'Die-in' leads to arrests
Action demanded attention for Iraq dead
By Charles Shaw
Illinois Green Party

After a weekend of stunning mass actions during the Republican National Convention--thousands of Critical Mass bicycle riders on Friday, the Green World festival on Saturday, the half-million strong United for Peace and Justice march on Sunday and the explosive Poor People's Marches on Monday--it was time for a different kind of action, to communicate a very different message.

The mass marches and demonstrations were tailored for broad-based participation from all quarters of American society: safe, non-threatening, and mostly permitted. But as Tuesday morning crested across Manhattan, the populists had disembarked and gone home to points near and far, while the hardcore activist community rose and prepared for their coming-out party.

"A31" had been in motion for months. It was to be a day of decentralized actions of civil disobedience meant to throw the city into non-violent chaos, communicating a strong and consistent message of defiance.

The War Resisters League's overall plan for "A31" was to hold a rally and vigil at Ground Zero and then begin a solemn procession of mourners dressed in white up the sidewalks along Broadway until they reached the lower 30s. As close as we could get to the intersection of 31st and Broadway would be where we would all "die". We expected anywhere from 50-200 "dead" in the street.

"Dying" alongside me were Steve Greenfield of the New Paltz Greens, Margaret Human, former Green candidate for state representative in New York, and Frida Berrigan, the daughter of the late radical ex-priest Phillip Berrigan.

"The wars we oppose are not manifestations of free speech," Greenfield wrote in the days before the die-in. "They are horrifying and merciless facts of violence.… If we are not prepared to give something of value to protect the lives and welfare of American service members, countless thousands of civilians, our children and the future generations of our precious planet, if we make no challenge to the civil order by which warmongers throughout history and up to today claim legitimacy for their actions, then our voices need never be heeded."

As the first 200 or so marchers, which included many Greens, stepped off the curb, the police closed in behind them, pulling across metal barriers that penned the marchers in. They then proceeded to arrest anyone on the street, be they protestor, media, legal observer, street medic, tourist or office worker on his or her way home.

After an hour delay, the remaining few hundred marchers resumed their journey northward to the area surrounding Madison Square Garden. When we reached 28th Street, an police captain ordered us to head into "the designated protest zone." We refused, and as the light turned red, 50 of us bolted into the street and lay down in the middle of the intersection.

Greenfield, Margaret and I were arrested, charged with two counts of disorderly conduct and held for 48 hours in deplorable conditions without seeing a judge, until the New York Supreme Court ordered all of us released and fined the city $1,000 for every protester detained after 5 p.m.
For a full detailed account of ours and other's experience in detention, see: newtopiamagazine.net/archives/content/issue18/features/guantanamo.php 

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