The propagandists at Xinhua say there were “tens of thousands” at the DC antiwar demonstration yesterday. The VOA says more like five thousand. However many people you agree showed up – the AP says “several” thousand – the number is pretty pathetic. In a country of three hundred million, if you can’t muster up even fifty thousand people against a war, the event is basically meaningless, barely even news. You could probably drum up more than that for fly-fisherman’s rights. (From having been at many demonstrations, my eyeballs tell me even the VOA number is exaggerated.)
According to the same AP article, about a thousand counter demonstrators showed up. I can sympathize with them, but I wonder if their presence just gives publicity to and magnifies the puny crowd the Sheehanites generated, gives an excuse for the media to spend more time on the non-event.
What’s interesting is why this low turnout when, according to many polls, the public is supposedly massively against the war. If they are so antiwar, they certainly are pretty apathetic about it. This is another example of why Iraq is not Vietnam when filling the streets with demonstrators was a simple matter.
This also may mean that the public opinion polls themselves are not a decent measure of how people really feel. Although pollsters try, polls in general are particularly poor at measuring the depth of people’s convictions or natural human ambivalence. Ambivalent people don’t tend to get on a bus to go to a demonstration.
Maybe if Ron Paul, not Cindy Sheehan, led the antiwar movement, more people would show up. His supporters sure don’t suffer from ambivalence.
no, not ambivalence, but hambivalence maybe.
Yeah, but Paul only has about 6 supporters. They just spend all day going from comments to comments and filling out online polls.
AOL’s article on the internet this morning had the anti-war protester’s gathering at 100,000 and saying the police didn’t have an estimate. Wow, serious effort here to make something out of this. It noted that 150 were arrested, after saying that the police did not react to their “Die-In” and all was calm, so they started climbing over barriers in order to get the police to react. Like you say, sounds pretty pathetic in the big picture.
On a note of further humor, the press recorded Cindy Sheehan’s visit to UVM in Vermont (good liberal town)in February of this year, after speaking at the Vermont State House, as “entering to a rock star’s welcome….where Sheehan greeted her fans with “I love Cleveland”… and addressed the 150 who had gathered to show support”.
Volunteer Military, 3000 casualties instead of 50,000. And the hundreds of billions going to this war is, frankly, not really pinching anyone– nobody is saying “I lost my job because of war spending,” or “my taxes have gone up because of war spending.”
So basically, no reason for most people to get really involved one way or the other. The only thing people care about at this level is US Prestige. Prestige is all that’s driving American opinion about Bush and the War these days.
That’s all it is, AB ? Damn.
Some of us are worried about our grandchildren’s security but that doesn’t concern the Woodstock generation, many of whom never had kids because it would detract from their narcissim. I wonder how much grey hair there was in that demonstration ?
Mike…I went downtown for the counterprotest, and the metro train I rode was jam-packed with “antiwar” protestors. From observation both on the train and of the parade itself, there was a lot of gray hair, but there were also a lot of people in their 20s. The counterprotest was probably an older group on balance, and I estimate that it was composed of 70% miliary veterans.
Some of the demonstrators expressed quite a bit of anger at the presence of the counterprotestors, and it was just as well the police were out in force.
It occurs to me that International ANSWER, with their “against everything and the kitchen sink” method of protest, along with their love of Communist and Islamofascist apologists has been very effective at keeping the protests in Washington pretty small, and something that say, suburban housewives who are against the war wouldn’t want to go to or bring their children to. Heck, they’ve virtually discredited mass gatherings in Washington as a form of protest altogether.
If I were of a conspiratorial bent, I just might question who’s really behind International ANSWER. Have they been infiltrated by the CIA?
Then the police were protecting the anti-war protesters from the counter protesters, though I’m sure the anti-wars remain ignorant of that. The notion of trying to attack a group made of of ~70% military veterans is stupid per se.
Eric, I hope you’re right and street protests have jumped the shark.
I’ve been watching protests and the ‘crowd estimates’ since at least 1967 when I was at a university. The estimates are routinely (always?) off by a factor of at least 2 for small (less than 100) crowds and by 5-10 for large crowds. I find it really interesting that it is all but impossible to find a good overhead crowd shot (although GoogleEarth is helping) any more.
From the shots I found of this march, there were certainly fewer than 10,000 there. Evidently it’s a very special 10,000 though, because Code Pink claims that the represtent the thinking of about 240,000,000. I wonder which one was representing me? (Oh, yeah. That’d be one of the old, gray vets in the counter-protest. Nevermind.)
I went there to check out the freak show around 3:30-4. It was lame. Some dude with a megaphone was urging people to die-in with the chant of “Show your courage, lie down!” (what is this? France?) Santa Claus was walking around on stilts. A few protesters wearing desert cammies were hauled off, prompting chants of “The whole world’s watching!” (no, they were watching college football).
