Jan 27, 2007

WASHINGTON - Protesters energized by fresh congressional skepticism about the Iraq war demanded a withdrawal of U.S. troops in a demonstration Saturday that drew tens of thousands and brought Jane Fonda back to the streets.

A sampling of celebrities and busloads of demonstrators from distant states joined in a spirited rally under a sunny sky, seeing opportunity to press their cause in a country that has turned against the war.

Standing on her toes to reach the microphone, 12-year-old Moriah Arnold told the crowd: "Now we know our leaders either lied to us or hid the truth. Because of our actions, the rest of the world sees us as a bully and a liar."

The sixth-grader from Harvard, Mass., the youngest speaker on the National Mall stage, organized a petition drive at her school against the war. "I encourage the youth of America to rise up and tell our government, 'Changes have to be made,'" she said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070127/ap_on_re_us/iraq_protest;_ylt=A0WTUc9TjbtFi7MA0RSs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--

Lot's more at the link in the OP

...Sean Penn in the blue jacket to the left of ensler in the picture?

He spoke to the crowd, too.

I hope the Democrats are listening. End this war now!

AP Photo: Actress Jane Fonda, right, smiles with Eve Ensler, author of 'The Vagina Monologues,' center, at...

had been having the Virginia Monologues for too long.

I'll pass that on to a friend in the agency, she'll love that! (Not all of them are right-wingers).

7 words at my station are cocksucker cunt asshole motherfucker shit piss tits

... can you also say "pig-spanking jizz-felcher" with complete impunity? If so, then the First Amendment demands that you do so!

though the mco's do have the right to dump if they feel something is outside community standards.

treasure -- your words and thoughts -- are ringing true even today.

Thanks for all who were able to get to Washington, DC for this important event.

Another Grandmother for Peace,

Radio Lady in Oregon

.......About 40 people staged a counter-protest, including military family members and Army Cpl. Joshua Sparling, 25, who lost his leg to a bomb in Iraq in November 2005.

He said the anti-war protesters, especially those who are veterans or who are on active duty, "need to remember the sacrifice we have made and what our fallen comrades would say if they are alive."

As protesters streamed to the mall, Bush reaffirmed his commitment to the troop increase in a phone conversation Saturday with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a day when one or two rockets struck the heavily fortified Green Zone, home of the Iraqi government, thousands of Americans and the U.S. and British embassies.

Bush was in Washington for the weekend. He is often is out of town during big protest days. On Monday, for instance, he called anti-abortion marchers on the telephone from Camp David.

Bush was in Washington for the weekend. He is often is out of town during big protest days. On Monday, for instance, he called anti-abortion marchers on the telephone from Camp David.

and what our fallen comrades would say if they were alive."

And that's precisely why so many people were out there protesting.

They well remember the sacrifice we have made...and they have said ENOUGH.

They know what some of their fallen comrades would say if they were alive...and it, too, is ENOUGH.

that doesn't make the war right.

Your beef should be with Bushco, counter protesters ...

We tried to save your legs BEFORE the war started. We were right. You lost your legs for nothing. Because of Bush. Not protesters.

with a decimated army and some wooden drones and that deadly accurate ( :rofl: ) SCUD missile!

Looks more like 20 people to me, not 40.

Sorry I missed seeing you!

Here are our pictures
http://picasaweb.google.com/evlbstrdjim/January27AntiWarMarch

I was taking a photo over by where DUers met up. I was there breifly, then went wandering around. Sorry I missed meeting you, too!

you'd call them idiots, too. If a freeper was also a wounded vet, would you give him a free pass just because he was wounded? I have no beefs with vets, or the military, for that matter, but I do have a problem with sheeple.

:eyes:

Of course the wounded vet is one thing, but the other dudes... :shrug:

LOL They were in an area behind a security fence. And yes, they were pretty freeperish.

I will upload the video later.

mostly healthy, 20-30 males. Why don't they go sign up, instead hanging Jane Fonda in effigy?

I didn't hear what they were yelling at us, but I did see their lips moving and noted that they had a sign that said "Hippys Smell."

some freepers after the march. The police might be interested in seeing the film.

Did they post here about being beat up? Do you have a link?

Unfortunately my work computer is a little screwed up lately so I don't think it will allow me to search. Apparently it occurred at around six p.m.

lol

I thought it was a spoof until someone told me they were series!

The rally was held as congressional opposition to the war is building. The Senate is considering nonbinding resolutions that would state opposition to Bush sending the extra forces to Iraq.

Frank Houde, 72, of Albany, N.Y., was a career Air Force pilot who served in Vietnam. Houde did not carry a sign, but said that his protest was on his hat, which said "Veterans for peace."

"The fact is war doesn't work," he said. "Iraq is not going to work. The war was started for reasons that turned out to be false."

Active-duty military troops were featured in the protest. A Defense Department spokeswoman said members of the Armed Forces can speak out, subject to several restrictions. They must not do so in uniform, and they must make clear that they do not speak on behalf of their military unit, their service or the Defense Department, unless authorized to do so.

___

The people are way ahead of their representatives on this issue.

turnout the Free Republic mustered in support of the war?



Er, never mind!

and they'll have a close-up of a few people to make it look like a crowd.

When the M$M wants to freak people out about protest crowds being huge, they take aerial photos.
They did that with the Mexican immigration marches.

But when they want to under-report the size of protests, they somehow can't manage to get any aerial shots.
What a coincidence.

behind a fence.

You can just feel the good will radiating out... :)

Thank you.

last week there were hundreds of thousands in DC for the Right to Life cause. And he thought there was no way that this protest had near as many people. This was about 11 am.

the "right to life" crowd is a medium sized niche of Americans while the anti-war movement is a wide cross-section of Americans. I'd be absolutely stunned if there were more people for the former than the latter. I think the objectiveness of that reporter was somehow compromised.

Thanks for the story.

I wish I could be there. God bless them. To appear out in the cold like that is incredible! These people are just great, nothing else can be said of them! Any mean spirited attacks on them are the words of cowards.


www.cafepress.com/warisprofitable <<-- antibush prodem stickers/shirts

its a beautiful day here in northern Virginia - clear, sunny, over 50 degrees. Im sure DC is nice too.

I thought it would be - it was quite cold earlier in the morning - but it ended up being relatively warm and sunny, especially in a crowd.

show a zillion protesters packed elbow to elbow.

During past large protests, the news only showed closeup shots of a small number of protesters. We only got to see the shots of the vast numbers when they were posted online.

I want to see a sea of protesters!

Bookmarked ;)

Thanks! :pals:

The announcer from C-Span said "several thousand." B*** S***. No overhead shots but from what I saw, there were people as far as the eye could see. I would bet if it's not 100,000 at least, it's very close to that, regardless of what ABC or any of the other news agencies says about it.

And they were continuing to pour in as the program proceeded.

It would be nice to have an honest estimate of the numbers.

There was a helicopter sneaking around the place I noticed near the end of the speeches. Surely someone there thought ahead and brought a camera, you'd think!

This refusal to cover public government-related events honestly is truly sinister. Reminds me of what the Venezuelan oligarchy-owned media did when their coup-plotters kidnapped Hugo Chavez and took over the President's Palace, and blocked all coverage of the public's outcry and demonstrations which followed, leaving many completely unaware of what was happening until it was all over, and the Presidency had been regained.

Suppression of the real news should never happen, but it happens here every time there's a demonstration against _Bush's tragic decisions.

Would be nice if they could at least put out a few pictures for us.

I saw the previous march sponsored by the same group, and the TV pix showed a kd of ragged group in places, a lot of empty spaces, but this time there were no empty spaces. The bodies were packed together, elbow to elbow as far as the eye could see. I think now they say that the previous march was 500,000 but that this one fell short of that number. Well just from the TV shots, I could easily see that this time there were a lot more than there were before.

I don't see how anybody could estimate just ten's of thousands, especially by comparison with the previous march.

And not "several events around the country". More like many well-attended events around the country. I just came from a rally in Portland ME and we had a few hundred folks out in Monument Square in 10 degree weather.

That was in my line of vision ALONE. Try HUNDREDS of thousands.

Our fucking media. AMAZING. This is how you shut a whole country up - marginalize their voice and call them a "focus group".

Here's a good article:

http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2003/01/24/crowds/index.html?pn=1
In fact, there is. Clark McPhail, professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, is one of America's preeminent authorities on protest crowds. His award-winning 1991 book on crowd behavior, "The Myth of the Madding Crowd," is required reading in his field. When the Washington Post wanted to estimate the numbers at the massive Promise Keepers march in 1996, they hired him on the Park Police's recommendation. He attended last Saturday's antiwar demonstration, and according to him, there were 60,000 protesters. Tops.

That will sound low to a lot of people. Larry Holmes, a spokesman for ANSWER, called it "a little bit on the ridiculous side" and suggested McPhail's motivations are "political." But Joel Best, the University of Delaware sociology professor who wrote "Damned Lies and Statistics: Untangling Numbers From the Media, Politicians and Activists," calls McPhail " the expert on this stuff." And McPhail insists his estimation methodology has nothing to do with politics. He's been studying D.C. demonstrations since 1967, using a fairly simple mathematical formula -- square footage divided by occupation density -- to count everything from antiwar gatherings to the annual March for Life to the Million Man March to Promise Keepers ... and last week's D.C. rally.

"Believe me, I was not trying to lowball," he says. "I have been consistently surprised at the difference between eyeballing these things and what this square footage divided by occupation density equation yields."

Shame on you, Brian Lamb.

I stopped by to take a look at the protest. I wasn't expecting to be very impressed, but I was. There was a shitload of people. The sheer variety of people amazed me too. When I left they were marching up Penn. Ave. I have pictures, but no way to upload them at the moment.

The two times I was in DC were for the pro-choice March for Women's Lives in April 2004 and right after the drowning of New Orleans in 2005. My experience is there's always black helicopters overhead, and you KNOW they know how many people are there.

The organizers of the women's march kept count, had sign-ins and everything. There are credible estimates of a million participants. It's very heady stuff to be with that many like-minded folks.

The post-Katrina anti-war march felt like a similar number of people. It was so peaceful, despite the anger. The number of arrests was miniscule -- three were for petty theft on the day of the march, and of course the next day Cindy Sheehan and Code Pink were arrested for protesting in front of the White House.

Here's an important note about eyewitness photos vs. MSM reports: during the run-up the the Iraq invasion, WaPo's first reports of the big march in DC were that there were "hundreds" -- then they changed it to "thousands." It was only after we DUed them that they changed their estimates in a later edition of the newspaper.

I was one of those who looked at the online photos here at DU and called them on it. I was polite, but told the author of the article in no uncertain terms that I had seen participant photos of streets packed with marchers from curb to curb and end to end, and that I hoped that a paper of the stature of the Washington Post would give an accurate rendering of events. Of course I no longer expect any such thing, but it never hurts to tell the media we do expect them to do their jobs.

So thanks for your report! And enjoy your day!

Hekate

Protest Focuses on Troop Increase for Iraq
By IAN URBINA
Published: January 28, 2007http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/washington/28protest.html?hp&ex=1169960400&en=ea1ddc2d72874058&ei=5094&partner=homepage

they always say that the crowd is small when it wasn't.

The reason they don't get into numbers is that it just leads to arguments. The pro-lifers say the same thing about the park police being biased against them. Years ago they just decided that they wouldn't give out numbers. Yes, internally, they probably have an estimate, since it is easily done from aerial photographs, but they only take crap from one side or another about whether the number is too big or too small.

Of course they would want such a policy -- that way, they can always minimize the number of protesters and there is no neutral party to challenge them.

