We had a great turnout at yesterday's rally marking the visit of President George W. Bush to give a commencement speech at my alma mater, Calvin College. I haven't read any detailed estimates of the number of people who came out to protest any number of Bush policies (mostly though, the war in Iraq) but clearly there were hundreds of people who felt moved to voice their dissent. It was an absolutely beautiful spring day, the kind that any graduate would wish to have for his or her commencement.
The group I was with met in the parking lot of a closed-down restaurant, adjacent to a big mall. Prior to parking, I had already done a quick drive-around the area in order to see what we might anticipate. There were a bunch of protestors gathered around the main entrance, mostly older folks who looked like they had some kind of on-going connection with Calvin. These were not your average rag-tag bunch of lef-wing zealots (though we had plenty of them too) - rather, they looked a lot like the genial, thoughtful, good-hearted Dutch folks who used to have something of a controlling grip on the local subculture and still wield a lot of clout.
Much like my older relatives, basically, but it was telling to see not only their presence but the biblically-based content of their protest signs.
Down the main stretch of the Beltline where we planned to march, I saw a number of police cruisers, marked and unmarked, at various points along the way. When I pulled into the J.C. Penney parking lot (where our not-all-that-secret email told people to park) I noticed that they had several security guards in white shirts stationed around the perimeter. I discerned that their duty was to find people walking to the gathering place and thwart their intentions to park in the store's lot, and sure enough, I saw one couple get told that they'd have to move their car once they admitted that they were going to the demonstration. That happened after I had already parked my car but since the guards hadn't seen me park, they didn't have as strong a basis to bug me, so I just walked on by. But I could tell the guy was scoping me out.
I was dressed in an orange shirt. Orange was the color of the day, an allusion to the pro-democracy demonstrations that occurred in the Ukraine late last year. Not everyone wore orange, but a lot of people did, or had ribbons, scarves, armbands, etc.
A lot of the people were just there because they heard something was going on. I don't think that any one group really had control or "organizational primacy" over the event, which is how it should be. We were a loosely-affiliated gathering of people who more or less just wanted to point out our disagreements with the Bush agenda and the effect his administration's policies have had on our world and the people living in it.
As the 1:00 marching time approached, I was encouraged to see a steady stream of amiable protestors arriving to join us. I met a group of "Billionaires for Bush" who had driven up from Detroit just to be here. They didn't know much of anything about the local Grand Rapids activist community so it was great to make a connection with them.
I also met one of our local "billionaires," who had arranged for a Bush lookalike to lead the parade wearing a flight suit with the words "Mission Accompl" on his back.
In addition an "anarchist marching band" had assembled to provide some marching rhythms, so we had all the makings for some good street theater.
We spent the period prior to the march occupying the corner of East Beltline and Lake Eastbrook Drive, a busy intersection (the Beltline carries a lot of traffic, so we had excellent exposure.)
The energy continued to build as we realized that we would easily have enough people to cover a big stretch of the sidewalk.
That's all I'm going to write for now. I'll continue my account later, perhaps tonight, or tomorrow.
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