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March 2003

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January 18

By Leijia Hanrahan
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“W ho wants to impeach Bush? Say it.” Deafening cheers erupt from a crowd of a 100,000, banners and signs fly into the air, and, somewhere near the back of the crowd, someone pays $5 for a pretzel. This is not your average day at the Mall.

 It’s January 18, and this is the biggest anti-war demonstration since the Vietnam War, with speakers such as Ramsey Clark, Jessica Lange, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and many others. In the views of many, an invasion of Iraq by United States Forces is inevitable. Indeed, some say, there is no other option. Why do people bother to attend protests such as these if they won’t change anything?

Well, maybe they will, maybe they won’t. But with every rally, every cheer from the crowd, the movement grows stronger. The more people are here now, the clearer the message resounds. As Sergio, who came all the way from Mexico to be on this ground today, put it, “War is no resolution. It never has been and it never will be.”

Someone from Philadelphia says, “The numbers at these things count. All major media is owned by five corporations, and the heads of those corporations sit around with glasses of vodka and decide what happened that day. If you’re not here, then you don’t know the truth.”

By noon, over 200,000 have arrived and not even half of the buses have come in yet. The officials often downplay the number of attendees to events like this, but it will be very difficult to do so today. In the end, the count comes to over 500,000.

But what exactly are we protesting? A president who is pushing for an invasion in which countless innocent people will be killed over an alleged stock of weapons of mass destruction that no one has proof of. Says Brian Becker, a speaker at the rally, “This is not a war for disarmament. This is a war for imperialism.”

“I think it’s outrageous,” states Susan, 47, who is also from Philadelphia, “that we can do elsewhere what we call terror here.”

“Hopefully,” says Kito, 27, “this is just the start of a bigger movement.” When asked what we can do to stop the war, he adds that people should lobby Congress and send letters to the White House.

“Peacefully rallying, like we are,” answers Alix, 19, from Res- ton, to the same question. “It worked in Vietnam, it will work now. People against this war are a majority.”

Gradually, the march begins to the Naval Yard, where there will be no sound system due to difficulties regarding permits. But high- tech sound system or not, we are the people of America and our voices will be heard.

Leijia Hanrahan is a 15-year-old high school student, originally from Manhattan, who now resides in Virginia.
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