When Farrakhan threatened to sue over the estimate of the Million Man March, the DC Park Police called it quits on giving out public estimates.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Million_Man_March#Crowd_size_controversy
March organizers estimated the crowd size at between 1.5 and 2 million people while the United States Park Police officially estimated the crowd size at 400,000. The Park Police figure was the figure reported widely by U.S. mass media but both figures were discredited by a subsequent Boston University study. Farrakhan threatened to sue the National Park Service due to the controversial low estimate from the Park Police. After the Million Man March, the Park Police decided to discontinue providing official crowd estimates.

That was, by the way, during the Clinton administration.

Of course.

A future campaign crowd byte ?
Maybe somebody will see themselves on TV in a commercial of his he will use on the campaign trail.

The only candidate in the race so far that will ever get my vote.

He didn't even campaign in '06 and got like 65% of the vote anyway. He appeals to the eastern european crowd imo.

You are putting yourselves on the front lines for sanity in our country.
Thank You - There are millions behind your efforts!

odd headline


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070127/pl_nm/iraq_usa_protests_dc;_ylt=Aoy7OU7huoKDoluiIwQzxL6s0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3MjBwMWtkBHNlYwM3MTg-

CORRECTED: Tens of thousands in D.C. protest against Iraq war

By Deborah Charles 5 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Chanting "bring our troops home," tens of thousands of anti-war protesters rallied in front of the U.S. Capitol on Saturday to pressure the government to get out of
Iraq.


Veterans and military families joined some lawmakers, peace groups and actors including Vietnam war protester Jane Fonda to urge Congress and
President George W. Bush to stop funding the war and pull troops from Iraq.

"When I served in the war, I thought I was serving honorably. Instead, I was sent to war ... for causes that have proved fraudulent," said Iraq war veteran Garett Reppenhagen.

"We need to put pressure on our elected government and force them to ... bring the troops home," said the former sniper to cheers from the crowd at a rally held on the National Mall.

Tens of thousands of people attended the rally, according to a park police officer.

exaggerating the crowd size.

I am listening to the Laura Flanders show and their estimate is HALF A MILLION people. Why is this blog parroting the Washington Post's downplaying of this event?

Dang, I wish I was there instead of at work!

There was anywhere from 300-600k people there but god forbid we report the truth

The 1st march in NYC, they reported 100's.

Last year they reported 1000's.

This year we're up to 10'000's.

Just a few more marches and they might finally learn how to count.

Like Stevepol also noted further up, the c-span asshole said, "several thousand protesters..."
That's why I visit DU to learn the truth.

Amazing how the media will lie, isn't it?

But guess what, we were all there and the Congress and White House know it and the energy was amazing....

My favorite moment was when a bunch of us with CodePink stopped by the Capital and just let out a primal scream and moan to let Congress know how we feel about this war.

:hi:

:hi:

I saw tens of thousands in my line of vision ALONE. Seas of people as far as the eye can see would be HUNDREDS of thousands.

There were so much more than tens of thousands of people. And the news is still reporting that. I WAS THERE, AND I COULDN'T SEE AN END OF THE DEMS! And they said there were only 30 republicans, haha. That was funny. But yes, hundreds of thousands were there, and it was awesome.

That's what they are saying on the Laura Flanders Show. Has it gotten to the point where even the Washington Post can't be trusted to report the facts?

Glad to have you here! OUR numbers are growing, also. Just as the movement, in general, is.

I saw a sea of people when I was watching. It's too bad the MSM has to lie yet again.

were a lot fewer than the last antiwar protest that I attended -- but there were still 50-100,000. It was still very energizing! Lots of cool signs, and we got to meet up with the DUers for the first time. Nice to meet you guys!

Kucinich spoke, as did Maxine Waters, who called Bush a liar straight out several times. I heard Jane Fonda, too. Didn't hear Sean Penn, so I didn't know he was there.

There was someone in one right behind me in the march. Why? What is that all about? I've never seen the movie (we thought it was an unusual mask and asked her about it, and she said that's what it was).

Remember your English history and Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder plot of the early 1600’s—November 5 was the exact date. Fawkes tried to blow up Parliament and King James. He and his co-conspirators were caught and hanged for their trouble. The plot of the movie takes place in the future in England after a fascist takeover of the government there. A fellow wearing a Guy Fawkes mask becomes the leader of a movement against the oppressive government. It is a very clever movie that was originally written as a comic book I think. You really have to see it, it is in the video stores.

