United for Peace and Justice
Today’s protestors are mature, artful and productive
Utne.com
NEW YORK — Crazed hooligans breaking windows, overturning cars and uprooting fire hydrants … Anarchists from the heartland bombing media vans … Street protestors harboring terrorists in their midst, threatening to unravel civil society!
These are scenes the Republican Party would love you to see on Fox News, heightening your state of panic and making you fear the throngs of youth who have taken to the streets like wild dogs this convention season.
But the United for Peace & Justice Coalition’s enormous march in Manhattan yesterday that kicked off the icy reception the Republican Party will receive at its convention in New York this week did little to feed the conservatives’ fire. Instead, hundreds of thousands of well-organized and peaceful activists stuck largely to their game plan as they left Union Square at noon, filed down 7th Avenue, and bypassed Madison Square Garden where the incumbents will re-nominate George W. Bush as the leader of the free world on Thursday, before returning to Union Square.
An organized, and potentially volatile sequel to the demonstrations never materialized in Central Park after the city denied protestors’ the use of the Great Lawn. By 6 p.m. New York’s famed urban park enjoyed the tranquility of a typical Sunday afternoon in the Big Apple. However, police did make dozens of arrests in a sudden and controversial sting operation in Times Square in the hours following the United for Peace & Justice march through lower Manhattan.
The march, itself, featured witty placards, emotional voices and sheer strength in numbers. Poignant and humorous signs included, “Bush did what Osama could not. He united the world against us” … “Dick Cheney before Cheney dicks you.” … “Draft the Bush twins” … “Would Jesus strike ‘preemptively?’ NO!” … “Republicans cause cancer” … “Halliburton Über Alles” … “Stop Mad Cowboy Disease” … “My Bush smells like shit,” hung above a Whole Foods Market … “Emissions Accomplished” with smokestack spewing out toxins … “We will NOT be silenced!” with a picture of the Statue of Liberty with a bag over her head and her arms tied, reminiscent of Abu Ghraib … a picture of Bush, saying, “I resign, or is it resume?” … even a sign proclaiming, “Partying on a Graveyard” with a martini drinking, top hat-wearing Republican elephant dancing on Ground Zero wreckage.
But acts of creative street theater stole the show, with creative expressions suggesting that America’s activist movement may have come of age.
Running helter-skelter down side streets perpendicular to the protest thoroughfare, the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army played a virtual game of freeze tag with journalists and photographers before suddenly retreating in chaotic fashion. They wore dirty green army fatigues, fake passes identifying them as Republican delegates to the convention and ridiculous clown paint on their faces.
“Our hero, Dubya, is in town for the Republican National Clown Convention, so we’ve got our credentials,” said Larry, a leader of the Clown Army. “We’re the Big Top delegation, from right between Kansas and Missouri. We’re ready. We’re just as big clowns as they are.”
Suddenly Larry moved out of character. “We’re trying to find different ways to express dissent in the public space, with satire and with irony. We’re trying to move in ways that are different and create a subculture, because I think it’s important to create a culture instead of just consuming it.”
On 34th Street after the march had passed Madison Square Garden, members of the Bond Street Theatre troupe appeared walking high on stilts, adorned in classy business suits and smoking huge cigars. Only the plastic snouts on their faces gave away their identities as greedy politicians.
Anti-Bush protestors and religious-right counter activists, alike, couldn’t help but laugh at their hilarious antics as Michael McGuigan revealed his cigar to be plastic and made in China. “What we’re aiming for is a strong visual impact, which is something that everyone can relate to right away,” said Joanna Sherman, artistic director of Bond Street Theatre. “If people are given a visual spectacle, they will latch onto it, unlike just words on paper,” echoed Megan Grey.
“The element of humor is a distinctly human thing and it helps you see things from another angle,” McGuigan summed it all up. “That sense of humor and ability to be creative is a way to solve the biggest problems in the world. We got a lot of problems, and no one is solving them very creatively.”
The activist parade route also featured its share of challenges for the protesters. But holding it all together was the cool and collected presence of Robert Baum. The United for Peace & Justice volunteer steered activists through the gauntlet, trying to keep them focused as they passed an epic string of hurdles when forced to turn onto 34th Street and head back to Union Square. Confronting an enormous police presence at Madison Square Garden, walking under a nerve-racking billboard of the hated, right-wing Fox News cable station and an intimidating “In God and Pres. Bush We Can Trust” placard held by several loud and boisterous “bible-thumping” activists threatened to derail what organizers had worked so hard for. But Baum encouraged nearly every one of the hundreds of thousands of protestors to ignore the right-wingers on 34th Street.
“It’s important that everybody understands that activists also do crowd control,” he said while coaxing several demonstrators yelling “Shame, shame!” at the top of their lungs to move on. “We’re concerned about safety and about getting our message out but also staying focused because what the person behind me is uttering is complete nonsense. If people were to bum rush this guy, that creates a situation, and it doesn’t accomplish anything.”
