Protesters gathering in Chicago for the NATO summit geared up Sunday for the largest demonstration of the weekend, as thousands are expected to march from a downtown park to the lakeside convention center exactly where President Barack Obama and other planet leaders had been meeting.
Hours ahead of the principal demonstration was set to start off, protesters – including peace activists, war veterans and those more targeted on the economic system – began arriving at Grant Park, holding indicators denouncing NATO, which includes ones that read: “War(equals)Debt” and “NATO, Go House.”
“I’ll be walking all day and guiding all day, making an attempt to preserve tempers calm,” explained Sue Eleuterio, 59, of Highland, Ind., a longtime activist who plans to act as a “peace manual” by mediating problems in between police and protesters. “Our objective, believe it or not, is to have a family friendly protest that is peaceful.”
Organizers of Sunday’s rally had at first predicted tens of 1000’s of protesters this weekend. But that was when the G-8 summit also was scheduled to be in Chicago. Earlier this year, Obama moved the Group of 8 economic meeting to Camp David, the secluded retreat in rural Maryland.
Chicago kept the NATO summit, which will concentrate on the war in Afghanistan and other international security matters, but not the economic system. That left activists with the challenge of persuading groups aserse as teachers, nurses and union laborers to show up for the Chicago protests even although the summit’s major focus does not align with their most heart-felt problems.
“I am right here to protest NATO, which I really feel is the enforcement arm of the ruling 1 percent – of the capitalist 1 %,” mentioned protester John Schraufnagel, 53, who took a bus from Minneapolis to Chicago and was amongst the first demonstrators to gather at Grant Park Sunday.
NATO Summit Chicago Live Streams:
WGN TV [ http://www.wgntv.com/news/livestreaming/ ]
ABC 7 [ http://abclocal.go.com/wls/livenow?id=8335968 ]
ABC 7 Helicopter [ http://abclocal.go.com/wls/livenow?id=7096082 ]
NBC FM 101.1 [ http://www.fmnewschicago.com/news/local/Story.aspx?ID=1705559 ]
FOX 32 [ http://www.myfoxchicago.com/category/237044/live-stream ]