News » August 31, 2004 » Web Only

Protest? What protest?

By Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg

Amid crystal chandeliers and filet mignon appetizers, South Carolina’s delegates munched and mingled just hours after hundreds of thousands of protestors demonstrated against their presence in New York’s hot summer streets.

“I spent all day trying to find the protestors,” said one delegate in a phone interview earlier in the day. “I think they’ve overestimated the numbers.” The organizers, he predicted, are going to be “disappointed.”

When asked about the march, some delegates looked puzzled, saying they only saw a few protestors. A California delegate said in a phone interview that most of the demonstrators “are just here to see what’s going on….There aren’t necessarily here to protest.”

The protestors’ idealism is “completely wrong,” said another South Carolina delegate. “What do you do when a madman kills 3000 Americans?” he asked.

Denial clearly runs deep in the Bush camp.

The Guardian reported 250,000 people attended Sunday’s march. Protestors stretched for two miles, according to the New York Times. One officer, they reported, said it looked like half a million people.

No matter what the exact number, this is clearly not a group of a few extremists, as some delegates tried to convince themselves. Protestors were grandparents, teachers, teenagers, gay rights advocates, 9/11 victims and union organizers. A large contingent of veterans marched along with Iraq Veterans Against the War and Military Families Speak Out, an anti-war group for military families. As the chant goes: This is what democracy looks like.

“For a couple hours, the streets were ours,” one demonstrator told me.

While the protest was ultimately successful, the city and activists fought for months about where the protest was to be held. At first United for Peace and Justice agreed to march along the West Side Highway. Then they fought to have a rally in Central Park. Finally a compromise was reached and protestors were permitted to march on a route that took them right by the delegates’ hotels, ending in Union Square. Despite a tense build-up and rumors that thousands would be arrested, city officials, protestors and delegates agreed the day had been peaceful.

Four years ago the demonstrators were not as well received in Philadelphia. The police preemptively swept up demonstrators at the RNC. Along with hundreds of other peaceful protestors, I was arrested and detained until the convention was over. Thankfully this year the overwhelming majority of protestors were allowed to demonstrate. (About 200 people were arrested.) In fact several delegates said the protest hadn’t bothered them, with the exception of some name calling on Sunday when they left a Broadway show.

Most delegates and alternates I met this week said they respected the protestors’ right to rally. A California delegate said he had to walk a few blocks out of the way. A minor inconvenience for preserving the demonstrators’ freedom of speech, he said.

A delegate from Missouri said he watched “Billionaires for Bush” perform and found it entertaining. He thought it was “neat” and “catchy.” However, he said, the protestors are “uninformed.”

“There’s a lot of Democrats with a lot of free time over the next few days [who will] hang out and try to cause trouble,” a Bush supporter said. “We won’t let a few malcontents spoil our good time.”

Another delegate said she saw the march from her hotel room window, which looks out on Central Park. The protestors looked “very harmless.”

No matter how loud we scream, the Bush camp only hears a murmur. But we don’t march for them.

We march to show the world our president doesn’t represent us. We march to tell our soldiers we want them home now. We march to tell our veterans we want our government to take care of them, not slash their benefits. We march to tell our young people we don’t want their lives sacrificed at the almighty altar of oil. We march to tell ourselves that even though Bush doesn’t listen, voters do.

• Help In These Times publish more articles like this. Donate today!
• Subscribe today and save 46% off the newsstand price!

• subscribe to print magazine

• stay in touch with our email newsletter

  Subscribe to our regular weekly e-mail newsletter. It's packed with updates on recent and upcoming stories, events, campaigns and things every progressive should be informed about.

   

• email this article to a friend

  Your Name Your Email Recipient Email

  Personal message Thought you might be interested in this article from In These Times.

   

  Please help us prevent spam by verifying the word you see in the image above

  Send to multiple recipients. Just separate each email address with a comma.

