Protesters arrested during the Republican National Convention will rally in New York tomorrow to protest their treatment by the city. The group Arrestees Fight Back plans to stage the noon rally at Pier 57 where the nearly 2,000 people arrested during the convention were held.
The group is demanding an investigation into the NYPD's tactics over the week as well as the conditions at Pier 57. Many of those released had skin rashes over their body.

The four-day Republican convention in New York was marked by historic protests and acts of dissent on the streets. Nearly half a million protesters marched in the largest demonstration ever at a political convention. Over the course of the week, thousands of people took to the streets, staging hundreds of rallies, direct actions and civil disobedience against the Bush administration. Though the protests were generally calm, arrests exceeded 1,800 for the week, a record for a political convention. 1,200 of those arrests were made in a single day.

Despite the historic protests, much of the country was unaware of what was happening in New York. The corporate media all but ignored the events in the city, reporting solely from inside Madison Square Garden.

Federal Injunction on NYPD at RNC

A federal judge yesterday issued a decision barring police use of four-sided pens to contain protesters at the Republican National Convention in New York City. The ruling also limits police searches of protesters, though it does not restrict the use of metal detectors. Judge Robert Sweet wrote that he aimed to strike a balance that would "encourage free expression in a secure society." The New York Civil Liberties Union brought the suit against the City of New York citing excessive use of force and restrictive crowd control measures at recent mass demonstrations.

Let the numbers battle begin. The first unofficial police estimate of yesterday's mega-march in New York: 120,000. The organizers' estimate: 400,000. The earliest news pieces used the usual vague "tens of thousands" or "more than 100,000," but the Washington Post wrote of "more than 200,000," and the usually march-unresponsive New York Times picked the phrase, "hundreds of thousands." So the choice is yours.

On a boiling hot late August day, on the eve of the Republican Convention, 100,000/200,000/400,000/500,000 upset, angry, anybody-but-Bush marchers (with the odd Green Party or Naderite supporter thrown in), walked up Manhattan's Seventh Avenue, doing for small businesses -- delis, corner groceries, Tasti-Freezes -- what several thousand Republican delegates and the massed imperial media will do only for a few fancy hotels, posh restaurants, and theaters. There was a rush on bottled water, on in fact almost anything drinkable, and at one point when the well-branded Fuji surveillance blimp, stamped with an NYPD [New York Police Department] logo passed overhead, blocking the fierce sun and throwing a shadow on the crowd below, a cheer went up from the massed marchers on their way to nowhere in particular (having been denied a permit to rally in Central Park).

The antiwar, anti-Bush movement, which had disappeared from New York's streets after a final massive but depressed demonstration with the war already underway in April 2003, was back -- and the mood was different indeed. Gone was the carnival atmosphere of early antiwar marches. The hand-made signs were still there, and some of them were still funny or clever ("Kerry dodged bullets, Bush dodged the war, Rove calls the shots" or "Back by popular demand" next to a peace sign), but most of them caught the essence of the moment: They were angry ("Worst President Ever," "Stop Mad Cowboy Disease"), even outraged ("War Monger, War Criminal," "No one died when Clinton lied. F--- Bush," "How many people must die for ‘your mission' to be accomplished" [with the quote marks as drops of blood]). And the single most omnipresent word in all its various forms on people's lips, and on their signs, was "lie" ("lying," "liar") -- "Bush lies, who dies?" "The war on terror is a lie," "Liars, thieves, murderers," "George Bush, 971 Dead… and still lying" -- while Bush (Rumsfeld, Cheney, Ashcroft) photos, masks, and puppets all had noses that would have made Pinocchio blush.
Given the months of intimidation -- the Bush administration Code Orange alert, the endless discussions of possible terrorist acts, the hair-raising statements of Mayor Bloomberg and Governor 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 protestors 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 up 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-mâché 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.

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 protestors 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.

Since articles on demonstrations, whether in the mainstream or the alternate 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 ("Mason's Lodge #163, Bernardsville, 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."
As we're talking, we pass one of a number of homemade signs exhibiting variations on "George Bush, War Criminal." He grabbed my arm and with excitement said, "Exactly. Were Bush and his cabinet tried under the same rules as the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials, they would be condemned to hang. They plotted aggressive warfare, for one thing, and that was a charge at Nuremberg."

