After exploring for a while I heard some sounds and music. Always being drawn to big loud crowds I started across the street.
This was the begining of a day of walking which has not been known to man kind since the exodus of the Jews out of Egypt.
I found a second stage set up and arrived just in time to hear Cindy Sheehan speak. She really was fired up and very concise
and clear in her message unlike Bush. I didnt get a look at her thanks to the massive fawking crowd, but you can bet she was
somewhere behind all of this near the big black scaffold thing.
After that I started looking for the beginning of the march. I like to be in the vanguard in the thick of things, preferably
as a member of the black bloc. But finding the front of this protest was like finding a snake's knee. I did manage to find
the code pink contingent since it was the one with all the pink. Code pink is a group of mothers and women against the war
and they do some good work.
I traveled from there back to the main protest gathering spot to see if I could find some black blockers who had so far
been absent. Instead I found a massive chain of men who had been killed in the war being held up by their loved ones. This
was perhaps one of the most harrowing images of the whole thing.
After that I went back to look for my brothers in sticks, rocks, trashcan lids, and other arms. I found a small group and
we talked for a bit and then they were off towards what I hoped would be the black bloc contingent. I had my mask on for a
while but I realized I looked kind of silly as a black bloc of one so I took it off and shortly afterwards this picture was
taken. Please note that I wasnt kidding about using sticks as weapons. The one holding up my sign is both longer and thicker
than a cop's nightstick, and that cloak I'm wearing can be wadded up to grab tear gas cannisters safely. Not pictured is my
mask, which keeps the gas from effecting me too badly if it ever comes to that and hides my face when necessary.
I decided that I needed to try to find my brothers in arms, so I climbed a monument thing that was like ten or twenty feet
up and was already occupied by a few people. Here's me after making my triumphant ascent:
and here's the view I had.
As you can see there are no black bloc members to be found. However somewhere down there were two or three folks from my
town. That might not sound impressive at a gathering of 150000, but luray is a town of 5000, so .1 percent of the population
of my town was in attendance for this march.
Anyhow after a while I hopped down just in time to see the cops trying to clear the pillars I had been on. I had a good
mind to climb back up but the cops were being decent about it and not making many threats, and letting people climb down at
a decent pace without flipping out or anything. I have to hand it to the DC cops, they're really ok to have at a protest.
Noone was arrested, and for good reason: There were only three cops in the immediate area compared to several thousand of
us. That's what the black bloc mean when they say "Who's streets? OUR STREETS!"
Stay tuned for the conclusion!
