Thousands of Protesters Descend on Washington

In one of the largest-scale efforts mounted by anti-Bush protesters, thousands of activists banned together Thursday with one resounding message: "You're not my president, President Bush."

Huddled in masses, staving off the cold with layers of clothes, wool hats and gloves, many of the tens of thousands of protesters began their day at Malcolm X Park on 16th Street for the D.C. Anti-War Network rally and march. They amassed under the cause of what they said was emancipating social justice from the grasp of President George W. Bush and ending the U.S. occupation in Iraq.

"I see no sacrifices in those that bleed," said Aidan Delgado, a 23-year-old veteran from the Iraq war. "True patriotism is not a yellow flag or a bumper sticker. ... Sending them off without armor is not patriotism."

Delgado was among 16 speakers who helped to motivate the crowd of protesters carrying signs that said: "Hey George: I am the American people. You do not speak for me" and "Our vote is not for sale," and "Worst President ever," among hundreds of others.

"Stand in the way every time with your own body," Doris "Granny D" Haddock told protesters at the rally, referencing the late Martin Luther King and his advocacy of non-violence.

"It is your moral courage that will move society. We have the power to win."

As thousands of protesters from Veterans for Peace, Code Pink and various student organizations gradually filtered into the park, more than 1,000 coffins covered with U.S. flags and black clothes were being prepared for the march down 16th Street toward McPherson Square only a block away from the White House.

One protester, Jamie Taylor, 20, from Smith College in Northampton, Mass., explained that the coffins were being used in the march to remind people of all the U.S. soldiers who died as a result of the war in Iraq.

"Mothers and fathers are angry, because our children are dying," one activist sang next to the row of coffins. "This is a real man's war, what is the poor man fighting for?"

"We don't want one more coffin coming back from Iraq," said Mohammad Alem, an Arab-American organizer with DAWN.

Standing on sheets of ice and snow, merchants sold to activists anti-Bush and Iraq war buttons, bumper stickers and political paraphernalia, while protesters from the "Ronald Reagan Home for the Criminally Insane" performed a demonstration of the pictures of U.S. soldiers torturing Iraqi prisoners in the Abu Ghraib prison.

At 11:30 a.m. protesters began to line up, carrying massive banners with pictures of Bush that read, "International War Criminal," "Bush Kills" and "No More Bush Wars."

For nearly an hour they marched down the 18-block stretch to McPherson Square, chanting "Hell no we won't go, we won't kill for Texaco." D.C. police led the parade in their vehicles, while other officers monitored from the sidelines and at a barricaded intersections.

"The inauguration of this war criminal is disgusting," said Ben Maurer, 36, a member of the "No Police-State Coalition" who was marching in the protest. "It is a sad day for the world."

But the DAWN march was only one of several that converged at McPherson Square by noon. Throughout the district protesters amassed in separate corridors of the city rallying before heading down to the park.

At Dupont Circle more than 300 members of Code Pink, the National Organization for Women and other female activists rallied together wearing pink hats, scarves, shirts and crowns of the statute of liberty before marching down Connecticut Avenue.

At the rally, the 2004 vice presidential nominee of the Green Party, Pat LaMarche, told protesters, "When women lose their rights, everybody suffers."

On the other side of the National Mall, Billionaires for Bush, a satirical group of actors against Bush, organized at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, where they auctioned off Social Security and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The bid for ANWR started at $16 million and was sold to Halliburton for $61 million. Social Security began at a selling price of $10 million and was sold to Boeing for $100 billion.

"I thought I should be out here showing my non-support," said Amanda Hurowitz, an activist at the FDR Memorial.

By noon the streets surrounding McPherson Square were filled with protesters crammed in, carrying signs, singing in the streets and participating in a die-in, a civil disobedience protest.

In a coordinated move, protesters placed coffins down along I Street and ran to sit down on the ground for no more than five minutes before walking further down the street. Screaming into megaphones, protest leaders were cheered on as they bashed the war on Iraq and another four more years of Bush's policies.

Protesters said that their decision to participate in the die-in was self-evident and that it was the result of more than 1,300 deaths of U.S. soldiers in Iraq.

Although for the most part protests remained peaceful with D.C. Metro police and U.S. Park Police monitoring the crowd, only two incidents known by early Thursday evening this filing occurred. One involved a squabble outside of the parade entrance at the corner of D and 7th streets between the D.C. Anarchist Group and Metro police, after a protester assaulted an officer.

The confrontation only lasted a few minutes after police used riot batons, pipes and wands to warn off protesters from further inciting tension after an officer was hit by one individual. Several people were treated on the street for pepper spray by medics. Only one arrest was made according to the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department.

The other incident occurred when several Code Pink activists shouted during Bush's inaugural address from the VIP section on the west lawn of the Capitol building. Holding banners saying "No War," "Out of Iraq," and "Bush Mandate: Troops Home Now," they screamed, "Bring the troops home!"

The six women were taken out of the inaugural ceremony by police; two of the women, Diane Wilson, 56 and Medea Benjamin, 51 were still in custody several hours later.

"The killing in Iraq doesn't stop because the inauguration is happening, so our efforts to end the war and occupation can't stop either," said Jodie Evans, co-founder of Code Pink.

There were three arrests of protesters made by D.C. Metro Police, four by the U.S. Park Police and one by the U.S. Secret Service, according to Sergeant Scott Fear of the U.S. Park Police.

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