Streets of Rage (Tom Robbins Reporting on Protests)

[Khephra]

How George Bush and his Republicans mobilized half a million people

Streets of Rage

by Tom Robbins & Jennifer Gonnerman

All week in the host city, his name was a curse on the lips of hundreds of thousands.

It was the first word of the opening act in a week of protests, chanted singsong by 80 marchers who had trooped 250 miles from the Democratic convention in Boston to New York, arriving Thursday night. "Yo-ho, yo-ho, Bush has got to go-oh!" they cried, as they strode down Broadway under a luminous three-quarter moon and the piercing searchlight of a police helicopter.

Five thousand free-spirited bike riders flung his name into the night on Friday, screaming "No more Bush!" at the midtown canyons as they madly tried to outpedal the cops. In Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, an encampment of poor people from Philadelphia, a delegation without credentials here to present its grievances, set up its tents in a vacant lot off Nostrand Avenue and dubbed it "Bushville."

In Williamsburg on Saturday, diners at Fabiane's Café on Bedford Avenue stood and applauded 50 weary souls, many of whom had walked from Long Island's East End chanting "Drop Bush, not bombs." That evening, at the still-gaping open wound that was the World Trade Center, hundreds of people rang bells, saying they wanted to heal the pain of 9-11 and drown out the echoes of his administration's bombs.

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0435/robbins.php

[On the Road]

1. Is it "THE" Tom Robbins?

Just wondering. I read a straight interview he did once, but otherwise haven't seen any magazine or newspaper pieces. Big fan of his novels, though.

[Khephra]

2. I'm pretty sure it's THE Tom.

He's done serious journalism before, so I'm not too surprised.

[Dancing_Dave]

3. Great Piece!

Maybe the most classic thing written about these very important protests against the RNC. :toast: