Survival Of The Fittest

The young Chinese girl thumped the back of her head against the door, the dull knock going unnoticed as the room inside was empty and, unfortunately, locked. Sarah groaned and kicked her feet, it'd taken way too much work just to get a room during the lunch hour and now she was languishing there anyway, notes and agenda clasped in her arms, waiting for Mr Liatsis to turn up and supervise. And to bring the frikken key. She mumbled that last thought unintelligebly as she further punished the door with her heel.

It wasn't such a huge problem having to wait a few minutes for Mr Conspiracy to turn up, what was really irking her was that she seemed to be the only one there. She'd only run around putting posters up and talking with people trying to pull something together for a week, and, well, their absence was a little disheartening. Sure she was probably the most politically involved person in the school, but she was sure a few people would identify with at least a couple of the issues she'd listed on the poster... considering she'd added every one she could think of.

The clap of shoes coming her way took Sarah's attention off the ever so interesting cieling and down to the middle aged guy walking towards her. He was taller than her but not especially so, balding a little and carrying the slight weight that comes from 10 years of one too many biscuits a day. Average in all but thought process. He was carrying a thick wad of paper, hopefully marking work and not conspiracy schematics. She'd have to thank Mr Liatsis again for volunteering to supervise them, weird unnecessarily convoluted theories aside she was starting to warm to him.

"Ah, sorry about the hold up. Couldn't find the keys you see." He gave Sarah a slightly awkward smile.
"That's okay sir, uh, thanks again for doing this." she said, slightly flatter than she'd intended.
"It's no problem. Now if I can just.. get this.." He struggled with the aging lock, twisting the key in it's socket and pushing against the door, until it swung open with a scrape ".. Open. After you."

Sarah entered the room, dumped her bag and agenda notes on the teacher's desk before thrusting open the windows while Mr Liatsis jammed the door open with the bit of wood reserved for such occasions. With the room as hot and musty as it was she was desperate to make use of any breeze that happened to be passing. Summer wasn't her favourite season and Autumn wasn't doing much better yet that year.

Mr Liatsis took a desk at the back of the classroom and started getting on with marking quietly. Meanwhile Sarah started arranging chairs and tables in a more discussion-fitting manner. She hoped maybe the superior Feng Shui would attract people into the room.

Ah, late summer. When the sun decided to burn off whatever excess heat it had accumulated just for kicks. It was that excess heat, and not Feng Shui, that attracted a Mideastern student to the room. Well, that and the whole activist organizing event that Sarah Xu had approached him about earlier that day. Right now, however, he was actually hoping that the room had air-conditioning or someone had invented head-cooling earbuds he could plug into the iPod he was listening to.

Bismillāhi r-raḥmāni r-raḥīm. Al ḥamdu lillāhi rabbi l-'ālamīn...

Despite this being the first Sura of the Quran, one could tell from the way Rashid Hassan's head seemed to slide forward and backward on his neck that he wasn't exactly listening to something religious.

We gettin' A-rab money, we gettin' A-rab money...

He hadn't actually done much in the way of 'activism' as of late, and most of THAT was usually due to his parents bringing him along to the occasional anti-racism rally in Minneapolis or St. Paul. Not that he was losing interest, he just wanted to try something of his own, and figured that this was one of those events where he could take that chance.

And that was if enough people had decided to come. The only two people in the room right now were Sarah Xu, ever the Communist, and Mr. Liatsis, the Literary Theory (or Conspiracy Theory as he was notorious for) teacher as chaperone. He stopped at the doorway for a moment, appearing to look inside for others but jokingly fearing that the whole event was an FBI sting to stick him and everyone that would arrive on the Department of Homeland Security's No-Fly list and/or ship them to Gitmo.

Finding that it was at least a little cooler inside than outside, he walked in and headed for a seat anyway.

"As-salamu Alaikuma, everyone!" Rashid announced happily as he switched off his iPod and took a seat close to Sarah, "So...who's gonna be the infidel today?"

Harun was quite a politically active student; or as most would call it, a political nerd (he couldn't blame them, half the games he played on forums were political, and a few of the games and demos on his PC were about running a country or an election campaign of some kind, though he tended to keep these facts to himself). This made the news that an activist society of some kind was being formed was music to his ears. He had first heard off it when he saw the posters Sarah Xu was posting around the school, and was immediately intrigued. He was looking for an opportunity to come out of his shell, socially speaking, and the event was a nice opportunity to debate and discuss key issues of the day. He considered himself centre-left politically, strongly admiring how the Europeans ran things with their welfare systems and all (though how they still managed to elect morons like Berlusconi and Blair was beyond him.)

