I must be doing something right with the protest posts. I've had nasty attack comments from both an International ANSWER cultie and a rightie blogger.

 

(Singing) "Stuck in the middle with you..."

 

Thank you to Linkmeister who dropped by with a link to MaxSpeak, who has better photos than I do and some good comments. He writes, 

The striking thing about the crowd was the diversity. No single picture could capture it. You had the usual suspects among left groups, but you also had lots of kids, college students, old folks, and families. Saw a guy with "Free Speech" and a picture of Howard Stern on his shirt, and "Freeskiers against Bush." I have no idea what those are. ...

The jingoists will try to make a big deal about the co-sponsorship of A.N.S.W.E.R. I've written about it before. It's a total non-issue. The crowd couldn't have cared less about sponsors, speakers, or sects. The focus was an incompetent president and an unjust war.

Max is less annoyed with A.N.S.W.E.R. than I am and thinks they do not reflect their parent organization, the Workers World Party. Maybe. I agree with what he says about the diversity and the fact that most of the crowd didn't give a rat's behind about the sponsors, speakers, and various publicity seekers.

 

We are the majority. The righties need to adjust. Their reaction to today's event is typical; they harp on the flakier elements among the organizers and sink into psychotic denial about how many attended. That's all they can do.

 

Here is a photograph of the only counter-protesters I saw. I count only eight in the photo, which by rightie logic means there were only eight counter-protesters there. In truth, I saw about 20 people in this group. There was suppose to be a big group of Freepers, Protest Weenies, and others by the Navy Memorial. But I don't believe the march route went by the Navy Memorial. I didn't see it, anyway.

 

There were people in the march all across the political spectrum, with the exception of the far Right. MNBC interviewed a couple who said they are Republicans who still support President Bush but think he is wrong about the war.

“President Bush needs to admit he made a mistake in the war and bring the troops home, and let’s move on,” Rutherford said. His wife, Judy, 58, called the removal of Saddam Hussein “a noble mission” but said U.S. troops should have left when claims that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction proved unfounded.

“We found that there were none and yet we still stay there and innocent people are dying daily,” she said.

We are the majority.

This is not to say the day was perfect. I have some suggestions for future events:

1. No male under the age of 35 should be allowed to have a bullhorn. Dears, you are not nearly as clever as you think you are, and some of us would like our voices heard, too.  

2. There should be a syllable limit on the chants. I've long believed a good crowd chant should have no more than three syllables. (Examples: "Kick their ass!" "Bring them home!") You can get a little more complicated within reason, but I suggest an eight-syllable limit. Anything more complicated than that turns into mush.  

3. Please, march organizers, see to it that large numbers of people are not forced to stand in heat or cold for an hour or more waiting for a march to start. 

4. If there is to be a rally, get really good speakers. And don't let some 20-something man dominate the microphone. (See bullhorn rule, above.) You probably shouldn't have a 20-something woman dominate the microphone, either, but this is not something one sees often. 

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Protest organizers estimated a crowd of about 200,000 rallied at the Ellipse, then marched around the White House and along Pennsylvania Avenue. Police downgraded the count to about 150,000. The crowd thinned when a misty drizzle began before the afternoon concert on the Washington Monument grounds.

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WASHINGTON, Sept 24 (Reuters) - More than 100,000 protesters flooded Washington on Saturday to stage dual demonstrations against the U.S.-led war in Iraq and economic globalization, before coming together to demand that President George W. Bush bring troops home.

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Nice, huh? The big shots walked in the middle of the parade, probably because there was such a crush of people they couldn't get to the front.

I have no idea how many people were there, and I think it would be difficult to estimate because the demonstrators, being liberals, did not follow directions. The plan was to rally at the Ellipse next to the White House and then march from there. Only a small part of the crowd actually went to the Ellipse, however. Most seem to have just showed up and either stayed in groups scattered all over Capitol Hill, or else they just did impromptu unofficial marches as a warmup to the Big March. 

The Washington Post says "tens of thousands." Easily, yes.

