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Anti-War Protesters Gather in New York, Elsewhere, Bash Bush
By Colleen Long
Associated Press
October 5, 2006
NEW YORK (AP) - From longtime activists to toddlers, thousands of protesters clogged streets around the country Thursday to speak against the war in Iraq and the Bush administration.
Organized by the group World Can't Wait, the march in New York started at the United Nations headquarters in midtown Manhattan. The march was one of about 200 protests staged around the country by the activist group.
Lydia Sugarman, 82, from Manhattan, also protested against the Vietnam War and for women's rights. She said she was a strong believer in the power of demonstrating.
"That's how we got our civil rights," she said. "If we didn't protest we wouldn't be Americans."
In Washington, protesters held up yellow police tape along a three-block stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue near the White House.
Some dressed in costume, including a hooded prisoner in an orange jumpsuit, a devilish rendition of President Bush and two grim reapers. One man wore a red cheerleader outfit with "Radical" emblazoned on the jersey.
Dozens of University of North Carolina students walked out of classes in Asheville, N.C. In Chicago, thousands of people flooded Michigan Avenue waving anti-Bush signs.
The throng of people in New York, stretching for about five city blocks, closed down a lane of traffic on Second Avenue as it made its way south to Union Square for a late afternoon protest. Police said one person was arrested.
Ann Wright, a former U.S. Army colonel and diplomat, addressed the crowd wearing Army fatigues and said she was proud of servicemen and women who denounced the Iraq conflict. She urged residents to take the anti-war message on the road.
"We are going to take this regime out of its place," she said. "Get out there and talk about it. Don't let them steal the election again."
Some protesters lay down in the middle of the street while others carried signs saying "Expose 9/11" and "This war should be over." They also handed out fliers reading, "Drive out the Bush regime."
The march culminated with a rally at a makeshift stage in Union Square, where musicians rapped and the crowd chanted. Speakers lambasted the Bush administration's stance on abortion, the Iraq conflict and prisons at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Bush has said he is for abortion only in cases of rape or incest or when a woman's life is endangered. He proposed a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. He has defended his preemptive strike against Iraq and defends later findings that the country had no weapons of mass destruction. He has said he intends to keep a U.S. presence in Iraq until the country is stable.
Congress recently passed Bush's detention and interrogation program, which allows the military to detain any foreigner it believes is an "unlawful enemy combatant" and to detain an individual indefinitely if it believes he or she is a threat to forces on the battlefield or U.S. citizens.
White House spokeswoman Nicole Guillemard defended the administration's Iraq policy.
"Our Constitution guarantees the right to peacefully express one's views," she said Thursday. "The men and women in our military are fighting to bring the people of Iraq these same rights and freedoms. The president believes it is important to stay on the offense in Iraq."
David Andersson, a volunteer with the Humanist Center in Queens, said he hoped the New York protest would force voters to look at problems within the Bush administration.
"The Bush regime expresses the opposite of everything we stand for," he said. "As a humanist we have to be here."
Typical protest accouterments like buttons, T-shirts and socialist literature were being sold around the park. Most of the proceeds from the sales went to various nonprofit organizations including World Can't Wait, but some entrepreneurs were just out to make a little cash.
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