This has been the week that was ... it's becoming a blur, an exciting blur, with so much action directed against the Republicans and their policies. To participate with so many other New Yorkers is a very rewarding experience. But if you don't participate; if you only watch TV you'd never get to know the depth, breadth and magnitude of the anger in this city. Manhattan is awash with people on the move. It's electrifying. Buttons on lapels, banners in thousands of apartment windows, cars and bikes with signs posted ... all opposing Bush. When I return to Brooklyn, snap on the TV, I'm in a different world or maybe universe. Bush is praised as a fearless and wise leader and the war a necessity that he reluctantly pursued after exhausting all possible diplomacy. Kerry, the hero, is denounced by the sissy-hawks as a coward and vacillator. The protesters - a bunch of trouble makers out of step with the American people. I don't think we're out of step at all but if we are it's only because the media, and particularly that opiate - television - has succeeded in misinforming and misleading people. That can go on for so long before reality will come crashing down on people to wake them from their lethargy. Then, watch out Mr. Bush. The anger that results from having been lied to for so long will send you packing from the White House back to your ranch in Texas.
On Wednesday morning we rose very early. We were going to be part of the "world's longest unemployment line." Some 5,000 New Yorkers had volunteered to form that line that would stretch from Wall Street all the way up Broadway to the vicininity of the Garden. Every foot or so a person with a pink slip held aloft would stand silently. Each would represent thousands of Americans who are suffering unemployment - the vicitim of three years of steadily increasing joblessness the result of jobs being shipped abroard shaped by the policies of an Administration whose guiding principle is the bottom line of the corporations.
These then are the questions that are not being discussed at the RNC. It's only terror, terror and terror - The Bush reelection plan for unending wars that will drain our treasury, kill our working class youth, while joblessness reaches higher and higher levels, health care goes unheeded, our children left behind while the public school system is slashed and poverty climbs to the highest levels since the Great Depression.
Here are a few photos I took at various actions over the last few days. You can see more at my photo sight on Smugmug. Just follow the links below.
The world's longest unemployment line --
Five thousand New Yorkers lined up Broadway from Wall Street
up to the 30's. Each held a pink slip to symbolize the millions of
Americans who cannot find a job.
It was a very dramatic scene. For 15 minutes we stood silently,
pink slips overhead, facing north to the Garden where the Billionaire
Party was holding its celebration.
This is the flyer that was held aloft and distributed to people who
passed by on Broadway.
Someone had a cute addition for the subway entrance at Broadway and 8th Street.
If you want to see more photos of the Unemployment demonstration just click here.
After the pink slip action on Broadway we walked up to the Union Square Greenmarket. As we came to Union Square we came upon a very dramatic sight - a thousand pairs of army boots had been laid out representing the young people who have given their lives in Iraq and the 10,000 Iraqis who have died, victims of the U.S. occupation there.
A very dramatic demonstration in Union Square.
Soldiers' shoes laid out in Union Square.
A son, a husband, a father?
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