M19 Pics and Report
author: Phil
|
I showed up a little bit late, around 2:00 or so. On the way into town on the MAX, I noticed something I never see on my way to protest: other protestors on the move! Comming in from suburbia, there were about 10 other people on the train on their way to the rally. All through town people were converging. When I finally arrived at the waterfront, I couldn't belive my eyes: there were thousands upon thousands of people; more than I had ever seen at a rally anywhere. My initial estimate was about 10,000-15,000 but people kept flooding the park while the speakers spoke so by the time we marched there must have been 20,000-40,000 people. It was amazing.
|
I showed up a little bit late, around 2:00 or so. On the way into town on the MAX, I noticed something I never see on my way to protest: other protestors on the move! Comming in from suburbia, there were about 10 other people on the train on their way to the rally. All through town people were converging. When I finally arrived at the waterfront, I couldn't belive my eyes: there were thousands upon thousands of people; more than I had ever seen at a rally anywhere. My initial estimate was about 10,000-15,000 but people kept flooding the park while the speakers spoke so by the time we marched there must have been 20,000-40,000 people.
It took nearly 20 minutes after lining up to get moving, and I was in the middle of the march. There were people stretched out as far as the eye could see. We marched for a while, peacefully and hugely. At one point near the burnside bridge a group of people marching under the banner of the Seattle Anti-Imperialists stopped and demanded the police stop following them, as the police had entered the march to follow this group specifically. I left before the standoff concluded, but I heard later on that the police had left and everything was fine.
At a corner of the square (broadway and the street with the westbound MAX on it) several people dressed in orange jumpsuits and black hoods stopped and posed for a good ammount of time. Several had "Why" written on their jumpsuits.
Things continued as normal until I reached an intersection further up on Broadway, where a guy had stopped his car and climbed on top with an anti-bush sign (shown bellow), and refused to move until the marchers had passed. A few people sat down in the street near his car, but in the end nobody was arrested and the traffic started moving after the march had gone by (a good 20 minutes later)! By that point we were far behind, so we cut walked down a few blocks with our banner and came out towards the middle/end of the march as it went back towards the waterfront. When we arrived back at the waterfront, there was a bit of a street party going on, especially as bands would pass through. eventually the police asked people to clear the interesction (why is unclear, seeing as the lane was blocked off by construction anyway), and at that point I left.
All in all the march was amazing. 10s of thousands of people took part in a peaceful and pwerful march. Bush may ignore us. All of Washington may ignore us. However our senators cannot. They are up for re-election and they will listen to the will of their people or they will no longer have their cushy positions. even if they ignore us, we now know that there are 10s of thousands willing to take a stand against this war, and that is a comforting thing to know.
|
add a comment on this article
add a comment on this article
|
