Hundreds Protest Bush’s Proposed Escalation

Today we have an almost reversed situation. As Bush declares his plan to escalate the war and send 21,000 more troops, the overwhelming majority oppose it. His approval ratings are in the toilet, and he suffered a massive rebuke at the polling place last November. In poll after poll, we find that “middle America” wants our troops home – and understands that sending more troops is the last thing we should be doing. But in San Francisco, the same anti-war organizers who inspired us four years ago could barely get a few hundred people out to protest.

Maybe it was a cold night, and the march had been planned on short notice – but that’s not a likely reason. On the night before the war started in March 2003, it was raining torrentially. International ANSWER had less than 48 hours to plan the protest -- but thousands of people converged at Powell & Market. Many more braved the weather, as the organizers gave them umbrellas to march through the rain.

Four years ago, there was a sense of urgency. We wanted to stop the war before it started. Now it’s been four years – and many of these people have been protesting on a regular basis during this whole time. I’ve personally lost track of how many marches I’ve attended. Call it “outrage fatigue” – George Bush is such a monster that we no longer expect anything out of what will happen. And the crowd had little or no faith that the Democrats in Congress will do anything to stop him.

It also didn’t help that Code Pink and International ANSWER had two separate events – just a few blocks apart from each other – which generated confusion. At 5:00 p.m., International ANSWER kicked off a rally at the Powell Street turn-around, replete with speakers. Speakers were extremely critical of the Democrats – and didn’t confine their message to just Iraq. At 6:00 p.m., Code Pink had a somber candlelight vigil to honor the 3,000+ dead soldiers, replete with folk singing, as they announced plans for a March on Washington on January 27th.

More
http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=4081#more