Whose Streets?
Protesters have successfully made their mark on the 2004 Republican National Convention. Before Bush speaks tomorrow the press has turned their eye to the activities of the masses outside the fortified Madison Square Gardens.
On Sunday, a crowd of over 500,000 greeted the delegates to the Republican convention to NYC. For six hours, the two mile long crowd wound its way past the delegates.
"Four more years," the delegates chanted.
"Four more months," the protesters responded.
Double the number that had been predicted by United for Peace and Justice, the group that organized the march, the event forced its way into the news cycle as the week began.
Many held out hope that the protests would continue through the week drawing attention to dissent in New York City as speakers inside attempted to claim the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, for their own political gain.
Showing that they would have none of it, protesters have regrouped and momentum appears to be growing.
Protests flared up all day Monday and on Tuesday police arrested almost 1,000 people as they marched on the Convention. The arrests brought the convention total to 1,460.
Today, thousands of demonstrators stood silently on the sidewalk in a column that stretched for miles to protest the the high rate of joblessness in the Bush economy. The "unemployment" line was organized by People for the American Way to daw attention to the administration's new rules covering overtime pay.
According to non-partisan estimates, the revision of the rules will shut out over 2 million people who currently receive overtime pay.
Later in the day, ten AIDS activists rose from amid the ranks of Republican youths on the floor of the convention, blew whistles and chanted "Bush kills!" as the White House chief of staff, Andrew Card, spoke.
No wonder Bush might not even stay overnight in New York this week. Good thing he's not a girlie man...
1 Comments
Leave a comment
Who is this guy?
Do you worry that the democratic party will be painted as too extreme by being linked with more radical protestors? (i.e. the man who approached me at rally prior to the iraqi war, asking me to pledge support for the "righteous defense of the iraqi homeland")