You’d be forgiven for wondering why you should show up at the New England Mobilization to End the War in Iraq, which starts at noon this Saturday on Boston Common. Haven’t we done this already? There have been untold anti-war demonstrations over the past four years, and we’re still in Iraq. Anyway, why should we expect our voices to be heard when George W. Bush won’t even listen to his own generals?

“It’s not about getting Bush to listen to us,” explains Liam Madden, president of the Boston chapter of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), which is co-sponsoring Saturday’s 11-city mobilization. “I personally feel that the war is going to go on after his administration. And it’s a mistake to think that protest alone is going to end the war.”

Instead, Madden says, “It’s going to be a combination of people becoming organized into a powerful anti-war movement [and] soldiers and veterans becoming organized into a powerful GI resistance movement. People becoming organized is the first step toward taking back control of our country. Any form of people-resistance against this war is something that should be supported and further developed.”

Which is exactly why you should go.

For more information, visit Oct27.org, call IVAW at 215.241.7123, or e-mail boston@ivaw.org .