With IVAW, the People Courageously Crossed the Line

The stage was set. Rage Against the Machine came out and stood in formation with IVAW and when IVAW marched off, Rage played a deafeningly exhilarating concert.

Following the concert, thousands moved to the street on the side of the Coliseum to march down to the Pepsi Center with IVAW. The showing was what antiwar leaders wanted to see on Sunday.

For the most part, the march looked like it would go off without a hitch, but along the way, IVAW was halted and went through several renegotiations with police so that they could keep making their way closer to the Pepsi Center to confront Obama.

Every step of the way, despite their intimidating ways, the police were extremely supportive like IVAW indicated to us during the concert. The police blocked off streets and helped these veterans lead the people to where they wanted to go.

Unfortunately, the police were given orders and we ended up being marched into a cage that had been put up around a school nearby the Pepsi Center. When inside, there was nowhere to disperse. People were dehydrated from a 3-to-4 mile hike to the Pepsi Center. And the stormtroopers (otherwise known as the police) were lined up in formation ready to shoot tear gas at any moment.

IVAW chose to call Barack Obama at this point and speak with somebody, somebody like a representative.

I think they wanted Obama himself to come to the secured cage we were in and speak with the veterans, but despite the fact that I think this would have been a great political move, Obama did not come out. And, when they asked to speak with a representative, IVAW was denied.

IVAW turned the march around and went back the way they had come so that they could get out of the cage and disperse and not be tear gassed. At least, that’s why we thought we were turning around.

Really, what ended up happening was at 7:30 MT, IVAW came to a concrete barrier fork in the road and informed people that they could go left or right. Left would be risking arrest and right would be okay.

A dump truck that you could walk around helped create this fork, but this was not a very good barrier. People quickly realized there was no risk of arrest despite the coalescing of a massive police force blocking the street that runs across the entrance to the Pepsi Center.

IVAW went right up to the stormtrooper police force that had amassed and people from all over Denver that had not been part of this thing focused their attention on the showdown.

On a road that was split into two by a giant grass meridian, they asked again for a representative to come out while legal observers informed people that those on giant grass meridian could be risking arrest.

IVAW seized the moment and began to connect what they did in Iraq to what the police might do this evening. They made that point that whatever force any policeman uses tonight, he or she will have to live with that for the rest of his or her life in the same way veterans live with the fact that they killed people.

All eyes were on the situation wondering what would happen. Thousands of people were standing by.

With the sun setting, IVAW was notified that they could wait for a representative of Obama to come out, a demand they wished to make again now that they were closer and more visible to the people of Denver, the country, and the world. This relaxed the police who had been closing in and around the people who were confronting Obama in solidarity with IVAW.

The whole world was watching just like Ron Kovic said they would.

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