August 1, 2004

I never know whether to believe the terrorist warnings that the homeland security department gives out, much less to be frightened. The latest mentions the Citibank Building. After my company fled the World Financial Center on September 11th as the buildings across the street burned then fell, some of us wound up in A Citibank building, across the street from THE Citibank Building. What am I supposed to do or think about this? I have no idea except to not mention it to my mother and to start hoarding food and not get caught as I did the last time out of food, cat food and cash. The cats are well-stocked at the moment and I went shopping for either non-perishable goods or things that I can freeze. The freezer is empty and should anyway be filled in order to function more efficiently.

August 5th, 2004
Corporate Security continues to spam us with security information designed to show us how diligently they are watching out for us. They resemble the security announcements of the Bush administration in that they tell you how much danger there is so that they can then tell you how they are protecting you, with the result that we cannot tell whether to be afraid or not. If there is nothing to fear then why are they saying anything? At 4:24 we receive an email that a suspicious letter is being investigated across the street, which accounts for “increased police presence.” At 4:57, the suspicious letter has been “identified and determined safe.”
I took a car service home from work tonight. Given the security surrounding the building, I asked the driver if he was affected by it. He grimaced and nodded. I asked him, how? He said that before he can park in front of the building, someone opens and inspects his trunk and opens his hood to look at the engine. The following week, a security advisory informs us that because car service cars are no longer able to park in front of the curb, a company car service dispatcher will be on hand from noon to midnight to assist us in locating our cars. The man always hands me into my car with such a flourish that I feel like I should tip him.
Anyway, people are saying that this alert is based on old information and is perhaps not even relevant.

August 10th, 2004
Today I met Bella, a black Labrador retriever who wears an employee ID tag attached to her collar, bearing a photo of her grinning black face. She took a break to get petted while her handler chatted. If one searches in the on-line employee directory for Bella, her grinning photo comes up on the screen, just like mine or any other employee’s would. I asked him if they have to plant explosives for her to find now and then, he said yes. A few days later I read in the newspaper that dogs like this are in high demand and low supply, and that it would take months to sweep thoroughly an office building the size of ours. It said that while some dogs are trained to bark when they find what they are looking for, an injured person, for example, explosives dogs are trained to back quietly away from the find and look meaningfully at the handler.

August 17th, 2004
From the window of my taxi, I spy a building adjacent to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway that bears a large banner that reads: “Worst President Ever.” I report this to mother, who responds that W is a great president.

August 18th, 2004
Men delivering take-out dinners to the employees in my building now have to wait on the sidewalk instead of the lobby. What a job that will be in the winter. Fortunately, people want their dinners and go down pretty fast to get them.

August 20th, 2004
The sight of officers with automatic weapons is now routine. The regular building guards are beginning to relax and smile again, joke a little with the regulars. The first week or two they had became very stiff and humorless, they no longer knew the people they had seen daily for years, we had all become suspects. Everyday I declare my food to the bag screeners – soy yogurt, peaches today – so they do not have to pass through the x-ray machine. Everyday I place my bag with the “War IS Terrorism” button on it in the x-ray machine, my lipstick, eye drops and gum getting irradiated daily.

August 20, 2004
Corporate Security warned us that Delta Airlines will conduct a short, low altitude flight over the city as part of its 75th anniversary celebration and that we should not be alarmed.

August 22nd, 2004
Today I heard on the news that eight rescue dogs who worked at Ground Zero have died of cancer. Their owners blame the toxic air they had to breathe.

August 24th, 2004
Today at the weekly Ground Zero meeting of the First Amendment Mob we had four uniformed cops observing in the station and more on the street. Are they watching us? The turnout is good, at least 20. Those who take part in Reverend Billy’s First Amendment Mob wander through the World Trade Center PATH train station talking as if on cell phones, mingling with the commuters talking on their cell phones, but really reciting the First Amendment of the US Constitution. (“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”) Over and over. For half an hour. Until we join together to chant it in unison, crescendoing and echoing. I do not have a cell phone so I have to use substitutes, this week I pretended to talk into the small case that holds my sunglass clips. If I am noticed by the crowd it is possibly less for taking part in the action than for talking into my student ID card or my pencil case.
Bella made the rounds of the office today. She seems busier with socializing than with work. Her handler obviously dotes on her and likes to visit as well.
A company-wide survey was conducted to find out how many employees’ commuting will be interrupted by security measures for the Republican National Convention, which starts next week. Thinking that I am answering correctly for once, I respond that my path to work does not pass through a so-called 'frozen area' in midtown Manhattan, nor does it pass through any of the major terminals. (As I write this, I realize that that is not quite correct, I take a subway that passes through Grand Central Station.) I reply also that I can work at home, but that I do not have access to our database from home. It seems to be the wrong answer, because the reply I get asks me whether I wouldn't prefer to work from home. Well, sure, I would prefer to stay home everyday. The odd thing is that when there was a threatened mass transit strike, I reported then that I would prefer to work from home as there were no travel alternatives from where I then lived except for walking 70 blocks. I was strongly encouraged to come to work in the office, regardless. The point seemed to be that the company would not be interrupted by a strike and continue to function efficiently. I am puzzled by the contradictory philosophy now. Is it that the company supports Republicans but not transit workers? Are they more afraid now? Or is our goal now to prove how efficiently the company can run no matter what? That we are all sufficiently wired in order not to lose a moment’s work?

