Well over 100,000 people packed the Mall in Washington DC, most calling not only for an end to the war but for the impeachment and/or imprisonment of key administration figures. The AP characterized this as:
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.
Okay. That is not really accurate. There were many more people than ‘tens of thousands’. I can tell this by comparing the crowd to a Michigan football game. Michigan alum ejmw concurs with my estimate of well over the sellout crowd at Ann Arbor. There were people of every stripe. There were a lot more young people than there were in September 2005. But as far as the AP is concerned there was one only one protestor of note.
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.
No one was much interested in Jane Fonda. Most of us never even saw her. If the AP underestimated the amount of people in the protest, they overestimated the number of people making trouble. The anarchists did threaten to storm the capitol, but there were no more than forty of them. Certainly there were nowhere near 300. And there was no scuffling.
We’re still uploading photos. Man Eegee, CabinGirl, ejmw and I are sitting in a the Froggy Bottom Cafe 21st Amendment Lounge with our laptops. Supersoling is milling around and Brother Feldspar is headed to get his laptop. We’re hoping to meet up with Auntie Peachy AP in a little bit.
We have some really good photos of me and my Brownback for President sign. Sam Brownback just has to be our next President, or I am going to quit blogging.
