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Friday March 21, 2003 17:18
by Joe
These are from the autopsy discussion list
Chicago
I just got home from the demo in my town. It started off at 5pm, speeches
and so on. I got there at 5:30 and it was very crowded, already people were
having a hard time fitting in the plaza. The crowd was fairly mixed-
assorted vanguardist space aliens sellling newspaper, religious peaceniks,
Puerto Rican nationalists, Palestian groups anarchists, labor folks, a lot
of students - both university and school kids, including some JROTC
(military training program), and a lot of other people.
Lots of great banners, both printed and home-made, including a group of
teachers against the war, and public health workers against the war, both of
which were exciting because not many links are being made between major
cutbacks here in education, health, and housing, and the 'war on terror' and
the war on Iraq.
Around 6pm or so the rally started to march, it split into two marches going
up different streets. The one I was with got stopped by a police line a
block away. After a few minutes of tension protesters pushed passed the cops
and the cops backed off.
Lots of fun chants - 'Whose streets our streets' became 'whose planet our
planet'. The two marches converged at the entrance ramp to Lake Shore Drive,
sort of like a highway, a big high-traffic road which affords a great view
of the city and the lake the city sits on. We faced off another police line,
and eventually got past them until we were on Lake Shore Drive, occupying
the northbound ramp (four lanes.) We marched up that for a while and people
started climbing over the concrete barrier and taking the lanes of
southbound traffic as well. For a while the cops tried to stop people, but
enough people got there that the police had no option but to let us go
(Chicago's fine local collective - the Brick Collective - of the Federation
of Revolutionary Anarchist Collectives, Great Lakes, helped spur people to
occupy those lanes by leading the charge with their black and red flags and
banner and black bloc dress). Once the drive stopped being highway style
ramps we started occupying the streets that ran parallel to it as well.
Eventually we cut across a park and were finally halted by a massive police
presence.
We stood and listened to drums and chanted and such for quite a while as
more police amassed. The cops boxed a lot of people in and many people
started leaving as more and more cops showed up. The folks who were boxed in
eventually marched back around to another intersection where they were held
again by police. I ran into this as I was trying to walk toward my home.
Last I knew the police were arresting people and a friend just called to say
that people are still boxed in right now and are waiting for police to bring
in new buses to put people one -the word is two police buses filled with
arrested people, probably about 100 people.
Estimates I heard for turnout were between 1,000 and 3,000 people, but I
think there were more than that as this is the biggest demo in Chicago I've
been to.
It was interesting that so many people marched - more than were at the
rally, a number of people kept saying "where did they all come from?" People
on the sidewalks were very supportive and applauded and joined in a lot.
Over all the whole atmosphere was very festive and fairly militant compared
to most actions here. Tomorrow morning there's civil disobedience and then
another rally in the evening. Apparently the bourgeious (sp?) press is
giving this a lot of coverage, whatever that means, saying it's the biggest
or one of the biggest of the day's actions in the US.
I'm told a lot of high school (and in one instance, kids as young as 11 to
13) have been walking of school and holding spontaneous demos. That was the
most part of tonight, all the different ages of people (and the racial
composition was more diverse, ie less white, than usual actions here) and
the spontaneity of it all - no one was leading it so much as we all just
marched where we wanted (until the police finally stopped us.)
All in all it was highly spirit-boosting event after a day spent listening
to radio reports in the car of the war. I'd love to hear more from San
Francisco and anywhere else.
--
London
Been at the demo in Parliament Square, London. Very good, very fun -
the upbeat atmosphere was a real suprise. I was expecting something
mournful. But not a bit of it. The samba band, a steel drum band, a
sound system, noise, dancing, some running around the streets and
barracking the cops, people gathered around bonfires. Lots of graffiti
- two cops guarding the statue of Churchill, but Palmerston got
decorated with "Another warmongering pm" and "No War but Class War."
Lots of schoolkids, they really made the occasion, not jaded cynics
like me, but enjoying a day off from school. Lots of media fuss about
truants from cops and some idiot headteachers union.
5,000 people acording to the media, but I think there was probably
more, because there was lots of people coming and going - 5,000 at any
one time, sure.
There's plenty of reports of other demos around the UK: Swansea,
Bristol, Manchester, Halifax and elsewhere. See www.uk.indymedia.org
for various reports.
John
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Comments (13 of 13)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13Boston, MA was pretty interesting. *Many* thousand in the main march, followed by a breakaway march of possibly 800 at first (anyone else have a better estimate??). Got as far as the on-ramp to the state Turnpike (a large highway) before the police attacked. Most escaped and walked quite a long way across the river and into Cambridge, where the police were significantly friendlier (the Cambridge bourgeoisie is opposed to unilateral invasion) and numbers grew again in a more festive spirit, if bedraggled and wet in the rain. I've yet to hear much of the fall-out, though I've heard some successful UNarrests were made on the on-ramp.
I was just at the demo here in Sydney. My guess is that 15,000-20,000 is about
right. It was very inspiring to see people out there at such short notice, but
there are some eerie phenomena around...