August 27th, 2004
There were no buses going east on 14th Street when I came out of yoga, just after 8 pm. I thought I’d “dash” over to Union Square to my bank before going back to the West Village to meet a friend for dinner on Washington Street. I gave up and walked. I caught a bus easily going back west, but strangely it was empty. Three people got on with me, including two gay men carrying matching home-made signs. One side had an image of George W. Bush in turban and long beard and read The Real Terrorist. The other side said something like Remember the First Amendment and bore a picture of a young woman wearing a stars-and-stripes eye mask with her mouth taped shut. Within three blocks, the three fled due to the extremely slow pace of the bus. When I looked out the front window and saw a landscape of flashing lights, I followed them.
Once on the street, I saw numerous police vehicles and an army of police officers, well-equipped with plastic handcuffs. Getting started on their arrest quotas already? (I once overheard some young women saying they wanted to get out of the city during the Republican National Convention – “they’re going to arrest 1000 people a day!” Really, I thought? Do they have quotas?) Whatever can be happening? NO! I thought, it can’t be Critical Mass that they are arresting? The last Friday of every month, as tonight is, a Critical Mass bike parade takes over the streets, closing down car traffic with their sheer numbers. It is a quiet and beautiful action, free-form, vaguely anarchist, and I am exhilarated whenever I happen upon one. Now that I live in Brooklyn where it is a bit safer to ride, I want to get a bike and I look forward to joining the Critical Mass rides. I am sure I would have joined them tonight, if I could have.
As the cops were handcuffing two young men, I spoke to a man on the sidewalk astride his bike, wearing a miner’s type light on his helmet. It was his first Critical Mass. He said the cops cut the parade in half, trapping a lot of riders. I asked if they were given information about lawyers and he said that they had legal observers on hand.
I set off on foot to meet my friend, by now very much later than I had planned on. It was a warm and humid night but I had goose bumps, I was that angry.
Later, on the subway home to Brooklyn, I noticed a young man with a bicycle at the front of the car. A few stops before mine, I approached him and did not need to ask if he was at Critical Mass because he wore patches with those words on his clothing. I asked if he knew how many people were arrested. He did not. He mentioned police activity on 34th Street, in the East Village. What was the route, I asked, it sounded like they were in many places not close together. He shrugged. He said they rode down 2nd Avenue among the car traffic and when they got to St. Mark’s Church as the end rallying point, the cops were trying to herd people on the sidewalk and threatening anyone who resisted with arrest for obstructing traffic. He said most of the people were able to get onto the church property where they had been offered a safe space and lock up their bikes. He said that the cops had never bothered any of their rides before. Tonight, though, they were handing out flyers at Union Square listing behaviors that people would be arrested for. Wonder how many cases of plastic handcuffs they have on stock….
Tonight really sets the tone for the days to come, in terms of police attitude. There are dozens of actions and marches planned for the next days, really clever and creative stuff, many happening simultaneously. How can a good little protester get around to them and still have time to take care of her personal life, do her work? Especially when they get started at 10 in the morning?!
Oh yeah, while I was in my yoga class, the silence was broken by the continual noise of helicopters flying very low. My friend in the East Village said that the helicopters were busy until 1 a.m. and kept her from sleeping. Earlier in the day, she thought the Army helicopters were going to hit the spire of the church across the street.

August 28, 2004
The New York Times reports both that more than 260 Critical Mass riders were arrested last night, and that 100 were arrested. Various websites reported 5000-10000 riders participating, and one posted a scan of a crumpled police department flyer.
The march tomorrow was on again off again, as the United For Peace and Justice organizers pled again and again for a rally in Central Park, no well, the grass, so many people would be bad for it…But you allow the Philharmonic play and thousands come; no, no, can’t be done. The last attempt was a court case a few days ago, at which time the judge ruled that it was simply too late now to organize the logistics. Many people say they will go to the park anyway, it’s still a free country, right? The word from the cops is that there is nothing wrong with people going to the park, as long as they do not orchestrate a rally.
To make matters more complicated, two separate groups were trying to get permits for Central Park rallies, the ANSWER coalition on Saturday and UFPJ on Sunday – the latter is the main coalition that has been organizing the protests of the last few years. No wonder creating democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan is such a stubborn task: it is still a work on progress here.
The Nation reports that the NYPD has been infiltrating protest groups for the last few years, and that they are tailing certain “primary anarchists” 24 hours per day.
I had an obligation at an artist’s organization that I belong to so I missed the march for women’s rights across the Brooklyn Bridge (my friend reported that it was peaceful and the police polite) – not to be confused with the MAB (Mothers Against Bush) march across the Brooklyn Bridge yesterday. That one I missed for a doctor’s appointment. I also missed the gathering at Coney Island where people were supposed to meet to arrange themselves in some format that could be seen from the sky, to tell Bush to go home. Not that he was coming today, I guess it was just a photo op.
I did make the bell ringing at Ground Zero, though I got there late. I equipped myself at the Silver Rod Pharmacy on Church Avenue – where it seems one can buy anything. SPECIALS are advertised in the window on orange posterboard with a black marker. I don’t know what the specials are, however, only my Bangladeshi and Pakistani neighbors can read the rest of the sign. Sure enough, after looking long enough and considering a bicycle horn or a baby rattle, I round a large white tacky ceramic bell, adorned with flowers and pearls, marked down to 99 cents. Score! The little ceramic ball that served as a clapper was surprisingly loud. The RingOut action was written by Pauline Oliveiros. Ringers were spread out around the Ground Zero site and were to ring in stages, with the sound carrying from different directions to ring out the old regime, ring out the republicans, ring out the convention.
There were still plenty of ringers there, and I met an activist buddy, Carole, who came into town from the country just for the march tomorrow. The police looked very bored, lounging on their motorcycles. Overtime pay to watch a bunch of bell ringers! A few Republicans who came to sightsee at Ground Zero were annoyed and got into a confrontation with an activist wearing anti-Bush slogans. I told her, just ask them how many of their children are in Iraq, and if they say none ask, why not?
Protests are listed on counterconvention.org. One of them called for wearing orange today to protest the code orange terror alert. I do not have a single wearable orange item. The full moon protested by turning orange.
Tonight we are supposed to put candles in our windows. I did not see any others in my neighborhood. I was severely tempted to plant one of my store of “Bush Lies Who Dies” stickers on something as I walked home from the subway. It is such a clean neighborhood I couldn’t bear to interrupt its calm with what would amount to vandalism if placed on someone’s property.