The recollection of one person who was there:
One reason why this time the gathering of Eagles had a lower turnout is that Rolling Thunder was generally unavailable Saturday. They wwere reported absent due to a prior commitment. The word of mouth information was seemly not as good as in March from conversations I had with participants at this event, GOE III, Operation Eagle Justice. The attack and resulting desecration of the The Wall (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaIMJuD44qY) on Friday evening or Saturday morning last week did not get out widely either; not even any media reports that I know of. A report in February/March that ANSWER was going to attack The Wall caused emotions to run high on our side and caused me and others to attend GOE I.
I will have to say, even though the ANSWER folks violated the police rules, went through the police lines just before the Capitol and surrounded us, they were reasonably civil. I would say 5-10 thousand where on their side, but who knows. I wore a T shirt with a statement that my son was serving (I served 1965-71) and quite a few told me they wished by son would return home safely. There were not a lot of personal attacks in the area I was. When ANSWER illegally changed their route, they placed us between them and the barriers and police behind the barriers with their back to the circle in front of the capitol lawn. We had no escape route except towards the Capitol lawn which was also filling with the demonstrators. We were within arms length of each other as hundred/thousands passed by us with them about 3/4 deep. We were NOT assaulted at that point by anyone. The casket with a Marine’s picture (was it the one that the Washington Times has in the paper escorted by supposedly the dead Marine?s father? I don’t know) caused a stir on our ranks. They, to us, had desecrated the memory and death of a MARINE! After shouts of traitor, etc were issued by many, the 1 or more of the 2 or 3 men in Army BDUs with the casket attacked at least one of our people. I don’t know the actual number, but I saw two guys rolling around engaged in a wrestling match on the pavement. Our GOE national coordinator, to his credit, tried to pull them apart placing him at significant risk in that volatile situation. This incident was within 15 feet of where I was but I and others were providing the Gold Star Mothers protection and were mainly watching for problems from the majority of the ANSWER folks in the area in front of the Capitol grounds; the opposite direction from the incident. We could not leave our charges to become involved in separating the men and many people from ANSWER were running towards the fight; we were afraid of getting the Gold Star Mothers we were protecting caught up in a riot; especially with NO police presence in that area. The Gold Star Mothers were there to protest the intent of ANSWER reading their son’s names at the rumored die-in (which ANSWER change to the Capitol lawn), so GOE members volunteered to provide protection from a possible reoccurrence of the egg throwing event earlier in the march and/or a physical assault.
The initial rush of the ANSWER crowd on to the Capitol grounds just after the ANSWER folks changed their route to the Capitol caused the Capitol Police to abandon us. We were told we were on our own (and obviously greatly outnumbered). Thanks very much, I thought. Some the disorder that was viewed by the media was because ANSWER had violated the rules of the march route, the police positions were undermanned and the police on the scene did not know what the GOE permits allowed.
One verbal encounter stood out. One guy shouted that Bush was a dictator and I countered that if Bush was one, how come the demonstrators could march. I reminded him that dictators were known for shooting demonstrators and using the Army to stop dissent. He said Bush was afraid. Yea, right; real dictators fire on the people or flee the country if afraid. Our President remains in D.C. and no demonstrators died. There were obviously quite a few illogical people in the ANSWER crowd, but again I have to give the vast majority of them credit for being much more civil than I had expected, except for the one violent incident I witnessed
It is obvious to the most casual of observers that the anti-war/American groups have had a monopoly on the streets of America for almost 40 years. Now grass roots veterans groups are taking back the streets; we are AWAKENED! Unfortunately, few would believe that as a result of the veterans’ dissent, the far left would retaliate by this attack and desecration of The Wall. The Park Service didn’t have guards posted at the wall during the night and still might not, but they rejected an offer to have veterans provide a civilian watch there in the future
.
We were away in the late 1960′s and early 1970′s doing what many of us thought was important work and unfortunately the Greatest Generation and the mainline veterans organizations were not proactive in countering ANSWER?s and their allies? messages during that time and afterwards. To me, The Wall is a symbol that stands as our sacred memory of our generation?s sacrifice and regardless of one?s ideology it should be left alone to stand for whatever message it presents to those viewing it. Our AWAKENING is linked to the fact that the Left is again moving towards condemning our military as they did to us when we came home. We SHALL not allow this to happen to our children, our friend?s and relatives? children and anyone who serves to protect our country from the enemies foreign and domestic.
Do you have a blog, AMR? If not, please start one. Your post is the kind of citizen journalism that is desperately needed nowadays.
I did not make it to the “die in” but was present at the march near 7th street. My estimates of the crowd seemed to be about 2-2500 on GOE and about 7000 on the ANSWER side. While there were incidents on both sides, ie, shoving, grabbing signs, and provocations, in general, the march was actually quite… well, boring. The marchers did not seem to have much passsion and my impression was that the younger crowd, though probably antiwar, was there because it was the “cool thing to do on Saturday.”
