Repel ugliness and horror with spirit, light, beauty and color is the call of the Tibetan Goddess Shakti; and today, the day of the celebration of the Tibetan New Year, the Goddess’s call was answered in the streets of Hollywood where, according to the event organizers, 75-100 thousand attended (the LAPD estimated 30,000)…and joined together with the people of the world to say “Not In Our Name.”

Bellydancers dancing to African drummers brought color and the feminine spirit to the occasion, and were smiled on by gentle dark-skinned women; their heads covered in traditional Muslim headscarves. There were puppets, marching bands and Aztec dancers. Impromptu drum circles accompanied by the bobbing heads of wildly wonderful L.A. tribal dancers were followed by grey heads holding anti-war signs.

United Teachers and the Librarians Guild among others joined the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor in a strong showing of Labor to the effort. Other groups included Radical Women, the Freedom Socialist Party and Women’s Strike for Peace.

Young children and their parents staged a dramatic die-in; the parents understanding the sense of historical inclusion being imparted to their offspring. “Twenty years from now my baby will understand that he was part of this…and that I brought him,” said one proud Mom.

A Butoh dance performance group, brought an artform created in Japan after the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima symbolizing the spiritual presence of the dead amongst the living This group brought up the rear of the march, and served as a buffer between the 100’s of people streaming out of the Hollywood subway to join the march and the impatient police striving to move things forward.

Speakers included actor Martin Sheen who gave a wonderfully rousing speech, and Gore Vidal. Actor David Clennon who has recently put his job on the t.v. show “The Agency” in jeopardy for publicly stating that the show has become a propaganda tool for the government, also made an appearance on stage.

For the most part the Hollywood police dept was relaxed…. used as they are to large crowds and parades. Some were even caught smiling and participating in conversation with participants. Like all people, they showed a diversity in understanding and intelligence; one officer wanting to know what would happen if Iraq really had weapons of mass destruction, while another tired officer at the end of a long work day, said he was happy to have been present at an historical moment.

There was a break-away protest toward the end of the day, and several arrests were reported.
This was followed by a stand-off at the corner of Highland and Sunset between a formation of riot clad police on horseback and on motorcycles and 50 to a 100 protestors, determined to hold the intersection.

Trouble was averted by local hero Jim Lafferty of the National Lawyer’s Guild, who, bullhorn in hand, convinced the police to turn their horses, and the tired protestors to go home, allowing the streets to open to Saturday night traffic.

“This has been a wonderful day”, declared Lafferty, “ a hundred thousand people came together for peace. Let’s not dilute the message.”

And they didn’t.
And that’s the way it was.

where was jim lafferty or all this peaceful support when numerous people were getting beaten? this story is inaccurate. where was the support when i was mauled by god knows how many police in front of amoeba? where was the support when a brother was arrested and thrown into prison (we stayed strong) for helping a young woman? why is it that we're all facing charges of (misdemeanor) incite to riot for being peaceful and trying to get the fuck away? i understand that you can only give the side of the story that you saw for yourself but that was not "the way it is". We need as much support as possible right now and this situation has to be examined with a lot of scrutiny.

What a great story - that's really what it felt like!

One thing that's kind of bugging me, though, is how "white" the march was compared to the January 11th march in LA. What was different about this organizing effort? The January march seemed to reflect very well the diversity of LA, while this one, while there were many people of color present, felt more like... I dunno.

Later that night, I went to see X at the Knitting Factory (which was in the protest zone). On one side of the club, they were doing Club Feva, which I think is promoted by Power 106. On the other side was X, famous LA punk icons. And you might as well have put up signs that read "Mostly Black" and "Mostly White" over the two entrances.

X rocked, by the way. This was the best post-X X shows I've seen. It was also the most expensive at $30. Feva was packed too, but the dress code kept me out.

I guess it's appropriate that I feel this uneasy sense of underlying deep segregation and racism in the geographical location we call Hollywood. It's the business entity called Hollywood that helps create the segregation. Burn Hollywood Burn.

that seems more like a fairy tale dream to me. there were no police on horses but police with tear gas guns in SUVs. there was no big man out of the mist of people with a bullhorn convincing the police not to brutaly beat us(maybe there was but not as heroic as you put it, nor loud enough to make any type of change in there plan). people were beaten, hurt and put in jail. do not create some sort of hero out of what the police did to those men and women.

I better wake my camera up.

Got any more of those?
HMMM Bar B Que horse.

