Bush Protest, Chicago

I'm going to get a little sappy and lament, as I have just returned from my first direct protest against the president here in Chicago.

The announcement on Indymedia sounded promising enough; a host of labor groups, civil liberties activists, anti-war committees and imigrant rights parties caught wind of a coveted meeting between George W. Bush and the Chicago Economic club and organized a pickett protest in front of the Hilton in Grant Park. Upon arrival, I saw exactly what I expected - on one side of the wide and traffic clogged Michigan Ave. a cadre of police officers casually lined the front of the hotel, while across the street protestors amassed behind police fences on the park lawn. The usual interested parties were present in the form of union laborers down to anarchist teenagers, without there being an abundance of any group. The demonstration was effective enough, with constant chanting, whistle blowing and waving at passing cars being the prevalent tactics. The anarchist kids formed a drum circle and incessantly beat on plastic pails and other homemade percussion. They kept a good rythm actually.

After much shouting, honking and talking to a swarm of local media, the protestors consolidated their numbers on the corner, as the president's motorcade sped by. I got a glimpse of the old bastard in his limousine, with his face hidden in his hand, and mused to myself that this is the closest I've ever been to the man who has become an object of hate for so many. I was in spittin' distance, if only for a moment.

Shooting distance.

I perished the thought as soon as I thought it and began to impatiently wait for the cops to let us out of the cage we built for ourselves. It was over and there was nothing left to do but hop on my bike and brave the downtown traffic once more. Then one of the anarchist kids got on the bullhorn and announced that the motorcade was a decoy and that Bush was still in the hotel. Most of the crowd turned and regained their interest in what they were doing. I was surprised myself, thinking that the guy playing Bush in the limo sure looked a lot like him.

The kid proceeded to rattle off three "crimes" that Bush was guilty of, the first and most emphasized one being that the FBI profiles activists. As true as this is, it's nothing new. The FBI has been doing this since the sixties, when "activist" actually carried some weight in the American political atmosphere. The kid was quickly running out of things to say and desperately tried to rile the crowd into shouting ideas for Bush's punishment. Idiot! I thought. You had them in your hands and lost them a moment later!

The socialist/anarcho-socialist agenda could have actually been presented as the relevant and urgent topic that it is in more capable hands. But this kid quickly put the black mask/no brain face on the cause.

I can't say I outright disapprove. In fact, I was that same kid once, looking more like I was ready to go to a Green Day concert than start a revolution. They were probably having fun, and that's fine. At least they weren't at the Army recruiting office.

What just transpired saddens me to a degree. I will never criticize the efforts of anyone who protests the government and it's imperialist leaders. But I can't help but look at other regions of our world such as Latin America or China and feel a twinge of inferiority as a political detractor. I remember the WTO battle in Seattle, back in 1999. Sure, it got out of hand, but it was a proud day for a lot of us. Demonstrations weren't confined behind a police fence - they took the streets. You could stand at a downtown intersection and see swarms of thousands of people marching from all directions. Everyone was there, every organization, union, extremist and individual that peppers the American left. There was a boiling point of beautiful solidarity and evidence that the people who keep society moving are sick and tired of the global economy and it's devastating effects on the unpriviledged. It was a big reminder to me that mothers and elderlies are just as important to any revolution as young determined activists or even fighters. Seeing this threat, the reactionary Seattle Police Department turned the city into a war zone, brutalizing, tear gassing and shooting with rubber bullets anyone who they deemed a threat.

And at that point, they must have deemed everyone a threat.

Squads moved up Capitol Hill, a residential area, and began randomly firing tear gas cannisters into open windows, cars and even a wing of Seattle Central Community College. Police chief Gil Kerlikowske was accused of bungling this "security operation", but never hung for it.

Today, not one of the maybe thirty cops I counted was in riot gear, nor did they look like they were even slightly concerned. Maybe I should be happy about this, but I see it as evidence that the protest is becoming about as effective as writing a letter to your governor. A standardized response to a standardized action.

About a month ago the WTO was shut down again in China, where some of the most violent and heartfelt protests in history have gone down. Many who took to the streets were assaulted by the same forms of police brutality that Seattle had been, just in greater numbers. I read a lengthy column by a young activist journalist that stated she and her companions were cornered in a parking lot, forced to throw the gas cannisters back at the police from behind cars in order to keep breathing. Hundreds of arrests were made, but no one was killed thankfully. It sounds awful, and it is, but the WTO had to adjourn without completing their meeting. A few dozen multinationals actually infiltrated the meeting, having had been invited through their business ties. In the middle of a key speaker's capitalist ramblings, these middle aged men and women stood up and began chanting and were eventually thrown out. Many independant journalists got in as far as the lobby too, and returned with evidence that the enemy is definitely plotting against us.

Americans have lost their way, and not just on a socio-political level. We have become complacent, even those of us who oppose injustice, and we are all too concerned with our comforts and assets to risk swimming in the revolutionary tide. We have forgotten that even though war is wrong, fighting is an intransitive reality and if something truly matters, there will come a time when it must be fought for. If you ask anyone what they would do if their families were under attack they would most likely tell you they would fight. Why do people not feel the same way about the future of their entire species? Injury to one is injury to all, and now that insult has been added to it our minds must reach beyond the scope of our own lives. Don't tell me fighting never solved anything. There would be no civil rights at all in this country if full scale determination hadn't prevailed. It was a fight, and the present such as it is proves it was worth it. There would be no unions if no one ever fought. There would be no America.

We are once again at a turning point in history - do we continue to allow multinational corporations to decide the fate of our world? Or do we take a cue from politicians like Hugo Chavez or radicals like the EZLN, and try something that has a better chance of helping everybody?

There is and never will be a utopian world, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't always fight for an at least better one. The American protest scene is now a drop in the bucket compared to the revolutionary actions around the rest of the world.

In Iraq today, thousands fight to free their country from foreign military occupation. We are currently under occupation by the same forces, and we have been through two Bushes, Clinton, Reagan and as far back as you can count. If Abraham Lincoln could have been bought off by the Confederacy, do you think he would have? I like to think that soon, the Viet Nam era mentality will be back and the radicals will be coming out of the woodwork.

This time with a vengeance.