Protest

Inauguration-day demonstrations

by Catherine Tumber

When the 2000 presidential election was finally settled by the US Supreme Court in a stunning display of partisanship, many of us felt a shudder of dread slither up our spines. We know that the hard work of resisting George II's predations lies in the daily grind of organizing and debate in the months ahead. But might there not be just a wee bit of catharsis in launching the effort with a good old-fashioned demonstration? If you think so, the International Action Center (IAC), which had a hand in protests at the Seattle World Trade Organization meeting and the Democratic and Republican Party nominating conventions, is running buses to Washington, DC, for counter-inaugural activities. Buses will leave next Friday, January 19, at 11 p.m. from the lot at Roxbury Community College (across from the Roxbury Crossing T stop on the Orange Line); they will return after the protests conclude in the late afternoon of January 20. As of this writing, IAC and affiliated protesters are planning to gather on January 20 at 10 a.m. on the corner of 14th Street NW and Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington. For details, call the IAC Boston office at (617) 522-6626 or contact www.iacboston.org.

If you're not fully committed to the IAC's "Free Mumia" campaign, or if its "Stop the Globalization Death Machine" slogan strikes you as, oh, rhetorically excessive in ways that recall the early-'70s sectarian left, consider attending the Inaugural Voters March, which will mass for a rally at DC's Dupont Circle (19th Street and P Street NW) at 10 a.m., and march at 1 p.m. -- some to the parade route, others to the steps of the Supreme Court. (They will probably converge with IAC protesters at some point, according to New York attorney Louis Posner, a leading Voters March organizer.) The recently formed, self-described "moderate" group was established specifically to oppose voting irregularities in Florida; it favors voters' rights, electoral reform, and campaign-finance reform. For travel information and details, contact Pam Appleby at boston@votermarch.org.

Counter-inaugural plans are still unfolding. We just learned that the AFL-CIO won't be there, and the Reverend Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, originally scheduled to protest at the Supreme Court on Inauguration Day, will join with several other black civil-rights groups for a prayer vigil on January 20 -- in Tallahassee. But one thing is certain: if you want to register your dissent on "J20," as organizers have dubbed it, there are plenty of ways to do so all over the country. The best information clearinghouse on the Internet is the Nation magazine's Web site at www.thenation.com/special/counterinauguration.