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The San Francisco Panorama.
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The next morning, I took the train downtown, where a scheduled, permitted protest parade, thrown by an "umbrella" organization called Unity 2000, was taking shape on the expansive boulevards just northwest of downtown. The air had the approximate consistency of a washing machine on rinse. This had best be good, I thought. The first people I saw as I approached the back of the parade line were the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade, many of whom I recognized from Chicago, where this past winter, they had occupied a doomed building in the Robert Taylor Homes in solidarity with its few dozen remaining residents, produced a banner that read, "Kosovo on State Street," and proceeded to ensure, despite their good-hearted intentions, that the people inside were treated like rodents by the media and, especially, by the Chicago Housing Authority. But the RCYB was only a blip among thousands of Anarchists, Democratic Socialists, queer activists, abortion-rightists, death-penalty abolitionists, moderate campaign-finance-reform wonks, animal-rights fanatics, and global-warming drum bangers, among so many others. There were a good number of intelligent, concerned people in the crowd, and a lesser number of the evidently deranged, who were obvious targets for the newspaper photographers. Everyone's favorite was a twitchy gentleman who carried around a large picture of an aborted fetus and a sign that read, "Drunkards and Fornicators Will Join Tupac In Hell." I spoke to one guy, equally atypical, who was walking around on stilts with a sign around his neck that read, "I Have No Cause. I Am Not a Protester." "I had nothing else to do today," he said. The protesters marched up JFK Drive onto Ben Franklin Boulevard. They danced and sang and carried on like dopes. In general, the smells were not good, and it was getting hotter. I hung around the most interesting bunch, a lively crew called Billionaires for Bush and Gore, which is a project of United For A Fair Economy, a Boston-based public-education outfit that tries to call attention to the growing nationwide gap between the rich and the poor. They wear thrift-store cocktail dresses and tuxedos, adopt nicknames, and say funny things that not only parody corporate values, but also the incredible lameness of protest rhetoric. Here are some examples: "One, two, three, four, we just want to earn much more! Five, six, seven eight, don't you dare tax our estates!" "Whose media? Our media!" And my favorite: "Corporations are people too!" I talked to Mr. I Owen Tewmuch and his wife, Mrs. Getaway Tewmuch. He was wearing a stovepipe hat and a tuxedo. She was in a dress that appeared to be left over from Titanic rehearsals, and was dragging behind her a suitcase full of fake dollar bills and anti-corporate literature. "I'm from Long Island," she said. "My wife and I are estranged," he said. "She's stranger than I am." Arriving at the protest area, I found concession stands selling smoothies, soft pretzels, and charbroiled chicken breasts. From there, the event turned into a kind of left-wing state fair, which was fun for about an hour or so. "The media is disappointed today," said one speaker, after a round of unendurable folk singing. Damn right we were. "But this isn't an event," he said. "This is a movement. Every time a politician opens his mouth, one of us will be there." Up marched a large group from Chinatown, who were banging a gong and protesting the city's plans to build a new baseball stadium in their neighborhood. On its face, this seems like the noblest cause in the world, until you actually attend a baseball game at Veterans Stadium, at which point you will conclude that, if necessary, Philadelphia should tear down Independence Hall to give the Phillies a new home. After they passed, I bought six buttons for five dollars, and a cute sock puppet wearing an American-flag hat and the words "Politics 4 Sale" inside its mouth. Actors playing George W. Bush and Al Gore were scheduled to mud-wrestle on a float to see which one would be elected President, but I was bored and wanted to leave. You kind of have to admire an event where the head of the beleaguered local liquor-store clerks union begs for the crowd's support and then introduces a gaggle of chanting Tibetan monks, but, trust me, you don't necessarily want to witness this stuff for yourself. As I made my merciful escape, I ran into the kids from the train, including the girl who knew my wife. "Did you see the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade?" said one of them, with all the excitement of a summer-camp CIT. "They burned a flag!" NEXT INSTALLMENT
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