Sunday, February 16, 2003

New York March was for Democracy, as well as for Peace Michelle Goldberg’s attempt in Salon to characterize the rally as “mainstream” made me sick.  On a day when perhaps 10 million people throughout the world marched and demonstrated against the Iraq war, Ms. Goldberg is more concerned about the purity of the New York rally.  First, she characterizes it as mostly New Yorkers—which I strongly disagree with, having helped organize thousands upon thousands from Boston, but then, she gets to her real point “It could be that there's a psychological reason so many normal New Yorkers turned out, overwhelming the little knots of Spartacus Leaguers and would-be smashers of the state.”   So this was a “good” rally, because it did not have those evil fringe communist groups in it.   Goldberg misses the whole point.   Communist groups are irrelevant in the fight to restore the ideas of democracy and non-aggression, upon which our country was built.  The deep resonance Michelle doesn’t hear is the emotional attachment many patriotic people in this country have to democracy.   The march was mainstream, but not for the reasons Michelle says.  The reason that United for Justice and Peace has struck such a chord with millions of people, the reason that people from all over the Eastern U.S., not simply New Yorkers turned out for the rally and march, was that we all feel our democracy is under attack, that Bush rather than listening, creates even more divisiveness, and is literally tearing the country apart.   People are expressing themselves through protests because they see an anti-democratic leadership hijacking the country in many ways, big and small.  The idea that the U.S. would launch a war of aggression against a country that is not an immediate threat for the political glorification of the White House is outrageous.  But so are attempts to take public information about contraceptives off government web sites, to deny AIDS funding to overseas medical groups that support abortion, to seek to force the death penalty onto states and prosecutors that that have rejected it, to tell the country to buy duct tape and then bankrupt the government treasury.   The real story in New York, beyond the fact of the largest anti-war rally in a generation, was the city’s stonewalling of the marchers.  America has fumbled the torch of democracy.  Individual citizens rights, for all the screaming of the Freepers, are better protected in Europe and Canada than they are in the U.S.   We saw the spectacle yesterday of millions of people around the globe marching past major landmarks—the Coliseum in Rome, the Place de la Bastille in Paris, through Piccadilly Circus to Hyde Park in London, in Barcelona along the Gran Vía hasta la Plaza Tetuán.    But in New York, marchers who numbered between 200,000 and 400,000 were penned up behind metal barricades, block by block, like detainees or prisoners of war.    Only in New York did the political authorities, backed by the federal government, deny a march permit, instead trying to isolate the crowd on First Ave.   Also in New York, the only reported arrests were made, with the New York Times saying 295 people were arrested.   They were arrested because the shear number of people overwhelmed the police.   Only twice in the past few years has the city ordered a total police mobilization.  First, obviously was September 11th.  The second time was the crash of an American airlines jet in Queens.  The third time was yesterday.  So many attended the anti-war march that police were overwhelmed.   I was in a contingent that first marched north on Lexington Avenue on the sidewalk, when we were told the police had blocked all access to the rally below 55th st.  At 56th st. we turned right, but when we got to Third Avenue, the crowds were so strong the police were overwhelmed.  So we marched—up Third Avenue for half a mile – a glorious, peaceful, noisy, patriotic march.  Police in riot gear occasionally lined the intersections, but they made no move to break up the crowd, because it would have been too dangerous.   Around 66th or 67th, the police set up a barrier moving the entire march one block further east to Second Ave.  From there we marched another half mile or so up to the end of the rally, around 72nd st.  At this point, First Ave. was packed for 20 blocks, from 51st to 71st, and Second and some of Third Ave were full with marchers.    If the police had granted a march permit, we would have seen hundreds of thousands of people marching past the UN, demanding no unilateral war on Iraq.   When various groups of people at different times confronted police over these penned barricades, and at times when the pressure of the crowd to move was too great—this is where some of the arrests happened.   For those pinned around Second Ave below 55th street, police on mounted horses kept charging the crowd, even riding on the sidewalk to try and prevent any movement up the street.  It was a dangerous an unnecessary situation.  It forced the closing of the entire 59th bridge, in both directions.   The Police commissioner in New York has announced an inquiry, and in this case, the anti-democratic actions of the police in denying a permit for a march set up an unnecessary confrontation that only highlights the degree to which we live in a more authoritarian society then we believe.   Michelle Goldberg should learn that the story yesterday was not about the psychological needs of New Yorkers, nor about the presence of the Workers World Party or whatever other splinter group can be found—but it was about millions of people demonstrating around the world, with some of the most restricted and least democratic practices, plus the only arrests, taking place in New York.   7:01:14 PM   comment []

© Copyright 2003 Toby Sackton. Last update: 3/3/2003; 11:24:21 PM.