Today in NYC, over half million people demonstrated against the War on Iraq. I marched with Racial Justice 911/People of Color Contingency Against the War (one of the several feeder marches). We met at Fifth Avenue and 42nd St. and started marching at 12:30. When we reached 42nd Street and Third Avenue (on our way to First Avenue and 49th Street), the police told us that we couldn't continue going East. They diverted us to the West (the opposite direction of the march. Most of us marched up Lexington Avenue. We tried to go East unsuccessfully because of police barriers and hundreds of policemen reinforcing the "rule". The organizers got permission for a stationary rally because the police said they had no budget to control a march. But when hundreds of thousands people tried to reach the "stationary rally" they were diverted to parallel avenues and street. We were not supposed to march, but we marched for hours around the "stationary rally" site. After walking (on the sidewalks as well as on the streets depending on the number of people at a particular moment) the group (more than a thousand people) finally reached First Avenue, via 72nd Street. We cheered! It was around 4PM: We marched for three and a half hours!! It was the most diverse (race, gender and age) crowd I've ever seen in a Peace March in NYC. It was the most self-disciplined people I've seen in my life. We marched for blocs and blocs in a bitterly cold day, suffering the police harassment, the humiliation of being penned in, the lack of public bathrooms, the lack of contact between the organizers and the marchers, etc. but we didn't give up and go home. We stayed until we got near the stage. Hope you are all enjoying the goods news: In 600 cities, in 60 countries millions of people demonstrated against War! Peace, Silvia