This little get together at Town Hall Square served to illustrate precisely the
sort of danger that the Labour party presents to our movement. The marshalling
was absolutely appalling, far worse than anything I have ever seen from the
Trots, sleazy Melbourne S11 manipulations included. At one point the marshals
actually joined with the TRG cops to prevent the march from heading into Martin
Place, which is the business heart of Sydney and where the American consulate
is located. That was just astonishingly gutless, a big rally needs a big space
to shine, and ended up corralled in backstreets. A maoist actually broke into
blows with a Labor party official at one point, and I must say that I have
absolutely no sympathy for these Labor swine, racist scum who are now having
guilt pangs at cashing in the cheques they wrote in 1991 and 1992. Minutes
earlier they had physically pulled some comrades off NSW State Premier Bob
Carr's car; Carr is a Labor party slimeball riding high on a tough-on-crime
anti-terror line. He is up for reelection this Sunday and is set to win
massively. His car had been encircled and local legend Kev was about to do his
famous aboriginal dance on it. Not sure if Carr was actually in the car.
These incidents aside, I got the feeling there was little else that could be
done. Nobody burned flags, nothing contentious was said and the crowd walked
along sort of mumbling "No War" to itself. The overwhelming mood was one of
sadness. It was like a funeral. There is a high chance this is my idiosyncratic
and distorted impression, though - I got very depressed today. On my train into
town I sat next to a man who must have been in his 60s. He was Iraqi and had
been in Australia for two years. He was crying, unconsolable, so sad he was
nearly catatonic. He just kept asking me why Australia needed to bomb Iraq. He
was worried he would have a infarction his heart was hurting that much. Some
friends of mine who work with the Arab and Afghan communities tell me that
people are so depressed they are feeling physically ill, they can't leave their
homes.
The US and Australia have written their names into the darkest recesses of
these people's souls. Days like these make me wonder how on earth people
express surprise at the existence of people who think Osama bin Laden is a
hero. To the man in the train, it's as if the whole society around him had
decided to ram planes into buildings and call liberation.
ell I've just got back from an afternoon demo in Leeds, UK. About a
thousand people I would say, quite good for a more or less
spontaneous demo. The atmosphere on it was up beat, not sombre but
pretty raucous. Very loud, lots of chanting, spontaneous sit downs
then pushing past the police to march on. In fact the police didn't
seem to know what to do. When the demo first spilled onto the street
there was a sit down and the police issued a section 60 order on bits
of paper declaring that we must disperse then when people decided to
march the police had to run to get to the front of the march to lead
it. It was quite funny. I think the atmosphere on the march can be
explained by the unusually high number of young people, lots of
school kids, many in school uniform who'd bunked off school to
demonstrate. Over the last few days school kids have taken the lead
in walking out of school and self organising demonstrations right
across Britain. Don't know what it means and it's hard to gauge how
widespread it is but it's something no one would have predicted. When
the kids are united and all that.
The day started with about 40 people from the direct action scene
blockading the busiest traffic junction in Leeds and holding it for
about 3 hours right through rush hour causing complete grid lock
around the city. They managed it by just d-locking their arms
together through plastic tubing, the police took a long time to deal
with it. I've heard a bit of grumbling about the disruption today but
it certainly wasn't just another day and IMHO it acts as a disruption
to the otherwise seamless media shift into action shots and away from
discussions of right or wrong.
There's another demo in Leeds planned for 6pm which promises to be
bigger. This situation is being replicated around the country. The
anti-war movement doesn't seem to be declining and a spontaneous
eruption of feeling by young people and school kids seems to be
escalating it. We've already won a major victory by stripping the fig
leaf of democracy away from the war. The anti-war movement needs to
continue to stop pro-war triumphalism snatching that victory away
from us.
Ok enough from me but it's always good to let off a little steam on a
day like this.
The Edinburgh demo was great fun too. Probably 4,000-5,000, although I'm
no good at estimating numbers. As on Thursday, the entire city centre
brought to a standstill by sit-down / die-in protests on Princes St.
Talk on Indymedia of 'looting' but I saw none. Like the rest of the UK,
very active and vocal participation from schoolchildren, speaking very
eloquently to repel media claims they had been manipulated by 'Pied
Piper Tommy Sheridan' (ex-Trot MSP). Thence to the home of First
Minister Jack McConnell (the 'poodle of the poodle') for some noisy
intimidation. Policing more or less low-key; they have little grounds
and seemingly little will to arrest people. Did however get a phone call
from the London demo where a friend was witnessing teenagers being
beaten by police with truncheons. Funny how youngsters have become, for
want of a better word, a vanguard. Lenin would have had a heart attack.
More of the same on Saturday.
These are from the Left Business Observer list
NYC - 7-10,000 protesters in miserable rain (Re: Where Are the Protesters??!
Hi all, I just got back from five hours in miserable rain doing legal
observing where we had something like 7,000 folks protesting (on the
conservative side of estimates) at Times Square and surrounding areas.