August 29th, 2004
On the way to the march, a lawyer in the subway was advising the anarchist types sitting next to me about how to protect themselves. I (very straight-looking anarchist sympathizer) listened as well and followed instructions. He said to have ID in our pockets because if we are arrested they will take our bags away. I am foolishly dressed in a skirt and blouse and only have pockets in the blouse. I paper clipped my driver’s license into my pocket so it would not fall out and wrote phone numbers for the New York Civil Liberties Union on my hand. Another day, I also heard that one should have quarters for phone calls in a pocket, too.
I climbed from the 23rd Street subway station into the thick of the march, heading north up 7th Avenue. The first thing I saw was a group of men dressed in flight suits (complete with presidential bulge) shouting, “Mission Accomplicated!”
The cops seemed mostly relaxed and to be suffering from the hot day. It seemed more like a street fair than a protest. Protests in New York are generally peaceful happy affairs, we are angry but more than that happy to be all together. As I was eating breakfast, I heard on the radio an interview with the bicycle cops – never knew there was such a thing. They have in their packs water and crossword puzzles to pass the time during ‘the parade,’ as they called it. How can we be taken seriously as a protest movement?
Hanging from a high-rise window at 7th Avenue and 26th Street is a banner that reads: ‘Save America, Defeat Bush.’ A few blocks further on, getting nearer to Madison Square Garden, the cops were putting the corrals in place and it became difficult to enter or leave the march. Farther south, there had been no barrier between sidewalk and street, protester and pedestrian. Finding myself suddenly on the sidewalk and separated from the march, I crawled through a hole in the barrier. A fat nasty cop at 30th Street – Wheeler, badge number 7858 – was telling people, “Please get off my fence. No you may not leave, go down to where you came in at [sic].”
I picked up a strange little flyer that read:
New Yorkers against Bush.
NY <logo of the police department> PD
Remember: We are not the enemy!
I cannot figure out if it is a message to or from the police department, who is the “we” that is not the enemy.
The march included 1000 flag-draped “coffins”. Signs included, “Yee-ha is not a foreign policy,” “Re-defeat Bush,” “His Kid” (photo of Bush’s daughter sticking her tongue out)/”Your Kid” (photo of two flag-covered coffins), “Bring ‘Em On/1000 Dead Soldiers,” and chants included “four more months!” aimed especially at the tiny band of Bushlovers in front of the Garden (“Right is Right/Left is Wrong”). Anyone dressed in a suit on this hot Sunday looks like a member of the Secret Service. Heading east on 34th Street, alongside Macy’s, some men hold signs with biblical scriptures that somehow connect W with Christ: Jesus For Lord Savior/Bro Bush For Four More Years.
At 32nd Street and 5th Avenue, there is a crowd of students from the Police Academy observing, as if they are on a class trip. Some stare intently, in case they are tested on this, while others nod to the rhythm of the passing Korean musicians.
When the march reaches Union Square, people with megaphones are urging the crowd to disperse, saying that there will be no organized rally. The unofficial plan spread by word of mouth is that everyone will go to the Great Lawn of Central Park to rally unofficially. I heard somewhere that we were to picnic in groups of nineteen or less, as twenty people constitutes a gathering that needs a permit.
On the subway going to Central Park a little girl is staring in wonder at the people with signs. They’re protesters, I hear her mother tell her, and I think I hear her say “one day….” Why not today, I think, and I hand the little girl a sticker from my stock of Bush Lies Who Dies. She looks pleased and her mother thanks me. I hand some also to a middle-aged Asian couple who do not look like protesters, but look sympathetic. They are also pleased.
At Central Park, not that many people have arrived yet – not many protesters, it is full of sunbathers. I sit down with a bottle of water, careful to sit in an area that does not have a boundary. A man talking on a cell phone passes by, “Folks they are rioting at Macy’s! They need you down at Macy’s!” Later on I heard that a float was set on fire around there and several people were arrested, that must have been what he was talking about. The man drifts off, as if leading the way there. Protesters mingle with the complacent sunbathers who are preoccupied with maintaining their tans, and gradually supplant them. It is very quiet with only a few cops. I tuck a George BuLLshIT card into the waist of my skirt, but later give it to a man who admires it. He and his girlfriend seem to just be there to enjoy a Sunday afternoon, but enjoy getting swamped by the protesters. He says into his phone, “I am in the middle of the nexus of anarchy, and I am surviving.”
A young man is trying to organize people to use their unlimited weekend cell phone minutes to call voters in swing states. I giggle at the idea of giving them my mother’s number to call – she lives in Ohio, a so-called swing state and thinks W. is a great president - but won’t subject her to that. I cannot figure out why she likes him, as all his policies are against her personal interests, as a senior, as a woman, as one who is worried about her savings being eroded in the markets.
I circle around the lawn, preparing to leave, as nothing much is happening. More and more protesters are arriving and I see that few by few, the cops are massing. They are entering from the northeast in small bands, hundreds of them. I see the happy protesters arriving from the southeast, determined to peacefully take over the park; it looks like they are walking into a trap. I sit on a bench to watch. The lawn has intermittent fencing and the police are positioning themselves in small groups where there are breaks, as if to be ready to pen in the crowd. Barricades are off to the side, in wait. Helicopters are circling. I leave while the cops are still in a good humor, lined up to buy water and hot dogs from the vendors, before they decide to put up pens. I am too exhausted by the sun and too little food.

