From a World Can’t Wait Organizer in Cleveland:
When I arrived this morning on Public Square I was happy
to see folks putting up banners and earth flags already there preparing
for Bush’s arrival. He was speaking right across a small street from us
at the Rennaisance Hotel at noon.
We brought a lot of homemade signs
that a comrade of ours makes that are very creative and beautiful. We
also brought (again) the coffin with the names of Iraqi cities on it.
(It will be a good day when we don’t have to keep dragging out that
damn coffin that represents so many lost lives already.)
The crowd grew to about 200 or so and I found that many had driven from all over Ohio to be here.
We had military mothers , progressive
religious froces, progressive dems, revolutionaries, people of color,
youth, raging grannies, Billionaires for Bush, drummers, poets,
dreamers and others. One military mom had her son who is on leave as a
medic from Iraq with her. It was obvious that he wanted to stay longer
but couldn’t because of the long drive they had ahead of them home. She
has become a friend of mine and it was good to see her reunited with
her son.
Many folks joined us who were just
getting off of the buses that run thru downtown on their way home from
work. One woman told me she was annoyed that her bus was re-routed when
she saw us and then had decided to join us. We were chanting ” Bush
Step Down!”, “No Torture, No War ” and other chants against the Bush
regimes horrible policies.
There were about 3 people that were
standing with pro-Bush signs that were pretty funny. Their signs read ”
Democracy Is Not For Sissies”, “Freedom Is Not Free”, and my favorite
of all “Grow Up Hippies”.
Actually we were having so much fun
and the crowd was so spirited that I must admit I had to take the
bullhorn at that one and chant “Yea for the Hippies! Love, Peace and
Flowers! Make Love Not War!”, I could not resist ..hey I am a flower
child from way back, what can I say?
We had 2 bullhorns that got quite a
workout throughout the protest. It was really great the way folks on
the bullhorns kept the momentum going and how much folks among the
crowd joned in themselves with great agitation and chants in a
spontaneous way.
We had drums,tamborines and whistles
keeping the crowd fired up and marched around the square chanting “No
War On The World, No Facist State, Drive Out The Bush Regime.”
One man kept riding on the street in front of us with a different sign
in his hand each time ,one I remember had a picture of Bush in the eye
of a hurricaine and it read ” Catastrophic Failure” another said
“Iraq=Vietnam”. Another man was riding his bike and flying a peace flag.
Some black youth came up grabbed some signs and started dancing to our drums all the while joining in the chanting.
Another commuter liked my sign which
read “Wake Up And Smell The Facism” and he said to me “I like your sign
, it’s the best one because it says it all”. I let him have it and he
joined in the chanting with the sign held high over his head…this was
the type of coopertive spirit that permiated throughout the protest and
it was great!
I also connected with many good people. I noticed that there were a lot
of new faces there and other faces that I have not seen for some time.
One person in paticular who stands out in my mind was a very well
dressed man who turned out to be Gulf War veteran. He thanked me for
what we were doing and told us to keep up the good work. and told me to
let him know how he could help us in any way . He then went with me to
where the the pro- Bush folks were standing and challenged a young man
with them by asking him if he ever saw a 22 year old get his legs blown
off or if he had ever been forced to kill anyone.
The conversation got very deep and
heated and others ended up getting drawn into it. It was good and noone
was disrespectful of each other while both sides got to engage. I feel
we left this young man (pro-Bush) with a lot to think about.
The diversity of the crowd , the non
stop spirited clammor we made and the great engagement with folks left
me feeling inspired as I left today. All of this enhusiasm from the
crowd gave me a good shot in the arm for the work that is ahead of us.
As an organizer who has really
struggled ( after the debaucle of the last elections) to get folks to
come out for political actions…I was happy to see so many different
types of people standing in solidarity . It was very encouraging and
inspiring to see so many folks in Cleveland once again taking it to the
streets!
PS. This morning, as people were driving to work, Bush Step Down lawn signs were spotted along major roadways.