More unions, veterans bolster anti-war march

WW photo: Deirdre Griswold

This year’s anti-war march called by United for Peace and Justice on April 29 saw a larger than usual participation of unions and military veterans along with the more familiar faces from peace groups, some of which originated during the Vietnam War.

The large crowd marched down Broadway from 22nd Street to Foley Square in lower Manhattan, where organizers had set up tents for a “grassroots action festival.” It took two and a half hours before the end of the march had passed its starting point. Organizers estimated the crowd at 350,000. The corporate media, which projected a neutral tone in its reporting, gave it tens of thousands.

Notables like Cindy Sheehan, Jesse Jackson, Susan Sarandon, Daniel Ellsberg and the Rev. Al Sharpton spoke at a warm-up rally before the march. But the location of the speakers’ platform—a side street—meant that only a small part of the protesters could hear the talks.

Speeches, banners and slogans focused on ending the war in Iraq and bringing the troops home; protecting civil liberties and immigrant rights, rebuilding communities in the U.S., especially the Gulf Coast; and addressing climate change and the destruction of the environment.

Many banners and signs also called for no war on Iran. There were satirical costumes and street theater that mocked the war-mongering of the Bush administration. One group called for shutting down the U.S. torture center at Guantanamo as they wheeled a large cage with a hooded man inside guarded by a person in a U.S. uniform.

Several different veterans’ groups and military families organized contingents. Iraq war veterans marched in their uniforms. Some families carried photographs of loved ones killed in the war.

U.S. Labor Against the War sent delegations from several different cities. The Pro fessional Staff Con gress, the Transport Work ers Union, UNITE HERE, 1199-SEIU and other public sector unions drew attention to the siphoning off of tax money from social programs to pay for the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, with slogans like “Health care, not warfare” and “Health care and education, not war and occupation.”

The delegations of service workers had the most people of color, although some Black, Latin@, Middle Eastern and Asian people were dispersed through the large demonstration.

Many marchers carried signs identifying themselves as coming from New England, Long Island, Westchester and other areas outside the city. Their slogans often expressed dismay at being betrayed by the government and longing for what they believed to have been a more democratic era.

While some signs threatened to vote out the Republicans, there was clearly disappointment among many who have voted Democratic that even the significant popular swing against the war and the administration has failed to produce any strong anti-war voice in the so-called “opposition” party.