[Peace-discuss] Fwd:[ANSWER]: Sat, March 22: Emergency Regional Protests

[jencart]

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EMERGENCY REGIONAL PROTESTS
Saturday, March 22:
* EMERGENCY CONVERGENCE on the north side of the WHITE  HOUSE at 12 NOON
* In NYC, protest at 11:30 a.m., assemble on Broadway 
between 41st and 36th St.
* Emergency regional protests in San Francisco, Los 
Angeles and around the country

HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS PROTEST ACROSS THE U.S. & AROUND THE  WORLD

As the Bush administration began its attack on Iraq, using  the sons and daughters of America to kill and be killed 
for his dreams of conquest, peace-loving people throughout  the United States and around the world refused to be 
silenced and took to the streets in some of the largest 
global protests ever seen. As anti-war demonstrators 
prepare to go into the streets in vast numbers on Saturday  March 22, the protests in the first hours of the U.S. war  of aggression have already reached an unprecedented 
number. From New York City to the White House in 
Washington DC, San Francisco and other west coast cities,  and scores of other towns and cities throughout the 
country, people resisted and protested the war today while  they made plans for mass actions on Saturday.

"What will follow will not be a repeat of any other 
conflict. It will be of a force and scope and scale beyond  what has been seen before," Donald Rumsfeld threatened  today. He was met with rolling protests across the world  including mass actions in cities across the U.S. as people  responded to calls to walk out and showed today that there  would be "No Business as Usual."

Students walked out of their schools and marched with 
workers leaving their jobs and others coming out of their  homes, demanding an end to this war drive. In New York  City many thousands of protestors overflowed police 
attempts to barricade them at Times Square and marched  through the city in defiance of a police ban on marches. 
In San Francisco thousands of people shut down the 
business district and more than a thousand were arrested.  Late into the evening thousands more were occupying Lake  Shore Drive in Chicago and a huge number of people were  arrested. In Washington DC high school students walked out  of classes and marched through the city beginning at the  White House, where more protestors demonstrated outside  Lafayette Park into the evening, despite the White House's  demand that the "People's Park" be closed to protests. 
Earlier in the morning protestors stopped morning traffic  on D.C.'s Key Bridge. In Philadelphia peace activists shut 
down traffic on Broad Street and protested outside the  Federal Building. More than 1000 high school students 
walked out of school in Minneapolis and St. Paul. There 
were emergency anti-war demonstrations in cities in every  state from Lexington, KY and Knoxville, TN to Boston, from  Cleveland to Austin to Chapel Hill, NC.

There were spontaneous protests across the world as 
hundreds of thousands of people converged on U.S. 
Embassies in Buenos Aries, Manila, Paris, Seoul and 
Brussels, and made visible the overwhelming popular 
opposition to Bush's war on Iraq, including in Ankara, 
Rome, Milan, Taiwan, Calgary, London, Damascus, Cairo,  Quito, Bangkok, Johannesburg, Calcutta, Glasgow, Brasilia,  Kiev and Moscow. Thousands of students marched through  Madrid; a hundred thousand people filled the streets of 
Athens; and 50,000 marched under the Brandenburg Gate in  Berlin.

The A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition, which organized for today's 
"If War Breaks Out -- Walk Out" actions, is mobilizing to  be in the streets on Saturday, March 22 in New York City,  Washington DC, San Francisco and throughout the country.

SATURDAY, MARCH 22:
* EMERGENCY CONVERGENCE on the north side of