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08.30.04: New York City -- Well, today was the big day -- the UFPJ March that's been in the papers for months. No clear crowd estimates as of yet (though the NY Times is saying "Hundreds of Thousands," and you can stay tuned to nyc.indymedia.org for up-to-the -minute updates). Meanwhile, I'm plagued by fatigue and my eyes are burning. Thankfully, they're not burning because of pepper spray, or even from staring at a computer screen for too long, but because I sweated white pancake makeup into them all day. Today I was a member of CIRCA, the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army. Links to photos will come tomorrow, (though if the presence of the media was any indication, you may have seen us already). In short, we were clowns in flight suits like the kind George W. Bush wore on that aircraft carrier, with the words "Mission Accomplicated' spray-painted on the back. We had a number of clown-soldier routines that were, if I may be so bold, pretty damn funny.
Most of the rest of the day we spent walking along 6th Avenue, a block away from the parade route, entertaining the ample spillover from the march with our Dubya schtick. Occasionally we would wander over to 7th Avenue and entertain the actual marchers, but the street was so packed that we couldn't even get in. When the occasional police officer would tell us to move (or even look at us wrong, really), we would yell CODE ORANGE! and run away in a clown panic. At one point we ran into the truly creepy weirdos of Freerepublic.com -- an attempt at rightwing protest irony in the spirit of Billionaires for Bush except that nothing they say makes one bit of sense to someone who hasn't listened to hours of like Sean Hannity or somebody and, um, they're NOT FUCKING FUNNY. Like AT ALL. We wanted to make our way to Madison Square Garden and try to get in -- we had realistic-looking, laminated GOP badges (only these said we were the "Big Top Delegation" attending the "Republican National Clown Convention"), so we were going to try and get in. Plus we heard all of the cable news networks (including Fox, heh heh) were airing live coverage (rumor had it C-Span was even airing the curse words protesters were shouting at the Fox reporters). Nothing doing, however. The paraders from 34th Street were marching AWAY from the Garden, and the cops had the place more or less locked down. Our schtick of abject clown panic seemed to defuse tension with them, however, though at least one officer who was trying to be nice seemed baffled and a little hurt when we yelped and ran away in response to his polite request. After a brief stopover in a McDonalds (looking, alternately, for WMDs and Ronald McDonald), we got on the subway and made our way to Central Park. Central
Park! We
made it to the Great Lawn, as did many hundreds (thousands?) or But the City had managed to splinter the protest -- I left not long after almost being married to a George W. Bush doll by Reverend Billy, so I don't know the final count -- but I suspect that a large number of people stayed in Union Square, the sanctioned protest destination, or just went home. Besides some strange Libertarian Ayn Rand-head types chanting stuff like "drop taxes not bombs" and "Bloomberg sucks", it was like a typical Sunday in Central Park but with lots of Anti-Bush t-shirts. When we decided to do one last CIRCA act we were mobbed by more media than I've ever seen assembled in all my years of protesting, I imagine because the reporters were hot and bored and FINALLY something was happening. When in the Park we contemplated whether or not to join the Mouse Bloc, who were hoping to annoy delegates coming out of matinees of crappy Broadway shows, but word was that anyone even trying to walk into Times Square who didn't look like they were shopping or taking a bus or something was getting arrested. We also heard about the burning green dragon puppet on 7th Avenue, probably all over the news by now. From what we heard, about 100 people were arrested because of it, some of them pepper-sprayed. Great way to handle a fire! Incapacitate the people in harm's way! The fire was quickly extinguished, according to the Times, but anarchists will likely be blamed. I don't know who set the thing on fire, but considering that the anarchists (or whoever had it -- the Greene Dragon Collective, maybe?) probably spent weeks making it and presumably didn't want to carry a big thing that was on fire, I wouldn't be surprised if it was agents provocateur (yes, it does happen, often, and no, other than the fact that