Many of the younger crowd seemed taken aback by the hostility of our vets. They should read history about how the vets were betrayed and that the vets see it happening again. I know that at least 2 vets were hoping to get arrested, in the hopes of drawing cameras. And to vent some frustrations.
I must say the policeman in front of us did a hell of a job and I would not want his job for any amount of money.
I think that America has become much more apathetic than the last Hurrah of the Hippies. I have friends that are against the war, but don’t vote, don’t protest, don’t debate and don’t really give a cent over the debate. They just make fun of Bush and think that all politicians are evil bastards. I have friends that are actively against the war and they don’t really do much more than rant on their blogs, LiveJournals and cc everyone on the damned emails from MoveOn. Even my friends that supported the invasion have now become apathetic and negative. Many of them have simply decided that we’re in that future where the military-industrial complex and corporations have a much greater impact on politics than any group of citizens.
While it does make the protest look stupid… I’m not sure thats how we want the next generation of Americans to feel about the country.
Part of it is apathy and AB gave a lot of good reasons related to how directly the war affects the average American this time around versus 1968 say.
But there’s another element — the protest is no longer in the street. The liberal blogosphere — the Daily Kos, MyDD, etc — formed in large part as a reaction to the impotence of protest culture today. In-person protests I’ve been too have been frustrating affairs organized by, or hijacked by, the looniest elements of the left. But those guys barely represent a fraction of the tens of millions of anti-war Americans you see turn up in polls that constitute a clear majority. That’s why sites like Kos founded — they take out the Mumia/anti-Israel/communist factor and instead focus on ways to energize a broad community and fight for consensus positions rather than everyone’s fanatical pet cause. That’s the source of their huge popularity.
So by the standards of foot protests, yeah the antiwar movement is pathetic. But if you count the meteoric rise of internet activity, Kos alone has a larger daily readership than many major newspapers and they’ve had great success in actually influencing and fundraising for Democratic politicians. The antiwar movement isn’t dead, it just went virtual.
Part of the problem with polls is that they ask questions that can’t really be aswered with a yes or no question.
“Do you approve of the way Bush is running the war in Iraq”. If I say no, it is assumed that I am anti the Iraq war. Maybe I disapprove because I think that we didn’t press hard enough in the beginning and that we need to have many more troops on the ground and that we need to aggressively pound the insurgents to pulp.
“Do you approve of Bush’s performance in Office”. If I say no, then it is assumed that I don’t like Bush and want him out of office and favor the Democrats. Maybe I don’t approve because he hasn’t vetoed any spending bills, disliked the stance he is taking on illegal immigration, distrust open borders policy and NAFTA support.
Citing polls as the evidence that people are against the Iraq War, or anything else is deceptive since the questions the polls ask are meaningless and the results subject to being distorted to be anything they want it to be.
Dust Bunny -
I’m not sure I understand the argument. I think the questions are simple enough and asked by enough polling outfits to provide at least some reasonable idea of people’s opinions. Especially when there are more specific polls asking when troops should withdrawal or if more troops should be added — Bush’s policies still fare terribly in those as well.
Furthermore we don’t have to exactly guess if the polls reflect people’s real behavior. We have the 2006 election for that and they were a pretty decisive confirmation that voters were exactly as upset with the GOP as the polls indicated. Perhaps even moreso – almost no one thought the Senate was seriously in play.
“This is another example of why Iraq is not Vietnam when filling the streets with demonstrators was a simple matter.”
The key difference is that there was a draft then, there isn’t now. If the draft existed today, the level of anti-war apathy would drop out of sight, and the streets would be full of protesters.
Remember, there was primarily an anti-draft movement in the USA during Vietnam, not an anti-war movement.
“Furthermore we don’t have to exactly guess if the polls reflect people’s real behavior. We have the 2006 election for that and they were a pretty decisive confirmation that voters were exactly as upset with the GOP as the polls indicated”
Dan, you have noticed that this ‘mandate’ seems, when push has come to shove in DC over the last nine months, to have diminished considerably?
What could account for this other than constituents who may’ve voted against the GOP for any number of reasons (Foley, for some), but do not want their reps following the new Congressional leadership on the war. So much for 2006 having been a referendum on the war, by your own test, that is, the vote.
Nobody likes the war. But when constituents have had to finally face up to what will likely happen in the world if USA gets chased out of the mideast, the message they’re sending their reps is clearly, obviously, not what you’re implying it is.
Otherwise the legislators would certainly, surely, without doubt, have been reflecting it over these past nine months. Right?
Reuters finally does something interesting, and nobody notices.
“Maybe if Ron Paul, not Cindy Sheehan, led the antiwar movement, more people would show up. His supporters sure don’t suffer from ambivalence.”
Maybe if more hunks and hotties showed up?