" Why did we attack Iraq? Why did we tell all those lies about Iraq? For all that oil in Iraq. Vice President Cheney has stock in Halliburton which has gained at least two times its value due to the billions of dollars awarded to the company with no competitive bidding. He handed it to them on a silver platter!"

He is, he tells me, just three months short of 80 years old, and when I compliment him for his fitness, he responds, "It just depends on how much Scotch you consume."

High School Student: She's wearing an orange tank top and carrying a sign that catches something of the mood of the moment for at least part of this crowd. It reads on one side, "Peacekeeping," and on the other "Kerry-Edwards, They suck less." She's a 17 year-old from Teaneck, New Jersey, part of a group of high-school age friends, one of whom made the sign she's carrying. When I ask if she has similar feelings, she says, "Exactly the same. He's my friend," as if I were a complete idiot. "I am protesting Bush," she tells me, "and I'm for peace." She belongs to Moveon.org and the Teaneck Peace Coalition.

Bank audit manager: Dark-haired and wearing sunglasses, in shorts and a checked shirt, Orlando Torres, 44 years old, is using a small hand-held video camera to take pictures of several flag-covered caskets piled up on a side street, part of a thousand-casket march being organized to honor the American dead in Iraq (www.onethousandcoffins.org). He has, he tells me, just flown in all alone from Puerto Rico to attend the demonstration.

" I hate Bush, that's why. There are so many reasons. First of all I started disliking him when the Supreme Court stole the election for him. If Bush was not president, maybe 9/11 might not have happened. He's just created such hate around the world.

" I was just watching television and debating whether to come or not when I saw Bush one more time and I thought, for my piece of mind, I better come. I don't know whether the demonstration will make any difference though. It depends so much on how the media covers it. I live in Puerto Rico, so I don't vote. But I'm pissed off anyway. I work in a bank as an audit manager. I understand the corruption of Cheney and Halliburton. Most people haven't had economics. They don't know about audits. I do. If it wasn't for the war I wouldn't be here because I don't think I would be that mad. I see the coffins down there in Puerto Rico too. The Republicans are so Christian, so high and mighty with moral values. I don't get it. Where's the heart?"

Marshal: Like Torres, she's flown in for the event. Blond, dressed in black with a black armband of mourning tied around one arm, Joanna Wyndham has flair. She attracts interviewers. She's 55, in public relations, and has arrived from Dallas, Texas -- "Bush's backyard," she tells me mockingly -- to be a marshal for the dramatic march of the 1000 caskets. ("We were gluing them together in Brooklyn for the last week. At the end, we have black caskets to honor the Iraqi dead."):

" I'm so angry and frustrated about this administration's lies and secrets. If the American people could only see the cost of the war, more than two caskets at a time… but all of this has been suppressed. When do you remember our treating our military dead this way? I'm just an outraged citizen -- and by the way, Bush is not a Texan, in case you didn't know.

" If this administration were Democratic, I would be going out of my mind trying to get them out of office. It's not that I'm anti-Republican. I'm anti-George Bush, anti-Dick Cheney, anti-Ashcroft. And do you really think that our presence in Iraq is making us any safer? The transfer of government really needs to be put into effect and we need to leave. But have we ever done that anywhere once we arrived?"

North Dakota for Peace: Michael Page is tall and young -- 22 he tells me -- and his homemade T-shirt says "Support all Troops" on one side and "North Dakota for Peace" on the other. He's going to be a senior at Amherst College this fall and he's driven down from Massachusetts with a group of friends whose T-shirts indicate that they represent California, Tennessee, and Massachusetts. He was originally a Kucinich supporter. We begin talking about the printed up sign he's carrying that calls for the end of the American occupation in Iraq.

" Iraq is the rallying point. And I'm just here to be another number and support the dissenting movement. I know that's very important, but a lot of other things will be in trouble and important too if Bush is reelected. People are making decisions on the sexy but superficial issues of character right now, but I'm here because I care about getting the real issues out.

