Just now, coming down 23rd Street, I witnessed a fearsome sight. The police had stopped the traffic at the intersection of 8th Avenue and circled around a group of protesters. Here were armed officers on foot and on motorcycles, standing in the center of the street halting drivers sitting in vans with flashing lights, not even squad cars, but fifteen-passenger vehicles, ready to arrest anyone and everyone.

This protest march was mighty but fairly small, about 50 or so health food store clerks and massage therapists, commercial artists and bike messengers, mostly white kids with dreadlocks and black kids holding up signs shaped like oak leaves painted with slogans urging onlookers to protect the environment. They held together and went down the street in tight formation, flanked by cops on all sides.

The presence of obviously hostile law enforcement, combined with a gathering crowd of onlookers, about to jump into the protest themselves made the volume of the chant louder. “Bush Lies, People Die!”

The ridiculous number of police was due to a too well publicized incident last night, where a protester attacked an officer at the end of an otherwise uneventful and peaceful demonstration. What the news reporters neglected to focus on was the fact that the attack was provoked by the cop, who was repeatedly verbally harassing pedestrians and running over and into protesters with his scooter.

They’d rather focus on the protester getting angry and fighting back than tell the entire story, just like the cameras inside of Madison Square Garden doing a sweep of the convention floor, making sure they get all the people of color in attendance, pulling them into sharp focus. I have seen the same black man and Latino woman over and over again, both getting their groove on to canned disco standards like “September” while they wait in hot anticipation for Elizabeth Dole’s subtly hateful anti-choice/anti-gay speech.

It’s like they are saying, “Look at the funky face of fascism!” What is being shown on tv is a grand bait-n- switch, but you wouldn’t necessarily know it if you didn’t see what was happening in the street. The Republicans are desperate to show their tolerance, their multiculturalism, their feminism, but none of it is real, it is merely fabricated in order to secure voters in time for the election.

There is so much boasting of diversity, but do you think this is relevant to the delegates in the cowboy hats? Don’t believe the hype. Look outside. What is happening on your street?

If they try to tell you that there were no people out protesting the Republican National Convention here today in New York, don’t believe them.

I just returned from the march, which was moving like a vast human river down 7th Avenue. I am a veteran of many civil rights demonstrations, but nothing prepared me for today. I have never seen such a crowd in my life. Hundreds of thousands gathered for varied and different reasons, but the one goal was peace.

All different groups came together and intersected with each other. The parents from the Family Ties era, who had marched against Vietnam, were now holding up protest signs alongside a new generation of dissenters; the gay contingent, with their rainbow flags and boyfriends in tow and the feminists, drumming as they went which gave the afternoon a decidedly tribal atmosphere. I got stuck underneath a giant inflatable pig, which was cool and shady, a nice vantage point for the revolution. The mood was incredibly jovial, although it was hot and close.

I had worried that the weather would keep people away. “I know that they compromised the Constitution and destroyed democracy, but it is so humid!!!” Everyone made it despite the frizzy hair and the sweaty conditions.

There were police all over the street. More than were necessary, and more than I thought actually existed. I am sure they had a major recruitment rush before this week, because their uniforms were ill-fitting and too new, and they all had an awkward nervousness to them. Every once in a while, you would see a grey suited delegate speedily walking alongside on the other side of the barrier. Often, they would be hiding their badges with their hands as they almost ran back to the safety of Madison Square Garden.

There was a small group of delegates sitting near the entrance, watching the enormous crowd go past, with glum but semi-stunned looks on their faces, as if they were watching their empire crumble, which is exactly what was happening.

There were precious few cameras and no news vans at all, just a lone C- SPAN cameraman atop the marquee of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel and a couple of NYU film students working on their final projects for documentary class. But I was there, as were thousands upon thousands of others, marching for humanity.

