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 hank
heaven for dashed expectations. History did not repeat itself in
New York City this weekend, and the expected trashing of Manhattan
by anti-globalization anarchists did not happen.
Maybe the NYPD
didn't give them any openings, or the anarchists simply lost their
nerve. Whatever the case, the World Economic Forum goes into its
final day Monday having sparked about 200 arrests, but no serious
trouble of the sort seen in Genoa, Seattle, and elsewhere.
Peaceful though
it was, the big protest has nevertheless been a loony-Left freak-a-palooza,
a Michael Moore erotic dream, a pageant of political pathology and
convocation of kookery peopled by folks as silly as they are ineffective.
Which makes them no more unusual than the annual meeting of the
Modern Language Association, mind you, but at least the MLA doesn't
take to the streets of a city mortally wounded in wartime to trash
their country and its leader.
The World Economic
Forum has been meeting at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel on Park Avenue.
Cold, rainy weather muted protests on Friday, but Saturday's cold,
clear skies rallied the spirits of the faithful. It turned out the
real action Saturday was taking place not outside the heavily guarded
Waldorf one cross-town block east, on Lexington Avenue.
Thousands of
protesters paraded down the street, following a pre-approved route
that would end near the Waldorf. I stood behind metal barricades
on 54th Street, cater-corner from the Citicorp tower, and watched.
Minutes after
I arrived, a policeman asked a fat-faced young German spectator
to move to another spot, because he was obstructing pedestrian traffic.
Dieter blew the cop off. The cops asked the insolent twerp several
times before an arrest threat made him move.
"Look
at that," said Kevin Clark, a pinstriped businessman. "These
cops ask these guys four times to move, and they want to argue."
I found a spot
directly across from Citicorp, and stood out of the wind. Sooner
or later, enthusiasts for every conceivable left-of-center cause
passed by.
Anti-capitalism
was the leitmotif of the day, but there were on hand Trotskyists,
Maoists, feminists, vegetarians, animal-rightsers, AIDS activists,
lesbians (lapel pin: "I'm a gay liberal vegetarian!"),
pro-Palestinian enthusiasts, druggies, performance artists, Naderites,
pacifists, the New York Men Against Sexism, and sundry hirsute rabble.
As I reckoned it, 95 percent of the marchers were white, and well
over half looked to be college age, and many were videotaping each
other, no doubt for their senior thesis at Bennington.
Two elderly
potheads ambled past, one of them a toothless female, holding up
a sign calling for an end to marijuana "arrests and lies."
A knot of grim-faced women, including a young one with a ribbonless
Christmas wreath on her head, marched by holding up a green banner
reading, "Patriarchal States Are Either Preparing For War or
Recovering From War."
I wondered
what would they make of the new Palestinian feminist icon, the chick
suicide bomber. Every fifth person seemed to sport a badge reading,
"We are all Palestinians," and one group chanted, "Red,
Green, Black, White, Palestine is gonna fight." The self-described
"Radical Women" sauntered past carrying a sign reading,
"Peace Cannot Be Kept By Force. It Can Only Be Secured By Understanding."
Mmm-hmm, and the U.S. military secured peace in Afghanistan by helping
the dirt bags there understand how a Daisy cutter works.
Many of the
marchers held up signs denouncing the current war and President
Bush, some in extremely offensive ways involving phallic displays.
One group stopped to perform a skit in which a man in a Bush mask
choked to death on a "Pretzel of Truth." Some college
students chanted profane insults to the commander-in-chief. It occurred
to me that these protesters deserve nothing but contempt or indifference
from their fellow Americans, carrying on so obscenely in a time
of war.
Just then,
who should I spot walking down the street wearing sunglasses, hipster
gear, and a slightly nauseated expression but my old New York
Post colleague Johanna Huden. She was one of the anthrax victims,
her finger horribly infected by a poisoned letter. I couldn't believe
she, of all people, was one of this mass of malcontents.
"Hey,
I'm just trying to get to a needlepoint store on the other side
of the street," she said. "I've got my pumps and my pink
bag, and I'm afraid people are going to think I'm with them."
Johanna, who
is not much older than most of the marchers, said she's always been
liberal, but September 11 and its aftermath changed that.
"I saw
the plane crash into the south tower," she said. "I was
standing on the roof of my building and saw people falling to their
deaths. And when you see them holding signs like, 'U.S. Out of Afghanistan,'
it makes you sick. Most of these protesters probably aren't from
here. They don't know what it was like. Look how young they are.
They're living in some kind of liberal wonderland."
Johanna wandered
off, and the tail end of the march finally arrived, trailed by about
20 police officers. I fell in with the ranks, and wended my way
around the route, until the whole thing came to a standstill near
the Waldorf. I was able to mingle, and overhear some great conversations,
all along the lines of (this is an actual quote): "Duuuuudes,
I agree with everything on your signs. I totally agree with
that! You guys are totally right on!"
Later, I speak
to a sweet-faced girl named Becky Johnson, 21, a Syracuse University
student who has dyed her hair pink, and who came to the march in
a frilly pink tutu. She told me she got into the movement after
going to a "teach-in," and watching "a couple of
really excellent films," and reading "a little Noam Chomsky,
a little Howard Zinn."
"I educated
myself about what's really going on in the world," she said,
not a cloud of self-doubt crossing her face.
Up ahead, a
gaggle of bearded young college students were pounding on buckets,
and a middle-aged woman was ululating. It was a carnival-like atmosphere,
though you could hear from time to time nasty comments being made
about the police, who stood by impassively.
"I don't
know why they're protesting the cops," an officer told me.
"I'm not having dinner with those f — ks at the Waldorf.
I'm just here to keep this from getting out of hand."
That cop's
comment gets to the heart of why these marches alienate working-class
people who might be otherwise open to questioning the agenda of
the multinational elites meeting at the luxury hotel. If objecting
to the globalists means standing shoulder-to-shoulder with pierced-and-tattooed
ambisexual wackos yelling hate-America slogans and cursing the president,
well, fuggedaboutit.
Plus, to spend
five seconds in the company of these sanctimonious kids is to be
rendered incapable of taking anything they say seriously. Three
thousand people died not long ago a couple of miles away, and these
ninnies are ready to smash windows and go to jail because somebody,
somewhere, is being mean to puppies.
"These
same people protesting Starbucks today were drinking coffee there
yesterday in the rain," one cop said, smiling cynically. "Whaddaya
gonna do?"
Sunday's protests
were less organized and more violent, though only a few windows
were smashed. The arrests totaled 154. Monday is the last day of
the WEF, and police are on the lookout for anarchists to try to
make trouble down by the New York Stock Exchange, which is mere
blocks away from Ground Zero. This could get interesting yet.
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