It would have been nice to get everyone together for a mass photo, but that didn't happen. Too bad. It would have been impressive. As the parade was trying to start the protesters filled up such a large part of the parade route it was hard to move. We created our own gridlock.

On the plus side: Considerably less scatology in the signs and posters than was true of the Republican Convention protest march last year. Finally, most of the crowd has gotten over the names bush and dick. It was a peaceful group, respectful of the police along the route (some good-natured kidding going on with some of the cops, in fact). The overall vibe was very positive.

This Associated Press story is a pretty fair account of the march. I like the way it stresses diversity. This was a very disverse, and interesting group, and by my estimation mostly moderate-liberal as opposed to Marxist fringe, although of course there were some of the latter.

One of the Maha Laws of Protests: People who get bullhorns and make the most noise are the ones with the least to say. At one point at the Ellipse the really annoying young man dominating the microphone actually tried to start a "No blood for oil" chant. I considered charging the podium to break the microphone. The kid probably moves a lot faster than I can, though.

I want to add  a bullet point to Chris Bowers's "don't" list: Don't let people speak unless they are good speakers. And if you can get your hands on a good speaker, don't limit his time on the podium because you want to give equal time to the Assisstant Director of Union Organizers of Southern California for the Environment and Working People and Peace. (They had Jesse Jackson there, for pity's sake. He's a great speaker. Everyone else should have just shut up.)

I have more to say and a few more photos to post, but I think I'll get this up and then rest a bit. Later.

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With a well-developed echo chamber and superior top-down discipline, the right has a much easier time forming the triangle. Fox News, talk radio, Drudge, a well-trained and highly visible punditocracy, and a lily-livered press corps takes care of the media side of the triangle. Iron-clad party loyalty – with rare exceptions – and a willingness of Republican officials to jump on the Limbaugh-Hannity bandwagon du jour takes care of the party establishment side of the triangle. The rightwing netroots, therefore, is already working within the triangle on most issues. Their primary strategic aim is to prevent the left from forming its own triangle, as occurred with Katrina. It’s a defensive posture, with the goal being the preservation of the status quo. Which explains why the right is profoundly hostile to dissent and why the pretense to libertarianism is common: “independent thinkers” don’t like to be seen as defending the powers that be.

It's a defensive posture. That's important to remember. Of course, the best defense is a good offense, which is why they perpetually attack, attack, attack. But their principle motivation is fear--of chaos, of change, of loss of control.

So now they're working their butts off to marginalize the antiwar movement. Problem is, we're the majority. According to the most recent CNN/Gallup poll, 59 percent of Americans think sending troops to Iraq was a mistake. Only 39 percent still think it was not a mistake. Not even close.

Their strategy now is to paint antiwar leaders as wild-eyed radicals who are duping an innocent public into accepting evil liberal schemes like civil rights, decent wages for regular working folk, health care for all, environmental policies that protect the environment, and not invading other countries without a damn good reason. If they pull a Dick Nixon and make the crazy hippie antiwar left the issue instead of Iraq, they think, maybe they can neutralize our message.

Here's what I hope to see tomorrow--I want to see Americans of all ages and colors and from all over the country getting together, peacefully, not only looking like the majority but also acting like the majority. I want to see confidence and clarity, not anger and a lot of naughty words.

(After last year's big march in New York City I decided there needs to be a law against a president and veep whose names can be reduced to dick and bush. Please, people, give the scatology a rest. It's been done, and it wasn't all that clever the first time.)

Think positive thoughts. We can win.

Update: Great minds think alike--I wrote the post above before I read Dan Froomkin's new piece, "Can They Marginalize a Majority?"

In a move to preempt the antiwar protesters converging on Washington this weekend, President Bush yesterday put forth the following equation: Withdrawing from Iraq equals letting the terrorists win equals more 9/11s.

The White House's goal is to cast anybody who supports a pullout of U.S. troops from Iraq as sadly delusional, reckless and not to be taken seriously.

But Bush may be in trouble here, because he's trying to marginalize a majority.

A recent Gallup Poll , for instance, found that 63 percent of Americans -- almost two out of three -- support the immediate partial or complete withdrawal of U.S. troops. Fewer than one in three Americans support Bush's handling of the war.