And god-damn, it was hot as hell. Summer and "good" weather in general, was overrated in Harun's humble view. Sure, a little bit of hot, sunny weather was alright, but too much, well, it got boring spending half the day covered in sweat and the associated B.O, being chased around by infernal wasps that seemed to always go straight for the face. And the hayfever the "good" weather brought? Screw that, Harun enjoyed having a nose that wasn't constantly running. Today, it was particularly bad, Harun needing to blow and wipe his nose every few minutes. Thankfully, the room the meeting was being held in was, in Harun's experience, relatively cool compared to the rest of the school. Still hot as hell, but not AS hot.

When he reached the room, he found the door open, with a bit of wood propped against the door keeping it from slamming shut. He peeked in anxiously, expecting to either be uncomfortably early or embarrassingly late, to find only three were in attendance so far; Sarah, the girl who organised it all who was busy arranging the chairs and tables, Mr. Liatsis (the literary theory teacher who was presumably supervising the meeting, and would probably contribute a few entertaining theories of his own) who was quietly marking some papers and Rashid Hassan, who appeared to have just arrived.

Slowly stepping into the room, Harun meekly said hello to everyone in quick succession: "Hey, Sarah, hey, Mr. Liatsis, hey, Rashid", nodding at them awkwardly as he did so. Scratching his spotty nose, he pulled back the nearest seat, threw his schoolbag on the floor behind him, and slouched into his chair. Biting his lip, he stared out of the window, waiting for conversation to kick off, trying to think off what to say and what opinions to take.

[[Orn "Dutchy" Ayers debut]]

Dutchy worked his way down the hall at a rather slow pace, his head buried in an old X-Men comic he held mere inches from his face.

Things weren't looking good. Storm had been kidnapped by Sabretooth and imprisoned, a despicable act that would surely draw Wolverine into the fray. Dutchy licked his thumb and flipped the page as he absentmindedly careened through the hallway. He couldn't walk straight when he was reading , a fact he knew all too well. Instead of walking straight he'd zig zag about until he found himself bumping into a pole and would have to readjust his course. But it wasn't like he was going to put the comic down, not at this critical juncture. Sabretooth finally had the X-Men where he wanted them and an epic battle with Wolverine would commence any page now. Walking into lockers was a small price to pay for a few more minutes with some of his favorite muties.

As if on cue Dutchy smacked headfirst into a locker, forcing him to lower the comic book in annoyance. He glanced up and down the hall to find it mostly empty, no one had seen him, safe for the security cameras. He wondered to himself if there really was a security guard hunched over somewhere in the school studying a half dozen camera feeds for any wrongdoing. If so, they'd probably think he was drunk what with his odd behavior. He laughed at the thought and continued onwards, flipping open the comic and trying to find his place.

To Dutchy it seemed like he reached Mr. Liatsis classroom all too soon; there was at least a good 10 or so pages left in his comic. (An 80 Page Blockbuster!) He sighed and rolled up the issue, jamming it in his pants pocket. He readjusted his bright orange KNVB hat and pushed his bright blonde hair out of his eyes. He hoped more than one person had shown up to Sarah's meeting. She was a nice girl and rather pretty, he would hate to have something she cared about crushed by something as dumb as lack of interest.

"Hup Holland Hup! Laat de leeuw niet in z'n hempie staan..." He mumbled happily to himself as he entered the classroom. His eyes lit up with excitement at the sight of more than one kid already there. He grinned and gave Sarah a rather exagerated wave as he strode in.

"Hey Sarah!" He said excitedly. It looked like this meeting wouldn't go bust afterall, that was one good thing at least.

He glanced over at the other two boys sitting down already, Rashid and Harun. To be completely honest with himself, Dutchy didn't really know who Rashid was. He'd seen him around and had a few classes with the boy but hadn't really gotten a chance to talk to him, something that saddened Dutchy greatly. He seemed like an easy going guy and seemed to ooze confidence, a rather welcoming trait. To be completely honest, Dutchy found him kind of hot. In stark contrast, Harun sat a little ways away from Sarah and Rashid looking pretty out of place.

