Rally for “Justice, Jobs & Peace” draws a hundred in Spokane.
In a local show of support for the “One Nation Working Together” march that took place in the nation’s capital today, a hundred Spokanites held their own march today, traversing downtown to the Thomas S. Foley Federal Building. The two-hour event took place in bright October sunshine and was punctuated both by the P-Jammers marching band and the horns of supportive motorists along the way.
Marchers today on Spokane Falls Boulevard.
The “One Nation Working Together” event drew tens of thousands of people to the Lincoln Memorial where the large crowd heard a number of liberal and progressive speakers. There were some 400 sponsoring organizations for the Washington, DC march and a spokesperson for the event estimated the crowd size at 175,000-200,000.
The Spokane event was organized by the Peace and Justice Action League of Spokane (PJALS), the Spokane chapter of the NAACP, Spokane Veterans for Peace, Peace Action Washington, Code Pink and Progressive Democrats of America.
Much of the focus of the Spokane rally were repeated calls to end the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and to use the money being spent on the wars for education and other domestic needs. Although a clear subtext of the day was for liberals and progressives to take to the streets to counter media coverage that focuses on angry Tea Partiers and other conservative groups, President Obama’s war-fighting and military spending policies came under sharp criticism by a number of speakers.
“Families in Eastern Washington’s Fifth Congressional District have paid out $2.1 billion for war spending in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001,” said PJALS director Liz Moore. ” That same amount of money could have provided health care for 932,568 children or Pell grants for 380,924 college students.”
Spokane activist David Brookbank speaking at the Federal Building.
Click here to read the Washington Post’s coverage of today’s rally in Washington D.C.
