campcaseydc

[Charles Brown <cbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

    Huge
    By William Rivers Pitt

    Saturday 24 September 2005 2:57 PM

    Absolutely massive. Loud. Pissed. Beautiful. Did I mention loud?

    Haven't seen the riot cops yet.

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    Cops
    By William Rivers Pitt

    Saturday 24 September 2005 2:31 PM

    I just overheard ten cops getting new orders to move barricades and open
the streets further. They are scrambling to control the size of this thing.

    The march has finally begun again, and a light rain is falling.

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    Holy Crap
    By William Rivers Pitt

    Saturday 24 September 2005 2:23 PM

    CNN is estimating the crowd here to be more than six hundred thousand
strong.

    If CNN says it, it must be true.

    Wow.

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    Restless
    By William Rivers Pitt

    Saturday 24 September 2005 2:14 PM

    The crowd is getting restless. They want to march. I cannot find the
front of the thing. It is splayed in all directions.

    Jessica Lange is speaking from the stage, but I can't hear her because
of the helicopter overhead.

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    Mammoth
    By Scott Galindez

    Saturday 24 September 2005 1:54 PM

    Huge is an understatement. The march has surrounded the White House.
Hundreds of thousands. This is the largest march I have seen in the over two
decades that I have been attending.

    The crowd is diverse, a true cross-section of American culture.

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    Too Big
    By William Rivers Pitt

    Saturday 24 September 2005 1:46 PM

    The march is unable to move because there are so many people coming in
from all directions. Constitution Avenue is a wall of humanity. I am up on
the hill that holds the Washington Monument, looking down on the crowd. This
is a massive, massive showing.

    Hot damn.

________________________________

    Riot Cops
    By William Rivers Pitt

    Saturday 24 September 2005 1:25 PM

    Kevin Spidel of PDA ran up to the front of the march. Apparently, there
is a huge gathering of cops in battle gear up the line waiting for us. The
march has stopped again and I don't know why.

    The Amtrak line is running again.

________________________________

    Stops
    By William Rivers Pitt

    Saturday 24 September 2005 1:17 PM

    There are apparently several lines of the DC Metro shut down, supposedly
for electrical problems. The Amtrak line from New York is also closed.
Convenient.

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    The Long Line
    By William Rivers Pitt

    Saturday 24 September 2005 1:11 PM

    They are running a long rope through the crowd. Attached to the rope are
pictures of every soldier who has died in Iraq. It took a long time to pass
my spot. Next to me was a woman whose son is over there. She had a look on
her face I can't describe.

    The march is underway.

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    Rolling
    By William Rivers Pitt

    Saturday 24 September 2005 12:56 PM

    The crowd is all lined up and ready, shouting, "Let's go!" in one voice.


________________________________

    The Count
    By William Rivers Pitt

    Saturday 24 September 2005 12:42 PM

    It is pretty safe to say that there are more than a hundred thousand
people here. Many more. Welcome to the majority.

________________________________

    Moving
    By William Rivers Pitt

    Saturday 24 September 2005 12:28 PM

    I think the ANSWER rally is ending and people will begun feeding into
the street.

    Funny moment. Mimi Kennedy is standing here trying to give someone
directions to this spot: "Walk past the peace signs and through the pink
balloons. Turn left at the Abu Ghraib guy and pass the giant Bush head."

    Hee hee hee.

________________________________

    Patriotic Dissent
    By Cindy Sheehan
    t r u t h o u t | Speech

    Saturday 24 September 2005

    Ahhhh, I love the smell of Patriotic Dissent in the afternoon!

    As we stand here on the grounds of a monument that is dedicated to the
Father of our Country, George Washington, we are reminded that he was well
known for the apocryphal stories of never being able to tell a lie. I find
it so ironic that there is another man here named George who stays in this
town between vacations, and he seems to never be able to tell the truth. It
is tragic for us that our bookend presidents named George have two
completely different relationships with honesty.

    Read the complete article
<http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/092405Y.shtml> .

________________________________

    Huge
    By William Rivers Pitt

    Saturday 24 September 2005 12:06 PM

    The march just got huge all of a sudden. Medea Benjamin has taken
control of things here on the street. Cindy Sheehan just took the stage and
the whole place went berzerk.

________________________________

    Coming Together
    By William Rivers Pitt

    Saturday 24 September 2005 11:48 AM

    It is something indeed to watch a bunch of groups trying to get
organized amid a crowd of thousands and thousands of people. The speeches
have begun on the ANSWER stage.

    The soldiers are here, too, doing their martial law exercise. The Raging
Grannies are getting ready to sing. The people keep coming.

________________________________

    Clot
    By William Rivers Pitt

    Saturday 24 September 2005 11:31 AM

    We have to march around a clot of counter-demonstrators who are being
thunderously shouted down.

    The Iraq veterans are here. The streets of DC are wild.

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    PDA's Corner
    By William Rivers Pitt

    Saturday 24 September 2005 11:13 AM

    Here at 14th and Constitution, all the PDA caucuses and members are
gathering. The crowds around us are swelling, and the shouting has already
begun from the stage.

    A lot of the people here are protesting the war for the first time. I am
also seeing a lot of young people. Good stuff.