Republicans would never turn up to march like this. There were a pathetic number of crackpots with their counter-protest signs, a couple of anti-abortionists and various other lunatics who do not understand what is going on. Of course the cameras magically appeared to document them, and their frivolous clashes with liberals who were fed up by the lack of media coverage and the unbearable heat.

Ultimately, the march was resoundingly peaceful, almost euphoric, mostly due to the incredible optimism people felt. We’d all expected this kind of turn out, but worried also that it might be too much to ask for. Equality and fairness are not too much to ask for, and neither is peace or democracy. However today felt less like a request and more like a demand. New Yorkers are demanding their city back, and in turn, Americans are demanding their nation back.

I hope the media are responsible enough to report the numbers honestly, but I am not sure they will. How would they know if they weren’t there?

I am a painfully shy person.

This poses many challenges of course, especially because I have put myself in a very un-shy profession, which forces me not only to speak in front of thousands of strangers daily, it constantly brings me into the company of people I have never met before.

It is difficult for me to have conversations, which is something that I am actively seeking to change. Whenever I am put in a situation where I am sharing a space with someone I don’t know, I try to get to know them, almost aggressively, as if I could make up for all those years of self imposed isolation.

It is strange how we can be solitary in the midst of crowds of people. I have lived this way for my entire life. Aloneness is not an uncomfortable thing for me, in fact, it feels a bit too much like home. So I attempt to venture out as much as I can. Of course, there is a natural resistance to it, but fighting my own nature in this case I believe is a positive thing. Besides, I am learning a tremendous amount.

I was driving into New York City last night, and the guy taking me was amongst the countless people we routinely ignore every day. He was young, obviously foreign, the driver – it is always seemingly okay to talk about people in certain service professions such as the driver or the maid – as if they are somehow not people, but their job. They go unseen, and yet many of them have fascinating lives, extraordinary adventures to tell of. It is like they are part of a mystical realm, that they have slipped into these quiet, silent identities to go undercover. The incognito of lower class employment is an effective cloak for any dagger one might wish to hide. These are those who we do not think of, look at, talk to, yet these are those who have made vast differences and shaped the world, at least their part of it, immensely.

My young friend had an Albanian accent, which I would not have discerned as Albanian, unless he told me he had come from there. He worked 12 hours a day and got stuck in traffic that clients he picked up late would never understand. He didn’t like New York because it was too fast, too hard, too expensive of a city, admittedly a wonderland, but only for the rich and idle. He regretted that the life here changed people, that Albanian girls he once knew as modest and proper were now showing their legs without a care, but he could look at them and in a moment their confidence would dissipate, for their common culture and upbringing would shine like a sudden spotlight beaming down from overhead and shock them into the temporary blindness of truth.

He is Muslim and he loves his faith, yet cannot make the time for prayer when he is trying to negotiate a town car through Midtown at rush hour. He doesn’t understand why the Republicans are going to descend on the city that they conveniently forgot. Lots of New Yorkers are enraged that Bush is using 9/11 as a major bargaining chip in his campaign, arming himself with NYC beloved like Guiliani and trying to make the election all about his personal crusade against terror, when in fact Bush all but abandoned the city after the tragedies, stiffing them on funding, opposing the creation of a 9/11 commission, and then refusing to testify once it was formed.

My friend wants to know how a man that claims to be “of God” can possibly do so much evil in God’s name. He asks, “Isn’t George Bush afraid of God?”

I guess not.

Note From Team Cho: Margaret will be guest hosting for Janeane with Sam Seder on The Majority Report tonight 7-10 et on Air America Radio. You can listen live right here. If you miss it, check here tomorrow to download the whole show.

Here’s a great letter Margaret just got.

