h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

exactly kc...and those numbers are from march organisers, so divide them by a factor of at least 5.

but...did ANYONE listen to Jesse Jackson? I would be most interested to hear what he said.

alec.

please don't rain on the parade

Alec, the 750,000 figure is from BBC overhead cameras and are based on the march itself. Many more protesters arrived just for Hyde Park. The organisers claimed at least 2 million, many newspapers claim 1.5-2 million, and the police claim at least one million.

I was there, I was proud to be there.

I was told by an aid worker of something she was once told by an Iraqi, 'We can stand the bombs, but we cant stand the screams of our children.' This was so profound, and what I was doing there, it was amazing.

Ill be going to every protest until the government listens to the people.

Polls show that 46% of the British public are against a war even with a second UN resolution, and only 9% support a war going agaisnt the UN.

And and Jesse Jackson?

He repeated himself a lot.

I bet the total of all the war demonstrators across the world adds up to less than the number of people watching the ManU v ARSEnal FACup match.

Id put money on you being wrong.

But seriously -- oh, I guess everybody has been serious -- why don't we all just bite the bullet (if you'll pardon the image) and admit to ourselves that the war we (some of us?) are upset about is not one that might start. The war started back when George the First was President and it never ended. The bombing never stopped, the funding and training of "freedom fighters" never stopped, and regular U. S. soldiers are on the ground inside a foriegn country without an invitation. There will never be agreement on who started it: was it the invasion of Kuwait? The American Ambassador's words to Iraq before that invasion (thought by some to be an invitation to invasion)? Was it the American propping up of Saddam Hussein? Does it go all the way back to the British support for Fiesel al-Saud over Hussein of Medina (against the advice of Lawrence of the seven pillared wisdom)?

The question is not who started it but who will stop it. Wars are stopped by putting down guns, not by picking them up. The war is raging now. Maybe we should put down our guns and let the inspectors do their work.

Now I'm going to shut up.

Well said...

Hopwever I'm not an optimist and life is not so simply as that of rational though... just cold calculating thought driven by passionate hate and the further of religeous/ideological zeal or the hunger for power and addiction of influence...

I know I said I was going to shut up, but I was wrong. Here's a little article for everybody on this thread to contemplate. As a near neighbour of a party to the conflict, it scares the crap out of me. This is one neighbour you don't want to get mad; it has no respect for national soveriegnty or international law.
http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/PEstory/TGAM/20030212/UIRAQN/Front/frontpage/frontpage_temp/5/5/5/

Now I'll shut up. Really.

Tommaso Palladini, 56, who traveled from Milan to Rome, said, ``You don't fight terrorism with a preventive war. You fight terrorism by creating more justice in the world.

''We Germans in particular have a duty to do everything to ensure that war - above all a war of aggression - never again becomes a legitimate means of policy,'' shouted Friedrich Schorlemmer

In southern France, about 10,000 people demonstrated in Toulouse against the United States, chanting: ``They bomb, they exploit, they pollute, enough of this barbarity.
''War is not a solution, war is a problem,'' Czech philosopher Erazim Kohak told about

500 people in Prague, the Czech Republic.900
Puerto Ricans chanted anti-war slogans against the possible invasion of Iraq.
South American nations against a possible U.S.-led attack on Iraq. Police estimated 1,500 marchers.
In divided Cyprus, about 500 Greeks and Turks
Ukraine, some 2,000 people
In Damascus, the capital of neighboring Syria, an estimated 200,000
In Mexico City, as many as 10,000 peoplebout

80,000 marched in Dublin, Irish police said. Crowds were estimated at 60,000 in Seville, Spain; 40,000 in Bern, Switzerland; 30,000 in Glasgow, Scotland; 25,000 in Copenhagen, Denmark; 15,000 in Vienna, Austria; more than 20,000 in Montreal and 15,000 in Toronto; 5,000 in Cape Town and 4,000 in Johannesburg in South Africa; 5,000 in Tokyo; and 2,000 in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

60,000 turned out in Oslo, Norway; 50,000 in bitter cold in Brussels, Belgium; and about 35,000 in frigid Stockholm, Sweden.
In southern France, about 10,000 people
Berlin,Police estimated the crowd at between 300,000 and 500,000.

