The Protest in New york - anti war

[Mazdak]

I started this thread, but i will fill it with info in about an hour.

[Anonymous]

Goddamn fuckin' hippies...Why aren't there any pro-war rallies like back in the good old 1890's?

(Edited by Dark Capitalist at 3:26 am on Feb. 16, 2003)

[Xvall]

A lot of things from the 'good old' 1890's aren't here anymore (Thank God). Let's not forget that 'good old' 1890's segregation! And all those 'good old' 1890's lynchings! Those were the days!

[andresG]

I was there at the protest with my friend James (who is known as Timbaly in this message board). Since the march was cancelled it was very hard to move around. The cops held us all in small areas and didn't allow us to get together. When demonstrators broke down the baricades things got violent. Some protesters were beaten and horses were used to control the crowd.

There were many diverse groups. Among the Socialist groups there was the Socialist Workers Party, the Workers World Party and the Maoist International Movement. They were the ones who best explained the reasons for war.

As one of their flyers said:
Don't talk about the danger of war unless you are prepared to speak about capitalism!

[Mazdak]

Cool, I was there as well. The police on horseback were literally smashing into the crowd and they were closing every way to the rally they could. It was ridiculous. They surely harmed quite a few people. BTW- did you attend the rally in times square?

[Hampton]

I was in NY as well. Good to see that the NYPD still continues its legacy of brutality.

[Xvall]

That's kind of funny. If we were the republican party, or even the klan, they would have surely provided us with police protection.

[Anonymous]

Remember the free-market counter protests a while back?

"We love the police! We love the police!"

"It's my SUV you SOB!"

Those were great.

[RedCeltic]

Yea apperenty there where so many people that it went over the limit of the permit and the cops started to arrest people. :( Fucking pigs!

Great participation around the world today! I can safly say that every protest had WAY better of a turn out than expected!!!

I heard Berlin expected 100, 000 and got 300,000...

A million in Rome and London!!!

They said that 90% of the people in the UK are against the war!! 90% yet good ol Tony is still being Bush's lap dog.

I don't know what's up with them in the UK :confused: if the PM is not acting in the interests of the people why doesn't parlement go for a no confidence and call for a general election?

Well, I don't expect him win his next election.

[timbaly]

I heard that there were 1 million people in the anti-war rally in NY. They were only expecting something like 100,000 people.
Well things of course got bad, police enforcing ridiculous things like forcing a mass of protesters to stay on the side walk a crush themselves against each other for a whole street, then they allowed us to walk back on the street. Where is the sense in that. We had cops climbing on trucks and stores to get protesters down. i saw one protester smash a cops fingers with his shoe, while the cop was climbing to on top of a truck to get them down. The police also decided to blockade side street making it impossible for crowds from second and third avenue to join each other. So we had people climbing over trucks and using barracades from the trucks to contain the police. The cops also used there horses for crowd control in order to isolate the protesters onto a street coner, because to them flowing traffic is more important than our first amendment right to assemble. So the horses closed in on the people but the protesters attacked the horses by slapping them and puching them ( at this point i was hoping for an animal farm like revolution, but that didn't happen). Some of the horses got rowdy and had to be removed from their crowd control roles.


however all in all I love those cops, using crowd control when crowds didn't need to be controled, using horses to harass peaceful protesters and creating ridiculous blockades. god bless the NYPD :smile:

[Charred Phoenix]

They said that 90% of the people in the UK are against the war!! 90% yet good ol Tony is still being Bush's lap dog.

I don't know what's up with them in the UK if the PM is not acting in the interests of the people why doesn't parlement go for a no confidence and call for a general election?


It's the same in Australia, you should see the amount of people in Sydney protesting against the war on Iraq today, yet our moron of a prime minister is even going so far as to offer troops for the war.

[Lefty]

I can only hope that these protests will help sway the opinions of our glorious leaders.

[Ian]

I was at the one in sydney, it was friggin' awesome....
the best chant (or a part of it) was: little johnnie howard, whatta bloddy coward, sending off the troops cos he cant get a root, something something killing iraqis (sung to the tune of waltzing matilda)

Edit- sorry, I just realised international comrades wouldn't understand some of what I said, let me explain
Root: sex
Waltzing matilda: an Australian folk song

(Edited by Ian Rocks at 8:59 am on Feb. 16, 2003)

[HankMorgan]

Nice protest, people. I've got to hand it to you all.

The anti-war movement is growing. Millions turning out, all over the world to protest. France, Germany and Russia are digging in their heels. Looks like peace in our time.

If everyone had lined up behind President Bush, Hussein could have been persuaded to take early retirement without bloodshed. I don't see that happening anymore.

Nice work, folks. Yes, it looks like we will have peace in our time.

[mentalbunny]

London was packed! It was incredible!

Sorry to hear about all the shit with the NYPD, the Met were pretty cool with us and the whole thing went really well. Loads of people came who'd never gone to protests before, like me and my mum, although I wanted to go to the one last autumn. It's so stupid that Blair wants war, he knows his political career is fucked now, unless a miracle happens.

By the way, it's only about 80% who don't want war without UN backing, and about 45% I think who don't want war at all, but I'm not certain about that.

[RedCeltic]

By the way, it's only about 80% who don't want war without UN backing, and about 45% I think who don't want war at all, but I'm not certain about that.

Thanks for clearing that up MB I was foggy on that issue.

And yea NYPD sucks, I've lost any respect for the cops after that. :(

[Comrade Daniel]

How many people were protesting in total?

[Smoking Frog II]

Quote: from Drake Dracoli on 10:43 pm on Feb. 15, 2003
A lot of things from the 'good old' 1890's aren't here anymore (Thank God). Let's not forget that 'good old' 1890's segregation! And all those 'good old' 1890's lynchings! Those were the days!


The Johnson county war

[Che ChicK]

I went to the protest in New York. Had an okay time. Didn't see as much as i wanted to see about it on TV though.

[canikickit]

Jesse Jackson's speech was totally shit. I must keep repeating that. I thought the London mayor's was pretty good.

I liked the Irish protest, all the other ones looked seperate from the people, he Irish one was part of the people.

[timbaly]

Quote: from Che ChicK on 7:11 pm on Feb. 22, 2003
I went to the protest in New York. Had an okay time. Didn't see as much as i wanted to see about it on TV though.


Thats so true. The media just barely mentioned the specifics involved in the protest. they passed over it as if it meant nothing.

[Lefty]

Gee, I wonder why?

[Mazdak]

Yes, they tried to breeze over it. They were too busy attacking Saddam Hussein's personality and trying to take attention away from what was really going on.

Here in Queens one of the groups that organized the protest in NY is distributing leaflets. I don't know if they are doing it elsewhere.

[Blibblob]

I live in Florida, its boring...full of old people that all they can remember is fighting in WW2, and fighting against communism during the Cold War. They dont care if a bunch of young kids go and get themselves killed.