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Indybay Feature

North American protests mark third anniversary of Iraq war

by wsws (reposted)
Protests were held in a number of cities across North America on Saturday and Sunday, marking the third anniversary of the Iraq war. Several thousand demonstrated in San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and other cities in the United States and Canada.

Approximately 4,000 people marched through downtown Hollywood, California As with most of the demonstrations, the organizers and many of the speakers sought to channel opposition to the war behind the Democratic Party. Among the speakers were various Hollywood celebrities, union officials and California Senate Majority leader Gloria Romero, a Democrat.

Many of those participating were hostile to the organizers’ orientation to the Democratic Party. A young media developer from Los Angeles spoke to the WSWS: “I do not belong to any political party,” he said. “The stuff the speakers are talking about is already old.” He said the Democrats were “spineless” “They have so much ammunition to work with that they really could make a change, but they seem like they just wait for somebody to bring up a debate. They bring up some little points here and there and then, at the end of the day, that’s it, they go home. They’re not fighting.”

A post-production worker in film and video spoke about the international character of the right-wing shift of politics: “I am here today because I am opposed to the way things are going in the world. What I see is that the governments that are in power are more corporations and businesses rather than organizations run by people. Especially our government is a corporation more than anything. The people of the world should run the world.”

“I do not think the Democratic Party expresses the views of the American people,” he said. “I think that no political party expresses the views of the American people. I think that the Democratic Party, along with the Republican Party, has its own business interests in mind.”

Christine, a teacher from South-Central Los Angeles, said, “I personally don’t think that the Democratic Party is really expressing what the people want to happen in the States.”

Some of the country’s largest protests were in San Francisco, California, where over 10,000 people took part, and Chicago, where some 7,000 joined in demonstrations.

In New York, about 1,000 demonstrators gathered near Times Square in Manhattan on Saturday The dominant mood was one of anger and determination to expose the lies behind the war and continuing occupation, as well as disgust with the role of the Democratic Party. Several protesters spoke to the World Socialist Web Site:

Raul, an accountant, said, “Bush wanted to take over Iraq since his first day in office. It had nothing to do with 9/11, weapons of mass destruction or democracy. The war was for control of oil and the entire Middle East.”

“They thought that Iraq was going to be an easy target,” he noted. “However, taking control of that country has turned out to be a lot harder than this administration has ever imagined. In my opinion, controlling Iraq is more than this government can handle. The world was not a very safe place before Bush took power, but now it is much worse. There might be a civil war in Iraq. This war has opened a Pandora’s Box of troubles which can easily spread. The world has definitely become a more dangerous place.”

More
http://wsws.org/articles/2006/mar2006/amer-m20.shtml
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