Conservatives
are always ranting about how they've had enough, and about how
they're two minutes from taking up arms to defend their so-called
freedom. I hear it all the time – the chest-pounding usually comes
in the form of not-so-thinly veiled racist rants against the
president, or some comparable crapola cloaked in self-serving Second
Amendment rhetoric. Any minute now, rednecks and militiamen will
storm into major cities, unlatch their tailgates, and unleash mayhem
on the liberal heathens. Or so they say.
In
reality, it's the colorful progressives in their crosshairs who have
been pushed to the brink, and who have taken to the streets in
stride. The proof was spread clean across New York yesterday, as tens
of thousands of protesters teamed up for a May Day march and untold
tangential mayhem that won't soon be forgotten. Armed with no more
than picket signs and in some cases confetti bombs and instruments,
Occupy forces and their labor comrades did what their detractors only
dream of doing but are unlikely to pull off in numbers – they stood
up for themselves.
Small swarms of picketers started at the
crack of rush hour, tormenting offending banks and businesses, and
aggravating commuters in the process. (As one sign said, “Sorry if
you're inconvenienced. We're trying to change the world.”) By noon,
a few thousand heads were gathered at Bryant Park, off 42nd
Street, waiting for details on the push downtown. After an immigrant
rights march took off from Bryant and came back – going unbothered
until arriving outside of a Wells Fargo and getting the storm
troopers called on them – the pebble track around the park was
jammed, revealing the first significant sign that May Day would be
far from a bust.
The
entertainment value on its own was awesome. Led by Tom Morello's
GUITARMY – an ad hoc collective of about 300 strummers split into
seven groups – beginning at 2pm Occupy marched down 5th
Avenue. Songs got played, activists got loud, and cops began pushing
at around 34th Street, where throngs broke off of the
sidewalk and rushed across three lanes. By this time there were
already more than 30 May Day-related arrests throughout the city –
some on a rogue march downtown, others near Bryant Park. But the real
fireworks had yet to burst.
When
denying the magnitude of yesterday's actions, Occupy haters may want
to check out an aerial shot from Union Square at around 5pm. The
entire area was brimming with laborers and organizers, Occupiers and
their union cohorts. It was around this time that the NYPD gave a
crowd estimate of 30,000 – a number that participants were quick to
boast as they funneled onto Broadway toward Wall Street. Love or hate
Occupy and working people, there were tens of thousands of them out
there. It's undeniable – like global warming, evolution, and a
number of other things that dolts find inconvenient.
Through
it all, a number of pedestrians and non-participants complained –
on Twitter and in person – about the hurdle caused by marchers.
This was especially the case late in the day, since police set two
layers of barricades over more than a mile on lower Broadway. It was
an aggressive and unnecessary measure in the first place, but the
blockade served a purpose other than to cage in protesters. Cops were
instructed to stop anyone from crossing Broadway, from just below
Canal Street all the way to Bowling Green. As I'm sure was intended,
much of the sideline aggravation was directed at Occupy – even
though the NYPD was solely responsible for the annoyance.
One
should also view skeptically however much the city wasted on police
overtime and other May Day expenditures. The number of cops on the
scene was absurd, as were their numerous attempts to criminalize
actions like crossing the street, or standing in a park. Authorities
were looking for a fight, plain and simple, and, as was certainly
expected, they got one from this crowd. By the time marchers were
ejected from a park on Water Street and forcibly splintered into the
surrounding area – leaving packs of a few hundred scattered here
and there – arbitrary restrictions forced some protesters into
defense mode, and several were assaulted in the process.
Which
raises the question of how many Tea Party dingbats and conservative wing-nuts are willing to face this kind of heat. I'd
argue that very few are – that they're a bunch of frauds and
cowards full of empty promises, and whose idea of fighting involves
standing around parks decked in flag regalia. With that said, I
completely understand why they're afraid of what transpired in New
York and in other cities nationwide yesterday, and why they're
determined to discount the turnout. The combination of labor,
longtime community activists, and Occupiers – teaming up out of
both hope and necessity, and not just under superficial pretenses –
is enough to kick a serious dent in yet another right-wing myth: that
they're the ones who have reached their breaking point.
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