John, I am speculating that the reason this march was more anglo than Jan 11 was mainly because it was bigger, I'd say at least twice as big. I am guessing, although I don't have any real evidence for this, that more people came that we don't actually know through our specific organizing efforts and relationships. Many of them may have come through the LA Times story, or through the internet, and those media would reach out to a predominately white middle class audience. I think even a bigger KPFK crowd would be disproportionately white. What do you think of my theory?

So, I believe to have a very large, very diverse march, that we need to rely on traditional, committed organizing/mobilizing at the grassroots level, through churches, unions, community organizing. It's much more labor and time intensive than pr and internet, but also much more meaningful. The lead time on this march was only a couple weeks, which made it hard, but also I think it's a style of organizing in the movement that needs to change. I personally did more outreach to African-American organizations for F15, but there wasn't time to do a good job in that regard. Another minor factor, is that I have the impression that for Jan 11 various immigrant groups really worked on building a specific contingent, and as far as I know that didn't happen this time.

The group and ethnic participation in Jan 11th showed big time. The Dec. 14th Hollywood and Jan. 11th rallies were more diverse but then, they were smaller.

What we’re seeing now, here and around the world is historic; the numbers by anyone’s account are unprecedented. The incredible turnout, in my opinion indicates a middle class that’s growing more concerned by the day with the extremists policies of the Bush Administration.

As someone said yesterday, “The silver lining around the Bush rain cloud is the fact that he has united the people”. For that, I am thankful.

NO GUERRA EN CONTRA DE IRAK!!!!!

Yo Dog! I hear horsemeat is really rich in Vitamin A.

Got Barbecue Sauce?

...is sweet and tender if the animal is well treated
and young.
Party for thirty at least. I like the citrus baste
with a slow coal roast.
Sweet potatoes, yams and squash go go with it.

my co-patriot, xxx's "brother in jail," the big black man with an afro, has a broken right arm from a police batton. We just got back from the doctor. So, to put the tally right he not only got arrested unfairly, but managed to block a head blow with his arm, a head blow that could have done who knows how much damage. why, for walking in a cordened off street taking photos. Is this what they call democracy. This is what I call a police state. Lets get together for their court date, march 12th. We cannot let the LAPD treat us in this manner without any follow up protest. We must show solidarity for our brothers who get taken to jail. Otherwise, who knows how the police will treat us next time. Democracy, and our right to assemble are going on trial along with our brothers in protest.

metaphore, I didn't actually see any violence. But when walking back i saw the lapd harassing pedestrians just crossing the street to go home. They were already crossing when the cruisers accelerated towards the intersection and blasted their sirens. It felt like they were just trying to agitate people into getting defiant enough to beat them. I totally believe there was unnecessary police brutality at the rally. I will show for the court appearance if i can make it, and bring my friends that were with me there. My heart goes out to all mistreated by the lapd.

Peace

I grew up in the suburbs of Dallas, Texas where I learned the cops were the good guys who would protect and serve if ever I needed. As with many of the sugar-coated delusional ignorant "truths" I learned as a child, this particular one has been muddied by the real truth...that there are bad apples in every system. It is up to us to address the sick and rotten ones with determination and conviction so the whole tree doesn't go bad.

I was dismayed and disappointed to see what I deemed as anything but protecting and serving in one instance. Believe it or not, it was during a clip on Fox. I know I didn't see the moments before the incident, but what I saw was terrible. A young woman and others backing away as a police man hits her in the mid area with a baton. It was disgraceful. It is outrageous, and yet it goes on all the time whether in the case of a policeman abusing his power to an unfairly elected(?) President abusing his power, but what really gets me is this was a PEACE rally...This guy was twice her size. What was he afraid she would do...think so many nice thoughts of peace so close to him that they rub off on him...Cosmos forbid that should happen!

Keep up it up...peace for this life! We can stomp out this war mongering, money grubbing, worn out, out -dated, over cooked , "good old boys club" that thinks it can continue this farce indefinitely...I guess the dumbing down of America serum is beginning to lose it's potency. I still feel the craving to consume, but this time I want to consume something all together different. I'll just let my body do it's thing when it comes to disposing the waste. March 12 and any other opportunity to calm the dark by turning on the light...I'm in.

The hero with the bullhorn came on the scene about 5 minutes before they opened the streets to traffic again. The altercations were over. The Stand Off was over.

He was well spoken and wrapped things up nicely ... doesn't make him a hero.

Diversity was something I noticed. Early on in the protest I noticed some arabs were being almost exoticized. I could sense they were at least a little offended, but that somewhat wore off later in the day.

