November 21, 2009
UTNE READER

Progressives on the Move Within Democratic Party

(Page 2 of 2)

July 2004
Jacob Wheeler Utne.com 
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On a national tour for his new book Let's Stop Beating Around the Bush, Hightower can't help but notice that people are organizing grassroots campaigns like he's never seen before. Still buoyed by the fantastic turnout during global antiwar protests on February 15, 2003 as well as the legacies of Seattle, Cancun, and Miami, progressive activists are proving themselves a force to be reckoned with at major political and economic events everywhere.

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'Our ultimate goal may not be John Kerry in the White House, but to take back our country. We've got to work with the tools we have right now,' Hightower said. 'We as progressives need to do the heavy lifting of democracy and apply the pressure, either with websites, blogs, or even street action, if necessary.'

In Boston this week the activists were out in gale force, breaking free from the oppressive, barbed-wire bonds of the Free Speech Zone and taking their act to the Boston Common for the Real, Real Democratic Bazaar on Tuesday. The Black Tea Society activist group set up shop in a well-organized headquarters near Copley Plaza. Critical Mass cyclists biked all over Boston, distracting and confusing police officers. Street actors staged a rendition of Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo Bay in the ominous Free Speech Zone on Monday. And Code Pink moved around the Fleet Center with pro-peace banners too quickly to be contained by the authorities, although organization founder Medea Benjamin was dragged off the convention floor in handcuffs Tuesday night as she unfurled an 'End the Occupation of Iraq' banner.

Though not stated openly, one got the impression that the demonstrations were a prelude to a much bigger event -- one that must be protested with even more fervor -- the 'hats-off-to-George W. Bush and his neo-cons' party coming very soon to Manhattan.

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