Sunday Afternoon

Just judging from wire reports it appears at least 100,000 marched against the war in DC yesterday and thousands more rallied in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Few congressional Democrats--in the majority only because of antiwar votes--showed up though John Conyers, Dennis Kucinich, and Maxine Waters were among the speakers. Martin Freed, 60, of Alaska, said Democratic leaders were “cowards” for skipping the protest. “They ought to be out here addressing us,” he told the Los Angeles Times. Even Conyers, Detroit Democrat now chairing the House Judiciary Committee, didn’t counsel relying on the new congress. “It takes the ... outrage of the American people to force Washington to do the right thing,” he said. “We've got to hold more of these ... until our government gets the message -- Out if Iraq immediately. This year. We've got to go.”

Artists and entertainers were well represented including Danny Glover, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, Sean Penn, Michael Farrell, and Jane Fonda. Fonda, at her first antiwar protest in 34 years, said “I've been afraid that because of the lies that have been and continue to be spread about me and that war, that they would be used to hurt this new antiwar movement. But silence is no longer an option.”

We’re still waiting on reports about the labor contingents and better estimates of crowd size. More tomorrow.