Joining the three ANSWER-organized buses from Chicago to DC for a second mobilization against the war in as many months, I could tell it would be smaller than the UFPJ demonstration in late January I had also occasioned along to. For one thing, at least five or six buses left Chicago for that, and more people flew that time than this as well. Then I got a call from some of my people in New York that a Nor’ Easter (deviously bad snowstorm) was hitting much of the states north of our nation’s capital, scuttling their chances to make it. Flights had been cancelled from that region, and ANSWER organizers announced that dozens of buses and other means of transit had as well, significantly hurting attendance.

With a reasonably pleasant bus ride, largely surrounded by people who either had missed the last few Capital-or-Bust anti-war mobilizations or were first timers, we were early to the first rally site, across the street from the Washington monument. Good hip hop mixed with run-of-the-mill speakers helped keep the morale very high despite the especially muddy rallying spot, death threats from the counter protesters and windy weather.

The organizers claimed twenty-five thousand, not too much higher than capitalist news media estimates, and I agree with the former, at least thanks to waiting in one spot and watching as the marched moved along for at least an hour before joining somewhere in the middle or towards the end. That would make the size substantially smaller than the January march (one to one and a half hundred thousand?), but from what I saw of the morale, it was just as high in worse weather. The brisk march over the river led to the streets on the other side that eventually brought us to the Pentagon, where most strolled to the rally point in the Pentagon parking lot. I went to the bridge that you need to take to get to the Pentagon itself, but more on that later. Now rewind for thoughts on the other side.

After a few near-frays with the rightist counter-protesters (Contras, anyone?!) we sized them up. They came earlier than us, lining much of the march route just before the state line, though they skipped the bridge over the Potomac. Perhaps high hundreds in their numbers, they included a large attendance of overlapping numbers of veterans and bikers, one of the largest headcounts since before the rise and fall of the Protest Warriors. How did they do it? Three ways: they lied (or were delusional enough to tell) to their constituents that the leftist activists were planning to deface the (U.S. aggression against) Vietnam Veterans Memorial, which brought a lot of them out; the far right wing hates ANSWER more than any other sector of the contemporary left because of its early leadership in the anti-war movement and its close ties to Arab and Muslim communities in this country and its closeness to more radical Leninist parties than the ones UFPJ generally cavorts with; and bikers like any excuse to ride their hogs.

On the other hand, the new SDSers made a second or third effort at leading a militant bloc at a national protest on the East Coast. Disorganized, and largely out of affinity groups, they carried a larger number of shields with a smaller number of participants to that bridge that takes you to the Pentagon. Riot police with more than ample reinforcements waited on the other side, and they threw a stun grenade (a loud anti-crowd explosive that lets off a small amount of teargas and 'non-lethal' shrapnel) into the air to try to frighten off the crowd of more-than-usual scrawny and white would-be militants (sorry for being nasty!). Then they arrested two impromptu leaders. After perhaps an hour of particularly poor discussion, stand-up/sit-down, and unnecessary voting, the new SDSers decided to call off the stand-off and moved back. Virginia State riot cops took advantage of this to slowly shuffle across the bridge, while photographers took advantage of the photo opportunities some activists created out of the charade. At one point, a police line broke to let a school bus loaded with hairy activists go through, but otherwise we were all pushed back. The SDSers didn’t get to lead the same type of action as they did when they successfully rushed the steps of the Capitol in January, but they had their confrontation.

Not too much later, some of my companions witnessed two dozen of the SDSers on the DC side of the bridge over the Potomac get surround by a large number of motorcycle and piggy wagon cops who arrested two (according to new SDS reports on DC Indymedia) while the others scattered.

Meanwhile in Chicago, the Latino-focused Committee Against the Militarization of Youth (CAMY) organized a march in Pilsen for that same day. From what I hear, a very spirited crowd of at least a hundred took the streets, including Ashland at one point.

Keep on keepin’ it on, to the streets. See you on Tuesday.