[Chewbacca]

Originally posted by DBear: Ah yes, the freakshow that is Kerry's "America"... Leftists on parade lessee, they set a fire, several got arrested... keep this up and Bush wins in a landslide [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img] and didja notice that there was hardly any pro-Kerry signs in the group?

Out of an estimated 500,000 demonstrators less than 200 were arrested, the fire set was small and inconsequential and they were protesting against Bush not for Kerry.

Also out of an estimated 500,000 demonstrators the photos in the link proved show maybe 20- hardly a representative sampling unless of course pure SPIN is the game at hand.


Link

*excerpts from the three page article:

roaring two-mile river of demonstrators surged through the canyons of Manhattan yesterday in the city's largest political protest in decades, a raucous but peaceful spectacle that pilloried George W. Bush and demanded regime change in Washington. On a sweltering August Sunday, the huge throng of protesters marched past Madison Square Garden, the site of the Republican National Convention opening today, and denounced President Bush as a misfit who had plunged America into war and runaway debt, undermined civil and constitutional rights, lied to the people, despoiled the environment and used the presidency to benefit corporations and millionaires. The protest organizer, United for Peace and Justice, estimated the crowd at 500,000, rivaling a 1982 antinuclear rally in Central Park, and double the number it had predicted. It was, at best, a rough estimate. The Police Department, as is customary, offered no official estimate, but one officer in touch with the police command center at Madison Square Garden agreed that the crowd appeared to be close to a half-million. The march, which took nearly six hours to complete, was a tense, shrill, largely choreographed trek from Chelsea to Midtown and back to Union Square, where it ended, as planned, without a rally. And while there were a couple of hundred arrests, the event went off without major violence, despite fears of explosive clashes with the biggest security force ever assembled in New York.

For organizers who had also urged nonviolence, the outcome was gratifying and something of a relief. The leadership had voiced concern that any violence would play into the hands of Republicans, allowing them to caricature the protesters as anarchists, provocateurs and chronic malcontents. The organizers said they were also pleased by the size and diversity of the turnout. The faces appeared to be a cross-section of the American experience. There were individuals, families and groups from many states and across the region and the city. There were young people and older citizens, families with small children, students and representatives of the middle and working classes and many organizations, including advocates of gay and women's rights, antiwar groups, immigrants, veterans, artists, professionals, religious organizations and proponents of education, health and other causes. For many participants, there was also pride, and a kind of amazement, in being part of an event so large and diverse, and yet so pacific.