One of the things that really got to me was that the only organization that really had any chanting in spanish or distributed material in spanish (IE: shirts, signs, etc) were the ISO. Very surprising since ISO's presence was predominantly white.

RCP and PLP were sort of the de facto segregation proof in the march. Both were primarily made up of minorities of all different kinds, whilst the other groups were primarily liberal-progressive anglos. That's not to say it was completely clear cut, there was some diversity within all the groups, but less than I expected.

What I was really pleased with was the diversity within the Black Bloc. I'll admit that the gender diversity was a little lacking, but over all it seemed to be oblivious of the racial stratifications the other groups were experiencing. Anarchism has escaped the "middle class white boy" syndrome many would like to stereotype it with.

I dunno if KPFK could completely be responsible because from what I've seen KPFK tried to keep the situation diverse. I think it might (I stress, might) be more from ANSWER and Not in Our Name oraganizing it, which were predominantly anglo organizations.

The article here is pretty full of it though. I was at the break away and there was no heroism. The whole time I was there I didn't see any horseback police officers, but apparently the pic shows there were some, but doesn't exactly confirm they were at the incident we're talking about. What I can speak for is alot of motorcycle cops. And I do mean alot. There were about 16 intially, then about 3-4 sets of 20 on the side streets, and finally another row of 16-20 that sealed the only exit. There we some cops on foot initially who started what it became, but they were vastly outnumbered by the other types of cops near the end of the altercation. The riot police came in during the middle of the incident, expecting to actually be of use, but people were scurrying from sidewalk to street too often for them to actually be of any use. At that point they got on the SUV and started seeing people out, telling people to get about on their way home.

There was another incident which I can't place along any chronology, but for a while there were 2 cop cars and about 8 police men crowded around a bag that was in front of a store. I would've thought it was a potential bomb threat, but people on the sidewalk were walking past it so close that I disregarded the notion. They might have arrested someone and that might've been their bag, but I dun exactly know what happened. That's just what I saw.

The Lawyers Guild didn't stop it, what stopped it was sheer over powerment. The police showed that they had no qualms with excessive force. There was no peaceful resolution, only 'business as usual" brutality on part of the police.

The Healthcare Not Warfare contingent consisted primarily of latino and black health workers and doctors from the County Healthcare system and community clinic, with some supporters from the Coalition for World Peace, which is indeed mainly but not exclusively of white middle class members. 5,000 copies of the flyer for Healthcare Not Warfare were distributed in English and Spanish. The Coalition for World Peace also helped lead a list of chants in Spanish as well as English on the soundtruck

"Vanguard" parties are not the only groups that organize in a multi-ethnic, bilingual, anti-racist class conscious way!

dear bush admirer, everyone is entitled to there own opinion. but i think yours stinks. i sincerely DON'T think that just because people promote peace in the world it means that they are mentally disabled. and if anything i think the census will see just how many good hearted people we have here. and if bush is going to represent our country, he should then learn to speak proper english, and un-cross those eyes of his. this guy (bush) is a bigger idiot than his dad, but hey i guess it runs in the family.

No, The article is NOT full of it.

I saw what I saw where I was. You were obviously somewhere else. There was a formation of at least 20 horses spread accross the east side of the intersection of Sunset and Highland and a large contingent of mortorcycles and cars on the south. I don't remember any SUV's.

Yes, I arrived near the end when Lafferty was on the bullhorn, and I asked a bunch of people what had gone on....but could only get vague answers. I happen to know Lafferty, and I have an immense ammount of respect for all the work he does in the movement. I wanted to give him credit and give him something to smile about. He works 24/7 at this and he deserves to be called a hero. He and Don White work tirelessly and take risks every day for all of us.

I didn't see any police brutality or any arrests....so I couldn't report on that.

That's the great thing about this forum; it gives us the ability to communicate the entire spectrum of an event; the good and the bad, from the eyes and experience of all of us. What you saw does not invalidate what I saw and vice versa.

I am glad to know about the brutality that some experienced, and yes, that needs to be investigated, and people need to be supported. This is terrible, there IS a tradition of police abuse and corruption in this city of which I am very aware, and I believe it needs to be exposed wherever it raises it's ugly head.

That said, we should all be happy to know that there are some cops who were in support of the event, as we should also be aware that there were also those who are idiots and didn't have a clue one way or another. WE don't want to be painted in one box, and it is good to understand that all cops are not the same.

