OK. I need to take a break on war stuff for a bit. Here are links to my favorite news sites. Only one of them is based in the U.S. Imagine that!

Common Dreams

BBC

Guardian (UK)

The Independent (UK)

Agence France-Presse (in English)

Ha’aretz (Israel)

Google News

Or, you can click on the “other blogs” link over on the right and look at the ones under “Politics”. Most highly recommended are Atrios, Daily Kos, and Nathan Newman. The Agonist seems to have updates every couple of minutes about Iraq.

Also, my partner James probably won’t be able to stop himself from posting about it.

I’m going to post some cultural notes soon.

The AP has a story quoting Bill Dobbs from United for Peace and Justice about what happpened at the end of the march.

The organizers of an antiwar march said Sunday police escalated tensions by trying to clear a downtown park too quickly, while Mayor Bloomberg blamed a handful of unruly protesters for the injuries of 17 police officers.

“Most people behaved themselves, said their peace and went home,” Bloomberg said, a day after thousands marched through the city to show their opposition to the war in Iraq. “Unfortunately, a handful of people really got out of control and injured 17 New York City police officers who were there to protect us all.”

…

United for Peace and Justice spokesman Bill Dobbs said four medics volunteering for the group were pepper-sprayed by police at Washington Square Park, while others reported seeing protesters handcuffed too tightly.

Dobbs said police were cooperative and helpful until the protest reached the park. He said officers then tried to clear the area of thousands of people too quickly, and raised tensions by massing in riot gear and on horseback.

“It was premature to clear those streets,” Dobbs said. Once officers massed in riot gear, “the police became lightning rods. It’s regrettable.”

Several protesters also complained that they were shoved by officers and sprayed with Mace, Dobbs said.

“Whatever happened down there ought to have been defused with some common sense and not trying to clear streets prematurely,” he said.

Police officials had no immediate comment Sunday. Officials had said that the protesters’ march permit expired at 4 p.m. Officers began ordering people to disperse after the permit expired.

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Interesting –The NY Post article has this:

The peaceful mood turned truculent when cops started clearing the park around 3:30 p.m. – about a half-hour before the march was expected to end.

Unless if was dangerously crowded in Washington Square Park itself, it is NOT illegal for people to be in the park with anti-war signs. It is a public space, and one’s presence there should not be at the whim of the NYPD.

I didn’t see this one, but as agitprop (and painting) it’s pretty good.

Photo courtesy of Tom Moody. Go read his post on the march.

I got an email from Jesse of pith.org fame — go read his beautifully written post from early this morning — about the fact that he only saw well-behaved police. I agree that I only saw that, except that as I got close to the end I saw more and more police officers wearing riot gear on the site streets. I finished the march around 3:30.

Tom Moody has a good photo of NYPD in riot gear from yesterday. We all know displays like this are meant to intimidate, even when we’ve had hours of peaceful marching so far.

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Our group’s Pink Triangle Peace Symbol (with glitter!) shows up in pith.org’s photos of the march.

There are currently ten stories on the NY1 home page.

Nine of them have video.

One does not: the one about yesterday’s anti-war march.