More coverage of the rally that I missed, despite being in the midst of it
In Los Angeles, the 'Troops Out Now' Caravan will proceed through the community of South Central Los Angeles with signs and banners demanding that King/Drew Trauma Center, a major health care center scheduled to be shut down because of budget cuts, be kept open and given the funds needed to serve the community. The caravan will then join a major anti-war demonstration at Hollywood and Vine at 12 noon. For details, see: http://www.iacenterla.org or http://www.answerla.org.
This Saturday's anti-war protest in Hollywood almost didn't happen, thanks to a few pushy Hollywood Boulevard merchants and a namby-pamby L.A. Police Commission....[T]he commission deadlocked (in one commissioner's absence) on whether to allow Answer L.A. to hold its demonstration at the intersection of Hollywood and Vine....Commissioner Alan Skobin classified the gathering as a "parade," taking advantage of a loophole that requires only one commissioner's nod ...
Saturday went out with Prince Of Evil.We went to Placita Olvera..A lot of tourist like always.. White folks all over the place.Some stupid chicks thought it was funny putting on a hat and doing this lil scream mexicans usually do..I looked at her and as I was walking just said "We dont do that all that time miss stereotype" Her and her stupid lil friends just looked at me..That was disrespectful and stupid.From there we went to Hollywood and Vine... Protest going on..A lot of punkers...After that came back to Long Beach went to Wal-mart then went to the new 7-11.Went near shoreline and just sat down and talk..As we were waiting for the metro a drunk guy came up to us..Funny shit..Second time we see a drunk on the metro..Came home... I was freaking tired..
And here's an extended description from Resist Psychic Death:
March 19 marked the 2nd anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. I was among one of some 2,000 people who marched at the anti-war/pro-peace rally in Hollywood. I don't even know quite why I went....But I felt I needed to do something more than just suppress the urge for sudden violence that rises up within me whenever I am inevitably in traffic behind some blue haired old white woman and her 60 foot Cadillac adorned with G.W. bumper stickers....
When the march began at Hollywood Blvd & Vine St that rainy afternoon, the first thing I noticed was that there were so many different kinds of people who had come out and come together....One adorable little boy about 3 or 4 years old held up his tiny fist and shouted from atop his father’s shoulders, Free Palestine! Free Palestine! with more conviction than many of the activist college kids with mega phones. His passionate little voice carried far and wide his message of freedom.
Of course there were a few of the people you would typically picture at an anti-war rally, the Kenny G. look-a-like on roller blades for example, who spun around in dizzying circles beating his bongo drum and singing "Give Peace a Chance". But it's all of the ones who marched silently and with dignity that I remember most, like the elderly Mexican woman who help up a banner which read "Hermanos Unidos" side by side with what looked to be her children and grandchildren....
There were no confrontations with police or otherwise, aside from the intrusion of two young men who help up pro-Bush signs and apparently just wanted to get in on the act. Miguel and I had the unfortunate luck of standing right behind them when a woman near us noticed what their signs said and became indignant with rage, nearly spitting on us and on them as she shouted "They're Bushies! They're Bushies! Get your own march!”. The men kept marching anyway, undeterred. Their handmade signs read "War never solved anything except genocide, Nazism, communism, and next . . . terrorism", and "Stop the war, neutralize America's enemies"....
Our final stopping place was just outside the Kodak theatre on Hollywood Blvd., the site of the most ridiculous and meaningless of all America's current preoccupations: the American Idol show. Tourists leaned out of upstairs restaurants and stared, and took photos, and videotaped the scene in the streets to complete their California vacation photo albums.
When it was all over, I walked back to the car with aching legs, wet feet, and a sick, useless feeling in the pit of my stomach. Was anything at all accomplished? Had we changed anyone's mind? Probably not. But I suppose, if one less blue haired old Bush supporter was found strangled with her reading glasses on the side of the road, it was all worth it to me. I wasn't marching to change anyone's mind; I was only marching for my own peace of mind.
California Writer's take:
It was raining with a slight drizzle when I walked through Hollywood to Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street at noon for the anti-war march commemorating the 2nd year of the war....
Actually this march almost didn’t get its permit because the local businesses thought it would be bad for business, but a deal was cut at the last moment calling the march a “parade,” so it was legalized. Actually, most of the police looked relaxed, hanging out in doorways. The anti-war marchers have proved themselves to be peaceful crowd after two years of marching down Hollywood Boulevard. The drizzle is a little harder as I stand on the southeast corner of Hollywood Boulevard half listening to the speeches. Speeches and songs go on for a while, with a rousing anti-war lesbian demanding both the Iraq War to end and the right to marry her fiancee getting the most rousing applause.
More people kept on arriving in the drizzle until there must have been 5,000 people there—maybe more. It’s hard to tell. I manage to take photos in the break in the rain. The most prominent new banner is for Iraq Veterans Against the War marching near Veterans for Peace. The Iraq Veterans Against the War carried a U.S. flag draped coffin. To me, they were the most moving. It’s good to see they have organized. I also remember the seven year old girl with long blonde hair holding up a huge American flag with a peace sign instead of stars—she marched behind her mother.
However, that bastion of the imperialist fascists, the New York Times, wasn't impressed:
Two years after the American-led invasion of Iraq, relatively small crowds of demonstrators - the home guard of the antiwar movement - mobilized yesterday in New York, San Francisco and cities and towns across the nation to condemn the war and demand the withdrawal of allied forces.
Thousands joined similar protests in European cities. On both sides of the Atlantic, the protests were passionate but largely peaceful, and nowhere near as big as those in February 2003, just before the war, when millions around the world marched to urge President Bush not to attack.
The American crowds ranged from about 350 in Times Square to several thousand in San Francisco. And in contrast to the vociferous rage of demonstrations two years ago, yesterday's protests were mostly somber and low-key, with marchers carrying cardboard coffins in silence to the beat of funereal drums, with rally speakers alluding often to the war dead and subdued crowds keeping behind police barriers.
Still, defiant resolution swirled in the afternoon air. "I don't like it," Ed Hedemann, 60, of Brooklyn, said of his impending arrest at a Flatbush Avenue recruiting station. "But there comes a time when, with the killing that's going on now, people have to stand up and say no. If that means getting arrested, that's a small sacrifice to make."
No serious injuries or clashes between demonstrators and the police were reported, although insults were exchanged by protesters and counterprotesters. Three dozen people were arrested in New York for blocking traffic or doorways at military recruiting centers, but these were choreographed with the time-honored rituals of civil disobedience, and restraint on all sides seemed to be the order of the day.
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