they're law enforcement of some kind, I don't know who they are), or even those creepy Freerepublic people. At one point a poster on their website suggested firing on us with live ammo ... the second amendment vs. the first! For the tech-savvy among you, a forward from Ricardo Dominguez of the Electronic Disturbance Theater: Upload_Protest: A Netomatic Action By Ricardo Dominguez, Diane Ludin and Ang Eng enter here to participate using your camera phone, SMS enabled phone or on the web read instructions - <<>>> DONT FORGET TO JOIN THE VR SIT-IN (Just Leave it on when you leave) <<>>SEE U IN THE STREETS<<<>>> 08.29.04: New York City -- Well, between some emails I've received (including one from our own Brook Stowe) and the NY Times, I realized that I spoke too soon about last night's Critical Mass ride. About 100 people (of an estimated 5,000 riders!) were arrested last night. More info is available below, in a report from rider Jym Dyer. Today was, among other things, the March for Women's Lives, from Cadman Plaza over the Brooklyn Bridge, to City Hall Park. I saw a number of familiar theater people and activists there, as well as Brooklyn's own Boro President, Marty Markowitz, who stood on the end of the Brooklyn Bridge shouting his support to passers-by. I yelled "no stadium" back at him, but he either didn't hear me or he ignored me. He is an irresistibly endearing round little man, though, even though I'm pissed at the idea of Nets games two blocks away from my house. Not to mention my neighbors, who are pretty pissed about Nets games on TOP of their houses. but I digress. The event was something of a triumph -- the last crowd estimate I heard was 25,000, the largest pro-choice march in NY history. Pro-choice marches tend to be mainstream, family-style events (in NY, anyway). Which is reassuring. But that led to some interesting overheard discussions, as countless marchers paused to take photos with or make smalltalk with police officers. In an ice cream parlor, I overheard one conversation in which a fortysomething woman asked a cop about arrestees (probably last night's Critical Mass riders). The officer explained that they would probably be held for the duration of the convention because they were "agitators" (what is this, 1916?) who were likely to incite violence against cops, etc. He then went on to describe the ways in which the police had infiltrated the internet message boards we "agitators" frequent, and said that he had nothing against peaceful protesters, but that these guys were "bad people" -- they (we) plotted to "block traffic," among other crimes against humanity. As I am both vain and a pedant, I had to resist the urge to introduce myself to the officer -- one, because I wanted to know if he had read my name on one of these boards, and two, because I wanted to correct some of the glaring inaccuracies in his weird rap. Now, while some of my anarchist friends might get mad at me for saying this, I really don't think this cop was a bad guy. It seemed as if he honestly believed what he was saying, though it was near-complete bullshit. Like all well-crafted propaganda, it contained a germ of truth -- agitators do plot to break laws on internet message boards. I should know, I'm one of them. But I challenge him or anyone to find an anarchist website where anyone proposes harming a cop. There may be vague poses promising "resistance" against police violence, but no James Bond-like plots to use marbles or motor oil against them. The lawbreaking on these boards tends to be strictly that of the Gandhi and MLK variety -- that is, civil disobedience. The truly distressing thing about all this is that John Timoney, the lying thug who disrupted protests against the 2000 GOP Convention in Philly and the 2003 FTAA Summit in Miami, is not only lying to the public and the press, he's lying to the rank-and-file police officers -- armed, frightened police officers, who are sitting in the hot sun all day. And what's more, the nice, mainstream Park Slope moms marching for choice get this whole party line, and when they see some dreadlocked environmentalist getting roughed-up in the paper, on some level the outrage they would ordinarily feel is going to be blocked by the idea that, well, these were agitators, and while their politics might be spot-on, their tactics left them vulnerable to this. Maybe I'm underestimating the Park Slope moms here, but the cop in the ice cream parlor seemed awfully convincing -- if I wasn't an agitator I probably would have believed him. Below, a forward and a link to a Critical Mass Newswire by Jym Dyer.
