Washington DC: There were tens of thousands of people protesting Bush's impending war on Iraq, today. The march went completely around the perimeter of the White House, from one to two blocks away. Many present at the rally agreed there was over 100k present. IMC reporters waited hours for the end of the march to come around once.
Entire families and nearly entire church's, as well as several mosques, came out today from as far away as Alaska, Oakland California, Nebraska, Florida, Maine and many points in between. The organizers of the rally said they stopped counting the busses after 500
A DC Community Feeder march had a fun time stopping to protest at the Washington Post building with a very loud chant of "Stop Printing Lies!" and baring of breasts, gathered more forces at Cardozo High School.
The ANSWER sponsored rally was held near the Vietnam Memorial, symbolically reminding all of a previous unpopular war. 1/3 to 1/2 of the crowd listened to the speakers, at any given time. Many people did their own thing, not affiliated with any particular group but their city or state.
The march started before the long list of speakers finished. Hundreds, then thousands, went off to create their own parade. Metro police stopped them at one point and informed them they were a non permitted march. But, there were no preemptive arrests and the entire day was peaceful and huge. There were 3 arrests.
The corporate press left early; NBC national ignored the whole thing, others reprinted an AP story stating that mere hundreds were present. Later the Washington Post changed their figures. DC radio station, WPFW 89.3 ran regular Pacifica reports throughout the day from Iraq war protests across the country. At 7-10pm, there was a Peace News Round Up of the day's events.
