Oh my when are they gonna stop with the speakers. They have

[boston bean]

been promising for the last 1hr. now.

Stop and lets get to the march coverage.

[seabeyond]

1. yes yes yes. enough n/t

[MelissaB]

2. I'm frustrated, too.

:argh:

[Atman]

3. CSpan was only covering for three hours...so I'd guess 2:30

is when the ANSWER crap will stop. Then the protest will be ignored by the MSM.

[madame defarge]

4. Next thing you know...

they'll be bringing out gay dentists with daddy issues... (not that there's anything wrong with that...)

[stillcool]

5. Democracy Now....

Link-tv at 3pm est, channel 375 Direct TV.

[lakeguy]

6. i turned it off. i wish i could be there instead so i could actually

see what was really going on!

[CAG]

7. The MSM have a convenient hurricane to cover...

they have to show us that the hurricane did damage,and then they have to show us that the hurricane did damage,and then they have to show us that the hurricane did damage,and then they have to show us that the hurricane did damage,and then they have to show us that the hurricane did damage,and then.....

They have very little time to insert any other story, such as >100,000 people encircling the white house. There are only 3 24-hour news cable channels. America must see every downed limb and powerline.

[boston bean]

8. not even a mention of it. i don't have direct tv so I can't see it at 3.

[OregonBlue]

9. Bad planning, everyone who spoke should have contentrated on

the WAR!!! Let's get on with it!! Let's march.

[lebkuchen]

10. In Germany, 30 min. for talk, then walk

w/America's short attention-span, anything longer than 30 min. is too long.

[Johnny Noshoes]

11. Actually

anything longer than 30 SECONDS - thanks to TV advertising _ is too long for most of my fellow citizens.

[lebkuchen]

14. partly true

Too much speaking from "leaders" takes away the limelight from the masses. They're the ones that need to be "on stage," marching in the streets. No rally should take the spotlight off the marchers.

I've seen too many instances where egos, usually male, wanted time-consuming attention at the expense of the movement. That shouldn't be allowed to happen.

[OregonBlue]

12. That would have been wonderful. I was very bored. Didn't like

having to hear every complaint anyone in the country has ever had!

[lebkuchen]

13. Why preach to the choir?

It's best to let the lesser known in the crowd make their statement in march than spend time allowing those who have already been heard in the press etc. take more than 3 minutes each on stage.

[OregonBlue]

15. Yah, I guess people do need to get their issues out but, I think

it would have been the most powerful if every statement had been against the war, not against the administration.

[Igel]

16. Even in student government, I avoided protests.

Most were left-over surprises: a little of this, a little of that, whatever it takes to get the support of 30 different groups with 30 different causes in order to get a couple hundred students in one place with signs and whistles. Too many grabbed credit for or got in the way of things that I knew the administration was going to do anyway, or was trying to find justification for. I even got one such hodge-podge cancelled because it would undo the administration's efforts, I nearly had to slap the undergrad president around a bit.

I've only ever seen one student protest that I sincerely admired. Good goal, brilliant planning, and flawless execution. It lasted 20 minutes, of which 10 was arrival/departure of over 4 thousand grad/professional students. The speeches were all on topic, some logical, some emotional, and they were ordered in a rhetorically appropriate way and had their facts correct. A huge wave of over 4k students filed into the hall for the speeches, and left in an orderly fashion: after they were gone, the audience had grown from 5 people to 6, only the protester's rep remained from the throng. It stunned the administration (even though they were warned, by me the previous afternoon, to expect something damned big and completely peaceful). Nobody's right to speak was violated, nobody was shouted down, the students made their point of view known with crystal clarity.

As the center for student programming staffer put it when he recovered from his shock and was beaming with pride: this wasn't a pissy undergrad protest! Indeed, a week later, it was still discussed by the administration and faculty, with respect and a bit of awe--something I never heard for a scatter-shot undergrad protest, which mostly got tacit ridicule. It shifted the terms of the debate that was underway, and brought the administration to the table for serious negotiations. When I and my appointees said something, they knew we weren't speaking for just ourselves. While nothing could stop what the protesters wanted stopped, it led to drastic alteration of the plans. It was a good protest, not a feel-good protest.