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Sunday 25 September 2005--My ears are still ringing from the roars that blasted up and down the streets of Washington DC yesterday, roars of joy and rage and defiance and strength. My ears are still ringing from the roars of the majority, which showed up in strength and in numbers that made history. C-SPAN pegged the crowd at 500,000 people. Having been there, having marched in the midst of it, having stood upon the hill beneath the Washington Monument to gaze down on the majesty of that majority, I think that number is just about right.
For a while yesterday, the march just stood still and didn't go anywhere. Want to know why? The march stood still because it was so huge that it wrapped around to the back end of itself. The front collided with the rear, and it took a while to sort the thing out and get everyone moving. That's how big yesterday was. My mother would call this a "happy problem."
What we saw on the streets of Washington DC was a multicultural, pan-generational eruption that crossed party lines and presented to the capitol, and the world entire, the true face of American democracy. This is who we are, and this is what we stand for: Accountability for the Bush administration, an end to the occupation of Iraq, and a new era of peace, economic security and social justice for all.
I write this today at the Progressive Democrats of America grassroots strategy session. Representatives Barbara Lee and Lynn Woolsey spoke from our stage today about taking back Congress in 2006, and described in detail the growing power of PDA along the halls of power on the Hill.
Cindy Sheehan inspired us all yet again, and fired a broadside at those congressional Democrats who cannot seem to find their way to the truth staring them in the face on the DC streets. "When will they catch up to us?" she asked. "We can march slower if we have to."
Well, they won't have to catch up with us on Monday, because we are going to catch up with them. After today's strategy session and planning for the upcoming election, we will take the Hill on Monday and directly lobby Senators and Representatives of both parties about the absolute moral necessity of ending the occupation of Iraq and bringing our troops home.
This was an extraordinary weekend, and better days are yet to come.