• Reader Comments

  “We march to show the world our president doesn’t represent us.” That, I can confirm, is actually happening. Keep protesting, keep it up, send faxes (not emails) do what you can. Most people I know here, including conservative businessmen and card carrying members of conservative parties, are disgusted with Bush and his yeehah politics. They are astounded at the stupidity of his cabinet members, at the tacky fundamentalist claptrap that is pouring forth from the White House, at the destabilizing effects all this nonsense is having on our world, and especially at the sheer gullibility of Joe Sixpack. So finally, on Monday, I was able to point to my native New York and say: That is America too.

  Posted by Marton on Aug 31, 2004 at 11:05 PM

  It is really amazing to me that this election is even close when you consider the following:

  -Number of U.S. citizens without medical insurance increased to 44 million.                     

  
  -The number of Americans in poverty is increasing, now at 36 million.                     

  
  -Gas costs are killing family budgets while we still favor gas-guzzlers.                     

  
  -The Fed is committed to raising interest rates and further curb growth.                     

  
  -Both corporate and state pension funds are underfunded by trillions.                     

  
  -Consumer debt and personal bankruptcies have risen dramatically                      

  
  -We’re hemorrhaging jobs, the most lost since Hoover.                     

  
  -Medicare, the new drug benefit and Social Security have a combined deficit of a $51 trillion and growing!                     

  
  -The Iraq war is a bottomless quagmire already costing us $137 billion.                     

  
  -Congress admits tax cuts benefited the rich, hurt the middle class.                     

  
  -Worst of all: Homeland security is grossly underfunded with little being done about exposed ports, borders, railroads and nuclear facilities. For example, only 5 percent of the 13 million shipping containers coming into America’s ports annually are inspected. Plus, we have 15,000 chemical plants largely unprotected, when a single rail car loaded with 33,000 gallons of chlorine could kill 100,000 people.

  This election is being handed to Kerry on a platter and if he and his team cannot outgun the Bush slime machine then I am not sure what can.  Moreover, if the American people are satisified with (and are stupid enough to accept) the circumstances this administration has created for their lives then they, the voters, get exactly the government they deserve.  Ultimately, they will be raped, pillaged, wrapped in plastic, and dumped on the side of the freeway as a thank you for their support.

  Posted by Michael on Sep 1, 2004 at 12:28 AM

  Please try to be clear when discussing this election with other folks.

  GW Bush cannot be re-elected because he wasn’t elected in the 2000. He was APPOINTED. So he’ll either be elected (hopefuly not) or RE-APPOINTED, in which case, our democracy has ceased to exist, or he’ll lose.

  I’m hoping for the latter, not banking on it though because he and his cabal will do anything to maitain control up to and including criminal activity.

  Bush is an unintelligent, unpredictable and dangerous man whose inability to form a cohesive sentence makes me ashamed of this country.

  The real terrorists are in Washington. Be scared and be sure you get a PAPER ballot. Better yet, bring your own!

  Posted by Tom Z on Sep 1, 2004 at 2:24 AM

  I agree Tom,
  Except I would add the criminal activity has been going on since the 2000 election fix and includes lies and cover-ups.
  Think of it, get the stupidest man you can find, tell everyone he’s “saved”, promise the world to to the big corporations if he’s ‘elected’, and the slack-jawed hillbillies in the south and the left-hating WASPS will relate. All that’s needed is a climate of fear.
  I blame that cock-sucking George Sr. He can’t get over his miserable failures as a one-term president so he needs to get his hands back into it.

  No more Bushes.

  Posted by Neil on Sep 1, 2004 at 2:50 PM

  So much hate in all these comments.

  Posted by Matthew on Sep 1, 2004 at 4:56 PM

• extended discussion >>>Continued...

  Discussions with more than 5 comments are continued on our special discussion page to encourage continuity and ease of use. There are currently 22 posts.

Also by Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg

• Just Say No to Uncle Sam
  To keep the war in Iraq going, the military needs soldiers, lots and… morePosted on April 18, 2006