Protest fills downtown Seattle streets

Inauguration Day in Seattle featured a student walkout, rallies and marches, with demonstrators protesting the war in Iraq and the entire "Bush agenda" on issues from tax cuts and Social Security to gay marriage and abortion.

Though Seattle police typically don't release crowd counts, one officer, standing on Second Avenue as a wall of people approached, estimated there were a couple thousand.

Protesters, many of them students who walked out of class around noon, assembled downtown at Westlake Park. One man was arrested, but otherwise the protests were peaceful, said Officer Debra Brown. Demonstrators arrived at the Federal Building around 5 p.m., chanting "Not our president, not our war."

Before the speeches were over and protesters marched back to Westlake Park, the demonstration had dwindled by almost two-thirds. Still, dozens of officers — on bicycles, motorcycles, horses and on foot — kept watch.

Rod Campbell, 17, stood in the rain with an American flag draped over his shoulders — but instead of stars, Campbell's flag bore the logos for McDonald's, General Electric, IBM and other large corporations.

The protest wasn't just about the war because "George W. Bush didn't just screw up with the war — he screwed up the entire country," Campbell said.

Paul Raymond, 73, estimates he's been involved in more than 100 protests in his life, many involving civil disobedience. He figures it'll take three months for "the real protests" to begin.

"First we have to get through this farcical election in Iraq and a few more GIs being killed ... but the time will come when people have had enough."