Tens of Thousands March on the Pentagon 3/ 17/07

This is what were up against when we march on D.C. This is from last year and its the perfect day to do it. The anniversary of the war in Iraq. We can coordinate our Ron Paul Rally with the Anti War movement. We could follow the same logic and if you cant make it to D.C. Protest in your capitol or closest city. The San Fransico march was as big as D.C.

Riot Police Block Buses and Deny Access to People Coming to the Demonstration

Congratulations to everyone who made it through the snow and freezing rain to get to Washington and join together in the tens of thousands and March on the Pentagon!

On the way to the Pentagon, March 17
Led by a contingent of Iraq war veterans, active-duty service-members, Gold Star families, and veterans from other past and present wars, the demonstration received a large amount of media coverage. CNN has featured the demonstration, which the report described as a march of tens of thousands, in its rotation since yesterday. The major French newspaper, Le Monde, ran a significant article under the headline, "More than 50,000 People Protest Against the War in Iraq," about the March on the Pentagon as the U.S. component of the world-wide protests marking the beginning of the fifth year of the war against Iraq. The rally was broadcast live on C-span and Al-Jazeera and received wide-spread media coverage. C-span will be replaying the rally, check http://www.cspan.org/ for times.

Front banner for the March on the Pentagon
The March on the Pentagon was not a solitary action but one of more than 1,000 protests that will take place in the U.S. between March 17 and March 20. In Los Angeles, the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition called a demonstration that drew 50,000. Maxine Waters was one of many speakers and music was provided by renowned Ozomatli, Jackson Browne and Ben Harper.

The ANSWER demonstration on March 18 in San Francisco drew 40,000 protesters and filled 15 blocks of Market Street, a six-lane avenue.

The March on the Pentagon took place the day after a severe winter snow and sleet storm suddenly hit northeastern states that prevented many buses from traveling, 700 fights from taking off, and thousands of cars from reaching the March. Motorists were advised throughout New England and the Mid-Atlantic region to stay off the road. The large turnout at the demonstration was all the more significant given the hardships people had to endure to participate in the activity. People marched to the Pentagon and stayed as long as they could braving 20 mile-an-hour winds and a windchill factor into the teens.

A great thank you is owed to the committed volunteers who endured a torrential downpour of freezing rain though Friday night to help set up the assembly and rally sites. People stayed overnight with the equipment and then began working again at 5:00 am in complete darkness. The assembly area had become a lake on March 16 and filled with mud by the time the march stepped off. The windchill in the early hours was not far above zero. At the rally site the large tents and canopies blew down. Volunteers continued to work long hours after the rally ended to take-down, pack, clean the entire area and unload trucks. The anti-war movement is growing both numerically and its organizational capability and the tireless work of volunteers forms the core of this success.


The lead banner of the march demanding US Out of Iraq Now was carried by Cindy Sheehan, Cynthia McKinney, Jonathan Hutto co-founder of Appeal for Redress, Mahdi Bray, Executive Director of the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson and youth and students in the anti-war movement.

Pentagon Prevents Immortal Technique and Others from Joining the Rally

Immortal Technique
The Pentagon and Virginia State Police, many clad in riot gear, wearing gas masks and wielding batons, blocked people coming from the subway/metro who wanted to attend the demonstration. They also blocked buses from accessing the Pentagon in contravention of the agreements reached in the permit. This required people to walk nearly two miles to get to their buses following the rally.

Many people who came to the rally after it had begun - some who had seen the huge march at a distance as it crossed over the Memorial Bridge across the roadways and wanted to then join the activity - were blocked by the Pentagon and the police from entering the rally site through a maze of misdirection, road closures and threats of arrest at multiple different locations. The ANSWER Coalition worked to get people in, and ANSWER organizers and our attorneys went to the site of sudden police confrontations and shutdowns, but many people were still unable to get in including the hip-hop artist Immortal Technique who was scheduled to perform.

Like so many other people, the hip-hop artist Immortal Technique's travel plans to get to the demonstration, seemed so daunting as to be virtually impossible. But due to his determination and his resourcefulness, he found a way to overcome cancelled flights and frozen roads. Although he rebooked flights in order to land in North Carolina, personally rented a car and drove it to Washington, D.C., the Pentagon and law enforcement blocked him from coming into the rally where he was going to perform. We urge everyone to read Immortal Technique's compelling account -- which is both a narrative and a political commentary. Immortal Technique's message below should be read and circulated to your e-mail address book and to e-mail lists everywhere.