His appearance at the meeting was a rather enjoyable suprise for Dutchy. He knew Sarah but not very well, and he didn't want to stick around the girl the entire meeting. Although she WAS pretty, and probably smelled nice today. Although girls usually tended to smell nice. In any case, Harun was a pretty close friend of his and Dutchy found it rather cool that they'd both decided to attend on a whim. It looked like he'd arrived just in time too, Harun was slouching pretty low in his chair and didn't look like he would start the conversation up anytime soon. Dutchy flashed him a large smile and pulled up a chair next to him.

"Goda kvoldid Harun!" He said as he sat down. Harun probably didn't know Icelandic, but Dutchy was betting that the boy would recognize it as a greeting. With nothing else left to do, Dutchy's hand fell down to his side and he found himself fishing his comic book from his pocket.

I wonder if the X-Men ever engaged in Political debates like this?

Brendan Wallace was, in the nicest terms, all alone.

It had been probably, what, a week, since his parents decided to drop themselves in St. Paul Minnesota, and Brendan hated them for it. He wished he didn't have to leave Australia, he begged them not to move the family, since he knew no-one in the Northern Hemisphere, let alone America. He had no friends here. So why didn't he make any? Because he didn't want to.

He spent most of his time on the internet nowadays. They were good friends, him and it, one could almost ship them. But Brendan told himself he needed to slightly extend the olive branch, and that week, he joined the activist group he was on his way to now.

His arms were concealed by long sleeves, and they were wrapped around themselves, as though they were invisible and made him just as. The hallways were longer and uninviting, always paling in comparison to his old school. It wasn't the same. Nothing was the same, and he hated it so so so so so SO much.

He found the room, quietly opened the door, and found it was already occupied by Sarah Xu, some olive kid, another gir-wait, scratch that, a boy, and another pale kid. Trying not to draw to much attention to himself, he nodded to everyone, and slipped into a chair mathematically furthest away from all parties in the grouping, but making sure he wasn't going to be ignored. He dropped his bag beside him, and waited to see if he was the last person here. There'd probably be other people, though he wasn't sure.

[[Madelyn Prowers debut]]

Madelyn had seen the posters over the course of the week and was fairly interested in seeing what sort of things that the group would discuss. Whoever had posted them seemed to have left the agenda for the group fairly open, so it was safe to say that almost anything would probably pop up. While Madelyn wasn't very familiar with some of the discussion topics (Siri Lanka? How is that even a topic? she had thought to herself as she read the poster), she was interested in learning about the state of the world and forming her own opinion on things, which is why she was excited about joining. Of course, she was already a staunch defender of gay rights, but she figured that would probably be one of the tamer subjects in a seemingly liberal discussion group such as this.

It was on hot days like this that Madelyn was glad she had cut her hair shorter at the start of summer vacation. The frizziness the humidity brought alone made it rather troublesome to deal with. She wiped the sweat off of her brow as she walked down the hallway, her footsteps echoing throughout the empty corridor. Bored of the silence, she jokingly hummed the "Captain Planet" theme song to entertain herself as she made her way towards the meeting room of a recently formed political activist group. The only thing she feared about coming to the meeting was that everyone would have the same opinion about everything. People tended to be extremely PC with people they'd never met before, and Madelyn hoped that this group would at least have the balls to shake things up a bit. She had heard that Mr. Conspiracy Theory was chaperoning the group, so at the very least his theories might prove to be entertaining discussion fodder.

It wasn't long before Madelyn finally made it to the room, delighted to find that it was at least a bit cooler inside. As she stood in the doorway of the meeting room surveying her fellow students with her vibrant blue-green eyes, she was glad to see none of her usual anime club friends at the meeting. As much as she loved them, Madelyn was more interested in hearing new opinions from people who she rarely got the chance to speak to. It would have been disappointing if she already knew everyone's opinion, after all. She was vaugely familiar with the cast of characters that made up this meeting so far from having been in the same classes as them over the years, but never really knew much about them. She knew Sarah in passing from a few art classes, and had heard a lot about Duchy from friends after she 'outed' herself, but had never really had a chance to get to know either of them. Beside those two, she didn't really know much about the other members beside their names, and one of the kids she just barely recognized as the new exchange student from Australia. Harun had always seemed like a nice guy in class, though she'd never gotten much of a chance to socialize with him before, and Rashid had always seemed like he would be pretty cool to hang out with, based on his punkish fashion sense. Madelyn was looking forward to getting to know this group a little better already.