Heh. But it's still an uphill fight for us:

The White House, so aware of the power of staying on message, can take some solace from the fact that the antiwar movement is deeply conflicted, lacks clear leadership, and is being kept at arm's length by many top Democrats.

Unfortunately true. But ...

And yet slowly but surely, at least one consistent theme is emerging from the silent majority. And it is a theme that has the potential to neutralize, if not upend, Bush's central message.

That theme: Staying doesn't make things better, it makes things worse.

That's good. That's brilliant. That's a statement we can all get behind tomorrow.

Be sure to read the rest of Froomkin's web column, especially the email from  J. Harley McIlrath of Grinnell, Iowa. You'll like it.

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But ... but didn't right-wingers tell us that escaping a hurricane was easy if your elected officials weren't Democrats and you had a sense of personal responsibility and lived in an area where the average rate of melanin wasn't too high?

Could it be the righties were wrong?

From the Houston Chronicle:

Sixteen hours to San Antonio and Dallas. Eleven hours to Austin. With over a million people trying to flee vulnerable parts of the Houston area, Hurricane Rita will be a nightmare even if Galveston doesn't take a direct hit. .

Trying to leave Houston on I-10, Ella Corder drove 15 hours to go just 13 miles today. Noticing cars out of gas littering the freeway, she turned off her air-conditioner to save fuel, but the 52-year-old heart patient worried the heat and exhaustion were taking a toll on her. 

"All I want to do is go home," she said tearfully by cell phone. "Can't anyone get me out of here? "

Other evacuees' frustration turned into anger as the day wore on.

"This is the worst planning I've ever seen," said Julie Anderson, who covered just 45 miles in 12 hours after setting out from her home in the Houston suburb of LaPorte. "They say we've learned a lot from Hurricane Katrina. Well, you couldn't prove it by me."

One elderly woman caught in a traffic jam died, apparently a victim of the heat, the Chronicle says. Some people gave up and turned back; others wished they could. The Chronicle interviewed one man who decided to stay in his home because he couldn't find a hotel to go to. So many people jammed into the Greyhound Bus terminal that ticket sales were suspended.

MSNBC reported that "Acting Federal Emergency Management Agency director R. David Paulison expressed satisfaction with the evacuations at a news conference Thursday." The massive traffic jam, he said, indicated that people were following orders. Click here to see the mess at the Houston airport.

A fellow on CNN just said there's a 100-mile jam in one place. People are creeping along at 1 mile an hour.

Meanwhile, CNN is reporting that truckloads of FEMA ice needed in the Mississippi and Louisiana coast still are wandering about all over North America (except for Mississippi and Louisiana).

God bless America.

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Even the words are the same. On Iraq, President Bush declared on Feb. 4, 2004, "We will do what it takes. We will not leave until the job is done." On post-Hurricane Katrina reconstruction, on Sept. 15, he eerily echoed, "We will do what it takes. We will stay as long as it takes." It was reassuring for the nation to be told by the president in his televised address that he intends to "stay" in the United States and not cut and run. Perhaps a White House speechwriter hit the copy-and-paste function on his computer or the word "stay" simply popped into the president's mind as he contemplated the crisis, straying into improvisation.

    Behind the high-flown rhetoric of "freedom on the march," the Coalition Provisional Authority imposed conservative nostrums such as the flat tax and broke Iraqi labor unions. The CPA also served as a political clubhouse for right-wingers. It called upon the Heritage Foundation as a resource for youthful (and inexperienced) applicants. Now, the Iraqi government has issued an arrest warrant for its former defense minister for stealing $1 billion, and an additional $8 billion is said to be missing. On HBO's Bill Maher show last week, the comedian interviewed Dan Senor, the former CPA press secretary, and asked him where the money went. "We didn't have first-world accounting standards when we distributed that money," Senor explained. He did not mention who exactly was in charge of the finances: Michael Fleischer, the brother of Ari Fleischer, Bush's former press secretary.