________________________________

    Chanting at Penn Station
    By Scott Galindez

    Saturday 24 September 2005 11:00 AM

    Amtrak service from New York has been delayed for 2 hours. A spontaneous
demonstration erupted at Penn Station as delayed passengers chanted, "Bring
the troops home now!" All service has now been restored.

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    Big Stuff
    By William Rivers Pitt

    Saturday 24 September 2005 10:55 AM

   The crowd here is incredibly large already, and the march itself is still
more than an hour off. I am standing in the middle of Camp Casey,
transplanted to DC.

   The funny part is that all the rebels and so-called outsiders here are
suddenly in the majority according to all the polls. Roll, wheel.

________________________________

    Here We Are Again
    By William Rivers Pitt

    Saturday 24 September 2005 10:00 AM

    Here we are again. White skies and relative cool in DC today. Need to
find some coffee.

    Let's go march.

________________________________

    History in the Making
    By Scott Galindez

    Saturday 24 September 2005 8:15 AM

    We are preparing to leave our hotel in Washington, DC. In the lobby
there is a picture of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. delivering his "I
Have a Dream" speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Later today,
all eyes will be on a grieving mother who has emerged as a leader of the
movement to end the war in Iraq.

    I observed Cindy Sheehan rise to the occasion many times in Crawford,
Texas. She responded to the media with a calmness that takes most people
years to learn. I watched her take her message to a new level during the
first Saturday rally at Camp Casey.

    Today, however, the eyes of the world will be on her, and for that
reason George W. Bush and his administration should be nervous. The Congress
that authorized the war has good reason for concern as well. If Cindy
Sheehan delivers today she may emerge as not just a leader of the anti-war
movement but a leader of our country.

    Come Sunday morning Cindy may just be the leader of the opposition to
the current government. No Democrat has really stepped up to fill that hole.
After spending three weeks covering Cindy in Crawford, I think she can do
it.

    There is excitement in the air here - everywhere you go you see groups
of protesters. We will keep you up to date throughout the day. Well it's
time to head for the White House and watch history develop ...

________________________________

    Why We're Marching
    By Medea Benjamin
    Common Dreams

    Friday 23 September 2005

    On Saturday, September 24, tens of thousands of Americans from all walks
of life will come together in Washington, DC to call on Congress and
President Bush to end the war in Iraq and bring the troops home now.

    When hundreds of thousands of us marched against this war before it
began, the Bush administration called us a "focus group." Now that focus
group represents the majority of the American public, who in all the most
recent polls are saying this war was a mistake, it's unwinnable, it makes us
less safe at home and it should end.

    Read the complete article
<http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/C092405Z.shtml> .

________________________________

    When Rose Met Cindy: The Case against the War in Iraq
    By Andrew Buncombe
    The Independent UK

    Friday 23 September 2005

        On both sides of the Atlantic, two mothers who lost sons in Iraq
have launched campaigns to end the conflict. One camped outside George
Bush's ranch. The other stood in the general election. This week, they came
face to face for the first time. Andrew Buncombe reports.

    Along the sunbaked sidewalk of Pennsylvania Avenue came the sound of
singing. It was music from an earlier generation, but as relevant now as it
ever was. "All we are saying is give peace a chance," chanted the group of
demonstrators as they made their way to the north-west gates of the White
House. "All we are saying is give peace chance."

    At the head of the huddled group was Cindy Sheehan, the woman whose
soldier son, Casey, was killed in Iraq last year and whose campaign to
demand an explanation for the war from President George Bush took her to the
gates of his Crawford ranch, made headlines around the world and - seemingly
almost single-handedly - re-energised the US peace movement. At her side was
Rose Gentle, a woman whose son, Gordon, was also killed in Iraq and who has
launched a similarly relentless campaign to demand answers from Prime
Minister Tony Blair.

    "It's exciting to be here, to let George Bush know what we think about
the war," Mrs. Gentle said moments afterwards, standing at the junction with
17th Street, carrying a photograph of her son wearing his uniform of Royal
Highland Fusiliers. Asked if she thought he would have approved of her
campaign, she glanced at the photograph of the young man, 19 years old, and
replied: "Gordon would have wanted this. His pals are still there [in Iraq]
and he would have wanted them home safe. They still keep in touch."

    Read the complete article
<http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/C092305Y.shtml> .

________________________________

    Anti-War Rally Will Be a First for Many
    By Petula Dvorak
    The Washington Post

    Friday 23 September 2005

        Focused message draws protesters of all stripes.

    The seasoned protesters who organized tomorrow's antiwar demonstration
are well-versed in many other causes. They have marched and rallied against
police brutality, racism, colonialism and the policies of the World Bank and
International Monetary Fund.

    But their message on the Mall tomorrow will be singular: "End the war in
Iraq."

    Because of that sharp focus, they will be joined by novice protesters
such as Patrice Cuddy, 56. Interviewed by phone yesterday, the former public
school teacher in Olathe, KS, said she had to pull off her gardening gloves
each time a neighbor interrupted her yardwork to ask about joining the bus
she had chartered to go to the nation's capital.

    Read the complete article
<http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/C092305Z.shtml> .