"Howdy fellow Planeteers!" She joked with a huge grin upon entering, waving to everyone in the room (even the sulky looking exchange student in the back) as she made her way towards a seat near Duchy. "What's on the agenda for saving the world today?"

Sarah couldn't contain her excitement as Rashid walked in the door. And her reply was rather more frantic than she'd expected. "Hey Rashid!" It didn't help that she was starting to feel lethargic between the heat and moving everything around. She decided it was circular enough and plonked herself into the nearest seat with a thump. She snorted loudly at Rashid's infidel comment before leaning back in her seat and giggling. She just found it incredibly funny for some reason; the heat was probably messing with her head.

Just as she was starting to regain her composure she realized another boy had already entered. She couldn't quite remember his name off the top of her head so she just gave a wave and said "hey" while grinning like an idiot. On top of going slightly heat crazy she was also genuinely glad; it was actually starting to look like they'd have a good little group.

That reminded her. She pushed her seat back, got up; slowly took the 4 or 5 steps to the teacher's desk, grabbed all her stuff; turned and ambled back, dropped the papers on the desk next to Rashid and started rifling through the bag for her water bottle. She was trying to slow down now, relax, cool off before she started really embarrassing herself.

The already slightly exhausted girl returned Dutchy's wave, though not nearly as enthusiastically, as he came in and sat down opposite her with… Harun. She didn't understand a word he'd just said but the last part jogged her memory. She dumped her bag on the ground and took a sip from the recently located water bottle.

"Okay, so… I guess we should start?" It was the first time she'd hosted anything like this and, well, she was kind of nervous. "Guess I'll chair if that's okay with everyone… um… I kind of wrote up an agenda earlier if we need something to start" She tried to keep some sort of eye contact with the rest of the group, and took a quick glance at Rashid next to her. "But we can start with anything if someone's interested."

As she finished that last sentence Brendan quietly joined the group, and she gave him a subtle wave, she hadn't known the exchange student long but she'd done her best to be welcoming to him in the past couple of weeks, between organising this meeting and freaking out about have work again. Right behind him, making enough noise for both of them, was Madelyn. Sarah couldn't help but return the smile and reflect her enthusiasm. She would've taken a moment or two bask in Madelyn's appearance, but they had politics to discuss! Her question was a perfect lead-in anyway.

She replied with a slightly higher pitch than usual, but slightly more confident than earlier. "Well, we were just about to discuss that. Anything you want to start with?"

Rashid had leaned back in his seat and continued to jam to the music as he watched the doorway for more students to fall into the FBI's lastest sting (as he was now used to calling this event.) "Sup man..." he said rather groggily to the first person in. That person was his attempted-BFF Harun. Ever the nerd in contrast to his rebellion. Contrary to the movies, opposites never tended to attract in this case, but it was nice to have him for company. Of course his reclusive behavior was the reason why he was only the "attempted" BFF.

A muffled metallic 'bang' in the hallway heralded the arrival of Dutchy, for whom it seemed a good portion of Bayview's male population was very uncomfortably and never admittedly attracted to. He seemed quite engrossed in his X-Men comic. After him came Brendan, the "new kid," and one of the few that was probably more reclusive than Harun apart from that faux-goth that loved to start drama when prodded with a stick. At least that was worth a few laughs.

"Howdy fellow Planeteers!" Madelyn Prowers began as she stepped in. "What's on the agenda for saving the world today?"

That's a good question. Why wasn't there an Arab Planeeter? Maybe they thought we'd be all about the oil, those racists... The thought of racism caused him to glance briefly albeit uninterestedly at Dutchy, as one of the newest people on his parents' 'hitlist' was this crazed Dutch politician with hair from the 1970s. Obviously not of the androgyne's ideological stock though.

"Well, we were just about to discuss that," Sarah replied confidently. "Anything you want to start with?"

Rashid opened his mouth to say something, only he couldn't figure out exactly what to say. It wasn't that he was at a loss for ideas - hell, he had plenty for this sort of meeting - he was just a bit reluctant for it to lead to something that would then lead to his parents being brought in and, knowing them, demanding control over the entire operation.