Also, I put links to many A27 Critical Mass news reports (corporate and otherwise) here. One of the Daily News stories quotes a P.R. flack for the NYPD as saying, "I personally witnessed several ambulances that couldn't get through. They had their lights and sirens on." I saw the exact opposite. As has always happened in every Critical Mass I've ever been on, we parted like the Red Sea for every emergency vehicle -- and at one point we corked for an emergency vehicle. We were out of the way much faster than, say, a streetful of cars would be. This is not a very new story, either. The Portland, OR police made this claim and were successfully sued and forced to retract the statement. The Boulder, CO police made this claim and were proven wrong by a city councilmember (who was riding). The San Francisco, CA police tried to create this situation by running a fire truck through the July 1997 Mass, but that project was aborted (we discovered this by subpoenaing the police logs). <_Jym_> 08.28.04: New York City -- No Critical Mass for me tonight (I don't own a bike), but it looks like they found a place for their after-party (see below), and I haven't gotten any panicky email alerts about police violence or mass arrests, so no news is good news. Anyone reading this has probably seen pictures of the mad, heroic, and incredibly media-savvy ACT UP action already, but here's some more shots. Also
there are pictures of the almost-as-well-publicized Mayor Bloomberg, in another of his famously content-free bromides, commented that "If somebody wants to break the law, they're going to find that the NYPD is going to enforce the law." Gee, thanks, Mr. Clueless Billionaire Asshole, but I thought the law they broke was the one that says don't hang things off the Plaza, not the one that says don't assault police officers. A brief table of comments for the email forwards that follow:
JOIN US AT MADISON SQ. PARK ON SUNDAY AT NOON From the Big Top Delegation to the RNCC (Republican National Clown Convention): We, the clowns, jesters and tricksters of the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army (CIRCA), are delighted to host the Republican National Clown Convention (RNCC) in our fair city of New York. We are so gratified that the Religious Right has brought their grand circus to our humble town, and we are eager to attend! We are particularly inspired by the Head Clown, DUBYA, a fool of globe-crushing power. DUBYA is a truly talented trickster; transforming his ruling-class-wastrel life story into a faux-farmer media persona; creating false WMDs and conjuring fake connections to Al Qaeda to justify the invasion of Iraq; doling out a plastic turkey to the suffering troops there for the news cameras; giving speeches before false backdrops of "MADE IN USA" boxes to herald the "comeback" of the economy he has despoiled for his inner circle's gain. And now he and his circus come to co-opt the memory of 9/11 and turn our city's trauma into their triumphalism. He's extremely funny, though we think he may be taking his tragic joke too far. The key moment for CIRCA was his fabulous flight suit appearance on the aircraft carrier, where he angled the cameras so the nearby shoreline could not be seen, where he converted his draft-dodging into pseudo-heroism, where he took the debacle of an unnecessary war and occupation and summed it up with "Mission Accomplished." What a fantastic clown! Bravo! Encore! Two Thumbs Up!!! We laughed, we cried, we continued to count the dead. CIRCA wishes to express its admiration for the horrific hijinx of Dubya the Uber-Clown by dressing in flight suits and strutting our thumbs-up stuff on the streets of Manhattan. We will imitate our hero by playing soldier, and playing golf, while Rome burns. If we also pretend to indulge in his narcotic pastimes of times past, it is only in flattering imitation of our Great Leader. Our credentials are clear. Our hearts are open. Our flight-suit crotches are bulging. We are here to attend the Convention and lovingly declare: MISSION ACCOMPLICATED! In the name of global red-nosed resistance, Colonel
Oftruth IMPORTANT LOGISTICAL INFORMATION FOR SUNDAY, AUG. 29 *** BE SURE TO BRING A RADIO: Tune to WBAI 99.5FM, which will be broadcasting live from the protest all day, for important updates and information. This will be the single best way to stay informed about developments throughout the day. *** Information Included in this Message: 1. Location,
