Don’t Just Vote, Take Action — Report from UFPJ March, August 29, 2004
On August 29, a radical contingent called for by the Don’t Just Vote campaign participated in the massive march, estimated to include 400,000+ people, organized by United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ). The Don’t Just Vote call attracted a diverse range of individuals and groups, who gathered in sections along lines of affinity and mutual interest. These included marching bands, social ecologists, pagans, proponents of direct democracy and direct action, anarchist activists, and puppeteers. Perhaps the most impressive of the puppets was a dragon large enough to fill an entire street, its wings emblazoned with the words “Don’t Just Vote, Take Action” and “Self-Determination for All.” The mutual respect and high spirits shared by the participants were evidence of the symbiotic relationships that are possible for those who take their politics beyond the confines of the electoral system.
In stark contrast to the diversity and free expression of this contingent, UFPJ attempted to impose a rigid, top-down structure on the march as a whole, in order to enforce the decisions of an elite upon hundreds of thousands of people. Rather than planning the march in assemblies or spokescouncil meetings comprised of the people that would make up the event, as was done before several massive anti-war and anti-globalization protests within the last few years, plans were negotiated in closed settings between a small group of UFPJ organizers and city officials. One t-shirt sold by protest profiteers read “Shut Up and Vote,” and in view of the limitations placed on the movements, attire, and behavior of the participants, it was hard not to suspect that this was the vision of political empowerment offered by the official organizers of the event.
Undaunted, those in the block-long Don’t Just Vote contingent dressed as they saw fit, carried signs and banners of all sizes, and proactively opened the police barricades on either side of the march, liberating those trapped on the sidewalks. Live music from the marching bands and popular protest songs from a powerful PA system provided the soundtrack for much festive dancing; people shared food and water and took great pleasure in each other’s presence. This manifestation of liberty and joy complemented the gravity of the contingent who emphasized the costs of Bush’s reign of terror by carrying coffins. Papers expanding on the theme “It’s Not Just Bush, It’s the System” were distributed to thousands, providing an alternative to the communist propaganda and expensive liberal bumper stickers so prevalent at these events.
The contingent gathered between 5th and 6th Avenues on 20th Street, and marched north up 7th Avenue to 33rd Street, arriving at the doorstep of Madison Square Garden, the location hosting the Republican National Convention. Although most participants in the march desired for it to go forward to Central Park, the UFPJ leadership had agreed with the city government to turn the march around at 34th Street, charting a circular route that many found senseless and compromising. As the contingent approached this turnaround point, tensions ran high; many participants covered their faces, intimidated by the massive police and mainstream media surveillance concentrated in the area.
The pagans initiated a spiral dance in front of Madison Square Garden, chanting and moving in a performance of ritual. A few seconds later, under ambiguous circumstances, the enormous dragon puppet went up in flames. The police backed away in confusion, then reacted violently, beating and arresting people and reportedly pepper spraying demonstrators and each other. Some participants in the march defended themselves by throwing projectiles at the attacking police, and pulling one another free of their grasp; despite this, perhaps a dozen individuals were arrested. Eventually, the police cleared the area and blocked the march for a period of time. The Don’t Just Vote contingent broke up into smaller groups, some heading to Central Park, some following the remainder of the UFPJ march route to Union Square, and some going north on Broadway to boisterously meet the delegates to the convention as they arrived for evening entertainment.
The surprise immolation of the dragon remains a mystery. The puppeteers who brought it had no knowledge that anyone intended to burn it. Some mainstream media accounts attribute the fire implausibly to the Greene Dragon group, a “media and street theatre campaign” named after the tavern in which Paul Revere and the other Sons of Liberty plotted the Boston Tea Party. [www.greenedragon.org] Despite their suspicious name, this group was not known to have joined the Don’t Just Vote contingent.
Perhaps someone set fire to the dragon to give teeth to dissent in this country, showing that it can be taken right to the front door of those in power. Perhaps it was a gesture of defiance provoked by the extensive police repression during the protests, and the limitations enforced upon participants in the march by the UFPJ elite; perhaps it was not meant to represent anything at all, but was simply intended to create an intense situation in which no one could help but be present. It might have been a carefully orchestrated plan, or a spontaneous gesture—who can know? A member of the pagan cluster has even conjectured that it could have been “a spontaneous combustion, touched off by a spark from the cone of power” created by their spiral dance, going on to imagine that “Liberty herself bent down with her torch to ignite a burning flame of truth at the threshold of the convention of lies.” [http://www.starhawk.org/activism/activism-writings/RNC_update9.html]
Some have said the fire was an act of violence. Whether it was set by protesters, by police, or by accident, it’s important to put this in perspective: the burning of a puppet is nothing next to the violence perpetuated daily by the powers of state oppression from Rikers Island to Baghdad. Those who oppose violence would do well to remain focused on the real violence suffered globally, and to utilize news items like this as an opportunity to bring up more important issues.
There have indeed been some speculations that the fire was the work of police agent provocateurs. While it is possible that for some unimaginable reason police set fire to the puppet, it should be remembered that such speculations are generally made from a distance, by those whose ideological commitments preclude the validity of militant direct action. To allege that property destruction, fire-setting, and the like are always the work of police agent provocateurs is disempowering— it rules out the possibility that activists could have done such things themselves, overestimating the powers of police intelligence and reinforcing the illusion that the State is omnipotent. Likewise, it preemptively dismisses the value and reality of a diversity of tactics. When people feel entitled to make unfounded claims that every tactic of which they disapprove is a police provocation, this obstructs the very possibility of constructive dialogue about appropriate tactics. Rather than presuming that the Don’t Just Vote contingent was filled with police infiltrators who went on to throw projectiles at their fellow officers, or joining the mainstream media in attributing the action to the notorious “Anarchist Black Block Group” (or the group “Black Box,” according to one article), it may be most sensible to accept this strange event for what it is, an enigma.
One thing is for sure— something happened. The participation of the Don’t Just Vote contingent in the march may not have sufficed to end the occupation of Iraq or free those who languish in prisons and cubicles in the United States, but it showed that there are many who are searching for the means to do so. There’s a lot of work to be done to dismantle the systems of oppression in place today, and neither marches nor fires in the streets will alone be sufficient to usher us into the free world we hope to live to see. All the same, every action which interrupts the monotony of business as usual, or protest-as-usual, is a potential first step on a road to that world.