"Iraq, I guess..." Rashid replied. It wasn't quite Palestine, but it was both something he could 'relate to' as well as something that everyone here was at least vaguely familiar with.

As he entered the room, sat down and made his basic greetings, all he got from Sarah was a quick, enthusiastic "Hey!" (he suspected she'd probably forgotten his name. He didn't blame her, he wasn't the most memorable of students, and they hadn't really talked in ages). As Harun leaned back on his chair (which was unfortunately a squeaky, wobbly one with large amounts of old gum stuck to the bottom), he heard a "sup man..." The rather groggy, lazy greeting came from Rashid Hassan.

"Oh, hey Rashid." He paused, thinking of something to say as he bit his bottom lip in thought once again. "How's life treating you?" he asked, slouching in his chair even further and twiddling a pen between his fingers. Rashid was a friendly enough guy, but a bit too outgoing and jokey to really mesh with Harun's reclusive personality. Still, he was a good person to be around.

As Harun continued to make himself as comfortable as humanely possible in the low-quality school seat and think of a good ice breaker, he heard a distant metallic bang. He guessed it was probably Dutchy, reading a comic as he walked through the hallways, only to walk into an inconveniently placed locker. The assumption was confirmed by the laugh (definitely Dutchy's voice), and by Dutchy's arrival soon afterwards in the doorway of the class, comic in hands. Dutchy gave Harun a big, friendly grin and sat down next to him. Him and Harun got along pretty well, and it was good that they'd both decided to attend the same meeting. As Dutchy said something in Icelandic (judging by the sound and context, probably a greeting) Harun grinned back and decided to greet Dutchy with a foreign language too, with a polite "guten tag". Not as obscure as Dutchy's, but meh, it had to do. Dutchy quickly began rifling through his pocket to pull his comic back out. Harun would probably end up looking over his shoulder and taking a few peeks; Dutchy's comics were always interesting, even if Harun would never buy them himself.

After Dutchy came in and Sarah suggested they should start, a couple more others came in. One was some new Australian student. Harun hadn't had the pleasure to speak with him yet, but he seemed very nervous and antisocial in school, even more so than Harun. This was confirmed when he immediately gave everyone a quick, hardly noticeable nod and went as far away from the crowd as possible. He was followed by a girl named Madelyn. Harun didn't know her that well, but she seemed nice enough. As she came in, she announced her presence by jokingly saying "Howdy fellow Planeteers! What's on the agenda for saving the world today?", then waving at everyone in the room. Harun responded by nodding and giving her a quick handwave back.

Eventually, when the question was raised, Rashid suggested they start by discussing Iraq, and the situation there. Harun nodded in agreement, tapping his fingers while saying quietly "Yeah, Iraq. Or something like Israel and Palestine." Iraq was always an interesting subject, even though, judging by the people in attendance, it didn't look like any overtly pro-Iraq War students were there. He could be wrong, but he didn't think he was.

It took Dutchy long enough to realize it, but the topic had finally turned from introductions to the real meat of the meeting; hot button political topics. Dutchy was in a strange way sad, Professor Xavier had just entered the scene and it looked like he was just about ready to kick Sabertooth's butt, he'd have to rejoin his heroes later. As Dutchy put away his comic book reluctantly he reflected on how it was technically impossible for Professor X to KICK Sabertooth in the butt because well... yes.

I suppose he could kick him in the butt with his mind... yeah that'd work. Man, Professor X would make a horrible soccer player. Or wait, since he has mind powers maybe he has an advantage? Danggggg that could work.

When he really thought about it, the probability that Professor X would be the BEST soccer player in existence was extremely high.

He'd do it with style too, knowing him. He'd out Maradona Maradona. He'd Maradona him right in the face!

What were they talking about? Dutchy returned his attention to Rashid just in time to catch the topic line.

"Iraq, I guess..."

Dutchy cocked his eyebrow slightly in surprise. He didn't know Rashid was an Iraqi. Or maybe he wasn't and was just bringing up an issue. It would do good to find out, he didn't want to offend the guy by accident.

