It just so happened that the big rally starting off Saturday’s peace march took place outside Fisher Pavilion (where the Flag Plaza used to be). Inside the pavilion was Festival Sundiata, an annual African American crafts and culture fair. That was the reason Philly’s Best, the black-owned cheesesteak house at 23rd & Union, brought its mobile van there that day.

Its delectable sandwiches happened to be the perfect peace-march meal—hearty, flavorful, made with person-to-person care by an independent business, and named for the birthplace of modern democracy.

The march attracted at least 30,000 people and possibly many more. The police kept to themselves. The marchers were remarkably upbeat. There was such a vibe of togetherness and optimism, one wishes the march had led to a closing rally-party in a park rather than merely to a dispersal point in front of the INS jailhouse.

The question remains: Did anybody in power pay attention to the thousands marching here, and the millions marching worldwide?

We can be reasonably certain the Bush goon squad has privately pooh-poohed all the protests as the impotent work of a few scattered ’60s relics who refuse to get with the proverbial program. The professional bigots on hate-talk radio and the Fox Fiction Channel are assuredly poring over their theasauri this afternoon, devising newer and meaner epithets to hurl against anybody who dares to question instead of obey.

But Saturday’s events prove more and more of us refuse to be cowed by the fearmongers.

We can stand up and resist. We can answer deliberate fear with compassionate love.

Even if the near-right Democrats are afraid to come along, we can let them know it’s in their best electoral interest to listen to us.

We can encourage individual Republican politicians to break off from the hate machine if they’re ever going to win another “swing district” election.

We close today with a line from the ineptly directed, but politically prescient, Attack of the Clones:

“The day we stop believing democracy can work is the day we lose it.”