dnc protests

After meeting on the Common for a couple of hours, about two or three thousand demonstrators marched down Beacon St. and past the State House, down through Government Center and past Faneuil Hall, and back around to the Common.

In general the protesters were well-behaved, and the police were very professional and actually quite friendly. There was a scuffle between an anti-abortion/anti-gay protester and a large group of demonstators. I had a pretty good view of what was going on. He had a graphic sign with a bloody fetus and “Jesus wept” on one side, and “Homo sex is sin / Turn to Jesus and be born again.” He just stood there quietly, and as the crowd surrounding him grew in number and volume he simply held his sign up. They were chanting things like “throw him out” and “no room for reactionaries.”

Things started to get ugly when some of the protesters took and tore up his sign and pushed him to the ground.

At that point the media really surrounded the scene and I couldn’t really see what was going on, but a few times the mob moved pretty quickly, including once right at Trow and me.

After a few minutes of this the cavalry came to break things up. They ended up escoring the anti-abortion protester out of the common. This stuff is mentioned in articles on cnn.com and boston.com.

Anyway, other than that one scuffle, there weren’t any problems at all. At one point during the march the cops detained someone and someone with a loudspeaker began chanting “let him go” which drew a very large crowd, but that seemed to end pretty quickly.

Among the signs I saw:

• Bring the troops home now
• Break with the Democrats! Build a Workers Party to Fight for Socialist Revolution!
• Down with Imperialist Attacks on the Middle East!
• No draft no way!
• U.S. troops out of Korea
• Say NO to racism & police brutality
• U.S. hands off Venezuela
• U.S. out of the Philippines
• STOP racist & anti-gay violence
• Military recruiters out of our schools!
• Black liberation through socialist revolution!
• Establish a Department of Peace

Jon and I separated from the demonstrators to try to outflank them and catch them as they came near the Fleetcenter. We came upon a bunch of anti-abortion protesters.

Shortly afterward the main protest came through and I was a little worried that things could get out of hand (and with Trow and I in between!) but aside from some minor shouting there wasn’t any trouble. The march continues!

And finally, the cops. There was a definite police presence there…