—– Original Message —–
From: Me
To: margaret
Sent: Monday, August 23, 2004 6:04 PM
Subject: pro-gay

This is kind of weird, and I don’t really know what to say so I guess I’ll just go for it. I am a sixteen year old straight male high school student and I recently saw your “I’m The One That I Want” DVD, and I loved it. I really love your views on the gay lifestyle. I think it’s horrible how people judge others when it’s none of their damn business. Love is love, that’s all there is to it. I am currently attending a high school that is thankfully tolerant, for the most part, of others and even has a gay straight alliance club. My friends and I (gay and straight alike) believe strongly in gay marriage and can’t wait until this country gets it through their thick heads that there is absolutely nothing wrong with the gay lifestyle and that people deserve to marry who they please (animals excluded). I just thought that I’d drop you an e-mail and let you know that I love you for your views and that I intend to check out your other DVDs.

-T.

—– Original Message —–
From: “Chris”
To: “Karen”
Sent: Sunday, August 22, 2004 10:51 AM
Subject: Re: my brother

hey there karen,

that’s really nice of you to post my letter to [Margaret's] blog. i did hear from my brother, although very shortly, last sunday. since i was on my phone, i didn’t say much, but he said that it has been the same thing there everyday/night since we last spoke. lots of bombs, lots of junk exploding, etc.

i think what has worried me even more about all of this is how i have not found one thing about the fighting there in any news source… nothing form the ap, national news stations, or even from sources over seas. i know people are dying and there are battles, going on, but there is nothing in the news. that’s pretty disturbing if you ask me.

anyway, thanks for reading my letter. i really appreciate it. i guess i needed to vent some. tell margaret i said thanks as well and that i hope everything goes well with the tour. hopefully i’ll catch her show in santa fe. talk to you later.

chris

Note from Team Cho: Margaret’s working 16 hour days in NY on a project for a friend plus doing tour press up until her shows at The Apollo on the 28th. She has no internet access. Her entries this week will be intermittent at best.

Here’s a letter from a fan whose brother is in Iraq.

—– Original Message —–
From: “Chris”
To:
Sent: Tuesday, August 03, 2004 8:19 AM
Subject: my brother

dear margaret,

i have been reading your blog for quite sometime now and am a huge fan of your standup… the way you stand up for those who don’t have voices and for those who are terrified to speak. oh, and you are really funny . i find it awesome, amazing, and i sometimes only wish i could speak my mind like you.

anyway, i was just writing to say that i am terrified for my brother. he is a naval medic assigned to a marine unit in fallujah and i spoke to him this morning, hoping it is not my last. i have spoken with him on and off through im and over the past couple of weeks, he has informed me that things are just not what they seem to be. he says it’s hell, the news doesn’t report half of what really goes on and that most of the iraq citizens don’t even want us there. most often, i can tell how is mood is and how he is feeling by the way he types, but this morning was different.

as he spoke with me, he told me that he is terrified about having to be with the first marine unit to have to go back into fallujah for the first time since our troops pulled out months ago. over that past couple of weeks, mainly within the last three or four days, a large amount of his barracks have been blown up. he hasn’t taken a shower in weeks, he has been going on senseless missions with marine units with only his pistol, and for the past days, he has had to be dressed in a flack jacket and helmet because of the intense bombing. he said that mortars come down as if it’s raining and they can do nothing to prevent them. a large area of ammunition storage was blown up, and that the vehicles he uses to go and help save lives are also gone.

how is it that the leaders of our country still think that it’s right for us to be in iraq? how is it that it’s okay for our soldiers, who don’t want to e there themselves, to die for a cause that is unknown? why do our military leaders find it alright to go back into a city that we have already said was difficult to control and want to blow up their stuff? because they did it to us? what kind of logic is that? that’s like telling a child it’s alright to punch someone when they kick you. what happened to the human ability to think and reason? has our country come to a point where we have decided that we will do what we want whenever we want because we can and logic has gone out the window?

as my brother heads into battle tonight (or this morning here in the states) with a small pistol and a backpack full of medical supplies, i can only pray that he will be okay. and for that matter, all of the other soldiers he will be with.

thanks for listening. i hope your day is better than my brothers. please keep him in your prayers.

chris