Message from Immortal Technique:

Immortal Technique"First and foremost I would like to congratulate the organizers of ANSWER and in specific Brian, Amelia, Peta, and Sarah and the many others who reached out to me and who I saw make a powerful statement today. I am not a big fan of marches and rallies because I have always believed that the system must be attacked economically above all. But, if coordinated well, they can effect change and remind people that this war is still costing lives and no matter who the father of Anna Nicole's Baby is or who wins the next season of American Idol or what new song is on the radio, people are dying, both from this country and in massive numbers in the Iraqi Civil War. March 17th, even with all the problems we faced, was a success in reminding people of the insurmountable evidence of corruption, self righteous moral depravity, and dishonesty present within our government... Because we have issue with the administration we should not be painted as people who despise their country. If I am not pleased with a book I read or a movie I watch that doesn't mean I hate the concept of film in general or that I take issue with printed literature on a whole. The administration presently tries to attach itself to the idea of America as if they were the far right standard by which all should be judged by as Americans. This White House after all just concerns itself with the well being of its stock holders, make-shift praetorian guard of politicians and political contributors.

"The ANSWER coalition and others have been working to separate these two so people can see the Bush Regime as that which uses America like a whore and claims to love her.

"As most of you know the storms in and around the New York and NJ area prevented travel back home on the 16th. So in order to try and make the Pentagon on March 17th since my flight out of Atlanta was canceled I flew into Greensboro and drove through the radio span of about 54 Christian Radio, Top 40 and Country Music stations. There were some songs like this one right here that I had to listen to all the way through even though they were lyrically abhorrent. I guess it was just like people who slow down on the highway to watch a terrible car accident. Musical Rubbernecking is what I called it, to bear witness to just about the most ridiculous piece of musical propaganda that isn't based on any facts but rather someone’s uninformed and uncultured back road view of America and what we are fighting over. I only heard the song but now that I've seen the video, it really makes me wonder how anyone from the right wing can accuse the resistance of using music or religion to promote their political agenda. It also makes me wonder what the future generations of this nation will be like.

"At any rate after my arrival in DC late on the 16th I woke up and got ready to check out and go to the Pentagon when everywhere began to shut down. I went over the key bridge and parked in the South Parking of the Pentagon when I was abruptly told by Pentagon Police that I needed to get to the North Side. After some directional confusion and them closing 27 to prevent me from going in there, Sarah Sloan tirelessly guided me back through the maze of area highways. I was entering the North Parking at which point 2 Pentagon police motorcycles rolled up and sent me back, then after circling and trying again I was at the point where the entry was for all the buses entering. There 4 police cars detained me and asked me who I was and what my relationship was to the event. When I told them why I was there they immediately demanded that I leave. They claimed that other officers must not know that this section was closed. And I thought about how difficulty in communication across the parking lot was a blatant farce. One said I should park my car in one of the local parking lots and then try the underpass and walk in, which I did but by that time it was 3:30 and as I parked my car and walked in again there was a police presence there that was sending not just myself but everyone else back.

"They said they had to arrest people for walking in the wrong areas and for not respecting the boundaries and were basically just trying to dissuade anyone from the street who had seen the march from a distance from joining it. Several local residents were there with me and were told to leave as well. I took a bus towards Arlington and then they shut that passage down too. I say all this not to complain because I expected as much but to point out that we should expect this and if this is going to be done again we should have back up plans, people on the perimeter other ideas I’m thinking of discussing with ANSWER personally etc… Less than a football field away I was blocked, followed out, cornered by cop cars, surrounded twice and turned back several times. It was an attempt to discourage myself and others, to make it as difficult as legally and illegally possible during that period of time to get in. I didn't expect them to be hospitable or helpful in any way but they did nothing to stop the message or dissuade me in any way. In fact they just doubled my resolve and reaffirmed how committed and focused we have to be in these times.

Peace & Respect,

Immortal Technique

P.S.

