they didn't get out of hand.
Call them the non-protesting protesters. About 14 or so of them gathered -- many coming and going and some just stopping by for the free food -- at the "Unconvention" to take a different approach to protesting the Iraq war: talking it out.
They sat around a grill on a chilly and rainy Minneapolis afternoon -- each with their own story on how the war and media have affected their daily lives. A local teacher spoke about how she's seen many of her students shipped off to the war, another about how his brother still is haunted by bloodshed and images seen in the Middle East.
Their stories sounded all too familiar, ones we've heard before, but yet reaffirmed how many Americans are affected by the same tragedies and share the same stories.
"So many people I know who've gone in ther service feel that they don't have any other opportunities," said Emma Miller, a teacher from Minnesota.
Matthias Regan and Amy Partridge came from Chicago -- not to protest the war -- but to use art as a display of rumors plaguing our society.
"We recognize that we all used to go on vacation," Regan said. "We turned our vacation into an art practice. Our real goal is to figure out how to lead our lives"
While groups just like them across town used force and volume to preach their cause, this group sat quietly, hoping to have the same kind of effect.
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