A Tale of Two Rallies
We had a counter protest to the candlelight vigil by the Grannies for Peace Tuesday night at Union Square Park in Manhattan. Immediately they did what they could to block us by stepping in front of our banner and shouting us down. They were absolutely intolerant of our right to speak and had to be asked several times by the police to please stand back and to not interfere or to prevent us from protesting. It wasn't easy.
A very large group of people began to gather. As you would expect on 14th Street is very crowded, most were passersby stopping to watch and take pictures. But things started to get unruly when a few rabble rousers started whipping the giddy herd into a heightened state by jumping around and chanting 'no justice, no peace.' It doesn't take much, and it is amazing when you watch mob mentality sweeping through like a fire. They stayed for quite a while hurling invectives and low insults of every kind at one of our people who is a very brave woman who lost her brother in the World Trade Center. The things they said to her were disgraceful but she was undaunted.
After a while the situation began to degenerate and the police actually had to create a perimeter around us because the hecklers were getting too close and it was clear it would have gotten out of hand. How incredible is it that in the middle of New York City people are so intolerant of a different point of view, it brings them to violence. What made all of this worth it was when two US soldiers who happened to be passing by at different times walked through the angry throng to publicly thank us and shake hands. One of the members of our group was interviewed by the Associated Press in an article which appeared in the International Herald Tribune.
The photos that I took can be seen here.
Labels: Iraq, politcs, US Troops, War On Terror
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