Thousands in anti-war demonstrations
29 October 2002
Oakland, California
On Saturday October 26, thousands of people across the country took to the streets once again to protest the Bush administration'ss proposed "pre-emptive" strike on Iraq. Washington, DC, and San Francisco were the main venues for anti-war rallies and marches, the size and spirit of which reminded many of the Vietnam era.
I got a first inkling of the numbers converging on San Francisco when simply attempting to cross the Bay proved to be a challenge. At my local BART station (the Bay Area'ss light rail system) in Oakland, the queue for tickets was going around the block, a sight one does not witness even on peak commuter hours.
Upon arrival in San Francisco, I found that thousands of people had filled Justin Herman Plaza at the Embarcadero, where the kick-off rally was taking place, and spilled over to the adjoining streets. Once the march got under way, it would not stop for close to three hours. People of all ages and from all walks of life filled the mile-long stretch of Market Street and made their way to Civic Centre, which hosted the main rally.
There were young and old, blacks, whites, Latinos, Arabs and Jews, babies in strollers, disabled people in wheelchairs, elderly folks on electric scooters, hippies and academics, corporate employees and retirees, revolutionary leftists and disillusioned Democrats. They displayed a sea of homemade banners protesting the war and government policies - "No War on Iraq", "Drop Bush, Not Bombs" - and they marched shouting slogans and singing John Lennon tunes - "All we are saying is give peace a chance". Some came in costumes, and one group held two enormous inflatable "missiles" with the message "Bush Strategy: Endangering America, Enraging the World".
Banners also referenced a miscellany of other liberal causes. Many mourned the death in a plane crash on Friday of Senator Paul Wellstone (Democrat from Minnesota) with some hinting at a possible conspiracy. Senator Wellstone was considered one of the most liberal voices in the Senate and was one of those who voted against the recent legislation to authorize the use of force in Iraq. In the upcoming November elections, he was facing a tight race against his Republican opponent in a most crucial battle for the Democrats in maintaining their fragile Senate majority.
By the time I got to Civic Centre, by City Hall, the crowds had filled the square and the speeches were under way. Among those who addressed the rally were Senator John Burton, president of the California State Senate, Congresswoman Barbara Lee, Ron Kovic, Vietnam veteran and author of "Born on the 4th of July", Jim Lafferty, director of the Los Angeles Chapter of the National Lawyers' Guild, union leaders and representatives of activist organizations.
Police in riot gear stood guard outside the State building on the north of the square, but the rally proceeded without incidents.
Police estimated the size of the crowd at 42,000 while most other sources put the number at 100,000, some even higher.
Similar scenes took place in Washington, DC, where an estimated 75,000-100,000 people gathered at Constitution Gardens, near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, for a rally that lasted more than three hours, and was followed by a march that circled the White House and returned to the starting point.
Speakers included Jesse Jackson, actress Susan Sarandon, Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry's ice-cream, Al Sharpton, Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, former U.S. attorney general Ramsey Clark, and singer Patti Smith.
A near-by rally in support of the war, organized by the Free Republic Foundation (www.freerepublic.com) together with Iraqi exiles, drew about 100 people.
The anti-war demonstrations on both coasts were organized by the International ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) coalition (www.internationalanswer.org), a group endorsed by hundreds of individuals and ogranisations, both local and international.
They were held on the first anniversary of the signing of the USA PATRIOT Act which was adopted in response to the September 11 attacks on the US and which, according to the Cato Institute, "many of its provisions were incompatible with civil liberties."
Local media provided limited coverage. The San Francisco march was not deemed important enough by the TV channels to out-stage the success the local baseball team, the Giants, was having at the time in the World Series, which was the top item on the evening news. A much shorter report on the march came afterwards.
The national press provided more coverage. In main stories, both the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times reported on the marches and put attendance in Washington at about 100,000. Oddly enough, the New York Times, in a short story on page 8, found attendance to be disappointing: "fewer people attended than organizers had said they hoped for." Similarly a figure of 10,000 was reported on National Public Radio (NPR).
The discrepancies did not go unnoticed by media watchdog FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting - www.fair.org) which issued an action alert on October 28 regarding the NPR and the Times stories, stating that "neither report matched reality." The FAIR alert noted that NPR later revised the number whereas the Times "did not run any follow-up article updating its estimate of the crowd size", and urged its readers to complain to the two organizations about their lack of substantive reports.
By contrast more coverage was provided by the "alternative" media which not only reported extensively on the rallies and marches but have for sometime now pondered "this nascent antiwar movement", questioning the ideology of the organizers and whether their message represents the sentiments of the silent majority.
Todd Gitlin, in an article in Mother Jones magazine on October 14, remarked that "The leadership of the current antiwar movement is building a firebreak around itself, turning the movement toward the bitter-end orthodoxy of the Old Left and away from the millions of Americans whose honest concerns and ambivalence might fuel it."
Michelle Goldberg writing for Salon.com finds that "Certainly, the demonstration proved that opposition to the war in Iraq is broad and deep in America, though the mainstream media did a shamefully inadequate job reporting on it" but is also concerned that "What it (the new peace movement) doesn't appear to have is a powerful affirmative message to match its scathing critique of American foreign policy."
But regardless of the motives and strategy of the organizers, the fact remains that the average American who opposes the Bush administration'ss policies now has a forum where he can stand up and be counted.
