In the first three, that is on Sproul plaza at UC Berkeley. A coalition against war had the steps and a microphone. It was a bit spartacist heavy for my taste (I keep bitching to my friends about the various sectarian front groups that manage to take over leadership for more centrist issues - like BAMN with affirmative action, and IAC/worker's world with Iraq sanctions/Bush impeachment/Afghanistan). There were about 250-300 'against the war', and there were 200 young democrats and republicans who made a really loud crowd with flags and signs, and they really needed a poet to give them a better chant than 'usa, usa', which they kept shouting at intervals. Halfway through they did a move where they mobbed the steps and completely surrounded the people on the microphone and wouldn't go away. The guy with the yellow signs saying '3am' 'front yard tipi' is a Berkeley nut who is at all the rallies because sproul is his spot, but the falun gong 'dalai lama is a cannibal' guy was absent. A SF nut with a sign 'STANFORD 12 galaxies to an ultramegalogical rocket society, impeach Buchanan' (a sandwich store pays him for ad space on the rear side of his sign) is in picture #6 with sunglasses). in picture 3, there is a democrat or republican who is really uncivil, and he's yelling at this 19 year old guy in a Model UN shirt, and with his head cut off is an African american homeless guy who is collecting tin cans, and he is siding with the frat guy and is telling the younger guy "if you hate america so much, leave!" Joe Anderson came along and tore frat guy to shreds, ha: http://www.dailycal.org/article.asp?id=4963&ref=search Everyone else is just yelling at each other, and the level of rhetoric is along the lines of "oh yeah.." "yeah!" "USA"
Later, at 5 there was the main Berkeley rally where there is a different sort of crowd. they talked for an hour, and there were a lot of sectarian socialist groups again. Then over 1000 started walking, and I noticed we were going right for the freeway, and everyone kept going until the police stopped everyone at the onramp - as seen in the last picture. There were some anarchists along so they thought of some better chants which could replace stuff like "what do we want - Peace, when do we want it - now!" which don't quite capture the message. "first we dropped bombs, then we dropped bread - Too bad they couldn't eat it because they're all dead!" Christine
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