Letter
to the editor: Miscount
One
can not really know the lack of and the
inaccurate coverage of the anti-war movement
by the police and the mainstream media unless
you are involved in the movement. On Oct.
25 the anti-war movement was out on the
streets of Washington and San Francisco.
The
crowd estimates were reported at 10,000
to 50,000 demonstrators for the Washington
march. I read crowd estimation claimed to
be as low as in the "hundreds"
for the San Francisco demonstration.
Estimates
by organizers, International A.N.S.W.E.R.
and United for Peace and Justice, were 100,000
for Washington and 20,000 for San Francisco.
I
personally agree with the estimates by organizers.
The San Francisco demo was a great success
and I had the privilege to take part and
help run the march. As a volunteer for the
march I was assigned to a group to lead
the march from the Civic Center to Jefferson
Square Park. The leader for our team told
us that our job was to block the traffic
before the marchers arrived at the intersections.
He said the police were responsible for
the job but most likely would fail to do
the job -- he was right.
Before
arriving at the last turn of the march our
team took up a different assignment. We
posted ourselves in front of the march with
trashcans for donations. It took over thirty
minutes for the entire march to pass by
us and the entire time the street was full
from one side to the other. That's thousands
of people, baby. Peace.
-- Jamie Agredano
history major
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