    Like former CPA chief L. Paul Bremer, Karl Rove, Bush's senior political advisor and deputy chief of staff, who has been appointed as head of the hurricane reconstruction effort, has drawn on the Heritage Foundation for ideas. The conservative think tank's hastily slapped-together policy compendium for the occasion, "From Tragedy to Triumph," has become one of Rove's playbooks. Under the cover of Bush's sudden acknowledgment in Jackson Square that "poverty has roots in a history of racial discrimination" and a sweeping promise to "rise above the legacy of inequality," the administration has promulgated a series of reactionary acts, from suspending affirmative action in granting contracts to cutting prevailing wages for construction to proposing to use federal funds for vouchers to enable Katrina evacuees to reenroll in parochial and private schools.

    Rove's appointment as reconstruction czar puts him in charge of distributing federal largess. The budget for reconstruction is estimated to run at about $1 billion a day, for a total of at least $200 billion. With that treasure chest, Rove directs a gigantic K Street project, combining lobbyists and the administration. Already, firms with intimate ties to the Republican Party, such as Halliburton and Bechtel, are major beneficiaries, as they have been in Iraq. And Joe Allbaugh, the former FEMA director, Bush's chief of staff as governor of Texas and his 2000 campaign manager, acts as the middle man in the Gulf states.

You know, something we -- I've been thinking a lot about how America has responded, and it's clear to me that Americans value human life, and value every person as important. And that stands in stark contrast, by the way, to the terrorists we have to deal with. You see, we look at the destruction caused by Katrina, and our hearts break. They're the kind of people who look at Katrina and wish they had caused it. We're in a war against these people. It's a war on terror. These are evil men who target the suffering. They killed 3,000 people on September the 11th, 2001. And they've continued to kill. See, sometimes we forget about the evil deeds of these people. They've killed in Madrid, and Istanbul, and Baghdad, and Bali, and London, and Sharm el-Sheikh, and Jerusalem, and Tel Aviv. Around the world they continue to kill.

Wow, that's ... inane.

They have a strategy. They want to achieve certain objectives. They want to break our will. They want the United States of America and other freedom-loving nations to retreat from the world. Why? Because they want safe haven. They want to topple government. Just think Taliban in Afghanistan. That's their vision. And we can't let them do that. We have a solemn duty as a United States government to protect the American people from harm. (Applause.)

Press Secretary Scott McClellan was repeatedly asked yesterday how the White House preparations for Rita differ from those for Katrina.

And McClellan's word of the day was: "Focus."

Here's the transcript of yesterday's briefing.

"One, the President is focused on making sure we have the strongest possible coordination with state and local governments in the path of Hurricane Rita," McClellan said.

"I just told you that the President is focused on making sure that we have the strongest possible coordination with state and local officials. . . .

"[I]n addition to coordination, communications is an area that we're very focused on in the preparation and response for Hurricane Rita. . . .

"[H]is focus is on making sure that we're doing the right thing for the American people."

McClellan also referred to the "lessons" of Katrina seven times.

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The real test is what happens when they realize that the Republicans, who do indeed control the government, aren't going to give up a damn bit of their hard-earned pork. I'm sure the Clenis will make an appearance, somehow.

To put it another way, would YOU have the guts to get between Dennis Hastert and a bacon sandwich?

I thought not.

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In the fall of 2002, as the legislation establishing the DHS was wending its way through Congress, Rove had a Rovean idea: Embed some extraneous, ideological criteria in the bill -- criteria that the Democrats would obviously oppose -- and then campaign against those Democrats for being soft on homeland security. Which is why one day the bill suddenly contained language mandating that the unionized federal employees at the agencies being merged into DHS would henceforth be non-union. Predictably, the Democrats squawked, and predictably, the Republicans took out after a southern Democratic senator up for reelection -- Georgia's Max Cleland, who'd lost an arm and both legs while fighting in Vietnam -- as indifferent to protecting our nation. Cleland was defeated.

