From the podium it was announced 250K, which would be 100,000 more than what the SFPD finally conced was the #ers for J18.
More spirited (thank gawd for the funny, angry signage and drumming), broader representation of constituency/identity groups from left and liberal pov's and many, of coarse w/o an explicit positioning on the left spectrum beyond outrage at imperial slughter and humanitarism.
Couldn't find Thomas Seay, alas, but had great conversation with, among others, ex-Trotskyist, Tim Wohlforth on everything from Gerry Healy, Max Shactman, Bayard Rustin, Christopher Hitchens debate w/Mark Danner of The New Yorker, and the psychological dynamics of marxist sects. Insofar as one can converse in the midst of rock concert volume levels with occasional cresendos of roars from the crowd. Folks travelled from as far away as Montana.
Mitch and I from the marxist-humanist News and Letters group, compared notes about the cliche ridden, Old Left agit-prop boilerplate speeches from the stage, which besides who was probably Robert Fisk (sure sounded like him if it wasn't) could have composed by a, "Robot Leftist Rhetoric Cut And Paste Machine." Which a re-reading of a few 'graphs from Orwell's, "Politics and the English Language, " prepared me for. Twould have been nice for a Kurdish or Iraqi leftist org. to have been invited.
-- Michael Pugliese
"Without knowing that we knew nothing, we went on talking without listening to
each other. Sometimes we flattered and praised each other, understanding that
we would be flattered and praised in return. Other times we abused and shouted
at each other, as if we were in a madhouse." -Tolstoy