Dutchy stared down at the desk and shifted uncomfortably. He didn't want to sound like an imbecile, Iraq wasn't his most knowledgeable subject. He had rather hoped they would start on an issue centered in Africa. He'd taken out a few books from the library regarding the Rwanda Genocide and the Congo War and had handed them back in a pretty sorry state. He had told the librarian he had dropped them in a puddle but in truth most of the water damage was from his constant uncontrollable breakdowns as he read about villages upon villages massacred. At least he'd come away better informed, but it would do little to help him on a topic like Iraq. He shrugged his shoulders, it wouldn't do to have him pass and just listen to opinions though. Otherwise, what was the point of even attending the meeting?

Dutchy stood and looked around the room. Two other students had come in after him; one he didn't know and a girl called Madelyn Prowers, a friend of a friend. That brought the group to six people a fairly good turn out. He hoped Sarah thought so too. He took a deep breath and began to speak.

"Hey everyone, I guess we should get things underway then yes yes?" Dutchy said with enthusiasm. "Alright, so some of you don't know me, and some of you do." He gave a smile at Madelyn who'd grabbed a seat next to him and Harun.

"For those of you who don't know, my name's Orn. But call me Dutchy, everyone calls me Dutchy." he continued. "So first off, thank you Sarah for organizing something like this! It's pretty cool to get together and talk about well, uh, stuff."

He paused to think of what to say next. A part of him wanted to give Sarah a bigger thanks but he figured that would do for now.

"So topic at hand, Iraq. I'm not very well versed about the conflict in the Middle East- which pretty much means I know next to 'nil. It's my personal opinion that war is very rarely justifiable. I won't pretend to know all the political factions involved, but the Middle East was a giant clusterfu- sorry I mean, giant mess before the U.S Invasion. With an entirely seperate military now attempting to build Iraq back from the ground up after years of political tension, well I don't think it's going well or will end well. I think that the Iraqi citizens required aid and support to help simmer down the tensions rather then having their entire government smashed to pieces by America. It was like, America laserbeam'd Iraq in the knee, then tried to coach it into winning the 50 yard dash. There has to be a better way to go about things then that."

He breathed a sigh of relief and smiled, taking his seat next to Harun and Madelyn again. Suddenly a thought hit him, an unescapable urge and he found himself standing up again.

"And that's all I have to say about that." He said confidently before sitting down once more.

The only one left to arrive was another girl with vibrant orange hair. Honestly, what made people do such things to their hair? Well, he couldn't talk, he wanted to make his darker. A long time ago, but that was...a long time ago.

"Howdy fellow Planeteers! What's on the agenda for saving the world today?"
Oh, she's not one of those bubbly types, is she? I would rather not share a room with a bubbly girl. They tend to suck.

So then the olive kid suggested Iraq. What was his name...Rashid? Rashad? Rashid, probably. He didn't know that many people, so he wasn't probably expected to remember all their names. Or was he? This was going to be his year for the year, so might as well make some sort of effort. So, there was Sarah...Rashid...um....Harun, yeah...that Icelandic kid (he half-smiled when he remembered he was Icelandic. What were the odds of him being...nah, not a chance) who's name he would remember later, probably...Madelyn, the explosive chick. Well, that was...

Brendan realized he had gone off in his own mind again, and the Icelandic kid, whose name he knew was now Orn, or Dutchy he supposed, had started speaking about the Iraq War. He supposed he could chime in. He remembered his old Legal Studies teacher in his old school had explained a lot of stuff about the Iraq situation. It wasn't. But...it wasn't like they needed him, was it? He'd just sit in his seat, and wait for someone to ask him about it. Yeah, he would do that. He would sit in his seat, which he wished was not so uncomfortable, and wait to see how the situation turned out.

When Sarah asked if there was anything that anyone wanted to start with, Madelyn's mind raced with some of the topics that had been mentioned on the poster. She kind of wanted to know more about the whole Siri Lanka issue, but felt odd about starting a conversation about it without knowing anything about it. She secretly hoped that someone in the know would pick it for her so she could sit back and listen, but it wasn't long before Rashid suggested starting with Iraq and Harun mentioned it as well.

I was kinda hoping for something new to talk about, but it's a good way to start things off I guess. Madelyn thought to herself as she waited for someone to get things rolling. It wasn't long before Duchy decided to take the initiative.

"Hey everyone, I guess we should get things underway then yes yes?" Dutchy said with enthusiasm. "Alright, so some of you don't know me, and some of you do." He said, smiling at her as he introduced himself.