Route, and Schedule We are expecting a massive turnout for our "World Says No to the Bush Agenda" march this Sunday, August 29. A poll released yesterday suggests that as many as 1 in 10 registered voters in New York may be joining us in the streets ... not to mention the huge numbers of people coming from throughout the region and across the country. To help the day go smoothly, please read through all of the logistical information below. Forward this email to any and all appropriate email lists, and to anyone you know who might be attending our protest. Together, we will upstage the Republican Convention with a powerful message of peace and justice, saying NO in one voice to the war, greed, hate, and lies at the core of the Bush Administration's policies. 1. LOCATION, ROUTE, AND SCHEDULE ASSEMBLE beginning at 10:00AM between 15th and 22nd Streets, stretching from 5th to 9th Avenues (view map). It will be easiest to enter the area from either 5th Avenue or 9th Avenue. Please note: You will NOT be able to enter the assembly area from the north. If you are coming from Penn Station, Port Authority Bus Terminal, or any other place north of 14th Street, take any subway line to 14th Street and join the assembly area from there. The MARCH will proceed up Seventh Avenue past Madison Square Garden. We will turn right on 34th Street, follow it east to Fifth Avenue, march down Fifth Avenue to 23rd Street, then take Broadway down to Union Square, where the march will end. THERE WILL BE NO RALLY. We will have MOMENT OF SILENCE at 1:00PM in honor of all who have died as a result of the Bush Administration's policies. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, we ask you to participate in this moment of silence. Your cooperation in dispersing the march once we reach Union Square is critically important. The area is far too small to accommodate even a fraction of the crowd we expect, and we need your help in moving people out of the area quickly, so that the march will not become stalled. We want to make sure everyone is able to march past Madison Square Garden and people quickly leaving once we arrive at Union Square will help make that possible. 2. WHAT TO BRING ***A RADIO: Tune to WBAI 99.5FM, which will be broadcasting live from the protest all day, for important updates and information. This will be the single best way to stay informed about developments throughout the day.*** WATER AND SUN PROTECTION: Carry a bottle of water with you, and protect yourself from the sun with sunscreen and a wide-brimmed hat. SNACKS: Although there are shops near the assembly area and along the march route, it can sometimes be difficult to find them and move in and out of the stream of people. BANNERS AND SIGNS: We will have thousands of posters available in the assembly area to promote the key messages of the march, but we strongly encourage you to bring your own signs and banners, identifying the community or constituency you represent and/or expressing your reasons for opposing the Bush Agenda. After the march, we encourage you to hang a sign in your window, especially if you live in New York City, and keep it up for the duration of the Republican Convention. Note: NYPD regulations prohibit the use of wooden or metal sticks to hold up signs; use cardboard tubes instead. DRUMS AND OTHER NOISEMAKERS: To help make this march a spirited, energizing, and powerful event, bring drums, tambourines, and other noisemakers. Improvise - pots, pans, and plastic tubs all make great percussion instruments. LEGAL INFORMATION: Our August 29 protest is a peaceful, legal, permitted march and we do not expect any problems, but in the interest of preparedness, observers from the National Lawyers Guild NYC Chapter will be on hand. If you have concerns or see an arrest, look for their volunteers in bright green hats, or call their hotline at 212-679-6018. Visit our website for more detailed legal information, and to download a "Know Your Rights" brochure. A CELL PHONE, if you have one, or QUARTERS FOR PAY PHONE CALLS. There will be a huge crowd, and the logistics will be complex. Don't get lost from the friends, family or group you want to protest with. Be sure that you have cell phone numbers for others in your group so that you can reestablish communication if you are separated. Program the National Lawyers Guild legal contact number into your phone -- 212-679-6018 -- and call it if you see any arrests happen. A BACKPACK OR TOTE BAG to carry everything in during the protest. Blanket searches of bags at demonstrations are generally impermissible. However, during the Convention the police may seek to