Go on a massive protest

So today I clicked on some MP3s while I was getting ready to save the world and the first song on the list was 2Pac – Changes. I was really listening to the lyrics (as I usually do) and I heard his remark that there is a war on drugs but not on poverty. He raises a good point. I’ve been homeless before and I’ve see people that were stuck homeless and couldn’t/wouldn’t get out of it. I’m not a big supporter of helping the poor unless they are trying to help themselves. However! I know that 1/6th of the world’s population is currently living on less than $1 US a day (60% of which goes to food). Being hungry is the worst feeling in the world and I couldn’t even being to understand these people’s suffering. I want to protest the war on terrorism, and protest the war on drugs, and the war on EVERYTHING that frivolously wastes money that could be used to help stop millions upon millions of people’s suffering.

April 25, 2004
Washington, DC
1.1 million people
What a blast!

Have to make it to an anti-war march now.

incredibly rewarding.

I don’t know that I think the protest itself “accomplished” anything in terms of making what we were marching against change, or getting anyone to listen to us.

What it /did/ accomplish, was to give me a visceral sense of I am not alone! I can sit in anguish about what is happening and how powerless I am, or I can know that we are a community together.

Protest alone is not enough, it’s great for inspiration if people go home & do the foot-work later…

i had an amazing day
it was my first but definatley not the last

just a great fun day and so well organised

big big well done to everyone involved!

I marched with many in the Loop, for the promotion of peace,
reducing nuclear armament, reducing the enormous military budget,
removing support for regimes in Central America which allow torture, imprisonment without due process, disappearing of people who dissent, apartheid, and for a fair government in Chicago.

i’ve been going to the march for life each year since i was 12 and every time is even better than the one before it. it’s such an awesome thing to see so many different people united in a great cause. up with babies!

I was hoping to take my kids often too, but then the Portland police started pepper spraying babies, I swear! Ugh. I went to one other anti-war protest in Portland without them, but took them to that first humongous Ralph Nader rally in PDX, before he totally lost his mind.

Took over the Olympia (Washington State) capitol building in undergrad during first gulf war (with huge crowd was actually very peaceful, mostly confused). Went to huge anti-apartheid rally in NYC another time in High School: with U2, Jackson Browne, Ramones, Third World playing at the end, awesome! Reproductive rights rallies in LA, one huge one in orange county. You really need training for these because those anti-choice people can get violent and push a lot.

People say it doesn’t accomplish anything, but I think it does, even if it’s only morale. But I think it’s more than that, it’s like a huge mass-prayer, and intention.

Here’s a picture of my friends and I in 7th grade (12 yo) at my first rally: huge anti-nuke rally in Central Park, NYC.

Bring Them Home Now! Protest in Washington, DC