Estimated 500,000 protested in Washington

[Lancer]

There are aprox 5,000 residents in my town. There were maybe 30 protesters dancing around.

[Thrawn05]

Whenever I hear the words "Estimated X protesters in Y", I use this formula:

(X - 5000) / 2 =| Z |

Where Z is the real number.

Wait a week when a real headcount is released.

[Faboba]

So your offical prediction for the headcount in Lancer's town is... nothing?

"Nothing will come of nothing."

I always suspected the press was merely a sponsored organ for pretenseless fabrication.

[Thrawn05]

QUOTE:
___________________________________
Originally posted by Faboba
So your offical prediction for the headcount in Lancer's town is... nothing?
___________________________________

Yup, sounds about right.

[Dinner]

It seems like every time there is a protest or march in D.C. the organizers always tell us there were ten times more people then their actually was there.

Do any of you remember when that bigot Louis Farakan put on the Million Man March? He screamed and yelled for days that the Washington Police were racists because they estimated the crowd was only 75,000 instead of the 1 million the black nationalists claimed.

[David Floyd]

[Lancer]

I recall the million man march. I think the police finally sent the guy home.

What were they protesting for anyway? Bad math advocates?

[Timexwatch]

I was there for the entire thing, including the march. I'll post pictures tomorrow, hopefully. I'll answer questions soon or post reflections later.

As to the 500,000 estimate, they were tossing around that number before people started marching. From what I saw, the line of people stretched from the Navy Yard to the Capitol. That's more than 10 city blocks, IIRC. How many people is that? I don't know.

[chequita guevara]

I really wanted to go, too.

[Bosh]

Couldn't show up myself, just got back to college otherwise we'd have sent at least a busload or two down

Only hesitation is that I'm not a big fan of ANSWER's, they actually ARE a communist front (the Maoist RCP IIRC).

[Par4]

from another forum

Ya'll shoulda been at the San Fran protest...

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Boshko
Only hesitation is that I'm not a big fan of ANSWER's, they actually ARE a communist front (the Maoist RCP IIRC).

And exactly where would the anti-war movement be without commies organizing them? Nowhere, that's where. Whatever qualms you may have about the RCP (and I know them better than you), if it weren't for them and Workers World (who is leading the other main group), the anti-war movement would be at least six months behind where it is now.

[DanS]

Maoists, eh? They're bad news.

[Seeker]

If protests are supposed to be a measure of popular discontent, shouldn't there be some way of getting estimates, maybe the Department of Transportation?

Independant third party?

30 000-50 000 is the usual professional demonstrators, albeit lots of them.

500 000 is a small city, or fifty WWII infantry divisions. They would represent a big chunk of other people.

But well never know, because we can't even get a guess within the nearest 100 000.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by DanS
Maoists, eh? They're bad news.

Mostly they're just silly. Maoists in the 1st world argue that the working class has became a reactionary class, in league with the capitalists in oppressing the 3rd World proletariet. They're not completely wrong, but then they go and say that the 1st world working class is no longer the proletariet (uhm, actually the definition of proletariet is those who have nothing to sell but their labor-power, comrades) and that the urban poor minorities are now the "proletariet" (i.e. the revolutionary class, in Maoism, the proletariet is whomever agrees with Mao Zedon thought ).

So when you pay attention to the RCP you tend to see stuff like suburban white kids living in the hard-core ghetto trying to preach to the oppressed masses. In Chicago the RCP is officially considered a gang by the CPD because of their shennanigans in and around Cabrini-Green (the city's tearing down the projects, but they aren't replacing the housing, the RCP is trying to organize the residents to resist).