VenusZine.com RNC Protest article
Proesting the Republican National Convention
The election's over, but the protest's message of discontent still resonates. What the event was like through the eyes of one alt-media advocate.
by Mia Park
The United for Peace and Justice march against the Republican National Convention on August 29, 2004 warmed my heart. It was a historic event that was both empowering and energetic. My friend Joslyn Housley and I met with Chicago's Human Television Network (HTN), an alternative media activist group, the morning of the march in New York City. Joslyn, a Chicago actor living in New York, had never publicly protested before. But like the rest of us there, she was overwhelmingly compelled to voice her strong discontent of the president and government.
The Human Television Network is a group of folks who transmit alternative media into the mainstream in unique ways, such as mounting televisions on bicycles with built in audio/visual components. Throughout the march, various programs were broadcasted across the screens like “Outfoxed” and “Uncovered: The Truth About the Iraq War” so that both protestors and onlookers could watch.
Bicycles with TVs powered by battery packs broadcasting alternative media?! Rock on! As hostess of Chic A Go Go! (an underground children's music show on Cable Access Network), I understand the importance of independent media. Media should be freed from the constraints of corporate sponsorship and censorship in order to facilitate both popular and dissident expression, to promote honest discourse that should lead to social growth.
According to HTN organizer Mark Messing, protests nowadays are not just about people marching, but are more like a convention — with people sharing information and trading ideas. He even mentions the possibility of organizing a mini-film festival at protests where people can show their own work. I joined HTN to be a part of this unique and creative mode of expression that only they could create.
Members of HTN organized in only a few weeks what should have taken months to execute. They completed building the bikes, gathered and formatted media content to broadcast on the TVs, rented vans, threw a fundraiser at the Handlebar and researched our rights (should we have gotten arrested). Six friends drove rented vans from Chicago straight to NYC's largest Critical Mass bike ride the Friday before the march.
On the morning of the RNC march, some members rode and ran onto the streets of New York around 11 am. Other friends from New York completed our colorful congregation of uniformed protesters in red and black T-shirts and circus-looking outfits riding bicycles with televisions on them. What a sight! Two or three of us jogged alongside the bikes to keep up with the group and also to spot the riders on “Big Boy,” my favorite HTM bike.
Big Boy is the tallest at 8 feet high and has a small shelf built in her to support a TV set. Without a TV for the march, Big Boy and her shelf provided an excellent seat for those of us who climbed her during the protest. Standing on top of an 8-foot-tall moving bicycle in a sea of 500,000 protesters was totally exhilarating, to say the least. It was the best view of the march and the best place to start loud, contagious chants. And making Big Boy go was the job of whichever steady pedaler was behind the handlebar. A bicycle meant for two, indeed!
Traffic wasn't heavy as we headed north into midtown Manhattan and protest territory. Needless to say, Big Boy was the center of attention everywhere we went and it was great fun watching the reactions — especially those from non-protesters who were trying to mind their own business. Our pace slowed as we neared 7th Avenue and 17th Street. The streets were totally packed with people and cars. The streets weren't blocked from normal metro traffic, so to keep the intersection cleared, police officers abounded.
As we patiently waited on the north side of 17th Street for over an hour, I asked a policeman why we weren't moving. He answered kindly and smiled as he explained that many smaller marches were feeding into the main group up ahead and we couldn't move until they totally merged. I thanked him and he told me to have a nice day. Good cop!
Finally, the giant mass started to inch forward. I felt that our unified intent for change bonded us to each other and confirmed our universal mission. Huge smiles and considerate words spread through the crowd as we gained momentum. I saw drummers, children, people in wheelchairs, seniors, blacks, whites, and every other kind of protester you can imagine in New York that day. I've never been in a group that large before, yet I never felt claustrophobic or threatened. We marched, sang, danced, clapped, yelled and sweat out our dislike for President George W. Bush and his party. We were half a million people marching with the focused intent to change our government and change our lives. It was amazing.
For much of the protest, I rode atop Big Boy. Being up so high, many people asked for information about what lay ahead or behind:
“How many people behind us?”
“Lots! As far as I can see!”
“What's burning up ahead?”
“I dunno, looks like an effigy!” (It was a dragon.)
“Can you see where the other coffins are?”
“Yeah, ahead to the left!” (The “1,000 Coffins” group marched in chunks since, apparently, it's very difficult keeping 1,000 moving coffins together.)
The oddest people I saw from atop Big Boy were the counter-protesters. Captain Paul Fitz was manning the handlebars when we rode past a strange group of about 20 silent bodies a block away to our right. The counter-protesters stood at attention, some of them saluting. They held big white banners that boasted subversive messages like, “Millions have died from Capitalism but only 1,000 from Communism. Try it!”
At first Paul and I didn't get it. Once we realized that the counter-protesters were protesting our protest, we were confused. Sure, socialism and communism have good ideas, but in a tight political race, I think that anyone against the current regime should stand together for the common cause of removing them. Of course, the irony of their counter-protest was that if we were in a communist state, they wouldn't have been allowed to protest anything! As it was, their small mass of white T-shirts and homemade signs were blocked by a wall of riot geared policemen.
We came across the designated protest areas for counter-protesters north of Madison Square Garden. To our left were the expected right-wingers. I caught a glimpse of an enormous banner covered with intriguing images bobbing up and down and ran towards it. The top of the banner read, “Support President Bush” and at the bottom, in smaller print, was “Trust Jesus.” Between these shuddering phrases were bizarre images of tanks, guns and bombs. At first, I thought the sign was ironic and laughed, but then noticed that the carrier of the sign had gotten into a screaming match with an anti-Bush protester. He yelled about Jesus and President Bush. His fury ignited a response chant of, “What would Jesus bomb?”
Other interesting and amusing sights were the capitalists at work during the march. One water salesman carried his cooler full of ice and bottled water a few hundred feet, plopped it down and yelled, “Cold water!” — only to pick up his heavy cooler and run ahead again. More successful was another water salesman who stood still, bellowing, “Anti-Bush water here! Democracy water for sale! Cold, democratic water here!” I almost bought a whistle while marching, but the man's sales technique of half-heartedly whistling to the cadence of our protest chants turned me off.
Other protest chants we yelled besides “What would Jesus bomb?” were “Fox News sucks!” and the classics: “What do we want?” “Peace!” “When do we want it?” “NOW!” and “Tell me what democracy looks like?” “This is what democracy looks like!”
I sang my chant responses because participating in the United for Peace and Justice protest at the Republican National Convention felt musical to me. There was harmony, dissonance, rhythm and passion in this remarkable production that I'll remember forever. The march remains effective in my mind after the experience as the greatest effort I've ever participated in to fight for our future, for what we believe in, and for what democracy should be.