The thought that such mom-and-pop concerns as Halliburton and Bechtel would have to pay out that much money as they rebuild New Orleans's infrastructure was plainly anathema to our president, so he's freed them of that onerous requirement. Indeed, he's announced the creation of a vast Gulf Opportunity Zone, in which all the laissez-faire Republican brainstorms of the past quarter century that were supposed to end the cycles of poverty and dependency, and have accomplished nothing of the kind, have been repackaged yet again. Small businesses will be freed from tax burdens and regulations and maybe even wage requirements, and an entrepreneurial culture will burst forth.

Problem is, New Orleans and the Mississippi Delta have been designated enterprise zones for a decade now, and they're still just about the poorest places in the United States. Right-wingers have railed for 40 years now at the failures, real and imagined, of Lyndon Johnson's war on poverty, but Johnson's policies, and those of Franklin Roosevelt before him, have been far more successful at reducing poverty than those that presidents Reagan, Bush and Bush promoted during their terms in office. Indeed, poverty has risen steadily during the current Bush's presidency, and median household income has declined for each of the past five years, though for the past three years the economy has been in recovery. Wage increases have become a historical curio, the federal minimum wage has not been raised for the past eight years, and now Bush has decreed that the men and women working on the levees -- not the executives or shareholders at Halliburton, mind you, just the folks doing the work -- will have to make do with less.

Bush's proposed massive spending spree in the Gulf Coast is ripping apart his ruling party -- even as his stumbling response to a national disaster, his increasingly unpopular war and high gas prices are sending his poll numbers plummeting and emboldening the opposition party.

Shailagh Murray and Jim VandeHei write in The Washington Post: "Congressional Republicans from across the ideological spectrum yesterday rejected the White House's open-wallet approach to rebuilding the Gulf Coast, a sign that the lockstep GOP discipline that George W. Bush has enjoyed for most of his presidency is eroding on Capitol Hill. . . .

"The pushback on Katrina aid . . . represents the loudest and most widespread dissent Bush has faced from his own party since it took full control of Congress in 2002. As polls show the president's approval numbers falling, there is growing concern among lawmakers that GOP margins in Congress could shrink next year, and even rank-and-file Republicans are complaining that Bush is shirking the difficult budget decisions that must accompany the rebuilding bonanza. . . ."

Many Republicans, Froomkin writes, are worried that Bush is becoming a political liability for the party. Heh. 

Billmon pointed to a major obstacle for Karl; namely, that the constituency he so easily bamboozled into thinking Max Cleland was "soft on terrorism" is less likely to embrace profligate spending to help poor black folks.

New Orleans also has emerged as the chief target of angst. "The question is do we really want to flood New Orleans with money," said Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.).

Kingston said he has detected a building hostility toward New Orleans among his constituents, based on reports that local officials mismanaged the crisis, along with federal dollars that had previously flowed the region's way. "What we are hearing from constituents is: 'Wait a minute, slow down on this,' " Kingston said. (emphasis added)

Washington Post
Katrina's Cost May Test GOP Harmony
September 21, 2005

Somehow I don't think it's the wrought iron balconies of the French Quarter or bars on Bourbon St. or the St. Charles Ave. streetcar or the above ground cemeteries or the Jax brewery that are generating all that "angst."

New Orleans seems to have become another synonym for those people.

Paul Krugman's column from Monday, which you can read on Truthout, explains why "race is the biggest reason the United States, uniquely among advanced countries, is ruled by a political movement that is hostile to the idea of helping citizens in need."  

Plus, I suspect many Americans--including many who pay little attention to politics--realize that Bush's War is dumping billions into Iraq, and now more billions are needed in the Gulf (and by next week, more of the Gulf)--are getting queasy about government spending. And Bush's insistence that we don't have to cut other spending or raise taxes isn't helping him recapture his Dear Leader aura. Bush is way out of step with the public on this point. Truly, it ain't 9/12 any more.

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The president won't be happy until he dons a yellow slicker and actually takes the place of Anderson Cooper, violently blown about by Rita as he talks into a camera lens lashed with water, hanging onto a mailbox as he's hit by a flying pig in a squall, sucked up by a waterspout in the eye of the storm over the Dry Tortugas.

Then maybe he'll go back to the White House and do his job instead of running down to the Gulf Coast for silly disaster-ops every other day.

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