So chill....and open your eyes. And let's have respect for what we each have to say and share. It's all valuable. With all our eyes, we can get a true picture of what really happened. I'm not the only one who can write an article, and I look forward to finding out what everyone sees at ALL events.
Peace,
Anna Kunkin

...about the lapd violence and the sad lack of diversity -
I actually was at the Santa Monica demonstration, which was sublime (but seriously white), so I am hearing about Hollywood from these letters. I only know how I feel - that all of these aspects are connected, and that the more actions I take part in, the stronger the connection - to all the people who have the same yearnings (for peace, for the end of racism, for a healthier world..) and to the empowerment those connections give me to take one more step.

After the demonstration, a few of us were talking and asking ourselves - from now on, without let-up - what can we really DO? Sheila Kuhl simply addressed this by urging us to see that next opportunity
to stand up for ourselves, and not let it go by.

Whether writing an official, handing out leaflets, "baring witness", or appearing at a court date in support of a victim of unfair treatment - WHATEVER IT IS - let's keep the exchange going and see what we can accomplish. So, please post the info. about the court date - you never know when a few protesting white faces may come in handy.

Peace

...about the lapd violence and the sad lack of diversity -
I actually was at the Santa Monica demonstration, which was sublime (but seriously white), so I am hearing about Hollywood from these letters. I only know how I feel - that all of these aspects are connected, and that the more actions I take part in, the stronger the connection - to all the people who have the same yearnings (for peace, for the end of racism, for a healthier world..) and to the empowerment those connections give me to take one more step.

After the demonstration, a few of us were talking and asking ourselves - from now on, without let-up - what can we really DO? Sheila Kuhl simply addressed this by urging us to see that next opportunity
to stand up for ourselves, and not let it go by.

Whether writing an official, handing out leaflets, "baring witness", or appearing at a court date in support of a victim of unfair treatment - WHATEVER IT IS - let's keep the exchange going and see what we can accomplish. So, please post the info. about the court date - you never know when a few protesting white faces may come in handy.

Peace

But Anna, can you see the big difference between yours and, say, Gary's? Gary used phrases like, "this reporter observed of," where he admits his limits. He only knows what he saw and fully admits it. Meanwhile, things like this and the LA times make no recognition as to lack of full understanding of the situation. Instead the reader is left to assume that since they didn't witness it we have to take their word for it. One of the things Gary did was leave the door open for others to add the facts, or for that matter search for the rest of the story. Frankly, I usually dun sort through all the indymedia comments on a regular basis (this case being unique though) because I'd have to sort through all the crap from hecklers like Bush Admirer.

"You were obviously somewhere else"
sorry but i was right with the bloc from begining to the end ( or at least close to the end). Where as you admit that you came near the end where this great respected man calmed the police down after they already beat and hurt the protesters.(and trust me, they did hurt and beat the men and women) Maybe your eyes were clearly not working. or maybe you clearly dont have enough room to speak about some of the things that went on becuase you were not there!

The interesting thing is that when I walked up there was a sense of something in process...but nobody would tell me anything. I walked around asking everybody what was going on, and everybody said stuff like ...."uhhh, I don't know, the cops are blocking the street." Not a lot to go on folks.

Still, ....I maintain that my day....and my experience was a valid one. I thought it was a great day! Millions of people organizing around the world to come out at the same time! This is hisorical, unprecedented, and speaks to the beginning of a great movement for social justice and change.

And no, I do not have to encapsulate my report with "in the words of this reporter"......as has been suggested above or anything like it. If I had seen people being getting their heads bashed in and had reported on that...which I would have, nobody would have asked me to qualify it or leave room for people to say they had experienced something else.

What's more I resent the name calling. Oh...I'm a "liberal" (dirty word) because I came as a belly dancer and danced in the street instead of joining the blak blok. Get off it!

If you have another experience with the event, you post it.

Anna was at one place (physically, philosophically) then others. Don't get down on her just because she is not you.

Write your own stories.

I didn't see any of the violence either. I attended with my three kids and my mother. On the walk back to the subway, we were ordered in a hostile manner by some police to carry our signs by our side or face arrest. We did so for about 20 yds. then again raised them, passing many more cops without being told to put them back down. Upon reaching the subway entrance, there were several people being ordered to remove the sticks from their signs and dispose of them. They appeared to be middle eastern. The rest of the white people just filed past all of the officers without even a word, including myself. I thought this was an interesting example of ethnic profiling for a greater homeland security (yeah, right). I guess it was to keep all of us white peace-mongers safe from all those ethnic peace-mongers. You never can tell what form of terrorism people who want peace might resort to in a busy subway.