------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Nov. 7, 2002 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
YOUTHS SWELL RANKS OF BUDDING MOVEMENT By Matthew L. Schwartz Washington, D.C. According to march organizers, an estimated half of the 200,000 demonstrators who showed up for the historic Oct. 26 anti-war march here were students from high school and college campuses. Hundreds of parents attended with their children. Young children sat on their parents' shoulders; some parents pushed strollers in one hand and held picket signs in the other. Teenagers marched next to the elderly in what was mass solidarity among all nationalities, ethnicities, genders, sexual expressions and ages. Margot Davis, an 18-year-old student from Brandeis University, told Workers World: "I came because I knew it was the right thing to do. I had to physically be there to show President Bush that there really are people from all over who oppose his war." She added that this war was "obviously unjust" and that "President Bush is simply in this to make a profit for his oil companies. He has no respect for the human lives that will be lost." Beverly Hiestand, an organizer for the Buffalo/Western New York ANSWER coalition--Act Now to Stop War & End Racism-- said: "Those of us who were active during the Vietnam anti- war protests really noticed how different it was this time. It was not just the youth who were coming in to buy bus tickets, it was the parents and the youth together." An editorial in the Oct. 29 San Francisco Chronicle about the huge simultaneous Oct. 26 march and rally in the Bay Area, entitled "Seeds of a Movement," noted another difference between this anti-war movement and the anti- Vietnam War struggle: "In the 1960s, young people were in part motivated by the prospect that they might be drafted. By contrast, large numbers of young people showed up in San Francisco--and to an even bigger demonstration in Washington, D.C.--without facing such a threat." It is clear that the youth movement is just beginning. And as President Bush and his warlords push forward, more and more youth will come out and join the movement. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Support the voice of resistance http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php) ------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. To subscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
