Thousands in Boston put Kerry on notice
DNC is target of anti-war protest
By John Catalinotto
Boston
Thousands of demonstrators protested the
occupation of Iraq on July 25, marching from Boston Common to
the Fleet Center, site of the Democratic National Convention.
They chanted anti-war slogans as they passed through a gauntlet
of state cops in body armor, National Guard troops, rooftop
rifle bearers and military police. The marchers paused to
denounce the concrete barricades, razor-wire fence and
concentration-camp-like pens surrounding the convention
hall.
The protesters to a person were hostile to George Bush and
his administration. But they showed that a significant sector
of the anti-war movement also has no confidence in the
Democratic Party and its national candidates. As many speakers
at the rallies on the Common made clear, this movement will
continue to mobilize against the occupation of Iraq.
A growing number of people in the U.S. now consider the Bush
administration to be a dangerous ruling clique that must be
stopped. Among them a smaller number see that the entire
capitalist establishment, including the national Democratic
Party leadership, is also responsible for the war drive and the
attack on workers' interests. The July 25 protest's political
importance was that it created a pole of attraction for those
who refuse to submerge their determined opposition to Bush into
support for candidate John Kerry.
The marchers' most prominent demand was that Washington end
its occupation of Iraq and bring the troops home. They also
demanded an end to the occupations of Afghanistan, Haiti and
Korea and to the Israeli occupation of Palestine. On the
domestic front, they stood for combating racism and defending
the rights of workers. Very prominent at the protest were
Boston school-bus drivers, who have been working without a
contract.
From both the speakers' platform and the audience, people
said they had no confidence in John Kerry. They called his
program pro-war and pro-occupation and noted his wealth and his
hostility to working-class interests.
ANSWER and the Boston-based Coa lition to Protest the DNC
organized the demonstration. It had strong support from a
sector of organized labor--unions in the Boston area as well as
those forces mobilizing for the Million Worker March, to be
held Oct. 17 in Washington. This solidarity marked a meaningful
step forward in building an alliance between organized workers
and the anti-war movement.
'End the occupation, bring the troops home now'
Three days earlier the organizers had won a court battle for
a legal permit to march on Causeway Street past the Fleet
Center, something the police organizations had tried to
repress. Enthusiasm powered the chanting of "Whose streets? Our
streets" and the favorite slogan of the day, "End the
occupation, bring the troops home now!"
There were many other slogans. As marchers neared an office
of the Fox media monopoly, they shouted, "Fox lies, GIs and
Iraqis die." And when police on bicycles pedaled near the sound
truck on the march, the demonstrators started with: "Brick by
brick, wall by wall, we're gonna free Mumia Abu-Jamal."
Plainclothes police, who claimed later to be acting under
orders from the Secret Service, at one point grabbed,
handcuffed and led away a bearded young man of color in the
crowd. Demonstrators started chanting "Let him go!" and legal
observers immediately assembled witnesses while trying to find
out where he had been taken. Later the young man, Vijay Singh
of Cambridge, joined the crowd back at Boston Common and
quietly explained to people there what had happened.
Singh said he was interrogated for about 45 minutes before
being released. His captors told him he had been "looking
around suspiciously" at the many police, barricades, wire pens
and other security devices near the Fleet Center. Evidently,
plainclothes cops had been following him for some time. The
demonstrators, many of whom had been eyeballing the same things
Singh had, without being grabbed, agreed this was yet another
case of racial profiling.
With many reporters and camera crews here for the DNC, the
protest march received extensive coverage. This contrasted with
the months before the Bush administration launched the war on
Iraq, when national protests ANSWER called, even those that
brought hundreds of thousands of demonstrators to Washington
and San Francisco, received much less media coverage. At that
time, the monopoly media's owners--as well as Demo cratic Party
leaders--thought Bush's drive to conquer Iraq would be
successful.
All ANSWER rallies have addressed a broad array of issues,
with speakers from all communities that are in struggle with
imperialist exploitation, oppression and occupation. This one
was no exception. The program included messages from Mumia
Abu-Jamal, calls to free Leonard Peltier and the Cuban 5,
demands for ending state discrimination against same-sex
marriage rights and protecting abortion rights, calls for
solidarity with the workers of Colombia and the embattled Hugo
Chavez government in Venezuela, exposure of Bill Clinton's
destruction of welfare by homeless and welfare organizations,
demands for rights of the disabled, and appeals from and to the
youth of the U.S. to take a leading role in the movement.
But foremost was the demand for an end to the occupation of
Iraq and the imme diate withdrawal of all foreign troops.
Dissent from current and former U.S. soldiers and their
families was addressed by John Kim from Veterans for Peace;
Gloria Pacis, mother of Marine war resister Stephen Funk; and
Fernando Suarez, whose son Jesus Suarez was killed in Iraq.
Two Arab speakers condemned Israel's occupation of
Palestine, as did others.
The Boston protest broke new ground for the anti-war
movement in two areas: the alliance with the Haitian community
and growing mutual solidarity with some sectors of organized
labor.
Two Haitian speakers--singer Farah Juste and former
Secretary of Commerce Mario Dupuy--condemned the U.S. overthrow
of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and demanded an end to the
U.S.-French occupation of Haiti. Dupuy said, "We don't forget
the occupation of Iraq, Palestine and Haiti. This is a concern
for all who believe in freedom. And the restoration of
democracy in Haiti is also your fight."
USWA Local 8751, Boston School Bus Drivers, whose membership
is mostly Haitian and which has a progressive, activist
leadership, was a link to the Hai tian community and also
helped forge the march's solidarity with the upcoming Million
Worker March.