Quite amazing since it was freezing rain the whole time. The cops were
pretty damn bad, penning folks up as usual. The twist was when people
wanted to leave to march on the sidewalks down to Washington Square park,
they would let them out of the pens-- they let only ten at a time leave
every minute or two in order to break the numbers and encourage folks to
drift off rather than march.
But a good sign for what will hopefully be hundreds of thousands on
Saturday.
About 2000 blocking bridges and freeways in Portland tonight.
Lots of dancing and cheering, and amazingly, the police are
not busting heads
Just came across this story today. Apparently a bunch of school kids
were protesting against the war and were fired upon with tear gas by
the police. According to the report, the attack was unprovoked.
See related link
here in the north west it's the same, people out marching, talking and getting together. a continous vigil outside the US consulate. probably about 800(i'm bad at estimates) on the day/evening it all started. it's a global affair indeed.
Some of pictures of the teargassing have just appeared
Actions began at 12 noon, people walked out of schools, universities and work. At 4.30 people converged on Yonge and Bloor (the city's busiest intersection) where we held a die-in which was absolutely incredible - high school students from all around Toronto had been organizing for this event and pulled it off brilliantly. About 5,000 of us blocked the junction for 20 minutes then marched slowly down Yonge (Toronto's main street) shouting and encouraging workers in stores and passersby to join us. The atmosphere was absolutely incredible.
We arrived at the US Consulate at 5pm and the crowd really began to swell, downtown was in chaos. The Consulate was heavily protected by Toronto cops, Riot Squad, Ontario Provincial Police and plenty of horses, as well as a newly constructed 10 ft barrier all around the building. We were stopped from getting closer by lines of armed police.
Then the march split in 2, with the majority going north past the Provincial Legislature and then east and back down Yonge, support from disrupted traffic was unprecedented. A smaller march of about 1,000 headed west, supposedly there were some confrontations with police and there were 5 arrests.
The march ended in front of City Hall where there has been a peace camp set up for the last 4 nights (24 hours a day!). This will serve as a general convergence point and place to pick up materials.
Next big one is 1pm on Saturday outside the US Consulate - last time we had 80,000 whiuch we should easily get again this time.
peace
I know not everyone will agree with the politics of the SP but their international the CWI has a very good round up of the international demos on Day X
http://www.worldsocialist-cwi.org
Video of Brussels Demo ....
by hercule poirot Fri, Mar 21 2003, 6:07pm
Poweful stuff
Reuters "raw video" of Brussels demo .... hot stuff straight from the "capital of Europe" ....
related link: reuters.feedroom.com/index.jsp?auto_band=x&rf=sv&fr_story=
9260f4da1b7872a76b7bcb25c9e0cac971f168f8
Copy and paste full link.
I was in the city Thursday afternoon for the latter part of the demonstrations. It was hard to get a good idea of how many were there, because of the dividing and reassembling, but there was a large assembled march down Market (the main thoroughfare through most of the city) which probably had 2000. Note that that's just a guess, I'm not an experienced crowd counter.
We arrived at about 12:30 pm and came off the subway straight into a crowd walking down Market. A few blocks down we were stopped by a line of police officers in riot gear. We waited for about ten minutes, until more police approached us from behind with motorcycles and a van. When they came too close most of us sat down in the street (well, my roommate didn't sit down, but he's an immigrant and in the current climate I can't blame him). The cops didn't really try to arrest anyone that I could see, and the line in front of us broke up after a few minutes. This was a big thrill. We continued marching in a growing group, unhindered by police, who mostly just ran alongside (in one comic visual, a troop of fifty or so police jogging up a steep hill was joined by a cyclist jogging alongside deadpan with his bike over his head). When we got back to the Financial District, there were a couple more sitdowns and then the police moved in in earnest, clearing one intersection at a time until they had most people on the sidewalk. They arrested several people at this point, after warning us. The crowd and the police settled into their corners and stayed put for a few minutes...we talked with our police officers a bit, thanked them for occupying the intersection for us, asked if they agreed with the war (about evenly split), etc. The crowd moved on after that, but we left for home and had to watch on the news as the crowd shut down major entrances and exits to the Bay Bridge. The reliably annoying local media were still receiving breathless reports from a "journalist" who was referring vaguely to a "mob mentality" and to "clashes" between police and protestors and doing her best to imply that everything was about to burst into flames. At one point she spoke with a police captain on camera who was openly scornful of her muckraking and basically cut her off to say that the protestors were "antagonistic but not violent" before leaving to deal with something.
Overall, I was more impressed with the SFPD than with our local media. Of course I wasn't around for the more extreme incidents that apparently occurred in the morning (my roommate saw a girl offer a flower to a cop and get beaten to the ground -- picture here: http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2003/03/1586462.php).
I think the anarchic nature of the crowd was a major asset in creating the state of peaceful anarchy. See http://www.actagainstwar.org for more details about how the whole thing came about.