This Sounds Like Fun...
"They knocked him down again!" The cop grinned gleefully, straining to get a better look. Demonstrators with boxing gloves were knocking a not-quite-life- size George W. Bush mannequin off a pedestal with great force. Everyone wanted to take a turn.
The game embodied the unity of Sunday's marchers behind one idea: dislike of George W. Bush. A tiny elderly woman carried a sign that read: "In my 84 Years I Have Never Seen a Worse President." The simple, declarative "Bush Sucks" was popular.
At one point I was amused to find myself surrounded by people I didn't know who were wearing t-shirts and carrying a huge sign advertising The Nation magazine. One explained, "We didn't want to march with the lunatic fringe. We're very concerned about backlash to our guy, who we're, of course, not thrilled about."
They needn't have worried. Most protesters conducted themselves admirably, even when things got hot and crowded, as they often did. The crowd was mainstream, in its political concerns and appearance. (It was too mainstream in one way: while all New York's races and nationalities were represented, the march was whiter than it should have been, especially considering the president's profound unpopularity among African-Americans.) One thousand marchers carried coffins draped with American flags, to call attention to the US troops who have died in Iraq.
It was cheering to see so many protesters--men as well as women--focusing their ire on the Republicans' cretinous machismo. A man wearing a UFPJ flag as a skirt also wore a sticker that said, "Stop Mad Cowboy Disease." Another carried a sign announcing a new affiliation: "Girlie Men for Kerry."
There is no official police estimate, but UFPJ put the crowd at 500,000. That seemed about right to me. There were between 100 and 300 arrests throughout the day, which isn't bad for a protest of this size. At one point, right in front of Madison Square Garden, someone set an enormous dragon puppet on fire. The puppet, who was the only fatality in the incident, was not in any way affiliated with Greene Dragon, an engaging street theatre group whose members dress as American Revolution-era patriots, declaring "American Revel-ution 2004" against "George II and his corporate monarchy." Members of this group not only did not set the fire, they were marching several blocks behind it. The fact that the fire involved a green dragon was simply an "unfortunate coincidence," according to an activist with ties to the group.
The fire department quickly put out the flames to great cheers, and police arrested eleven demonstrators. Whoever's responsible is a knucklehead of the first degree and certainly deserves to be punished--if there's anything worse than yelling "Fire!" in a crowded room, it's setting a fire in a tightly packed crowd. Let's hope they have some rich relations, because I sure don't want to attend any benefit parties for these puppet assassins' defense fund.
Liza Featherstone
The game embodied the unity of Sunday's marchers behind one idea: dislike of George W. Bush. A tiny elderly woman carried a sign that read: "In my 84 Years I Have Never Seen a Worse President." The simple, declarative "Bush Sucks" was popular.
At one point I was amused to find myself surrounded by people I didn't know who were wearing t-shirts and carrying a huge sign advertising The Nation magazine. One explained, "We didn't want to march with the lunatic fringe. We're very concerned about backlash to our guy, who we're, of course, not thrilled about."
They needn't have worried. Most protesters conducted themselves admirably, even when things got hot and crowded, as they often did. The crowd was mainstream, in its political concerns and appearance. (It was too mainstream in one way: while all New York's races and nationalities were represented, the march was whiter than it should have been, especially considering the president's profound unpopularity among African-Americans.) One thousand marchers carried coffins draped with American flags, to call attention to the US troops who have died in Iraq.
It was cheering to see so many protesters--men as well as women--focusing their ire on the Republicans' cretinous machismo. A man wearing a UFPJ flag as a skirt also wore a sticker that said, "Stop Mad Cowboy Disease." Another carried a sign announcing a new affiliation: "Girlie Men for Kerry."
There is no official police estimate, but UFPJ put the crowd at 500,000. That seemed about right to me. There were between 100 and 300 arrests throughout the day, which isn't bad for a protest of this size. At one point, right in front of Madison Square Garden, someone set an enormous dragon puppet on fire. The puppet, who was the only fatality in the incident, was not in any way affiliated with Greene Dragon, an engaging street theatre group whose members dress as American Revolution-era patriots, declaring "American Revel-ution 2004" against "George II and his corporate monarchy." Members of this group not only did not set the fire, they were marching several blocks behind it. The fact that the fire involved a green dragon was simply an "unfortunate coincidence," according to an activist with ties to the group.
The fire department quickly put out the flames to great cheers, and police arrested eleven demonstrators. Whoever's responsible is a knucklehead of the first degree and certainly deserves to be punished--if there's anything worse than yelling "Fire!" in a crowded room, it's setting a fire in a tightly packed crowd. Let's hope they have some rich relations, because I sure don't want to attend any benefit parties for these puppet assassins' defense fund.
Liza Featherstone
posted by BLONDIE at 12:01 PM
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