A sea of people stretching more than one mile long and taking up four lanes of roadway marched through the nation's capitol Saturday in vocal and colorful opposition to the U.S. government's drive to war with Iraq.
Tens of thousands of people of diverse ages and ethnic backgrounds braved frigid weather to peacefully rally in front of Congress and march in the streets of Washignton, DC, to oppose war and to demand peace and justice. In the game of estimating crowd size, police said about 30,000 people participated while organizers put the number at 500,000. Many independent observers estimated about 200,000 people participated, which made it twice as large as the last anti-war rally in DC in October.
Anti-war rallies were also held in other cities throughout the world Saturday -- from Tokyo to San Francisco -- creating one of the strongest shows of force to date by hundreds of thousands of people around the world against the U.S. government's plan to attack Iraq.
Not surprisingly, government types and their friends in the corporate media seldom fail to under-estimate the numbers at such mass events as the j18 march for peace and justice, while the organizers themselves usually over-estimate. This reporter was in NYC in '82 for the one million person peace march (that number agreed upon by nearly all) which was the last time I've seen a crowd like the one i witnessed today along the march route in DC. One of the most telling views was available just beyond the turn on M Street, looking west down the hill. It was solid bodies, wall-to-wall, as far as the eye could see. Behind that, yet to enter M Street, were twice as many. Maybe not a million, but damn close to half a million.
Three weeks ago, syndicated mainstream columnists such as Ellen Goodman were asking "where is the peace movement", as they denigrated all the tell-tale signs and numerous local actions or overlooked the evidence of a rapidly building movement. If you happen to be a regular Indymedia reader or contributor, you already know what's been happening across the nation and around the world with regard to a peoples' response to Washington's war drums and the Bush Regime's intentions here and around the planet.
Wake-up America, wake-up media corporados, an historically new diverse movement for justice and peace, a movement opposed to the rightwing American war machine and the bogus regime in Washington that represents it, has taken over the streets. Today's event signals a watershed of opposition equal to what was witnessed late into the Vietnam era, but today the invasion has yet to begin. Be that as it may, an invasion of democracy, an invasion of the U.S. Constitution and the three branches of our national government HAS already happened. Under the noses of the corporate media and a disempowered and distracted populace, a cabal of far-right operatives have taken over the reins of power in the U.S. This is no exageration. The question many are asking is: will the diverse movement for justice and peace we saw today run the scoundrels out of town? Will a new American Revolution be born in the streets of Washington, San Francisco, New York, or Chicago?
