(U-WIRE) LOS ANGELES – Masses of picket signs; red, white and blue caskets; and unanimous chants to the rhythm of drums filled Westwood Wednesday evening as thousands of people swarmed the streets to protest the Bush Administration.
As protestors began to march from the Federal Building in Westwood at 6:45 p.m., the Los Angeles Police Department blocked Wilshire Boulevard, Westwood Boulevard, Le Conte Avenue and Veteran Avenue in order to control the crowd while helicopters patrolled the skies.
Local police said more than 2,000 people were demonstrating on the designated routes, beginning from the Federal Building on Wilshire Boulevard and looping back to the same spot later in the evening.
The protestors’ ultimate goal was to remove President Bush from office.
The street closures, which included sealing off the Wilshire Boulevard exit from the 405 freeway, caused extensive traffic delays and were in effect until 11 p.m., according to the LAPD.
The protest was spearheaded by World Can’t Wait, a national anti-Bush organization. The group led a nationwide protest at more than 200 sites Wednesday—exactly one year after Bush’s re-election.
“I see the nightmare, which is the world according to Bush. I’m in this movement because I know that the mass can stop this but I know this is going to be difficult,” said Tony Vargas, an organizer for the Westwood area and a speaker at the rally. Protests also took place at noon all around Wilshire, from a concert at Alvarado Street to a “funeral procession” on Fairfax Avenue.
Marching from Bruin Plaza and up Westwood, Vargas armed both of his hands: one with a bullhorn, the other with a green picket sign that read “The world can’t wait.”
“Join us, join us, the war can’t wait! Drive out the Bush regime! Today is the beginning of the end of the Bush regime,” he announced, instigating a series of honks from passing cars and cheers from the other protestors.
Guest speakers also included Bianca Jagger, the first wife of rock legend Mick Jagger; Culture Clash, a Los Angeles Chicano guerilla theater group; and Grammy-winning artist Ricki Lee Jones.
“I, like millions of people all over the world, are in outrage. (Bush’s) acts are barbaric and his policies are a crime against humanity and I share the grief with these people. Bush needs to go back to Texas where he belongs,” Jagger said in her speech at the rally.
Melissa Aguayo, a third-year psychobiology student, was one of the many students who joined the march.
Having passed Vargas in Bruin Plaza, Aguayo decided to skip her physics class, epitomizing one of the slogans on picket signs found throughout the day: “No work, no school.” “What kept me walking is I don’t agree with what Bush and our government is doing now. I feel like if this is the only thing I can do, then that’s what I’ll do because I just don’t want to sit there,” Aguayo said. “Me not doing anything is like me going ‘Yeah, I agree with everything.’”
Aguayo believes the main problem with the Bush administration is its policies on the war in Iraq.
“I think it’s an unjust war, and war isn’t the answer to anything,” she said.
Claire Muller, a first-year undeclared student, observed the march from the window of a local restaurant, comparing the crowd to “a swarm of ants attacking a pastry.”
The marchers’ intentions were noble, but their tactics seems too extreme, she said.
“The marchers seem to be scaring off people more than embracing and talking to them, which I think would be more effective in exposing what I believe are the injustices in the administration,” Muller said.
In the end, what Vargas hopes that after Wednesday’s events, World Can’t Wait will have left an impact in the Los Angeles community, and, possibly, the nation. “In light of all the injustices in the Bush administration, we have hope that this regime must be driven out,” he said.
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