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The march was astounding. The speeches were also superb, except Mr. Jackson, who, with his mindless feel-good doubletalk just made me sick. The atmosphere was very powerful and optimistic, and as the reports of the numbers went up and up, a swell of an almost palpable relief/excitement was in the air, because "surely it would be impossible for such a gathering to be ignored", something would have to happen to address such a show of displeasure.

What was interesting, infuriating and really not very surprising was the way that the speeches were misreported. There was, for sure, a concerted effort to dampen down the information that came from that stage. Every news channel failed to correctly and fully report the speeches. Ken Livingston’s congestion charge heckler interruption was repeated again and again, and Jackson’s empty repetitive rhetoric was overly highlighted.

The first president of Algeria's speech (in French) included a cry of "Vive la France" in response and recognition of the noble opposition that France is putting up.

The trade unions speeches were genuine and well said, none of these were transmitted in the news reports the night of the march and the next day. As was to be expected, Fox news behaved as if nothing at all had happened on the day; an extraordinarily poor reaction. CNN repeated sound bites from more speakers, but they were the shortest of excerpts.

ITN, BBC, and all the UK channels repeated both Blair’s speech in response to the march and then Gordon Brown's totally insincere speech, ad nauseum. It felt like the news channels were repeating these speeches to counteract the energy of the mach. Euro News was more balanced.

What was also superb was the general understanding and plain speaking about the Israel/Palestinian problem. No one held back in roundly condemning Israel, and the hypocrisy of the UN and its uneven enforcement of its resolutions. The exception was once again Jackson, who made sure that he offended no one. Only CNN showed a small amount of this aspect; the BBC came out with the incredible line of "This march was very political" well duh!!!

The best speech of all was from the organizer of the march and rally, who declared that on the day that war starts, a general strike will be called. If I remember correctly the union of communications workers representative wants to go back to its members to vote for a strike if war starts.

The placards and punters were awesome; "Bush is another word for Cunt" was my favourite, a man with a Mohican held a pretzel aloft to my left. Children were everywhere, the old the young; every kind of person, from everywhere. This was pure untapped power in the form of human rivers.

The last march that I went on was the big anti apartheid march years ago. This one felt completely focused, coherent, and energized. Apartheid was utterly destroyed by years of sanctions and boycotts. The promised bloodbath of revenge that was predicted thankfully never materialized, and whilst SA today has its serious problems, they can now build on an intact infrastructure in peace.

It is clear that economic punishment is the way to convince people to "live right". It is clear that the only way to stop the war machine is to choke off the supply of money that keeps it fed. Tony Benn said that the people in the arms trade should be made to account for what they are doing, that the trade should be outlawed. This may or may not happen, but what is for sure, the thinking behind these words strikes directly at the problem.

As exhilarating and reaffirming as this march was, unless there is some kind of subsequent direct action on a long term basis, this war, if it happens, will not be the last one. And that is a Bad Thing®

Tony Benn said that this was the beginning of something big, and for all of us to keep up the momentum. He is right about many things; lets hope that this is the case. What is for sure, you will not hear about this on the TV. You will have to read your email, keep in contact with your friends and be ready to act when the call is given.

And DAMN it was cold; my feet turned into stiff blocks.

What were your impressions?!

Give 'em Helen

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