70,000 people marched in Amsterdam
Madrid turnout at 660,000
In London, at least 750,000 people
In Spain, several million people turned out at anti-war rallies in about 55 cities and towns across the country, with more than 500,000 each attending rallies in Madrid and Barcelona.

In New York, rally organizers estimated the crowd at up to 500,000 people. City police provided no estimate of the crowd, which stretched 20 blocks deep and two blocks wide.In Los Angeles, thousands of chanting marchers filled Hollywood Boulevard from curb to curb for four blocks. Organizers estimated the crowd at 100,000, although police put it at 30,000.

Many US cities have not reported yet. More are planned as many more people are just now wishing they had gone. The estimates are the conservative police estimates unless otherwise stated. The organizers claim 2-3 times as many people.

Just so you know: we got it at 100,000 in Montreal, not 20,000. I wonder if all your numbers are as proportionally low. Wouldn't that be nice.

I hate to rain on the parade as I'm against the war... but the Countryside alliance managed more than 400,000 which a well known Jewish MP labeled as a "insignificant minority" oimplying that just 400,000 people made had no right to affect political change... interesting in that there are less than 250,000 jews in the UK...

But more interesting that the two central issues of the Countryside Aliance are considered trivial as they affect only area of the economy only 4 times the size of Military sector which pro war people are saying will benifit from this war...

ooo, am I malking sense... no... but n/m...

I think they are low ,that is why I said they are police figures The organizers go as much as 4 x's the figures. The truth is no doubt in somewhere in betweenI have never seen such a high discrepancy in figures!

It Points to the political importance and ferver.

Back to the topic of hand...reports of local protests.

Austin Texas...


Here in austin the report is 10,000 strong. We gathered at the state capitol at 1pm. Saw lots of familiar faces and lots of new faces in the crowd. Principal among a long list of speakers was U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett. My friend's band provided musical entertainment between speakers. Standing next to me was a woman who's daughter's unit had been mobilised to iraq just yesterday. She carried signs made by her granddaughters, ages 12 and 16.

After the rally at capitol we marched the 12 blocks down congress avenue to the bridge that crosses over the colorado river which runs through downtown. Our numbers were so large that they closed Congress Ave. for a good halfhour while we marched to the bridge. The whole walk down we were greeted by people in their cars, honking their horns and shooting us a peace sign from their car windows and sunroofs. We took over the bridge for about an hour then those of us who were left marched back to the capitol, again, to honks of aproval. We only encountered one guy in a huge pick up truck, talking on his cell phone while trying to drive AND giving us the "thumbs down" signal. So, thats one hand on the cell phone, one hand with thumb down...I'm afraid to ask what he was driving with.

We finally started to wrap things up at about quarter to six.

Article is at : http://www.austin360.com/aas/metro/021603/0216antiwar.html

photos can be found at http://www.austin360.com/aas/metro/021503/021503%20Protest/photo12.html

Last count in Vancouver was 35,000 by police count. Disappointing but probably due to the heavy rain.

All in all a very good turnout worldwide. Let's hope it has an effect.

Well, here in Los Angeles, the offical figures were 30,000. That's pretty paltry for a city whose borders surround 7+ million.

A friend of mine said something yesterday which still has me thinking... She said that the spirit of America which we all feel so proud of is no longer the reality of America.

Another friend of mine said she didn't go because she didn't want to end up on a government surrveillance camera...

I need some

SC2

I went to the london Demo. It was massive. Me and my mates who organised the Birmingham coachs (from the Stop the war coalition) walked for about 3 and a half hours and we did not even get to the convergence point. Southern Engalnd started from one point and Northern England in another and met at Piccadly circus I think it was. Well I never saw it we had to get out as it was 4:30 and the coach was leaving at 5. Anyway it was so big that people ended up taking diverstions on to the side streets and so they where joked up with people two. It was the biggest demo in Englihs history. An Blair turns round and says it does not matter as it is nothing compared to how many have died under saddams regiem. I'm trying to organise everyone to send letters to the idiot saying yeah an it will be nothing compared to the number of civilians you and Bush are going to murder when you bomb Iraq. Anyway I did not get back till about 10. So I stayed the night with my friends in Brum and headed back to Coventry where I live.

Adib