Madelyn was caught a bit off guard by the attention, so her first reaction was to cock her eyebrow quizzically, though quickly smiled and waved back to him. They'd never really met before, but she thought it was nice of him to make her feel welcome in the group. If he didn't already seem like an interesting guy before, his remarks about the war itself certainly piqued Madelyn's interests.

"So topic at hand, Iraq. I'm not very well versed about the conflict in the Middle East- which pretty much means I know next to 'nil. It's my personal opinion that war is very rarely justifiable. I won't pretend to know all the political factions involved, but the Middle East was a giant clusterfu- sorry I mean, giant mess before the U.S Invasion. With an entirely seperate military now attempting to build Iraq back from the ground up after years of political tension, well I don't think it's going well or will end well. I think that the Iraqi citizens required aid and support to help simmer down the tensions rather then having their entire government smashed to pieces by America. It was like, America laserbeam'd Iraq in the knee, then tried to coach it into winning the 50 yard dash. There has to be a better way to go about things then that."

Madelyn was thoroughly entertained by Duchy's laserbeam analogy and awarded his recap of the war with a silly golf-styled round of applause. He certainly had a knack for being entertaining in Madelyn's book. When Duchy stood up once again to give his Forrest Gump closing remarks, Madelyn giggled at the joke, but as she dwelled on the topic at hand, it wasn't long before Duchy's humorous synopsis of the war gave Madelyn an interesting idea. She excitedly bounced out of her seat, practically blurting out her first question before she had even fully begun to stand.

"Oooh! So, is it safe to say that for the most part nobody here is particularly in favor of the war, right? If that's the case, then I have a question to add to Duchy's remarks; what do you think was the real reason we started the war in the first place? Could it really have been because we thought that Saddam was dangerous, or do you think our government had an insidious secret alternative reason in mind, like taking their oil or trying to build up a new middle eastern government from scratch so that they would be allied with them in the future?"

Having proposed her question, Madelyn quickly took her seat and eagerly waited to see what her fellow classmates would say before realizing she hadn't really introduced herself to the group and face-palmed before she shot right back up out of her seat.

"Oh, and umm... I'm Madelyn, by the way. Nice to meet you all!" She added, quickly dropping back into her seat.

Roland had heard about the activist meeting a few days before, and had every intention of showing up early for a change. But then things happened, mostly having to do with his math teacher having a meeting with him after class. His grades in trigonometry were, too be frank, not the best, and he felt the need to discuss things with his new calculus teacher and hopefully get a few things straight.

His urge to do better in math got the better of his desire to be on time, so he arrived late enough to their little get-together that the discussion had effectively started without him. He opened the door, seeing that some girl named... fuck, what was it? Marilyn? Whatever it was, she was talking about Iraq, and immediately Roland grimaced. It wasn't that he didn't give a shit about the people in Iraq, far from it. But he was inclined to say that Iraq got too much of the country's attention. There were other things going on that the news barely reported on.

Whatever. He took a seat next to that one kid with the nose-bandage, Dutchy. Roland recognized Dutchy; he sat next to him in the cafeteria the one time and got into a heated discussion on comics. He found out that Dutchy preferred more light-hearted fare than Roland, who mostly just read the occasional trade paperback from Vertigo.

The girl was about done talking, mentioning that her name was, in fact, Madelyn. She safely assumed that no one supported the war and began talking about motivations. This was a subject that Roland felt that he could more properly address.

"Hey," he said, looking up at Maddy. "Roland Hayes here. I think it was probably all of the above, though I don't think that oil was that much of a factor. I mean, why would the army go anywhere near Baghdad if that was the case? Couldn't they just occupy the oil fields without deposing the government? Also, I'm pretty sure the first Gulf War was accused of being about oil, too, and I don't think anything really came of that.

"I think the motivation of making an American-friendly regime is more plausible, and I also think that there was a sort of naive utopianism in play. I mean, if you didn't do much research in this department, you might come up with the idea that getting rid of a dictator is all you need in order to fix a country and make it a democracy. They don't see any of the other factors that come into play. So, um..." He paused, trying to find a way to conclude. "...that's basically all I got. Sorry."

