Scenes from Seattle


Photo by me. Just outside of Nordstrom, underneath the monorail. The street (Fifth Avenue) was packed out for as far as the eye could see

Of course, the local television news coverage of the march was atrocious. Hey, I got your news for you right here. 20,000 people (a guesstimate from 15,000 by the cops and 30,000 by the protest organizers) marched from one end of downtown Seattle to another. Only one arrest was made. Largest Seattle march (besides WTO) since the Vietnam War.

Meanwhile, equal time was given to a handful of pro-war yahoos who wanted to frame all the 20,000 protesters as being "against the troops," which we clearly weren't. It was aggravating to have the local press, under the cloak of "equal time," talk for a second about thousands of peaceful protestors halting traffic in Seattle and then cut to a handful of rabid wannabe warriors. I'm sorry, professional media. Did we ruin your day by not rioting?

The most tasteless media analysis I thought came from Seattle Times' Eric Sorensen's comments of the Seattle march:


As befits a parade, it was a motley display of punks and veterans, some Muslim students and garden-variety people in rain gear. Thousands held hand-lettered signs, dogs wore peace placards and several people carried papier-mâché effigies of Bush, including one depicting the president as a Roman emperor. John and Kathi Sleavin carried a French flag "to thank the French government for listening to its people and for standing up for what their people believe," John Sleavin said.


Apparently, Eric missed all the elegant Women in Black, moms and dads carrying small children, tykes with anti-war signs, high school students in groups, Vietnam vets who carried signs against this oncoming war, and elderly couples holding hands as the rain came down on their "No Iraq War" buttons.

Eric also missed that fact that this ribbon of humanity covered nearly all of Second Avenue in Seattle from Pine Street to the Seattle Seahawks stadium, a good two miles.


Second Ave. Seattle. A sea of humanity from one end to the other. I think I took this one, too. May have been my wife, who joined me, along with our friends Arna, Deb and Rachel.

Were there "fringe" elements there? Sure, but punks we weren't. Punks don't have the organization to pull off a global protest.

In London, 750,000 gathered. In Rome, about a million. Paris, at least 100,000. Madrid, nearly 700,000. Berlin, at least 300,000. In New York City, no one may ever know, but the crowds stretched 20 blocks long and two blocks wide.

Not enough for you? This is snipped from the link above:

About 80,000 marched in Dublin, Irish police said. Crowds were estimated at 60,000 in Seville, Spain; 40,000 in Bern, Switzerland; 30,000 in Glasgow, Scotland; 25,000 in Copenhagen, Denmark; 15,000 in Vienna, Austria; more than 20,000 in Montreal and 15,000 in Toronto; 5,000 in Cape Town and 4,000 in Johannesburg in South Africa; 5,000 in Tokyo; and 2,000 in Dhaka, Bangladesh.


The newspapers are calling this one of the largest global protests ever, coordinated in equal parts by the Internet and the voice to say no to war.

Just before the rally ended and the long march began, a rumor started circulating that British Prime Minister Tony Blair had reconsidered his alliance to George W. Bush on attacking Iraq. Although proven false (for now, hopefully), if the protests were going to have any effect on changing minds, it would have to be in London. The Brits who marched on Hyde Park were the most important protestors of the day, turning their footpower and will into a giant pry bar, trying to force Tony Blair back from the Kool-Aid. We in Seattle knew Bush wouldn't have a change in his black, oil-infused heart. Blair was the key. Change Blair's mind and Bush's little desert folly would look truly shallow and unprincipled.

On this day, we, the anti-war folk, were the majority. Under their own power, millions of people took to the streets to find another way than war. I don't know if it'll work, but we'd like to give it a try. Instead of using satellite photos of moving trucks to go to war, let's turn them over to the U.N. Let the inspectors get unfettered ground and air access. Let's go slow instead of doing something horrible we can't take back.

On the Sunday morning news shows, guest commentators indirectly painted the anti-war groups who marched yesterday as giving Saddam Hussein more time to get his defenses in order, to prepare his chemical weapons for use. Fine, paint as us naive dupes (even though there's a million reasons not to go to war; and if we are dupes, we're in good company with the likes of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela and others of noble spirit), but if we have to be dupes, let us be on the side of keeping a lot of Iraqi civilians (half of which are under the age of 15) alive and not plunging the Middle East, and the world, into chaos.

P.S.
Best sign at the Seattle rally: Last time we listened to a Bush, we wandered in the desert for 40 years.