August 30th, 2004
I tried to march today with the homeless, unemployed and working poor – Still We Rise. My friend Markus is working with one group of the coalition, Picture the Homeless, and living in a shelter. However, I left home late, and not knowing the route of the march (I almost wrote parade) headed to Madison Square Garden where they were supposed to rally. I could not find the rally and none of the cops I asked knew where it was. I wonder if they were just trying to get rid of me. Instead, I had my own action, stalking the delegates who were coming from the Garden to get their lunches. I wore one of my Bush Lies Who Dies stickers to identify myself, and took their photos with my toy digital camera. They were easy to spot, wearing signs around their necks that said Delegate. Many were clownish, one state’s delegation were dressed identically. The dress code was overwhelmingly clothes of red, white and blue. One woman wore a Statue of Liberty headpiece, while her companion wore red, white and blue tinsel in her hair. The Hawaiians wore leis of orchids.
The streets around Madison Square Garden are full of gates and pens to close them down to cars and some to pedestrians, so that you have to detour to get to where you want to go. And you have to want to go somewhere, I hesitated at the intersection of 32nd Street and 7th Avenue trying to decide which direction was most enticing, and one of the cops on the corner asked me where I wanted to go. I said I wasn’t sure and she told me I had to move along somewhere. At 32nd and 6th, the street was closed by concrete barriers, and inexplicably, a sand-filled truck. Jack’s 99 Cent Store took advantage and posted a sign in the center of the street: an official RNC pit stop. Travelers coming from Penn Station, which is inconveniently located underneath Madison Square Garden, were wheeling their bags down the street in search of taxis.
Along the south side of 34th Street chartered buses were lined up for two blocks for the delegates. Besides the army of police, there was a camouflage-clad contingent at the intersection of 7th Avenue and 34th Street. ‘Lock it down! Lock it down!’ Orange plastic netting is unfurled across the crosswalks to corral the pedestrians on the sidewalk while the police escort cars pass on 34th Street along with loads of empty Peter Pan buses. I detour to 35th street and find a storefront exhibition of black burkas with messages on them about numbers of people dying, reminding the viewer about the women and children who live in Bagdad.
I go to B&H Photo, a block past the Garden, to buy film. There are even cops with plastic handcuffs in there. ‘That looks like one over there,’ I hear one say. I look ‘over there’ and the only thing I can figure they could be interested in is a guy dressed in black, getting his film processed. In front of me in the film line is a rough-looking guy, not at all clean, with rotten teeth and with a small girl on his shoulders. ‘Keep your eyes peeled,’ he says, keeping his. He is constantly looking around him through big eyeglasses that magnify his eyes. ‘If they start shooting, how do we run?’ ‘Zigzagzigzagzigzag,’ she replies. ‘Serpentine!’ he responds. The guy in front of him, wearing a suit, raises an eyebrow and asks, ‘shooting?’ The man and his daughter entered the store when I did and refused the mandatory bag check, saying that his backpack contained irreplaceable documents. Back on the street, a very small car, like a toy, is moving about with a revolving surveillance camera atop.
I purchased a t-shirt from Pierogi 2000 gallery in Williamsburg. It shows a drawing of a Little Bo Peep sort of figure, with a goat on a leash. Little Bo Peep has Dick Cheney’s face, the goat, W’s. The caption: My Pet Goat.
My cousin Mike emails me to ask about the protests. He wishes he could have taken part. Where he lives, in Mobile, no one would ever organize such a thing, he says. He also writes that he has split from his friends that support Bush and won’t speak to them until after the election. Fortunately, he also has some friends who are Bush Haters. I sent him some photos from the demos and stickers.
Meanwhile, while I was away from my desk, Corporate Security was monitoring the investigation of a suspicious package in the Hoboken station that had caused the suspension of the PATH trains to New Jersey.

August 31th, 2004
My first day of commuting to work during the week of expected convention disruptions was as normal. There are hardly any cops patrolling around our office building. Guess they have been redeployed to Madison Square Garden. Less than half the people in my office are there, they either went on vacation or are working from home, encouraged to do so by the firm. Still there are more than I was expecting. I had been looking forward to a quiet week. Company policy permitted casual dress. I am not sure why, in case we had to run?
During the evening rush hour – the trains were half-empty instead of full of people squashed up against each other – a youngish man talking about the strip mall he was developing took a break to argue with an older woman. She complained that he had hit her with his bag or something and he went off on her in a very rude and condescending way. She argued right back at him, trading insults that culminated in his asking snidely, “you going to go PROtest now?” “Even in the sixties I didn’t protest,” she scoffed. “It doesn’t show,” he said obscurely.
Protesters are something to look down on it seems and calling someone a protester is an insult. A month or so before the convention, I heard men in my office speaking derisively of the protesters. I have seen many people laugh at the Women in Black protesters, as well as at the First Amendment Mob. It is hard to tell if they are really amused or if it is their way of asserting superiority – probably some of both. It is frightening that as our civil liberties are taken away and we inch toward fascism, people are not only unconcerned about it, but are amused by those who are concerned.
Union Square at 6 pm is crawling with cops looking for arrests, plastic handcuffs at the ready. I am not clear why except that it seems to be a protesters village, an anarchist spontaneous sit-in. It seems to be a general gathering area with signs everywhere and stalls giving information or selling merchandise, people making solitary demonstrations.
There was a great turnout at the First Amendment Mob gathering at Ground Zero – the last Tuesday the action will be held – it seemed there were almost as many actors as commuters.
As we chanted below in the station, people were arrested above on the sidewalk, on what charge, no one would tell us. I wandered up to the street as part of my performance and noted a gathering of people and police, including the 911Truth people, who believe that there is a massive government cover-up of what happened on September 11th, 2001, and that the Bush government knew the attacks were coming and let them happen in order to have an excuse, however disconnected, to invade Iraq. Fifteen minutes later, the people had all been swept away.
To test the First Amendment, Reverend Billy’s choir and faithful then gathered on that same sidewalk to sing a few songs and preach to the crowds coming to look at the World Trade Center pit. We were unmolested by the police. A man passing by urged the police to “arrest that traitor,” pointing to Reverend Billy as he defended the First Amendment. Some people actually embrace the fascist government.
A man was handing out books of matches advertising www.pantsonfire.net - as in ‘liar, liar, pants on fire.’ The logo is a running figure of W with his pants on fire. He told us all that George Bush was on his way to Ground Zero, having just left Fox News, where he gathered quite a large crowd. Soon, along came an immaculate white luxury car driven by a man in a suit and pulling a trailer with a cowboy figure that had video monitors bearing W’s face. The pants were decorated to simulate fire, and lit up as if burning as the car drove by, emitting light and smoke.
Later, about 8 pm, as I walked from the library the skies echoed with helicopters. At home, an hour later, they continued to chop the air above my apartment, low they sound. I wondered what it was like in Vietnam during the war, with helicopters tearing up the skies all the time.
Happily, one of my neighbors around the corner on East Fourth Street has hung a rainbow banner from the march from their windows. It reads,
We the People
SAY NO
To the Bush Agenda.
The house rules for my coop state that “no sign, notice, advertisement or illumination shall be inscribed or exposed on or at any window or other part of the building, except such as shall have been approved in writing by the Lessor or the managing agent.”