Tim Robbins was excellent! I hope someone posts his speach on Youtube.

:dem:

:hi:

I must write after watching the NBC news this Saturday. Thousands upon thousands of people marched on Washington DC for peace. There here signs and speeches on not only the war but on impeachment. There were speakers from Iraqi vets, from families of soldiers who had lost loved ones, from celebrities, and there was the crowd. But what was covered on NBC nightly news? Less than a few minutes, and NO interviews with marchers, and the highlighting of Jane Fonda. Yet no mention of Susan Sarandon's moving speech on what price veterans are paying in terms of homelssness and VA benefits. No mention of the women who had lost their sons in Iraq. Instead, Nightly News spent as much time on a woman in Texas whose husband is still alive, and of course wants hims to stay alive but is supporting the war. Shameful reporting. Thousands of people could have been interviewed from that march, thousands, yet NO one was. And then to top it off - Hilary Clinton who was not at the march was given MORE time on the news in a meaningless appearance in Iowa a year before the caucus out there.

This has got to be THE worst example of reporting what was foremost in thousands of peoples minds today. If hundreds of thousands of people march on Washington and the news doesn't cover it in depth, then you ARE NOT doing your job.

Personally, I am disgusted. These people were from all walks of life, and braved the cold and traveled to be ignored by the NBC media? I thought NBC News cared about the news, and wasn't afraid of controversy. Instead, they attempted to shill for a Hillary campaign despite her being trounced in the Iowa polls at this point. Yet, where was the real story in DC?

You can do a lot better.....if that is what you really want to do.

Bring our troops home and oust this moron!

That's the way these things are reported. Unless it was the anti-abortion rally, in which case "tens of thousands"= six hundred or so.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=2705858&mesg_id=2706708
unless the anti abortion rally types say it's only several thousand

I was there in April of '04, and I'm pretty sure the number was something like 1.2 million. It was the largest assembly on the mall - ever.

That is just amazing. :) I wish I could've been there. K&R, big time! :kick:

There were definitely 100's of thousands of people at this event. I've been in packed 80,000 seat stadiums (I know what tens of thousands of people looks like - in seats and when leaving said stadium), and there were easily many times that number of people at this protest. The mall was literally packed with people, and when the march began, me and the group I was with saw nothing but countless people ahead of us, winding down the streets as far as the eye could see. We marched so far, and then I and a tired member of our group bowed out and sat down on a bench as the march continued. We were in that area for at least another hour (waiting for other members of our party) and the marchers just kept coming without an end in sight. There were people everywhere!

I would without question put the size of the crowd in the 100's of thousands. 500 thousand would be a quite believable number.

How the media could rely on the opinion of a single park police is unconscionable. That park police officer either has a partisan interest in low balling the estimate, or the park police in general have a policy of downplaying these gatherings in order to deflate the propensity for people to attend them to begin with. It's like the lottery. How many people play when it's $3 million? Nowhere near as many who play when it's $300 million. The park police don't want to say there were really 100's of thousands of people there, because then that would only encourage more people to attend the next huge rally. (e.g. there are those who will want to go to a rally where there will be 100s of thousands of people, but will be less inclined to go to one where there are only said to be 10's of thousands.) My suspicion is that is very likely what they are up to.

In any case, the park police are lying (purposely or ignorantly). Take it from someone who was there, and traversed the mall, and watched and endless stream of marches go by, and who's quite familiar with what large gatherings of people look like.

:loveya::grouphug::loveya:

THANKS EVERYONE WHO WAS THERE, AND WHO STOOD UP ALL OVER THE NATION!! (Yes, I'm SHOUTING!!!)

THANK YOU!!!!!

This is a new year and a new beginning for people of all stripes who will get together to THROW THE CRIMINALS OUT.