do blanket searches in response to an actual or alleged threat to public safety. You may want to keep this possibility in mind as you pack. 3. TRANSPORTATION AND PARKING If you are DRIVING to the protest, we strongly advise you to park at a transfer point and use public mass transit to reach the assembly area; parking and traffic in Manhattan will be challenging at best. Visit here for a list of parking locations, and directions from them to the protest. If you are taking AMTRAK to New York City, please be advised of a new policy in place from August 28 to September 2, because of the Republican Convention: You MUST reserve your ticket in advance. Visit Amtrak for details. Visit here for a list of BUSES you can take to the protest, and for the link to the mobilization ride board, where you can find a ride in a private vehicle. Once you are in New York City, the best way to reach our assembly area, and to disperse afterwards, is the NYC SUBWAY. For detailed subway directions to the protest, visit here. For additional transportation information, visit our website. 4. WHAT ABOUT CENTRAL PARK? We all know that large numbers of people are planning to go to Central Park's Great Lawn on Sunday, despite - or because of - the court's ruling that we may not hold a rally there. United for Peace and Justice emphatically supports the right of people to peacefully assemble in Central Park. We are committed to having a safe, legal protest march, that anyone and everyone can attend - kids, seniors, immigrants, people with disabilities. We therefore are NOT leading our march to Central Park, and we ask everyone who plans to participate in our march to respect our desire for a safe and legal event, and not to organize breakaway marches from it to the Park. To those who wish both to march with us and to assert their right to assemble in Central Park on Sunday, we ask that you follow our march to the end, disperse peacefully at Union Square, and then make your own way to the Great Lawn. (To reach the Great Lawn from Union Square, walk west along 14th Street. Catch the B or D train at Sixth Avenue to 81st or 86th Street, and then walk east into the park. Or, take the 4/5/6 from Union Square to 86th Street and walk west to, and then into, the park.) 5. OTHER RNC PROTEST EVENTS The array of events that have been planned to "welcome" the Republicans to New York City is truly amazing. From the Imagine Festival of arts and culture to a day of nonviolent direct action; from a peace march from Long Island to NYC to a Women Against War concert at the Riverside Church; from the Still We Rise march and rally to a Books Not Bombs youth convergence to a symbolic unemployment line -- there are hundreds of events planned before, during and after the Republican National Convention. They need your participation. Other great websites are Counter Convention and RNCNotWelcome. MILLENNIUM'S NEIGHBORHOOD, ST. MARKS 2nd Ave at 10th Street, providing sanctuary and celebration during the Republican National Convention presents... REVEREND
BILLY The GOD-THAT-IS-NOT-A-PRODUCT will come into our souls with the help of that carrier of the mysteries, the single sentence that promises us the five freedoms: The First Amendment. As the Choir sings GEORGE BUSH DOES NOT RETURN TO GROUND ZERO we shall prepare for our nonviolent dramatic civil disobedience on Sunday. Our cameo Saint is Ricardo Dominguez of the Critical Art Ensemble. The gospel and samba Choir is hotter than summer. The Holy Writ is Louis Brandeis' defense of the First Amendment: "Those who fought for our independence knew liberty to be the secret of happiness, and courage to be the secret of liberty." Amen... 3 FIGHT
NIGHT! After the Sunday of marching, sit back and enjoy a great night of PROTEST JOKES, ANARCHY TEARS AND RESISTANCE ART at St. Mark's in the Bowery, singing starts at 7 PM. Artists include Carl Hancock Rux, Akim Funk Buddha, Laronz Murray, the Luminescent Orchestra, MC Enemy, plus Jeanine Otis and the St. Mark's Singers. MC'd by Rev. Billy and Frank Morales. WE WILL HONOR 3 FIGHTS: The street vendors at Madison Square Garden; the Save Downtown Brooklyn citizens; and the Wobblies teamed with the baristas of the 36th and Mad Ave Starbucks. More details on these events, and Rev Billy's Marriage Mob, Sunday 1pm on the Great Lawn of Central Park, available here. *** Hi all I have spent the last six months organizing this unemployment line -- it will only take 30 minutes of your time and is a great way to send a message to the politicians -- I am organizing a group of people to stand on the Line together -- Please let me know if you would like to join us by replying to me directly. Thanks,
