• RNC 2004

Unlike in Boston, where the Democrats stifled free speech by dissenters, keeping them within barbed wire enclosures, in New York City, the First Amendment was enabled to an extraordinary degree. Approximately 100,000 people marched right past Madison Square Garden, the home of the Republican Convention.

A crowd of 100,000 left-leaners contains a lot of different types of characters. Many appear to be relatively harmless, with simple messages, or no message at all. Others, like the characters below, you can call them “the usual suspects,” have complex messages with a pedigree of pure hatred for America and all her institutions. Below, on the right, is a Marxist banner and below that, the Expose 9/11 Cover-Up cult is making its first appearance in public. The fellow on the left is wearing a popular protest T-shirt showing George W. Bush as “World’s #1 Terrorist.” His sign advocates the total destruction of American democracy through violent revolution.

GOOD GERMANS OF THE NYPD!

Will you torture, mutilate & kill your own people? Will you work in the internment camps like Nazis?

You will reach the point where you’ll have to decide whether to commit atrocities against the American people. Your “training” will tell you yes…but you must say no.

He seems by his sign to be identifying  himself with “Police and Military Against the New World Order”

I watched this guy carefully, and he does NOT smile.

Here comes another Bush hater. BDS is the scientific term for what these people suffer from. Bush Derangement Syndrome victims display an amazing variety of symptoms. These guys are closer to the extreme end of the spectrum.

This man was marching among a large group of people who seem to think that Hugo Chavez is some kind of a savior.

These people are in the harmless end of the spectrum. I love this guy. He actually made himself into an elephant out of two cardboard boxes and some grey paint. It was all he could do to walk down the street without bumping into things. All I could read was “ANTI-ANTI-PRO-PRO-ELEPHANT. Her bucket-drum reads “Elephants love the earth.” Very cute. When I was ten years old, my homemade Halloween costume was more credible than this. Walking down the street, I had no idea this was an elephant; only looking at the photo later did I see it. I think if we put these people in the “stoner” category it would explain a lot.

PRIEST WITH COMMUNIST SIGN

The Co-Chair and principal leader of UNITED FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE is Leslie Cagan, an original founder of the Committees of Correspondence (a remnant organization created by the American Communist Party upon going out of business) and a strong supporter of Fidel Castro since the 1960s; Cagan proudly aligns her politics with those of Communist Cuba.

The breadth of UFPJ’s agendas extends well beyond anti-war activism. Passionately anti-American, this group condemns virtually every aspect of U.S. foreign policy and domestic life. It impugns America’s “daily assaults and attacks on poor and working people, on women, people of color, lesbians/gays and other sexual minorities, the disabled, and so many others.” It asserts that “the government treats all immigrants as potential terrorist threats until proven innocent, in violation of the Constitution,” thereby “expanding the scope and depth of racial injustice within the U.S.”

Wow! This pair graciously posed for me. The clown was on crutches. Other than that I have no clue.

This is BDS in an odd form: the shirt is covered with drawings of naked women from waist down to toes.

Rumsfeld in a bra, above. Below, protesters with zero hostility and lots of good humor.

The Cuban Five are Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labañino, Fernando González, and René González, five Cuban nationals who were arrested and convicted of espionage, conspiracy to commit murder, and other illegal activities, in the United States. All five are currently serving prison terms in the United States.

International ANSWER (an acronym for “Act Now to Stop War and End Racism”) is run by Ramsey Clark’s International Action Center, which is staffed by members of the Marxist-Leninist Workers World Party (WWP). ANSWER views the United States as a racist, imperialist, sexist, homophobic nation and the world’s chief violator of human rights — guilty of unspeakable atrocities, past and present, foreign and domestic.

ANSWER’s policies and activities are guided by a steering committee that includes the International Action Center, the Korea Truth Commissionand the Partnership for Civil Justice Legal Defense and Education Fund; theFree Palestine Alliance; the Middle East Children’s Alliance; the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organizing /Pastors for Peace; the Nicaragua Network; the Mexico Solidarity Network; the Kensington Welfare Rights Union; and the Muslim Student Association of the U.S. & Canada, the Haiti Support Network; Alliance for Just and Lasting Peace in the Philippines; and the Party for Socialism and Liberation.  (Thanks to the indispensable Discover the Networks for this info)

Even revolutionaries have to make a buck. At $20 these shirts were hardly a steal.