In peace,

Radio Lady

"United for Peace and Justice, a coalition group sponsoring the protest, had hoped 100,000 would come. They claimed even more afterward, but police, who no longer give official estimates, said privately the crowd was smaller than 100,000."

That is complete bullshit. I was there. No way was there less than 500,000, and probably more than that. We heard an estimate of 1.2 million!!

What phone booth did the freepers hold the counter-march in?

another K&R!

America has spoken - we want to Impeach the Bushie - are you gonna reconsider your ridiculous "Impeachment is off the table" stance???

"Tens of thousands" my a**!!

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0127-07.htm

...President Bush, who often spends weekends at Camp David, was in Washington on Saturday but had no public events scheduled. He spent part of the morning on his weekly bicycle ride at a Secret Service training facility in Beltsville, Md.

The protest was largely organized by the group United for Peace and Justice, a coalition of 1,400 local and national organizations. Included in the coalition are the National Organization for Women, United Church of Christ, the American Friends Service Committee, True Majority, Military Families Speak Out, Iraq Veterans Against the War, the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, CodePink, MoveOn.org, and September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows.

Police officials declined to provide crowd estimates, but Hany Khalil, a spokesman for United for Peace and Justice, said the protesters numbered around 400,000.

April 25, 2004

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4825980/

just saying, that looks like a lot of women .

I was at that march. the organizers took attendance (you had to sign in and were given a badge so you couldn't be counted again). the organizers came in with a total of over one million. the networks reported 500.000. The rule of thumb is to at least double whatever number the networks use.

You'd easily agree, based on the picture you post here, with the 400,000 estimate.

On edit: Take a look here,

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=55982

If it's still up, go to the streetcam source site. There you really get a feel for the continuous surge of people in the march. It was tremendous!

In 2002, I protested the war in Iraq. Yesterday, I protested the coming war against Iran. PNAC reads like a blueprint for the Bush administration.

If still avaiable

The people must impeach Bush and Cheney!!

How do we the people impeach Bush and Cheney? I'm really ready to try. Start with Cheney. He is the architech of the Bush administration. The Hitler of Bushism. This is Cheney's war. Taking him out may weaken Bush. Cheney is our enemy and all the demonstrations and all the people will have no effect other than to "embolden the enemy" to use his words. The only way I can see to stop his insanity is to take away his money, since he is not likely to be impeached. Congress will have to do that. So the demonstrations and shouting and confrontations must be with our congress critters. They already know what we want. We are wasting time and energy arguing with Cheney's administration. Time and energy we don't have. So let us have a dialogue with Ms. Pelosi. Her office is in the Federal building on Golden Gate Avenue.

is/was there. I asked her to put my name on any petition she signed on also. She's 20, college student in Early Childhood Ed. at a local univ. and takes the time to do what i am unable to do.
And makes me proud in her effort, for her voice, her energy, and her commitment.

i'll get an update from her tomorrow, and vicariously will be inspired by it. She never fails me.

Peace to all the protesters!


K&R!
dp

there were sixty tens of thousands. I'm wondering how this one compares. I hate the MSM with a passion. Why can't they just fucking do their jobs?

I hopped on AMTRAK from Atlanta to DC to go up to the protest, deciding to go at the last minute on Friday morning. It was amazing there were many folks on the train going up just to protest and returning same day just like me. There was even a contingent of around a dozen or more Eighth Grade students, their teacher and parents from a private school in Atlanta on the train Friday night. They interviewed soldiers who were traveling on the train and apparently will be staying in DC to lobby Georgia's Senator's and Congress to end the War!

My overall impression is that the crowd far exceeded *tens of thousands*. Admittedly on the trip up I expected a good turn-out but after making my way to the mall from Union Station -- there were protesters as far as the eye could see down the mall. I could barely see the speakers at the podium from my vantage point. The crowd grew more dense and packed and the march completely encircled the Capitol with folks still marching up Connecticut Ave.

It was overwhelming - I met folks from all over the country. I saw families, young and old alike, teens, college students, military vets, military families -- I'll have to say it was a cross section of our nation!

Whatever the MSM is saying -- there was way more than 200K on the mall and marching yesterday!