Dear NYC-area supporters, Since 2001, there are 1.2 million fewer jobs for American workers - the greatest sustained job loss since the Great Depression! And yet the president continues to campaign with the slogan that "we've turned a corner" in this economy. We, and the 8.2 million currently unemployed Americans, disagree. So, on September 1st, we will stand in line -- from the corner of Broadway and Wall Street all the way up Broadway to the Republican National Convention at Madison Square Garden -- to form the World's Longest Unemployment Line. Join People for The American Way; the Imagine Festival of Arts, Issues, and Ideas; and the AFL-CIO and get your place in line. 5,000 participants, all holding pink slips, will line the streets of New York and draw national attention to the disastrous effects of the current administration's economic policies. Please join us for this peaceful and highly visual action! It will only take 30 minutes -- we will assemble at 8AM and be done by 8:30. It's quick! It's powerful! Join us to send a loud, clear message to this administration and the country! Thank you and see you in New York! Kristin
Marting Please forward far and wide! A big fat thank you to Frank Morales who has graciously offered to host the Critical Mass after party at the St.Mark's Church! A bigger, fatter, thank you to the band Outer National, who pushed and didn't give up and made the initial contact with Frank! The party will in the outdoor area of St.Mark's until the Immigrant Rights event finishes around 10:30pm. After that we can move inside. There are many delis/shops where folks can buy drinks/beer. There just isn't enough time to organize beer etc. at this point. It's going to be an amazing ride! Ludmila 08.27.04: New York City -- The repression has begun. Like in Philadelphia in 2000, the GOPCon is being used as an attempt to harass and intimidate protesters. Today's Daily News featured a front-page story about dangerous anarchists. They do exist, the anarchists, but they're far from dangerous -- the NYPD spokespeople are, not surprisingly, full of shit. The frightening part of this is that it's not only non-activist New Yorkers who are being sold this malarkey, but rank-and-file cops themselves who, post-9/11 and pumped full of paranoiac nonsense about a bunch of, um, hippies with puppets, are likely to be jumpy and on hair-trigger alert. Great. Meanwhile the cops and the Coast Guard paid a visit to some friends of Critical Mass, the monthly bike ride that winds its way through Manhattan (among other cities) once a month to calm traffic. The Critical Mass riders may be many things, but they're sure as hell not dangerous -- at least not compared to, oh, a cabal of rightwing lunatic morons who decide it would be a good idea to spend some $144 billion invading a country that never really did anything to us. Anyway, Critical Mass' message follows: An important message from TIME'S UP! to our community What:
Critical Mass Take a look at this scan of a letter from the NYPD. All threats, intimidation tactics and harassment, however, will not keep us from going forward with this amazing community ritual! We have worked hard to build this dynamic community and to advocate for the rights of those that use alternative modes of transportation! We have worked hard to reclaim our rights to public space in our city of New York! Tell all your friends. Bring family, neighbors, lovers and strangers. Bring noisemakers, musical instruments, face-paint, flowers, and your energy and joy. Bring things to juggle and to share and also your conviction that we have a right to converge and ride throughout this glorious city. Bring video cameras. *
We will not be intimidated! Let's make this the biggest, loudest, most joyful Critical Mass ever! We are not afraid! We are powerful and energized! We live and visit here because New York is a place we love! We will not let them create a culture of fear and intimidation! *** LET'S RIDE! *** Jason Grote is a playwright whose work has been presented at Soho Rep, The Flea, The American Living Room @ HERE, The Ohio, The Makor, and Chashama, and is widely anthologized, including in the BACK STAGE BOOK OF NEW AMERICAN SHORT PLAYS 2004. He is currently writing a site-specific play for Sanctuary Theatre and is co-chair of the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab.
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