September 1st, 2004
Some African-American men on the subway speak loudly about how dumb W is. They don’t let him debate because people will see what an idiot he is. He made it through Yale but he is not smart. They asked him a question and he said he wished that they had asked sooner so that he could have wrote [sic] down an answer. From the orange vests and helmets they carry, I think they are transit workers.
I happen to leave the office today at the same time as woman who is pretty high up in our department. She tells me that she read that the unemployment line that was staged this morning stretched from Wall Street to Madison Square Garden. She is delighted by the success of this protest. I guess she’s got my number, or does she volunteer such information to everyone? She told me she attended the Planned Parenthood event on Monday night – I skipped that one, they were charging something like $150 a head. Her boyfriend paid, she said, and it was very exciting, felt like back in the sixties again.
I did not tell her that I was on my way to the Axis of Eve panty flash in Battery Park. The Axis of Eve women wear panties and undershirts that say things like ‘lick bush’, expose bush’, ‘weapons of mass seduction.’ They did a panty flash for a predominantly male crowd, each of whom seemed to have some kind of lens in front of their faces. It was great fun, women of all shapes, sizes in their panties chanting ‘Bush, out my bush!’

September 2nd, 2004
Protesters have infiltrated Madison Square Garden daily, because the delegates are giving out credentials. During Dick Cheney’s speech Code Pink unfurled a banner: Cheney and Halliburton: Making a Killing in Iraq. During Laura Bush’s speech, protesters held up a sign that read, Be Pro-Life: Stop the Killing in Iraq.
I speak on the phone with my friend Liz who is away writing her dissertation. She is happy to hear that I have been protesting. She will vote, she says, that’s what matters in the end.
I hear on the radio that hundreds of protesters and legal observers – the latter wearing bright green caps for easy identification - have been held since Tuesday at a pier turned holding cell without access to lawyers. They should have been given desk appearance tickets and immediately released. Among them are people just walking down the street who were caught in the net; they are being held while criminals are processed and released to the streets. Habeas Corpus briefs were filed by a team of lawyers to get them released. An angry judge ordered the city to start arraigning them or release them immediately with desk appearance tickets. Free Speech Radio News reports that to date 1500 have been arrested and that as a rule they are being held for a day or two without processing. The detainees claim that they were told by the police that they would not be released until W leaves town tonight. When the police failed to follow the judge’s ruling, they were ordered to release 470 of 578 people they were holding. By 5:20, they had only released 67. The numbers may be larger, there may be more who have not even been entered into the system and officially don’t exist.
The police answer that the problem is the large numbers. Now, if they went into the protests expecting to arrest a thousand per day – and were sufficiently stocked with plastic handcuff – how can it be that they did not have systems in place to process those they arrested? The lawyers speaking for the protesters suspect that the city is colluding with Bush to punish dissenters. The lawyers also predict that people will lose interest in this after the protest and the city will get away with it.
I work late to make up for the actions I have gone to this week, but on my way home I stop at Union Square to get some cash. Just as it was Tuesday evening, it is protest central. Vicki is there selling her buttons and I ask if something is organized or if it is just a gathering? She says there is a candlelight vigil and that groups keep arriving from somewhere. The cops were there in full force, of course, again with pens around the subway entrance. I realize as I pass them that they are placed so that they could be quickly moved to the side and the protesters trapped. There are people with candles strung through the park along the pathways, but also the Free Palestine people and Code Orange, from the San Francisco Bay Area. They stand in a line, gagged with orange rags that read “Patriot Act” and wearing shirts that say things like Dissent on their heads. There are bands, a Code Pink contingent, people selling all kinds of t-shirts and buttons. Three people wrapped in the orange plastic netting that the police are using for crowd control march around chanting, “The People…United…Will All Get Arrested.”
I see Lucy who reports that the previous evening’s Women in Black vigil was well-attended, watched over by small shifts of cops that whispered together in consternation. A few days before, protesters were arrested on the steps of public library, where the WIB vigil. The line of police motorcycles parked alongside the square all vanished while I was walking around.
Groups of airport shuttle buses from Newark “Liberty” Airport are standing by on 6th Avenue, along with more cops. To transport arrestees, or cops?

Protest Aftermath:
The New York Civil Liberties Union filed two lawsuits against the city for their treatment of peaceful, lawful protesters, bystanders, and legal observers and for their treatment after arrest, for example, being held for more than 24 hours without charge. A 17-year-old girl calls into the radio program to say that she was meeting a friend to go to the movies when she got caught into a net with a bunch of protesters and was taken to Pier 57 – a bus garage - and held for something like 36 hours. Her parents must have been frantic! She reports how people were getting sick because of the oil and gasoline on the floor. There was nowhere to sit except on the floor. Detainees were told to keep the clothes they wore as evidence.
Among the demands are the return of arrest records and fingerprints and setting policy to prevent such actions in the future.
The District Attorney’s office agreed to drop charges against 227 people who were arrested on August 31st. Most of them were War Resisters arrested in a die-in action. Not having a permit, they negotiated with the police to march double-file down the sidewalk, but at some point the police changed their minds and arrested them all. One elderly woman said she convinced the police to release her because she did not think her health could withstand imprisonment. A Republican convention delegate was swept up in the net, but released at the pier.
The judge who cited the city for contempt of court for holding demonstrators too long later lifted the charge.

September 20th, 2004
Back in New York, after ten days in Spain. It was a relief to be away on September 11th and barely notice it, instead of being swept up in it again. I have been ignoring the survey I received last month from the 9/11 Memory Consortium, to update their studies on what I remember of that day. I am afraid of how little I remember of that day, when I thought that each moment would be etched indelibly on me.
I missed the candlelight vigils that were held on September 9th to mark the death of the 1000th American serviceperson. We should be having vigils that commemorate all the people who have died there, from all countries. The last time I checked the Iraqi body count website the estimate was between 12,000 and 15,000. On September 9, the New York Times published photos of each of the thousand Americans.
I am unable to say anything to foreigners who ask me why Bush is leading so strongly in the polls. It is unfathomable. They all want to vote in the elections, as our president is also their president. I wish someone would organize international mock elections on the weekend prior to the real election.
I set off for yoga in my My Pet Goat t-shirt and pass a house on East 4th Street, just around the corner from me, with a handwritten sign in the window. It bears a quote from Henry David Thoreau: ‘”Nothing is so much to be feared as fear.” Don’t let the government frighten you!’ A brown-skinned man pulling a suitcase on wheels also stops to read, smiling in approval. Two old women pause and discuss a previous sign that had been in the window. I write a note, ‘Hear Hear!’, sign it A Neighbor, and tuck it into the gate.
When I returned home about 7:30 in the evening, a man waiting in front of an apartment building asked the woman walking in front of me where she’d been. ‘I couldn’t leave!’ She said, ‘That son-of-a-bitch…Bush…was right next door…they wouldn’t let anyone out of the building! I said how’m I supposed to get home…’

September 24, 2004
The police have given up on our building as a terrorist threat, I guess, there are usually only two cops hovering on the sidewalk by their parked patrol car, yawning. Building security is still very much by the books.
When I read the newspaper I feel panicky, ill, really terrified about how bad things are and how much worse they will get. I see no reason to hope. This is far different than three Septembers ago when I felt panicky at the thought of terrorist attacks. Now it is my government I fear.