IMPEACH! IMPEACH! IMPEACH!

When they say that 'Hanoi Jane' was protesting against the war and is unpatriotic.

We should show them the pictures of Bush kissing and holding hands with the Prince of Saudi Arabia, and then ask them where the people who hijacked the planes on 9/11 came from. When they say Saudi Arabia, we then ask them *WHO* now is being unpatriotic!

About the MSM underestimating the crowd size, it's been going on at least as long as I have been involved with the movement, and that's back to 1967 or 68. We used to double what the police reports were to get a fairly accurate number. They don't want the public to know what the REAL numbers are, because if the public knew, it would encourage more people to demonstrate. Many people are afraid to go to marches and rallies, because they might be seen by someone, or might get arrested. The MSM is merely assisting in crowd control, and not really doing their job of reporting the facts.

Wait until the next march on March 17, when we once again attempt to levitate the Pentagon! I hope we succeed, and levitate it off the planet! At any rate, I can foresee with better weather, and the success of this rally, there will be at least twice as many people in DC.

I marched here in Kingston, NY, where we had about 150 people. I know because I counted heads!
I will be in DC in March

Leslie Cagan announced from the podium that there were a half million people, NOT "tens of thousands" and it felt like MORE than that! It took over two hours to walk arouund the Capitol. There were very few police to be seen . The age and racial make-up of the crowd, for once, was completely varied. There was a terrific amount of Union involvement. Russ Feingold called. The absence of Hillary and Obama was noted. The crowd was overwhelmingly in favor of impeachment, which came up again and again and was chanted with enthusiam .

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070128/ap_on_re_us/iraq_protest;_ylt=AmNrMvSGDNl_sw2nOOnkTzWs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--


Crowds on both coasts protest Iraq war

By CALVIN WOODWARD and LARRY MARGASAK, Associated Press Writers 2 hours, 13 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Convinced this is their moment, tens of thousands marched Saturday in an anti-war demonstration linking military families, ordinary people and an icon of the Vietnam protest movement in a spirited call to get out of Iraq.

Celebrities, a half-dozen lawmakers and protesters from distant states rallied in the capital under a sunny sky, seizing an opportunity to press their cause with a Congress restive on the war and a country that has turned against the conflict.

Marching with them was Jane Fonda, in what she said was her first anti-war demonstration in 34 years.

"Silence is no longer an option," Fonda said to cheers from the stage on the National Mall. The actress once derided as "Hanoi Jane" by conservatives for her stance on Vietnam said she had held back from activism so as not to be a distraction for the Iraq anti-war movement, but needed to speak out now.

The rally on the Mall unfolded peacefully, although about 300 protesters tried to rush the Capitol, running up the grassy lawn to the front of the building. Police on motorcycles tried to stop them, scuffling with some and barricading entrances.

......The
House Judiciary Committee chairman, Rep. John Conyers (news, bio, voting record), threatened to use congressional spending power to try to stop the war. "
George Bush has a habit of firing military leaders who tell him the Iraq war is failing," he said, looking out at the masses. "He can't fire you." Referring to Congress, the Michigan Democrat added: "He can't fire us.

"The founders of our country gave our Congress the power of the purse because they envisioned a scenario exactly like we find ourselves in today. Not only is it in our power, it is our obligation to stop Bush."

White House spokesman Trey Bohn responded that Conyers "needs to learn the difference between fact and fable, between a soundbite and a slur." He said Conyers' "assertion that the president fires generals with whom he disagrees is flat wrong."

On the stage rested a coffin covered with a U.S. flag and a pair of military boots, symbolizing American war dead. On the Mall stood a large bin filled with tags bearing the names of Iraqis who have died.

.....Bush reaffirmed his commitment to his planned troop increase in a phone conversation Saturday with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The president was in Washington for the weekend. He is often is out of town during big protest days.

"He understands that Americans want to see a conclusion to the war in Iraq and the new strategy is designed to do just that," said Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council.

Protest organizers said the crowd included people who came on 300 buses from 40 states.

What bullshit.