Voices from the march to nowhere

[54anickel]

Hope this isn't a dupe. Did a quick search of LBN and didn't find it. It's a long, but really good (IMHO) article on the march yesterday.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/FH31Aa03.html

snip>

Given the months of intimidation - the Bush administration Code Orange alert, the endless discussions of possible terrorist acts, the hair-raising statements of Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Governor George Pataki, the highly publicized showing off of new police weaponry and tactics of a sort fit for a police state, the regular labeling of the New York Police Department as larger than all but 19 militaries in the world, the rumors that the world's most dangerous anarchists were headed our way, and so on - given the attempts, that is, to scare protesters out of town, this was a march you had to think about. You had to make a decision to attend. You had to have a reason (or multiple reasons) for coming. When asked, marchers tended to stress the "seriousness" of the moment and to suggest a sense of being at the edge of a volcano.

It was hardly an upbeat crowd, but it was certainly a determined one. When, right in front of Madison Square Garden where the convention was scheduled to begin the next day, a giant, papier-mache green dragon was doused with gasoline and set on fire, perhaps by the small group that had been inside it - a dangerous and malicious act - and police on motorcycles, horses, and scooters as well as on foot with billy clubs at the ready and plastic handcuffs in quantity attached to their pants' legs, promptly closed in, shut the march down, made a few arrests, and looked ready to end things right there, a man near me exclaimed, "This election is the end. It's the last one. I don't think we can survive this election!" But the marchers who had not already passed the Garden waited with determination until, to shouts from the sidewalks of "Whose streets! Our streets!" the police moved aside. Then they simply marched on.

snip>

Since articles on demonstrations, whether in the mainstream or the alternative press, tend to be short on the voices of the actual demonstrators - and since almost to a person those I talked to were thoughtful and articulate about their decisions to demonstrate - I thought I might offer their voices as best I could catch them, perhaps a tad telescoped by my limited ability to scribble stenographically.

Voices from the march
The Republican. When I saw his sign, "Republicans for Kerry/Edwards", bobbing just ahead, I immediately tracked down Henry Engelbrecht, a modest-looking older man in an all-blue outfit topped by a Masonic cap ("Masons Lodge #163, Bernardville, NJ"), marching with a group called Somerset County Voices for Peace. He was, he told me, a merchant-marine vet from World War II. "I'm an elected Republican districtman from my district in Somerset County, New Jersey. In the last election, I worked very hard for Bush. On phone banks. I contributed financially. I persuaded people to vote. But I slowly turned against the Bush administration and particularly George Bush because of the terrible lies. The WMD lies. They all lied, Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, and the rest of the cabinet, to fortify their decision to attack Iraq. We lost all those wonderful young men for those rotten lies."

much more...

[54anickel]

1. A self-serving kick with one last snippet

With hovering helicopters, serried ranks of police, and visible police dogs (which, I have to admit, brought to mind Abu Ghraib), not to speak of that Fuji blimp shadowing the march from beginning to end, you could sense how blurred the distinction between dissent and terror was becoming. Dissent is now something that, by definition, should take place in penned-in locations between lines of militarized police. While many protesters were clearly driven to the march by the war in Iraq (and other Bush administration horrors), fears of loss of liberties were also a powerful motivator. Marchers - at least those I talked with - almost uniformly felt that their presence was a statement in favor of the very existence of civil liberties. I was struck as well by how many people made the decision to come in the face of a sense of intimidation and how many were willing to travel sometimes surprising distances to attend. In the course of perhaps six hours on my feet (from the first gathering moments downtown until I peeled off at 34th street and Broadway and headed for Central Park), I did my best to talk to as many people as possibly in a crowd that, though predominantly white and young, was nothing if not varied.

[Eloriel]

2. Great article. Thanks!

The last line of your 2nd excerpt is a killer:

We lost all those wonderful young men for those rotten lies.

[ima_sinnic]

3. kick

excellent!

[PsychoDad]

4. Great article.

The news is very inspiring :)

[xxqqqzme]

5. a friend sent this 2 me

early this AM. It is a great article.

I just want 2 say that from the left coast ALL od New York looked so beautiful. It did my spirit good 2 see all the people yesterday. It was exciting and awe inspiring.

Thank You New York and all the many others who braved the trip tp march.

[54anickel]

6. I checked into C-SPAN regularly yesterday. Brought tears to my eyes.

When "hubby" came home from work he looked at the TV and first said WTF are you watching, when I told him he sort of choked up, sat and stared at the screen for a bit then let out a huge "ALRIGHT!!! This is GREAT!"

I too am so thankful to all the people that participated in the march.

[Dancer]

10. C-span march coverage was good...

Also, streaming audio from the streets of NYC....plus text headlines:

03:44 PM Police are surrounding protesters at the UN @ Dag Hammarskjold Plaza. Huge #s of cops, about 200+ protesters

03:36 PM Between 42nd and 43rd St , two or three paddywaggons filled with cops heading south on 9th avenue. Number of cops high.

03:04 PM Report from Port Authority of one police car speeding down 9th ave with siren on; cops heard to say "load 'em up" and "it's on" and then exit the building, there are empty paddy wagons sitting further south on 9th ave.



http://nyc.indymedia.org/

[newyawker99]

13. Hi Dancer!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[goodhue]

7. big kick for must read

[Dancing_Dave]

8. War beats economy as top concern

Also from the Asian Times:

"War beats economy as top US concern
By Eli Clifton

WASHINGTON - The war in Iraq and other foreign affairs are more important to voters in the coming presidential election than the economy, marking the first time since the Vietnam War era that US citizens are putting more weight on foreign policy than domestic concerns, according to a poll released on Wednesday."

http://atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/FH21Aa01.html

Kerry better start talking about how he's going to end the war Bush started. He needs to spell out his "exit strategy".

[54anickel]

11. Sounds like a more thoughtful poll than one I recently got called on.

That gave me the choice of what's more important:
Homeland Security in the war on terror
Jobs and the economy
Fixing Social security

Was a rather simplistic poll, probably put out by some simple minded repug.

On this article, it's interesting that 76% of Repugs reject the idea that foreign policy had anything to do with it. Missed their chance to blame it on the Clenis! Oh, that's right it's because they hate us for our freedoms.

snip>

Republicans and Democrats were shown to hold sharply divergent views on foreign policy and the "war on terror". Fifty-one percent of Democrats believed US wrongdoings in dealing with other countries might have motivated the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks while a majority, 76%, of Republicans rejected that notion. Eighty percent of Democrats believed the United States is less respected by other countries than in the past while only 47% of Republicans agreed with that statement.

When asked to rank national priorities, Democrats placed creating and protecting jobs in the United States as their highest priority, followed by combating terrorism and slowing the spread of AIDS. Republicans made fighting terrorism the highest priority, followed by preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction and creating and protecting US jobs.

[AgadorSparticus]

9. wow. what a response from mr. englebrecht!

good stuff!

:kick:

[wildeyed]

12. wonderful article.

Thanks for posting. All those people talking about the issues that they care about, that affect their lives. It seems like the media just (usually) refuses to hear us. They would rather run stories about lies like the swift boats or what kind of bikes Bush and Kerry ride. This article was like a huge breath of fresh air.