My extremely unscientific guess as to attendance - 30,000 to 40,000. This is a GUESS. Better numbers will probably be available.
Also you know how we were talking about endless droning speeches, and how it was an insoluble problem. Well guess what; this rally solved it.
This time the rally was half an hour and the march was an hour and a half. (And I admit an hour and a half walk is tiring. Peacearoboics!. But you know anyone who found it too tiring could break off rom the march. Great restraints, and junk food stands, and bars, and shops and parks all the way along route.)
Further the speakers were good. The main speaker who had most of the time was Cingresscritter John Lewis. You knew professional politicians are not a bad idea at this kind of thing. They know how to give good old fashioned stir-up-the-troops speeches. He used the story of growing up poor and being with a bunch of kids at his aunts shotgun shack when a wind storm came up. It kept trying to tear the shack up, and the little kids kept running from corner to corner to hold it down. And when the storm was over the kids had not given up and the shack was till there. So don't give up the fight. You know, IMO, this is the kind of stuff you want at a rally. Yes I know rhetoric - but that is what rhetoric means - oral communications. And it does not have to consist of policy wonkery, or shooting fifty facts in a row at you that you won't remember in the morning. I'll remember that analogy tomorrow.
So what did they do about appeasing all the groups that contributed to the rally and wanted speakers? They had another rally after the march was over, where the people who wanted to listen to another hour of speeches could.
Protest signs:
"I am a grain of sand."
"Laura, control your monkey."
Proof that the protesters are not anti-monkey bigots: "Queer monkeys for peace."
Man in a Winnie the Pooh costume with a sign saying: "Poohs for peace".
"Frodo failed. Bush has the Ring."
Heavy, heavy concentration of American flags among protesters.
I was one of the droids with buckets collecting money. (Had to go back to the PSR booth and empty my bucket twice during the rally (about the size of the largest KFC bucket). The third time I took it with me on the march, and really I paid attention to the march, not collecting, but it got filled a a fifth of the way up a third time just walking during the march. Most collectors did not do this though. So it got filled 2 times and a bit and and a lot it tens and twenties, plus a few checks for larger amounts. There must have been fifty or sixty collectors; and I suspect that most of them filled their buckets twice. And I was not the only one collecting along the march route either. I think this rally must have collected a fair amount of money.)
Physicians for Social Responsibility took the money; they acted (for this rally) as the "banker". They will handle the cash,. If you wanted to write a check ,they were the ones you wrote a check to. On stuff like this I trust PSR. I seriously doubt the money will be used in a sectarian manner.
Lastly something I kept running into - middle aged people (some of them late middle aged) who said "I've never been to a protest rally before in my life. But I felt I had to come to this one." I ran into this on the MAX train into Portland, and with people I got into conversations with during the march.
OK - no deep thoughts. just some subjective observations.
Gar