" I am a Kerry supporter, although like many people I disagree with a number of his positions. I have a lot of problems with his pro-Israel position, for instance, but I feel we may be pleased with what he actually does in the next four years as opposed to what he's saying now. I'd rather have a manipulative Kerry elected than go for someone who supports my views but never gets anywhere. Kerry is a good choice in the end.
" I come from Fargo, North Dakota and the state is basically a farming community which traditionally supports a lot of Republican agricultural policies, but I'm hoping for change. My grandfather, for instance, who has never voted in a presidential election says he's going out to vote against Bush. He's a patriotic man and things like the Abu Ghraib issue embarrassed him."

Puppeteer: He's hoisted an enormous papier-mâché Bush face on a poll and strains under its weight. His name is Greg Kline and he identifies himself as a "programmer for a newspaper." This is his first puppet. It has an enormous tongue (a huge loop of material) that emerges from the mouth covered with the repeated words, "Lies, Fear, Hate."

" I got an image in my head for this. I came down to a few projects I would do to get rid of the darkest administration of my lifetime and this is one of them."

Laura Perry -- "he's my fiancé" -- marches in front of the giant head. She's an "administrative assistant," though for today she's the official "tongue-puller." She lives in upstate New York, but had no hesitation about coming down to fortress Big Apple. "There are certain things you just know are bullshit and you're just going to do what you want to do."

Kids in strollers, a strolling dog, and a son (not in attendance)
It was a measure of this march that children in strollers, a mark of so many prewar marches, were few and far between. There's probably no better barometer of the sense of embattlement, of danger people felt, even when deciding to make the march.

Designer family: Laura Freedman, 40, a blond designer and artist was accompanied by her husband, Gerhard Schlanzky, 52, an exhibition designer wearing a homemade T-shirt that said, "Family values, 3 generations against Bush." Their daughter Anna, 6, sits calmly in her stroller, all of us squeezed against a store window, chatting while the crowd surges past. ("My father's here too," Laura says, accounting for the third generation, "but we lost him in the crowd.")
" Why are we here?" she begins unasked. "Let me count the ways." And she begins to tick them off. She talks in succinct headlines. "No reason for war. Escalating deficit. Tax breaks for the rich. Bad diplomacy."

Gerhard puts in, "But Iraq is emblematic of everything."

Laura: "I find this whole thing very shocking. Another thing I find shocking is Florida. The intimidation of African-American voters. I'm very nervous about the fairness of the election."
As for their daughter, she simply says, "It's important for her to see what's going on. She really, really wanted to stay up to see Kerry's speech. And she was watching so intensely, waving her American flag…"

Gerhard adds: "We have family values and we're not going to be afraid."

They carry their own family designer poster, headlined "Flip W Flop," which offers a listing of various Bush flips and flops (Iraq WMDs, No WMDs; No child left behind, Children left behind; and so on).

Problem solvers: Rasha, 28, is a teacher in Harlem. She's here with her sister, her mother (who reminds us that Rasha first attended a demonstration when she was three years old), her husband, and Jibreel, 2 ½ , in a stroller. "He comes with us to all demonstrations. I grew up at demonstrations. I started early." She points to her mother. "If it weren't for her political activism, I wouldn't have been here and neither would he. I'm against the Convention. The war. Lack of dollars for education. Oppression of people of color. Everything connected to this administration. Not just the war in Iraq but the ongoing war in Palestine-Israel and the wars we've been perpetuating around the world. I'm half Sudanese Muslim and half Jewish, and," she waves at her son, "he's half me and half Puerto Rican. What I'm against, it's the same thing I teach kids in the classroom, the same thing I teach him. We don't solve problems by fighting."

Labradoodle: Abby is light brown, stands on all fours, and sports a sign that says, "Dogs for Peace" on one side, and "I pee on Bushes + Shrubs" on the other. Her owners, Randy and Amy Crafton, perhaps in their 30s, are musicians who own a recording studio. They live in New Jersey with their lab-poodle cross ("They call them labradoodles," Amy tells me.) They get emails from moveon.org, but this is their first protest march -- and, Randy adds, "Abby's first walk in Manhattan." Randy says, "We were finally fed up. Too many bad ideas from this administration, the last of which was holding a convention in New York." Of this demonstration he says proudly: "Something like this is too big for the media to overlook." Amy adds, "Abby says it's all about love."