looked like about 200 or so lining the Burlington street bridge in

[rurallib]

Iowa City.
Pretty dangerous place to stage a rally, very heavy traffic. Really obstructed pedestrian traffic.
The Burlington Street bridge was built in the 1950s or 60s with tax payer dollars I am sure. The bridge it replaced was near collapse. Were the decision to be made by the collection of citizens assembled today, they would probably be standing on a rotting, rusted four lane bridge with huge potholes. But a socialist bridge took the place of that bridge.
I assume most of the protesters parked their expensive chariots in university parking lots, or municipal parking lots. There is no other choice around here. Possibly they arrived there via municipal or university buses.

Well I am sure besides those few things and maybe social security and food safety and police and fire and hospitals and ............ they really want the government to back off.

[Condem]

1. That many, rural?

Photo? See if I know any of the selfish fucks.

[rurallib]

2. I am terrible at estimating crowds. We left the camera at home

There were people on both walkways spread out for the full length on both sides, pretty much 1 to 11/2 deep. I am guessing that would take 75 to 100 on each side. Could have been less.
As I note there were what appeared to be counter protesters not blocking foot traffic.
I noted several folks just seemed to be trying to get from place to place, especially on the north side of the bridge. Some of these folks were forced to walk in on the road. A bridge with sidewalks that are not protected from car traffic is a really lousy place to hold a rally.
And don't be too surprised that Iowa City has that many show up. There are a lot of people in Iowa City that really hate the liberal label it has.

[Rambis]

3. Could have been thousands

small minds don't take up much space-pack em in!

[Hardrada]

4. Iowa City has a liberal veneer over some quite serious racism.

I never ran into really virulent racism of the "I hate n*****s" variety until I was living in IC. I don't imagine the recent gang assaults downtown at night are improving that very much.

[progressoid]

5. Our paper said 200 here, but when I drove by it looked more like 50.

It started at 5:00. When I drove by at 5:15 it was a pretty small gathering. I even saw two people get in their car and leave! Maybe more came later? :shrug:

http://southwestiowanews.com/articles/2009/04/16/council_bluffs/doc49e750a7df553660108627.txt

[Tashca]

6. CR had 200-300

I'm not good at guessing numbers though.


A few signs....






One lone counter protester....he was just trying to get their ire....and it worked out like he planned...