September 30th, 2004
I had the misfortune of arriving at work in the morning just as the last few people were evacuating. Just five minutes later and I would have missed the whole evacuation drill. The people in the red fire safety team hats were circling the floor and one of them, Rich, said, ‘Everyone’s leaving, Stephanie.’ I unfastened my Emergency Evacuation Kit from under my desk and followed, dutifully walking downstairs to the street. I wasn’t exactly sure where our assembly location was, since during the last evacuation drill I skipped that part and, after milling about on the sidewalk for a few minutes, went immediately back up to my desk. In the ‘event of an actual emergency’ – as they say on the radio when they test the Emergency Broadcast System – I would not be heading north to the assembly location five streets and two avenues away but south toward Brooklyn and my cats. Imagine, if every company in midtown has some assembly location what chaos there would be. What if there are 30 other companies with our assembly location? Maybe 30 companies will not have simultaneous emergencies.
This time I shadowed two women from my floor in red hats, about 20 feet behind, non-committal about really going all the way there, eating my soy yogurt as I walked. I did know we were supposed to assemble somewhere near the Plaza Hotel, so when I lost the women at a light change, I headed that way and found the people from my floor clustered in front of FAO Schwartz.

October 1st, 2004
I listened to the first Presidential debate last night over the internet as I worked late in the office. It was the first such debate I ever listened to, and I only did this time because it followed the news I was listening to and I had a lot of work to do. I listened with headphones to a radio broadcast while trying to correct some 900 rows of erroneous data that I had put into the database, muttering and snorting, “liar!”, “yeah, right!”, and generally moaning. Fortunately, not too many other people were around to overhear me. Kerry didn’t sound so bright, but he made some lucid points. Bush sounded dumb, repeating the same defenses or attacks over and over, and tired. “It’s hard….hard work…it’s haaaaard fighting a war,’ he kept saying, sounding really done in by the whole business. I wonder how it looked – I wish I had thought to find CNN.com so I could watch it, too. I wonder if he looked as dispirited as he sounded.
The New York Civil Liberties Union reports that an undercover cop was seen during the protests wearing a motor scooter helmet with the words: ‘Loud Wives Lose Lives.’

October 6th, 2004
Some women from the mailroom made the rounds of the office today, asking everyone to remove their Emergency Evacuation Kits from their Velcro strips and place them on our desks, as someone was coming to put flashlights in them. In a short time, a man appeared behind me and placed what looked like a credit card in my kit, then reattached it to my work station with the Velcro strips. I could not help but think about how in an emergency one’s flashlight has always run out of batteries.

October 07, 2004
The New York City Police Department conducted proactive mobilization drills conducted by the NYPD in front of our company headquarters in the Times Square areas. What about the tourists in Times Square who do not have security advisories to reassure them about the heavy police presence? Or maybe, the presence itself assures them, that Big Brother is taking care of them.

October 8th, 2004
I watched a little bit of the debates of the Vice-Presidential candidates the other day – well, I had the second half on the television while I did chores and checked email. When I did look at the screen, John Edwards made a far better visual impression than Dick Cheney, who always looks like a cringing ghost. Would that alone be enough to sway undecided voters? No, people who would decide based on such visual impressions are not watching. And, Dick Cheney might appeal more to some people as an older, more experienced man. Instead of being charmed by Edwards they might find him smarmy and too young – he looks a good ten years younger on television than he is - and squeaky-clean.
To me, the choice seems obvious. How can anyone vote to continue this regime full of deceitful, manipulative, isolationist people who are bankrupting us? I believe they just signed another ‘tax relief’ bill – which can only increase the budget deficit. It is a pity Colin Powell got mixed up with them. I think he is a better man and could have distinguished himself better in a different group.
Internet speculation has it that Bush is fed his lines through a earpiece teleprompter. People claim that they have heard a voice speaking W’s lines before he does. This is supposed to explain the odd restrictions about camera angles during the first debate, and to explain the disjointed way he speaks – stammering, repeating the question, then suddenly blurting out an answer -- and his shifty eyes. www.isbushwired.org is trying to collect evidence and posted a still from the first debate that showed a bulge on his back. Whoever is behind the website wants to get this news – if it is news – out before the election.
While I sat home in my bathrobe, the police department would be drilling in the streets indefinitely, according to the security advisory.

October 10th, 2004
Last night, I cruised gallery openings with my friend Bernardo passing out Billionaires for Bush leaflets. I do not remember ever receiving such looks of horror as we did from people who did not get the joke and thought we were really Bush supporters. We met Italians on a Soho sidewalk who argued politely with us until we finally clued them in. Then they kissed us. We met a woman who said she was about to be made a Chevalier by the government of France – though she would have preferred to be made a princess. We pretended we knew what it meant, it seemed impressive enough.
We did not have a list of openings so we wandered the streets of Chelsea looking for telltale crowds on the sidewalk – thanking Mayor Bloomberg for banishing smoking inside public places. The art was bad, for the most part, and I cannot repeat the names of any of the artists. The last one we found had no gathering on the sidewalk, just a few people going in and out, which in the otherwise dead evening streets of Chelsea is an event. A man in the elevator asked if we were going to so-and-so’s show, we didn’t understand but said yes. Of course, he said, where else. The people on the elevator looked as if they were in their 60s and 70s and were very expensively dressed. We streamed into a small, crowded gallery, more expensively dressed, older people. A small gap between people was just enough to reveal the name of the artist: Gloria Vanderbilt. We were a little nervous about getting kicked out, but made the rounds of the art, collages of family photographs, until a group of women accosted us. They were definitely on our side and were happy to get Billionaires for Bush stickers, even a “Re-Appoint Bush” button, but were disappointed that Bernardo had no more “Four More Wars” buttons like the one he was wearing. We left while we were ahead and went down the elevator with a group of wealthy folks who, from their murmuring, were clearly on our side. We did not try to recruit Gloria herself, leaving her to enjoy her night of celebration.
We even crashed the opening of a store that sells high-end green design products like soy candles, a dining table and chairs made from junked baby grand pianos, and some pillows covered in the fur of some animal from New Zealand that the tag claimed to be very hazardous to the environment (which was supposed to justify killing it to decorate one’s house). We sipped champagne and swapped causes.
The New York Times actually picked up the ‘is Bush wired’ story and ran it yesterday. Let’s see where it goes. The New York Post proclaims Bush the winner of the debate, The New York Times says that ‘Bush Shows a Different Side, But Not His Best One.’

