Anti-war protest downtown

There's quite a big hubbub surrounding the South Loop post office; lots of riot police on the ground, news choppers in the air. The protest itself is somewhat unimpressive. Same old (and I do mean old) bedraggled crowd listening to unintelligible megaphone blather. Since I couldn't get an accurate headcount just by looking at the crowd, I measured the length and width of the area by counting the cops surrounding it. The area is approximately 65 x 30 people standing next to each other, so the upper bound on the crowd is about 2000, assuming it is that compact. The real number is probably 1200 to 1800.

As a libertarian conservative, I was disappointed to see a Libertarian Party banner among the anti-war crowd. There was also a smaller pro-Bush contingent across the street, behind the line of cops. Here are some pics:

Various views of the protest



Just riot police (there were a lot)



Some pro-Bush people (notice a Lebanese flag in the second shot)



"Freedom Is Not Free"



The anti-war band



The anti-war cart ("Let's Bomb Texas")