"This Administration talks a lot about God, so much that if you think about it the Republican Party has created this ubiquitous monopoly on religion in the political world. As if they were the only people who believed in God. It's no secret that they use religious values to cultivate a fan base that would normally be very disturbed by their domestic, economic, and foreign policy agendas. They are even breeding this type of thinking in the children of this nation, thinking much farther ahead than we are actually. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=2c7_1173547096

"You know about 3000 years ago there were Egyptians who worshipped the statues of Gods like Osiris and Anubis and thought praying to these pagan entities gave them strength, virility, victory and love. We now scoff at this practice and think "how could people be so ignorant as to worship such idols thinking they will bring them what they ask for?" We think how could people pray to a man with a dog's head or a man with a bird’s head and think that those deities will fulfill their humble requests from the heavens. But the sad truth is that 3000 years from now if humanity still exists people will probably look back on our society and say, "look at these people they prayed to a man nailed to piece of wood, and the saddest part was that they couldn't even follow the most basic commandment of what he said, which was treat others the way you wish to be treated." This coming from a person who while he doesn't let religion control his life, believes in God strongly, and knows how much Christ and others like him spoke about individuals who made money off of others suffering, people like our modern day war profiteers, globalization architects and oil barons.

"Knowing how Jesus brought drama to the Holy Temple back in the day because of the way the people had made the name of God into a mechanism to increase their own personal wealth... I think that the people who work for the administration and more specifically the president that are reading this right now should let him know that if Jesus was alive, he'd probably spit in your face."

From the Pentagon to California,
Antiwar protests sweep across the country

Thirty-seven years ago when anti-war protests began to engulf the United States, the Nixon administration adopted a public posture of utter indifference. Nixon went out of his way to claim that he didn't notice massive anti-war demonstrations in Washington because he was watching a football game on TV. We learned later from the memoirs of high government officials that the rising tide of anti-war protests between 1968 and 1970 constituted one of the greatest fears for the war makers. The movement spread deep into the rank-and-file of the U.S. military as well, as soldiers, marines and sailors carried out their own protests and acts of resistance. Sometimes the people underestimate their own power, but the ruling establishment knows all too well the consequences of a politicized and mobilized people.

Bush pleads for "patience"

It is the protests sweeping throughout the United States during the past four days and the prospect of other demonstrations to come that forced Bush to go on the airwaves Monday to "plead for patience." The Bush administration and the Pentagon high command fear that the protest movement could become a contagion. Politics is dynamic and political apathy, lethargy and inaction can turn into their opposites. The protests of the last days anchored by the march of tens of thousands at the Pentagon raises this specter for the White House and the Pentagon.

This is still an unfulfilled potential, but it can happen.

It will only be the actions of all anti-war organizations and the people that can significantly change the political climate. Many who came to the March on the Pentagon, and the many thousands who tried but couldn't because of the weather, are making their plans for local demonstrations, protests at local Federal Buildings, city-wide marches and rallies, community protests and vigils, civil disobedience and a range of ongoing actions building anti-war pressure into an irresistible force.

Protest and resistance

The next step for the ANSWER Coalition and many affiliated organizations and individuals is captured in the slogan, "Protest and Resistance," encouraging sustained activity including mass action protests on a local level, continued education and mobilization and acts of collective and individual resistance to the war machine. As happened during Vietnam, active-duty soldiers are beginning to participate in both protest and in acts of resistance. National coalitions play a role, as do local organizations as do all of us as individuals both inside and outside the military.

Media coverage on the spreading antiwar protests

For a very good round-up of the actions across the United States marking the beginning of the fifth year of the war in Iraq, listen to the coverage from the March 19 edition of "Democracy Now," hosted by Amy Goodman. To see the C-SPAN coverage of the March on the Pentagon, go to the C-SPAN homepage, and find "ANSWER Rally Against Iraq War."

The people repudiate pro-war thugs

The forces of ultra-right racism and militarism tried to "Swift Boat" the Washington protest. Wrapping themselves in American flags, groups like Rolling Thunder pretended to "defend" the Vietnam Memorial from threats that they themselves totally fabricated. (Operation Rolling Thunder was the name given to the U.S. Air Force's B-52 carpet-bombing of Vietnam between February 1965 and October 1968, in which thousands of Vietnamese civilians died each month.)

On March 17, these pro-war puppets showed their true colors. They shoved elderly people, screamed at parents whose children had been killed in Iraq, yelled racist comments at Arab and Muslim participants, and spit on and ripped signs out of the hands of high school students.

The government's police stood by and let this happen, despite their oft-repeated claims to be "keeping the peace." A very strong ANSWER security squad blocked these pro-Bush provocateurs from entering the front of the march. Anti-war protestors were disciplined and focused and refused to be provoked into the confrontation the government was hoping for. The enormous power of the people was felt as all those from around the country fighting to stop the war came together, rendering the sideline fascists irrelevant, and marched united on the Pentagon.