October 12th, 2004
I am surprised to hear people in the office engage in debate talk. One group was talking about how bad Bush sounded and they were annoyed with Kerry for not taking opportunities to pound Bush’s bad answers. for example, regarding the environment, where Bush has a terrible record. I passed two other men saying, by tomorrow [the next debate] we’ll know better where we stand. I do not know which ‘we’ they were.
Today it is the The Daily News’ turn to ask what W was hiding under his jacket in the first two debates. For an expert witness they interview a tailor, who says that there is definitely a foreign object not very well hidden. He sayd he could have done a better job, that he can hide a pistol under the breast. It definitely is not bad tailoring because the suit otherwise fits well, despite looking bland and off-the-rack. As usual, the White House continues to deny the obvious.

October 13, 2004
I half-watched, half-listened to the final debate tonight. Bush had some weird little half-smile frozen on his face, forced friendliness. He says that people do not need government to tell them how to live their lives, then immediately switches to how important the marriage law is – how much more can the government get in people’s lives than to regulate marriage? Consenting adults can live anyway they want, but we must protect marriage – exactly whose marriage is threatened or harmed by my friend’s sister marrying her girlfriend? The worrisome thing is that many people probably believe his lies.

October 14, 2004
One of my colleagues told me that people now believe Bush wears a bullet proof vest during public appearances and that accounts for the bulge. However, the White House will not admit to that either. If so, at least they understand that people hate them. Not that that will inspire any self-examination.
The fire drill alarm went off just as I started eating my lunch. In addition to reviewing the regular fire procedures, the security chief for the building discussed other emergencies, emergencies outside our building: bioterrorism, etc. In such cases, we might be urged not to evacuate and to stay in the building where it would be safest. The ventilation system would be shut down to prevent the intake of air from outside. We would not be required to stay, we would be free to leave if we wanted to. He also told us that our new flashlights in our Emergency Evacuation Kits have a battery shelf-life of seven years.
Usually the fire drills are very nice and talk about orderly departures, the fire-proof characteristics of the building that prevents fire from moving between floors. We are always made to feel very safe and protected, that we would be just taking a stroll down the steps. The man who did this drill was new and he was talking about smoke conditions, crawling on the floor, losing our way – we should crawl along the walls because the doors are connected to the walls. He called the roll of the fire marshals, half of them do not work here any more.
The sidewalk in front of our building has been roped off and torn up on the street side. I cannot figure out what they are doing, replacing the sidewalk, I guess. Did it really need it or is it a red herring, another security ploy to block access to the building? The rest looks find, albeit not brand new – which may be flaw enough. Maybe they are planting some security devices in there – surely not land mines!

October 26, 2004
Dear Friend:

Next Tuesday may be the most important presidential election ever in the history of the United States of America. We must stand behind the decisions made by President Bush, and our government, and prove to the world; and our enemies and pseudo friends, that we are united, and, that we are fighting this war against terrorism for a just cause. A cause that is dedicated to protect our democratic way of life; a cause to free us from the fear of terrorist attacks; and a cause to free millions of people who have been long suppressed by a ruthless dictator unprecedented since Adolph Hitler. Remember, the world stood silently by as Hitler's murderers marched through Europe in an attempted to conquer the world. Are we to allow history to repeat itself?

As Abraham Lincoln once said: "A house divided cannot stand". And this country did stand behind President Lincoln, and the nation prevailed as a united nation.

This is not a business-as-usual election. It may determine the fate of our country.

Please set aside partisan politics and demagoguery, and support your president in this critical time of war.

Thank You.

That was an email that I received from my uncle. Though I hate confrontations and love my uncle and do not want a bad relationship with him, I had to write back that I disagreed. I wrote: “sorry, but i VERY MUCH disagree with this. this man is destroying democracy, shredding the constitution, breaking international laws and has already bankrupt our economy and alienated us from the rest of the world. it is time for a different path. i fear for us and for the world if he gets himself into office again.”

One of my friends has already gone to my home state, Ohio, one of the few states that the candidates are bothering to campaign in, either taking victory for granted in the others or ceding them to the opponent, as part of a “get out the vote” campaign. Another is leaving on Thursday, driving to Cleveland.
I am frozen with fear, waiting to see what happens next week, will there be a fair and free election? Who will be the winner? Rumors and accusation of voter fraud are coming from both sides, of voter registrations being destroyed, Republicans intimidating poor urban blacks from showing up to vote. My friend Ivo suggested that the rapper Eminem go to the rich white suburbs and try to frighten them away from the polls. New machines are place that are suspect. I just hope there is a clear result. Even if it is the one that I fear, at least let it be unquestioned and no more stolen elections.
I attended two public lectures given by Julia Kristeva in the past few days, and in both, as in my Derrida class last week, the topics of the elections and the war came easily to the surface. It can be recalled into any context. It is on the minds of everyone I know, at least those who will vote for Kerry. I do not know about the Bush supporters. I cannot imagine what they think. The title of one of the Kristeva lectures was “Is revolt possible today?” It is from one of her books on revolt. She questions the possibility of revolt because power is vacant and values are corrupt. There is only a kind of nothing against which to revolt, and only another nothing with which to replace it. What is necessary is a personal revolt: a rebirth of the subject in its attachment to others is the only kind of revolt possible in the context of endless war and false revolution.
Another of my neighbors has hung a ‘We The People Say No To The Bush Agenda’ flag on front of their house, and someone across the street from me has a large Kerry/Edwards sign in their window. We vote in the school down my street, so perhaps people on the way to vote will see that sign.