He settled back in his chair, surprised at getting stage fright all of a sudden. Arguing points wasn't really new to him, but an audience was; his experiences had mostly been limited to blogs and internet forums, and something about seeing the face behind other people's opinions kind of crippled him right away. He'd have to fix that. Maybe the school had a debate team he could join...

Sarah was more than a little pleased to have everything coming together. They had a good number of people and discussion was happening, rather than everyone just awkwardly looking around at each other listening to one person.

Sarah laughed at Dutchy's summary and joined in the small clap. She did find herself cringing a little bit at the characterisation the Iraq war was getting though. That feeling grew more with Roland's answer to Madelyn. It wasn't so much feeling that someone else was wrong that was making her feel a little agitated, but familiar nerves at the prospect of starting an argument.

"I think, I think that's not quite right. I mean, we were the ones who put Saddam into power in the first place, and the number of, of civilians we have killed shows our forces aren't there with good intentions." She took a swig of water to try and distract herself from thinking about 'collateral damage'. "The, the thing is that you have to sort of look at capital. The logic of it. We didn't invade because it was the right thing to do, or because of some moral obligation or or because the US as a country got anything out of it, but because it meant profit for the uhh... whatsit. Oligarchy. I mean, the war is costing however many billions of dollars to us but every cent of that is profit for arms manufacturers and.. and the contracts for rebuilding are going to other companies and it gave the administration a perfect opportunity to... to set back the civil rights movements years."

She realised she was starting to ramble a bit, and took another swig of water. "I mean, sorry, i'm going on a bit. But yeah, we didn't go to war with any good intentions or with any good reasons. Democracy is further out of reach of Iraqis than ever, and we knew that going in. It's like, like Afghanistan. The Taliban is stronger than ever precisely because we invaded, Al Qaida didn't even really exist until we started this bullshit. I mean the Left in those countries is stuck between our army and mercenaries, and totalitarian cultists and things won't even begin to improve until we pull out." Her roll came to an abrupt stop when she realised she'd been speaking a bit long. "And uh, yeah, sorry if that was a bit incoherent, and I.. I didn't really give enough detail but i guess Chomsky can do that or something" The nervous smile stayed on her face for a little while before she sat down quickly and fiddled with the bottle's cap, she was shivering slightly but tried her best to calm down and not draw attention to it.

There was so much more she wanted to express but she wasn't sure if anything she'd just said made any kind of sense and already she was thinking of all the things she'd forgotten to mention. Oh well.

Considering how heated activist meetings tended to get, everyone seemed polite if not a bit reluctant to speak their minds in turn. Rashid even jokingly imagined Dutchy with a Southern drawl after suddenly referencing Forrest Gump like that. Sara, however, was clearly anxious to vent, however incoherent that came out. Speaking 'last' (as it were) allowed him to gather some of his thoughts, and respond.

"Hell, it had to be about the oil. The British separated Kuwait back in the 20s because they wanted it, and Saddam invaded in 1990 because he wanted it back. But really, oil is power in the Middle East even more than Islam, and neither my p-...the Palestinians or Zionists are sitting on any. There's no religious bent to this conspiracy, Chavez the Marxist and the House of Saud know this equally well." Taking cues from other ethno-activist organizations, Rashid had often been tempted to refer to the Palestinians as 'my/our people.' But as much as he wanted to see a Palestinian state made reality, he just couldn't 'identify' with his heritage as much as his parents and grandparents did.

He felt some kind of cheesy epic buildup music playing in his mind as he slowly stood up, tucking his iPod earbuds into his shirt pocket.

"If America's not after the oil it's China and Russia deals with whoever it damn well likes. Ideology comes second to 'resource acquisition. And all of us," he gestured as if 'he' represented 'us,' as seemed to be his style when issuing such a fatwa, "who just want to be left alone to live our lives in peace, get caught in the middle. That's what we want to believe the American dream is about too, where everyone can practice what they want long as they don't kill each other. If push has to come to shove, then insha'Allah we will do what we have to do."

He stopped to catch his breath and sit down. This activism was a guilty pleasure. Pleasure because he felt he was finally taking charge of something instead of his parents, guilty because on the other hand, for a moment he felt like he wasn't just channeling his parents, he was turning into them. That and his use of a popular Arabic expression of desire had probably raised a pile of red flags on whatever NSA/CIA/FBI bug was operating in this particular hive of 'undesirables.'

Shit, I should run for class President with that...