Back from the Oct. 25th march

Not as inspiring as last year's October march, but still glad I went. A few notes:

* The contingent of Veterans for Peace was much larger than it was last year. This is both encouraging, and very sad. We ended up marching amongst them, and it's depressing listening to the chants about how this screwing-the-vets thing has been going on longer than I've been alive...and yet, somehow, the Republican party is still the party of supporting the troops.

* Paid little attention to the rally speakers, and missed Viggo entirely. Ah well.

* Saw a group of about 30 counterprotestors being herded off the mall behind a line of D.C. policemen. All carrying large foam-core signs with parodic slogan (ex., "Communism has only killed 100 million people--Let's Give It Another Try!"). They had apparently joined the rally crowd only to be escorted to the sidewalk--probably for their own protection, since they were all yelling "Four More Years!" as they left. The whole thing kind of made me sick, especially the big sign about what a wonderful thing war is and how it's saved the world from everything. On another corner, there was a fundie nut who was apparently also in love with war, and more than that was convinced that God is in love with it too, judging by the large sign with images of various weapons and tanks pasted in under his favorite pro-war Bible verse. Whee. Only bright spot was my friend Laura observing, "There's something poetic about those guys being penned in by a bunch of people wearing blue helmets."

* Turnout definitely lower than last October, but still big enough.

* MUCH lighter and more low-key police presence this year.

* If any of you happened to walk by and see two women sitting on some bollards along the side of the road with red cardboard signs about a block down from the Pink Slip, that was me and my partner (my partner's said "Halliburton out of Iraq" or "We Still Miss You, Senator Wellstone"). Enjoyed cheering the various contingents who walked past us, especially teh ones from Cleveland, who didn't seem to get why we were yelling, 'Hello, Cleveland! Rock 'n' roll!'

C ya,

The Plaid Adder