Most of the speeches sucked, both for style and content. ANSWER honcho Brian Becker is not much of a speaker. If I was trying to introduce someone to the left, to impress them by showing them some leaders, I heard little that would provide me with such an opportunity. (Fletcher was an exception, though he's not much of an orator.) By contrast, people like Cornel West, Michael Moore, and Phil Donahue gave great speeches at a green rally I went to during the presidential election campaign. They were not on the schedule.
I can't speak on the march. I listened to more speeches than I cared to for several hours, and still no march had begun. The cold didn't bother me so much as my feet. I'm no hero. The march's destination was the Navy Yard; I knew where it was. It's a long walk, and walking back is even longer. I set my own march to one of my favorite Chinese restaurants (close to a metro stop), where a bowl of duck in noodle soup was waiting for me.
If 90 percent of life is showing up, 98 percent of protesting is making it to the rally. The march is secondary. That's my story anyway. The length of the program reduced the size of the march, since you could see lots of people leaving after the rally dragged on for a while.
A few data points.
First, self-identified vets were much in evidence. The organized contingent had posters showing individual mug shots of the War Party luminaries (Cheney, Bush, Lott, Wolfowitz, etc.) with the legend underneath: "Never Served!" They worked the chicken-hawk thing hard. An unaffiliated vet had a sign that said "Remember Pearl Harbor: the U.S. doesn't start wars." Not literally correct, but you get the idea.
Second, lots of church ladies and church guys. I realize this is not new to a peace movement, but there seemed to be more than usual.
Third, what I call the lone wonks. Guys who looked like they were on lunch break from a job at State, bookish types with succinct signs like "Deterrence works" and the like.
Four, high school kids. Lots of them.
Five, a combined, organized (with sound effects) Korean/ Filipino contingent. Maybe 75 people.
Six, anti-communists for peace. A couple of signs here and there against war and in support of Cuban political prisoners. In the same vein, 'Libertarians for Peace.' One that I work with on our "trans-partisan" anti-war blog had a sign that said "Peace Now, Socialism Never." I think he wanted to provoke people a little, but everyone ignored him.
Seven, and my favorite: "Fighting Scots for Peace." This was not, as I thought, some Euro-Social-Dem type. This was some people from a midwest college whose mascot was the "Fighting Scots." I'd say when such people are turning out at anti-war rallies, the War Party has a problem.
My favorite signs: Axis of Weasels; BUSHIT!; It's the oil stupid; Bush is big oil's bitch; Yes Canada, Bush is a moron; Remember Lysistrata; and 'With a bush and a dick in the White House, we're all fucked.'
I wore my 'Oops' button, a picture of a mushroom cloud with Reagan's face in the middle. It seemed the most appropriate one in my collection.
mbs
-----Original Message----- From: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com [mailto:owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com]On Behalf Of Michael Pugliese Sent: Saturday, January 18, 2003 7:57 PM To: lbo-talk Cc: DemocraticLeft at yahoogroups.com Subject: War Protesters Rally in Washington (washingtonpost.com)
<URL: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11722-2003Jan18.html > <URL: http://news.google.com/news?num=30&hl=en&ie=UTF- 8&q=cluster:www%2eboston%2ecom%2fdailyglobe2%2f018%2fnation%2fProtesters%5fg ather%5fto%5fcall%5ffor%5fpeace%2b%2eshtml
> -- 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