Utne.com
NEW YORK — Crazed hooligans breaking windows, overturning cars and uprooting fire hydrants … Anarchists from the heartland bombing media vans … Street protestors harboring terrorists in their midst, threatening to unravel civil society!
These are scenes the Republican Party would love you to see on Fox News, heightening your state of panic and making you fear the throngs of youth who have taken to the streets like wild dogs this convention season.
But the United for Peace & Justice Coalition’s enormous march in Manhattan yesterday that kicked off the icy reception the Republican Party will receive at its convention in New York this week did little to feed the conservatives’ fire. Instead, hundreds of thousands of well-organized and peaceful activists stuck largely to their game plan as they left Union Square at noon, filed down 7th Avenue, and bypassed Madison Square Garden where the incumbents will re-nominate George W. Bush as the leader of the free world on Thursday, before returning to Union Square.
An organized, and potentially volatile sequel to the demonstrations never materialized in Central Park after the city denied protestors’ the use of the Great Lawn. By 6 p.m. New York’s famed urban park enjoyed the tranquility of a typical Sunday afternoon in the Big Apple. However, police did make dozens of arrests in a sudden and controversial sting operation in Times Square in the hours following the United for Peace & Justice march through lower Manhattan.
The march, itself, featured witty placards, emotional voices and sheer strength in numbers. Poignant and humorous signs included, “Bush did what Osama could not. He united the world against us” … “Dick Cheney before Cheney dicks you.” … “Draft the Bush twins” … “Would Jesus strike ‘preemptively?’ NO!” … “Republicans cause cancer” … “Halliburton Über Alles” … “Stop Mad Cowboy Disease” … “My Bush smells like shit,” hung above a Whole Foods Market … “Emissions Accomplished” with smokestack spewing out toxins … “We will NOT be silenced!” with a picture of the Statue of Liberty with a bag over her head and her arms tied, reminiscent of Abu Ghraib … a picture of Bush, saying, “I resign, or is it resume?” … even a sign proclaiming, “Partying on a Graveyard” with a martini drinking, top hat-wearing Republican elephant dancing on Ground Zero wreckage.
But acts of creative street theater stole the show, with creative expressions suggesting that America’s activist movement may have come of age.
Running helter-skelter down side streets perpendicular to the protest thoroughfare, the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army played a virtual game of freeze tag with journalists and photographers before suddenly retreating in chaotic fashion. They wore dirty green army fatigues, fake passes identifying them as Republican delegates to the convention and ridiculous clown paint on their faces.
“Our hero, Dubya, is in town for the Republican National Clown Convention, so we’ve got our credentials,” said Larry, a leader of the Clown Army. “We’re the Big Top delegation, from right between Kansas and Missouri. We’re ready. We’re just as big clowns as they are.”
Suddenly Larry moved out of character. “We’re trying to find different ways to express dissent in the public space, with satire and with irony. We’re trying to move in ways that are different and create a subculture, because I think it’s important to create a culture instead of just consuming it.”
On 34th Street after the march had passed Madison Square Garden, members of the Bond Street Theatre troupe appeared walking high on stilts, adorned in classy business suits and smoking huge cigars. Only the plastic snouts on their faces gave away their identities as greedy politicians.
Anti-Bush protestors and religious-right counter activists, alike, couldn’t help but laugh at their hilarious antics as Michael McGuigan revealed his cigar to be plastic and made in China. “What we’re aiming for is a strong visual impact, which is something that everyone can relate to right away,” said Joanna Sherman, artistic director of Bond Street Theatre. “If people are given a visual spectacle, they will latch onto it, unlike just words on paper,” echoed Megan Grey.
“The element of humor is a distinctly human thing and it helps you see things from another angle,” McGuigan summed it all up. “That sense of humor and ability to be creative is a way to solve the biggest problems in the world. We got a lot of problems, and no one is solving them very creatively.”
The activist parade route also featured its share of challenges for the protesters. But holding it all together was the cool and collected presence of Robert Baum. The United for Peace & Justice volunteer steered activists through the gauntlet, trying to keep them focused as they passed an epic string of hurdles when forced to turn onto 34th Street and head back to Union Square. Confronting an enormous police presence at Madison Square Garden, walking under a nerve-racking billboard of the hated, right-wing Fox News cable station and an intimidating “In God and Pres. Bush We Can Trust” placard held by several loud and boisterous “bible-thumping” activists threatened to derail what organizers had worked so hard for. But Baum encouraged nearly every one of the hundreds of thousands of protestors to ignore the right-wingers on 34th Street.
“It’s important that everybody understands that activists also do crowd control,” he said while coaxing several demonstrators yelling “Shame, shame!” at the top of their lungs to move on. “We’re concerned about safety and about getting our message out but also staying focused because what the person behind me is uttering is complete nonsense. If people were to bum rush this guy, that creates a situation, and it doesn’t accomplish anything.”
posted by Jacob Wheeler at
4:00 PM
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