Protest in New York
29 Apr 06


"Bush" w/ globe

At the beginning of the march in New York City, we had a fellow in a Bush outfit play with the globe in homage to Charlie Chaplin in the Great Dictator.

passing out flyers

Passing out flyers.  Protests are always great opportunities for leftists of all varieties to make their case to sympathetic people.  Historical note on this march:  ANSWER was the first organization to respond to the coming Iraq War.  They organized a march in Washington DC within the same month that Bush made his speech at the UN describing what an enormous danger to the world Saddam Hussein's regime was and how it had to be stopped.  In mid-2003, UFPJ was organized to compete with ANSWER in organizing large demonstrations and by September 2005, UFPJ and ANSWER shared a demonstration in Washington DC.  It was a mess. ANSWER insisted on having their speeches drag on an hour after the march was supposd to begin because the ANSWER people wanted to make speech after speech after speech..

gathering

Well, they were 1. preaching to the choir and 2. they could only be heard for about 5% to 10% of the total space that the demonstrators took up.  Confusion reigned and many groups took off, messing up the order in which all the groups were supposed to march. 
So, for this march, ANSWER was left out completely and I don't think anybody missed them.  We had plenty of marchers, the march started right on time, all the groups marched in the order they were supposed to march in and we had the "Raging Grannies" singing some tunes at the end. 
It was an enjoyable, well-organized march that sent a clear anti-Iraq War message. 

March begins

March begins.  What's wrong with following article?  It was sent out by AP and reprinted in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Protesters demand troop withdrawal
NEW YORK - Tens of thousands of protesters marched yesterday through lower Manhattan to demand an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.
Cindy Sheehan, a vociferous critic of the war whose soldier son died in Iraq, joined in the march, as did actress Susan Sarandon and the Rev. Jesse Jackson.
The demonstrators stretched for about 10 blocks as they headed down Broadway. Organizers said 300,000 people marched, though a police spokesman declined to give an estimate.
Organizers said the march also was meant to oppose any military action against Iran, which is facing international criticism over its nuclear program. The event was organized by the group United for Peace and Justice. - AP

proceeding

Answer: Well, nothing, really.  The wording is perfectly unobjectionable & the figures appear to be accurate.  But it appeared on page A11 and didn't have any pictures and there's no broader context or examination.  One would think a march of 300,000 people would provoke a serious, in-depth examination, some deepthink as to why the march took place.  The whole purpose of having people march for a distance is to demonstrate "Hey, we're serious about this!  This is a meaningful and important issue!" 
Rush Limbaugh tried to demonstrate a while back that the issue of the Iraq War was essentially meaningless.  He only appeared to succeed because he only told a very small part of the total story. 

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