The World Says No to War

~10 million people around the world protested against the impending war on Iraq yesterday. I got out to the NYC rally and spent most of the day herded in between 53 and 55 Sts. on 1st Ave.

Blocked off streets and cattle pens everywhere made movement to, from, and around the protest site extraordinarily difficult. This is what precipitated clashes between police and protesters a little farther north of my position. "Safety reasons" were specifically cited as the reason for the pens, but they actually made the rally less safe and only served to heighten anxiety levels.

Most media claimed 100K at the NYC protest. That's ridiculously low. The number is probably closer to 400K. The local media, especially, stayed true to their usual form, emphasizing the "violence" and arrests, while marginalizing the number of folks who made it out in the bitter cold to make their voices of dissent known.

All in all, a good day. Historic, too.

Update: The Guardian reports that "up to 30 million people" from around the world demonstrated against the war! Antiwar.com and Infoshop.org are collecting crowd estimates from each of the protests. See 170 pictures from over 110 of the protests, here.