Public Thunder

By Dan Frosch, AlterNet. Posted August 29, 2004.

Together, undaunted by a blazing late summer sun, hundreds of thousands marched through some of New York City's busiest streets on Sunday in a massive protest against George Bush and the Republican National Convention. The BBC estimated the number of demonstrators at over 250,000.

Some carried clever posters decrying George Bush's ascent to power. Others wielded drums, horns, or in one case, a frying pan, and banged out their frustrations in rhythm. Still others carried small children on their shoulders.

Despite rumblings about Molotov-cocktail hurling anarchists and a bitter last-minute legal battle between protest organizers and the city of New York over where to hold the march, Sunday's event was largely peaceful, even as protestors came face to face with police, the secret service, and a loud contingent of Republican hecklers at Madison Square Garden, the site of the convention.

A police spokeswoman told AlterNet at 8:30 p.m. on Sunday night that 200 arrests were made, a relatively small amount considering the sheer number of protestors – at press time, organizers estimated 450,000 according to news reports while the police have not yet released a figure – and there were no immediate reports of violence.

According to the AP, the largest mass-arrest was of "50 protesters on bicycles who stopped near the parade route were carted away in an off-duty city bus." Another 15 were arrested "when someone set a papier-mache dragon float afire near Madison Square Garden," the AP reported.

Protestors began gathering between 14th and 22nd Streets and 7th Avenue in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood early Sunday morning in preparation for the march. United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ), the marches' organizer and an umbrella of over 800 different groups nationwide, designated different sections for the various participating contingents to assemble – Vietnam, Gulf War and Iraqi War Veterans' groups were gathered at the front as were labor unions like Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and PSC-CUNY (City University of New York's Teachers' Union). National peace groups, youth and student collectives, as well as numerous regional organizations and individual protestors filled in behind them.

Virtually all those in attendance were donned in brightly-hued t-shirts, holding an equally colorful sign, or wearing a politically charged button, many of them laden with the sort of sardonic slogans that have become symbolic of the left's criticism of the Bush administration.

One man wore a shirt that read "I'll Mess With Texas." A woman held a sign which said 'Yee-ha Is Not Foreign Policy.' One elderly man raised a placard asking "Whose Taxes Would Jesus Cut?" A young woman grinned as she hoisted a cardboard poster which demanded "Pull Out Like Your Father Should Have!" Another solemn-faced woman grasped one which stated: "Bring My Son Home."

"This is incredible," gushed native New Yorker David Rosner, who came to protest by himself and wore a button which read "Somewhere in Texas, A Village Is Missing An Idiot."

Just before noon, filmmaker Michael Moore, Reverend Jesse Jackson, and UFPJ organizers led the march up Seventh Ave. toward Madison Square Garden. A team of yellow-shirted protest marshals from UFPJ locked arms and escorted them as they walked. The march snaked uptown at a snail's pace at first, with throngs of people waiting shoulder to shoulder for nearly an hour in stifling near-ninety degree heat to walk to one city block.

"We want an end to this war. We want the troops home," said Michael Moore. "It's just not going to work with us there. We owe a huge apology to the people of Iraq for creating the amount of death and destruction that we have created there."

Though police had cordoned off the first half of the protest route with barriers on either side of 7th Avenue, preventing anyone from exiting and entering the march except at designated areas, the mood of the marchers remained festive. The first ten blocks resembled more of a raucous political street party than anything else: Code Pink, a women's social justice group stopped at virtually every block to perform a well-choreographed dance routine as they chanted anti-Bush slogans; a head-bobbing group of teenage activists co-opted the hit Ludacris hip-hop song "Move Bitch" and began rapping "Move Bush! Get Out The Way!"; one young woman belted out an unrecognizable protest tune as she strummed wildly on an acoustic guitar.

Meanwhile, as police helicopters pounded overhead and a corner of Madison Square Garden's coliseum appeared in the distance, 80-year-old Phillip Miller trudged along slowly and deliberately in his full U.S. Army First Cavalry regiment uniform. "Well, I'm here to protest the war," he said. "The same unit I fought with in World War II is fighting in Iraq. If this thing isn't stopped, it's going to be never-ending." Austin, Texas native, Rebecca Webber (25) marched nearby.

Dan Frosch is a freelance journalist based in New York City. He's been on staff at the San Gabriel Valley Weekly section of the Los Angeles Times, The Source magazine, the Pacific Palisadian Post and most recently the Santa Fe Reporter. Dan also contributes to VIBE and POZ magazines.

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