Periodically in New York subway cars someone disrupts the anonymous, self-absorbed zone that usually prevails there—a break-dancer or a Mexican strumming a guitar then passing a hat, a panhandler, a guy selling street news publications to benefit the homeless, an evangelical. Mostly, the riders avert their eyes and tune them out.

But this was different. A guy got on near the tennis courts in Central Park. He was white haired, upper middle class, in his sixties, mild mannered. Obviously he’d just come from a game, racket bag hanging over his shoulder, and was on his way home a couple stops away in the neighborhood.

Suddenly he got up and started speaking, not in a strident voice.

“I’m a veteran,” he said. “We have to stop this war in Iraq. Everything about it is contrary to what we believe. The torture, the destruction, the mercenaries, killing all those children… It’s treason for us citizens not to speak out. Ring the phones off their hooks on your congressmen’s desks. Write. Demand that they stop. We must act.”

The whole car stood up in unison—black, white, Hispanic, young, old. It was astonishing. It felt like a Greek chorus erupting spontaneously, unable to abide the ongoing travesty, dishonesty, and greed of this war any longer.