I got back from the DC rally today, and I'll just write bluntly, tonight...
SCREW THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA. The AP reported 100,000 showed up. The Baltimore Sun reported "Tens of Thousands." The only network I saw with cameras on the csene were from the Hispanic "Univsion" channel. C-span was the only television network to give the event more than 15 seconds of airtime.
Folks- this was HUGE. This has been the biggest demonstration I've been in, possibly even bigger than the march 20, 2003 rally against the war in New York city, which brought over a half a million into the streets. C-Span was the only news organization that had the guts to come CLOSE to the truth, reporting a half-million.
Myself, I can only speak from experience, and I'd estimate a half-million, with a 50,000 spread. But however few thousands above or below that mark matters not, when one considers that the taxpayer funded freeper march, "Freedom Walk" only boasted 17,000 registered attendees (most of which were bogus attendees, registered by folks like myself. (I registered "Barney Rubble", and "J.R. "Bob" Dobbs" - I wonder if they showed up...)
Be that as it may, let's assume that all 17,000 registrants attended the "Freedom Walk"- including Barney Rubble. At the same time, let's assume that the AP was right, and it was all a massive collective hallucination, and that only 100,000 attended the rally on saturday. All that means is that we outnumbered these losers by over five to one, instead of almost thirty to one...
First off: Let's first off address the "tens of thousands" crapola:
(Click images for larger view, from here on out...)
Now- these were photographs taken over the course of three circuits of the entire march route- and from beginning, to end, the streets were packed with people, as far as the eye could see.
Oh- and yeah- I did go through the route almost three times- why? When my part of the march finally got back to the starting point, I noticed that over half of the people in the staging area hadn't even BEGUN the march, and I was lucky enough to join in, just as Cindy Sheehan, Jesse Jackson, and more luminaries could than I could count set out...
Suffice it to say that this was HUGE- it was exhillarating, and wonderful, beyond words, yet tempered with a great deal of sadness, because, well- we wouldn't be there, had not Bush's reign of murder brought us all together, in purpose.
Now, let's address the inevitable right-wing slander about the march, this this was just a bunch of "dope smoking, long-haired slacker marxists". Let's take a look at a few of the folks that Rush Limbaugh will undoubtedly be calling "communist swine who hate america", by this time, tomorrow:
Now- looking at those pictured above, who do you think hates america the most? To me, it's a dead tie between the terrified wife of a stop-lossed soldier, and the veteran on the right with more metal on his chest than Red Sonja. They must REALLY hate america- why don't they just go off and move to North Korea?
Fortunately, the right wing, has apparently run out of steam, when it comes to counter-protesting. The morons over at ProtestWarrior.com (not worth the effort of a link), have apparently packed up shop, after they were kicked out by their fellow chickehawks at the pro-war rally in Crawford (Too bad- I SO wanted to laugh at them, in person.) A counter-protest that filed for a permit accommondating 10,000 people, only brought in about 100 people, who were pretty much ingored. The only visible opposition came from about four fat, blotchy, bearded white guys with bullhorns in one hand, and a bible in the other, generally holding forth with a program that basically consisted of calling everyone Homosexuals, Sinners, and Satan-worshippers.
I had fun screaming at one of them, who resembled a bipedal Jabba the Hutt with severe facial liver spots, but got really sick of the guy above, and enjoyed spitting on his chest (I wanted to go for the face, but that damned bullhorn was in the way.) As I walked away, I enjoyed hearing 500 angry people chanting "ASSSSS-HOOOOOOLE- ASSSSS-HOOOOOOLE" at this freak.
One interesting side-note- this is the first time I've seen the U.S. Secret service at work. These characters were blithely standing by, taking snaps of the crowd. The irony of it, was that there were about 10 people standing right in front of them, returning the favor.
And that was the neat thing about the age in which we live- half the people there were taking pictures, or shooting video, on hundreds of thousands of handicams, cell phones, and digital cameras- I'm pretty sure that over the next week, terabytes upon terabytes of images and video are going to flood out of this- technology has made independent media viable.
Now- as far as the standard figures of authority- the police, they were hanging about, behind cordons, armed with pistols and wooden clubs, but in far less quantity than I've seen in NYC or Boston. There were far more aircraft in the air, though- there was a constant hellicopter buzz vibrating the air. The most interesting display of police force I saw, was in front of the white house- check this out:
I hate to point out the obvious- but I have to wonder why the first line of cops, closest to the crowd, is entirely black, and the folks at the white house gate (with the big guns) are almost entirely white.
Just struck me as odd...
BTW- if you wanna know what the white house looked like, if you backed up about 100 feet, here it is:
Oh- and right opposite, the Billionaires For Bush were camped out, in classic style (these guys ROCK!)
Speaking of creativity- there were a TON of cool signs- I could have filled a dozen memory chips with the ones I saw- but alas, I only had one.
The winner for "Coolest Sign, Overall" goes to this guy:
More follow:
You want crowd shots? Here they are!
Lastly- here I am, after close to five hours on my feet- ugly bastard, neh?
Kudos to Judy from Really News, who let me crash on her couch, for the event...
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