My Brief Report on the Demonstration and Following Student Conference

["M. Junaid Alam" <redjaguar@xxxxxxxxx>]

Friends and Comrades,

The D.C. demonstration was colorful, large, loud, and inspiring. Organizers
estimated a turn-out of 150,000. Even though the bourgeois media first
downplayed the event by citing figures in the "hundreds", and the NYTimes
has practically ignored the event, WashingtonPost has revised its own
figures to 100,000. When the rally started around 11:00 A.M. tens of
thousands had already filled the entire green grassy area around the
speakers, and within the hour so many more people had arrived it became very
difficult to move around in this huge field.

I didn't think any of the speakers were particularly powerful, but almost
everyone was carring signs. Some of them were very imaginative and funny,
like the very tall sign that read, "Bush: Fuck You", or a picture of
Cheney's head doused in oil with a caption reading, "Got Oil?". There were
also some costumes including a grim reaper holding a gasoline pump and a
red, white, and blue man on stilts with a long nose.

The march itself was quite lengthy, we made the rounds through the capitol
and past the Treasury Dep't building, some monuments, and other federal
buildings. Hundreds of onlookers identified with the demonstration and many
held signs, dotting the sidewalks. The chants from the Int'l Socialist
section were very loud and militant, including solidarity with the
dockworkers, Palestinians, and Iraqis. I could not see behind me where the
marcher contingent ended, or in front of me where it began. But it was very
clear that the opposition to the war and Bush and Ashcroft in particular was
decisive and unwavering.

The only opposition we encountered was rather strange, a hundred people or
so who must have been allies of the Iraqi National Congress  and their
relatives who might take power when Hussein is ousted. They filled part of
one sidewalk, and there was no confrontation.

Most significant for the student movement is that, even before this war has
started, we had our first quickly organized sort of get-together at GWU, in
which at least 35 campuses were represented by 250 people or so. Many
campuses already had their SGAs pass anti-war resolutions, some were also
involved in divestment, and all opposed sanctions and war in Iraq. A
national e-mail network was established for better communication. The
anarchist element was practically non-existent, certainly in
contradistinction to the anti-war movement which fell apart last year in
which anarchist stupidity and red-baiting reigned supreme once the objective
conditions became unfavorable for the Left.

Hopefully this is the beginning of something that will have a long and
lasting impact on the world.


~~~~~~~
PLEASE clip all extraneous text before replying to a message.