October 29th, 2004

A young woman I work with told me she is not registered to vote. I asked, why not, she shrugged. She wouldn’t know how to vote anyway, she says, who to vote for. She enjoyed the voting machine gap that is going around the internet – a computer animation of a computer voting screen that offers Bush and Kerry buttons but refuses to allow the voter to vote for Kerry. The Kerry button moves about, eluding the little hand-cursor that tries to click on it, disappearing off-screen. When the little hand follows it and manages to click on it, it changes from a blue Kerry button to a red Bush button and the voter is told “The State of Florida thanks you for again voting for George W. Bush.” - but to her it is just a joke. To me it is funny, but my also worst nightmare.
As I walk to Union Square to buy wheatgrass for Pan, I see cops clustered in front of the Kenneth Cole store – a terrorist attack on Kenneth Cole, I wonder? Cops in a van stuff McDonald’s food in their mouths, more cops loiter around Union Square. Then I get it: it is Critical Mass night again. The mayor has been trying to stop the riders from doing their monthly ride without a permit; a federal judge would not let him, and also forbade the seizure of bicycles unless the riders were arrested. Last month apparently, a bunch of chained bicycles were seized by the police. Still, the police are handing out flyers about rules for the ride (ride no wider than double file, etc.) and what the riders can be arrested for. In true anarchist fashion, the riders split into radical cells and took over the streets for themselves. The Times says 33 were arrested, I later heard 47, four more were arrested at an after-party on Houston Street, this time for overcrowding an office.
The bad news is that former New York City mayor Rudy Guiliani is campaigning for Bush. People outside New York love him, they think that he made New York safe and clean. “Isn’t that Guiliani great,” they tell me, “he got rid of the homeless, didn’t he?” I sputter, “well, not by giving them homes. He just swept them under the carpet.” He spent his time in office harassing the little guys trying to survive in the American tradition of self-sufficiency, entrepreneurship, and “pull yourself up by your bootstraps”: street vendors, taxi drivers, homeless panhandlers, squeegee guys. “Quality of Life” was the name of his campaign – but it was not concerned with the quality of everyone’s life. God forbid a homeless person should commit the crime of sitting down somewhere. He is also perceived to have handled the terrorist attacks heroically.

October 30th, 2004
Osama bin Laden appears on the front page of The New York Times today, not only alive but looking rather well in his dour fashion. According to the Reuters’ transcript of his appearance on Al-Jazeera, he endorsed neither candidate and appears to be an existential philosopher: “Your security is not in the hands of (Democratic presidential candidate John) Kerry or Bush or al Qaeda. Your security is in your own hands and each state which does not harm our security will remain safe.” The subtleties are likely to be lost in dumbed-down news reports, and among a populace that is not used to taking responsibility. Along with Michael Moore, he expresses disbelief at the way Bush left “50,000 citizens in the two towers to face those horrors” while he busied himself with pet goats.
My uncle responded good-naturedly to my email saying that our exchange was an example of what makes America great, that we can be free to disagree. He and my aunt voted two weeks ago – in Florida. Being that they voted “correctly,” their votes are not likely to get “lost.”

November 1st, 2004
The Hallowe’en Parade was last night, it was very political. Many people costumed themselves in the orange netting that the police used to trap protesters during the Republican convention. Two women dressed as police officers carried orange netting in which they wrapped people and said, “I’m arresting you!” The real police looked on impassively. Protest groups marched together, CodePink got a special place in line. The Axis of Eve (“Drill Bush Not Oil”) followed the Billionaires for Bush.
Tomorrow is the day, my stomach is sick with fear and dread. I plan to go to an Election Night party in a club because I cannot bear the idea of sitting home alone listening to the results, I might as well drown my sorrows in company. My friends, the Hungry March Band, will be performing.

November 7th, 2004

Everyone I talk to is stunned by Bush’s victory. I am finding it hard to concentrate on what I need to do. This morning I heard on the radio that a college student from Georgia killed himself at ground zero, out of depression and protest.
The morning after, the subway seemed deathly quiet – am I projecting my depression on the dejected, tired faces around me? No, R affirmed that that was his experience, too, and that he took his students out for drinks the following night because they were so depressed. The office was also pretty quiet, though I put on headphones and listened to the radio rather than hear anyone talking about the elections. I still manage to hear a man walk over to the woman across the aisle from me and remark quietly: he’s conceding. Some men in the elevator briefly discuss the concession, it’s the right thing to do, not drag it out. It was different for Gore because he was so close. Then they are immediately on to deals, sandwich shops.
A woman remarks to the woman across the aisle about how red the map of the US is, with blue only on the coasts, it is like we live in separate countries.
Some people gathered in an office nearby to watch the Kerry concession speech on internet television. I do not want to hear it. Too bad, because when I go to buy some lunch the speech is on the television in the shop. It normally plays soap operas at low volume for the cashiers. Now the volume is up and a crowd is listening intently. I begin to cry.
A man back in the office tells me he is just trying not to cry, and tried to get an emergency appointment with his therapist. He says, keep some shoes at work, shoes at home, bottled water, because you know we will be attacked again. I kind of agree, but don’t point out that I have plenty of shoes at home because I know he is just upset.
I hate them now, Bush and his people, which I never did before. Hate is a waste of energy, an angry unfocused reaction. I hope I soon find a constructive channel for my energy and not get stuck in feeling sorry for myself and self-destructive tendencies. I have to find a way to do some productive work.
Everyone I speak to or write to is completely demoralized, we fought so hard and still we lost. I tell them that we have to keep fighting, we have to keep them from getting too far out of control. I am afraid that we will just collapse for four years. Meanwhile, Bush is claiming to have gained “capital” in the form of the support of the American people. He has already forgotten that nearly half the country does not support him. That all those red states are really varying shades of purple, depending on the amount of blue mixed in. He squandered any international capital he had long ago, and as for economic capital, he is completely in debt to his unborn grandchildren.
We are also having a little fun with the red and blue – that red is no longer for communists and “better dead than red” but for their long-time foe. We wonder that red did not get assigned to the Democrats, then the Repubs could have amused themselves by equating red and dem. And how appropriate it would have been to assign white to the Republicans – with pointy hoods, my friend adds.

Copyright©Stephanie Damoff, 2004