peace and goodness in the park before 9/11 - and after 8/29
I'm not going to any rally on the West Side Highway. I am not a car. After marching past Madison Square Garden I'll be in our great Central Park on August 29th, and I expect a million others will be with me. Bloomberg, Kelly and all the Republican invaders be damned.
See the latest stories in the local paper, from yesterday and today.
This is an excerpt from an email received this afternoon from United for Peace and Justice:
WE ARE MARCHING! On August 29, United for Peace and Justice will hold a massive, impassioned, peaceful, and legal march past Madison Square Garden, the site of the Republican Convention, to protest the Bush Administrations deceit and destruction.These guys (who are actually all of us) need help to pay for what has been and will continue to be a costly legal fight. If you can help, here's where to go:But we will NOT be rallying afterwards on the West Side Highway. As we announced in a press conference today, exiling us to a remote stretch of sun-baked highway makes a mockery of our right to assembly: The deal is off.
Our medics have told us that the West Side Highway isnt a safe place for seniors, children, and people with disabilities to rally. Our sound engineers have told us that its not possible to set up a quality sound system there. Many of our members have told us that they simply will not go to such an awful and marginal location. And our common sense has told us that this deal was a set-up by a Republican mayor openly hostile to free speech.
Central Park is the only sensible place for us to rally. We filed a new permit application today with the NYC Parks Department to rally in Central Park on August 29, using the Great Lawn, North Meadow, and East Meadow. We will keep you informed of the Citys response.
You can donate in several ways:
* Using a credit card online at http://www.unitedforpeace.org/donate
* By calling in a credit card donation to 212-868-5545
* By mailing a check or money order to UFPJ, P.O. Box 607, Times Square Station, NY NY 10108
[image from galanter.net]
Yeah - you tell'em.
Screw anyone who might want to use Central Park to escape the madness of protests and the RNC. No one needs a quiet pastoral place to retreat from the noise and bustle of the city. Families and kids can go hang out on the West Side Highway. They don't need the calming green of the Great Lawn.
What's really needed is millions of Gap clan Starbucks drinking SUV driving protesters setting up a massive sound system and hijacking the one bit of calm green space in a concrete jungle.
You and the organization you support will do nothing but generate ill will and hostility by hijacking something you have no right to politicize. The park is for ALL to use in a non-partisan maaner. The City made a mistake going in the "harm the grass" direction because yyes there have been large events on the Great Lawn - large CULTURAL events. The partisan nature of this "protest" is the very reason it has no place occurring in Central Park.
Daedalus,
New York City has had rallies, concerts and events in which hundreds of thousands of people descended on the park. I'm thinking of the Diana Ross and Bruce Sringsteen concerts in the 80's.
James, see you at the part.
You're right. There have been concerts and cultural events in the park. I never denied that. There have not been political events - at least in recent memory.
Additionally, if you're going to continue to cite the concerts in Central Park, you'll also need to mention the fact those concerts had underwriters - usually corporate sponsors - who contributed funds to the clean up and security for the event. I've seen no mention of United for Disruption and Injustice offering to pay a single dime for the right to hold a rally anywhere. They seem to believe they have the right to invade NYC, disrupt the lives of those who live here, cost the city millions and then climb back into their SUVs and head back to their cozy homes in the burbs. They also appear to believe they have the right to deface the city with endless sticker graffitti.
At least the RNC is paying for the right to rally in NYC.
dedalus256, can you stop posting if you're not going to use facts? The Feb 15 and March 20 anti-war demonstrations last year were not all people from outside of New York, and those had hundreds of thousands of protesters.
United for Peace and Justice has offered a bond for damage to the park, cleanup crews, and volunteers to re-seed the lawns if necessary.
NYC is going to spend much more on security than we're getting back from the RNC. They're not reimbursing the city for increased police costs.
Why do you think all of the protesters are SUV-driving suburbanites? When I've been in anti-war demos in NYC, the people driving the SUVs were the ones yelling at us and calling us terrorist-lovers.
I can't believe you think a corporate-sponsored concert is a more legitimate use of the park than public protest.
I live at 23rd St and Eighth Avenue. I'm not going to have any "freedom" during the convention, and neither is anyone else within a mile of the Garden. See this for an example:
http://bloggy.com/mt/archives/004201.html
You should concern yourself with that.