Growing solidarity from these workers was apparent three
days before the march, when Boston police tried to commandeer
school buses from the Readville yard and retrofit them to carry
demonstrators they expected to arrest at the protests. Local
8751 unionists and volunteer organizers of the July 25 protest
set up an instant picket line that for three hours stopped
civilian city workers from driving the buses away.
Organized labor and Million Worker March
Progressive unionists were represented at the rally by
Clarence Thomas, executive board member of the 10,500-strong
Longshore Workers Local 10 on the West Coast; Brenda Stokely,
president of Dis trict Council 1707 of the American Feder ation
of State, County, Municipal Employees in New York; and Steve
Gillis, president of USWA Local 8751.
They and other speakers asked the demonstrators to join in
building the Million Worker March, set for Oct. 17 in
Washington. The MWM is a challenge to the AFL-CIO leadership to
put organized labor's resources behind independent
working-class demands for jobs, health care, education, better
wages and benefits, and an end to the occupation of Iraq,
instead of into the Democratic Party election campaign. Rally
co-chair Larry Holmes encouraged support for the MWM at both
the beginning and ending rallies.
Stokely had recently helped win support for a resolution
demanding "Bring the troops home now" at the AFSCME national
convention of 3,000 delegates in Anaheim, Calif. Pointing to
this resolution, she told the people on the Commons, "Our
position is not a fringe position but is shared by millions of
workers."
Before the rally began, Clarence Tho mas told Workers World
that the MWM had won support from actor Danny Glover, from
different regional ANSWER centers, and from Larry Holmes of the
Inter national Action Center. "Boston is a convergence of
struggle this week. Steve Gillis invited us here to participate
in the pro test, and we also attended the Boston Social Forum
and met with Danny Glover there. At the MWM we will fight to
end the war on Iraq but also to stop the transfer of wealth to
the rich and the corporate elite. It is time for workers and
anti-war forces to come together under our own agenda."
Who came, who was watching?
The protest drew those anti-imperialist groups that condemn
both big capitalist parties. It also attracted those whose
experience protesting the war on Iraq has made them distrustful
of all capitalist poli ticians. And it drew at least some of
those from the Boston Social Forum, which took place the same
weekend. Many of them have not yet abandoned the system, but
know that Kerry's program has made him what some called
"Bush-lite." Some march ers wore T-shirts supporting Dennis
Kucinich, who has abandoned his campaign for the Democratic
nomination and gone over to Kerry.
Elena Everett, youth activist and state chair person of the
North Carolina Green Party, slammed the role of John Edwards,
Kerry's running mate: "When John Edwards voted for the war, we
occupied his office in North Carolina. We didn't give him a
pass then and we're not going to do it now."
Dave Schechter, who staffed the Work ers World literature
table, described the contradiction facing some of those at the
protest. "A lot of the people who came here, took a paper or
bought a book, said they couldn't stand Kerry, but still said
they would vote for him in November. They fear Bush and still
don't see that an independent course is possible."
John Parker, an organizer of the Inter national Action
Center in Los Angeles, who is also the presidential candidate
of Workers World Party, spoke at the rally, sharply attacking
Kerry over Iraq. "Why doesn't Kerry get it?" asked Parker. "Not
because hestupid. There are strings tied to his heart in the
hands of monopoly capital that demands continual
expansion."
Many speakers urged the crowd to also turn out in New York
for the protests at the Republican National Convention, and in
Washington to protest the inauguration of whoever wins the
presidential election. Sara Flounders of the International
Action Center also raised the International War Crimes Tribunal
in New York on Aug. 26, that will indict Bush and his cohorts
as people begin to gather for the RNC protests.
Much community support in Boston
A lot of people were paying attention to this march. The day
before the rally, local volunteers handed out 20,000 leaf lets
throughout greater Boston. Ed Childs, chief shop steward of
Hotel Employees and Res taurant Employ ees Local 26 in
Cambridge, distributed at the Forest Hills transit station.
"It was hard to distribute," Childs told an organizers'
meeting, "because everyone wanted to get into a discussion with
you. Two GIs were on leave from Iraq, and they told me they
wanted us to keep on protesting. The people were concerned with
their economic hardships and worried about what would happen
next."
The protest tapped into a process that includes
disillusionment with the Bush admini stration, with capitalist
politicians and perhaps with the system. It was tel ling that
one of the youth organizers of the protest had himself been a
youth delegate to the 2000 Democratic National Con vention in
Los Angeles. Change happens.
Among the speakers not already mentioned above were a wide
variety of anti-war and community organizers, including: Boston
City Coun cilor Chuck Turner; Ahmed Awash of the Pales tine Nat
ional Con gress, Bos ton; Brian Becker, representing national
ANSWER; Rebeca Toledo of the National Committee to Free the
Cuban 5; LeiLani Dowell, a lesbian acti vist and candidate for
Congress on Cali fornia's Peace and Freedom Party ticket;
transgender author/ activist Leslie Feinberg; Fabio Arias
Giraldo, second vice president of the United Workers Central in
Colombia; Yoomi Jeong of the Korea Truth Commission; John Kim
of Veterans for Peace; Peta Lindsey of National Youth &
Student ANSWER; Step hanie Nichols, Youth & Student
Organizer with ANSWER Boston; Ralph Schoenman, a radio producer
and MWM organizer; Brian Shea of Disabled Peoples Liberation
Front; Ruth Velez of San Diego ANSWER; as well as political
musical performances by Pam Parker of Wash ington, D.C., Marta
Rodriguez and Movement in Motion, a New York-based hip-hop
collective; Brian Barraza, labor organizer, Mexican American
Workers Association.
Reprinted from the Aug. 5, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyrighted
under a Creative
Commons License.
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