From the Jan 13 – Jan 19, 2005 issue

News

Counter-Inaugural

When George W. Bush was sworn in four years ago, protesters took to the streets in Washington, D.C., New York, Seattle, and other cities. Local activists are planning to protest Bush's second inauguration--but will anyone show up this time?

by Amy Jenniges

Last weekend, as the last of the snow was turning to slush, Ashley Miller and her friend Sally Hamilton met up at the University of Washington's HUB. With less than two weeks to go before George W. Bush is inaugurated again on January 20, the students--members of a new activist group called Rally for Change--wanted to get the word out about their protest plans. The pair showed off the black-and-white "J20" fliers they intended to plaster all over campus.

"We're also going to be putting up a big banner on the side of Kane Hall," says Miller, a junior from Shoreline. "They let you put up big banners on the side of it for a week."

Miller hopes to wrangle as many students as possible to the counter-inaugural protests next week: UW students are planning to wear black armbands on January 20, walk out of class at noon, and rally in Red Square. (Similar protests are planned at Seattle University, Seattle Central Community College, and at least five area high schools.) After a march through campus, the students plan to take Metro busses to Capitol Hill to join students from other schools for a rally at Seattle Central.

"It'll be cool if we have a really big group with a lot of signs," Miller says, "so we can fill a few busses."

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Four years ago, when Bush was inaugurated for the first time, there were huge protests all over the country. The protests on January 20, 2001, were fueled by anger over Florida, the Supreme Court's infamous 5-4 decision, and a conviction that the former Texas governor had stolen the election. Bush also lost the popular vote by 543,895 votes. In Washington, D.C., thousands of demonstrators lined the inauguration parade route; at least one egg hit Bush's limo, and nine people were arrested. Another 10,000 protested in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

In Seattle, at least 2,000 protestors marched from Westlake Center to the Henry M. Jackson Federal Building on Second Avenue. "I remember a lot of people being very upset," says Mark Taylor-Canfield, who helped organize the protests in 2001. "We had a mock coronation where we coronated King George, there was a lot of street theater, and vigils along the way."

This year, however, despite the flier-bombing around Seattle, the extensive planning that's gone into the day, and the passion of protest organizers--leaders planning events for January 20 have been meeting for weeks--it's hard to imagine a crowd rivaling 2001's materializing next Thursday. First of all, it's a Thursday (inauguration day 2001 was a Saturday), and plenty of people who despise Bush will have to work that day. Second, the day's events are largely antiwar demonstrations (especially the main rallies at Westlake Plaza and the Federal Building, both organized by antiwar groups), protests that many in Seattle burned out on nearly two years ago.

And finally, there isn't a lot of anger over Election '04. People are upset that Dubya won the election, but there's a sense that he did win this time--despite irregularities in Ohio, despite all of the money and time liberals poured into the Anybody but Bush/John Kerry campaigns. Bush also won the popular vote by a wide enough margin (some 3.5 million votes) that his legitimacy can't be called into question. For lefties who became political activists for the first time in their lives last year, the realization that their hard work didn't turn Bush out of office has translated into feelings of grief, frustration, depression, apathy, and denial--but not anger. Anger can inspire people to protest. Depression and denial lead people to hibernate, drink, and check out of politics.

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Rally for Change isn't the only group working to get people into the streets next Thursday.

Fliers declaring "No Business as Usual" dot telephone poles from Madison Park to Ballard, urging Seattleites to join the antiwar group Not in Our Name at Westlake Park for a 2:00 p.m. rally. * After a NION planning meeting last Sunday night, activists divvied up even more posters. "We started the meeting with thousands of posters and told people to take what they could get out and up," says NION's Margo Heights. "As we were packing up [after the meeting], we noticed that we had NONE left. People are determined to get the word out."

Another group, ANSWER--also an anti-war organization--is planning a 5:00 p.m. rally at the Second Avenue and Marion Street Federal Building. Word about the demonstration has been going out over e-mail for weeks. "We were planning our demonstration prior to the election," explains ANSWER's Jane Cutter. "We were planning to demonstrate whether Bush was elected or Kerry was elected." Both candidates were for the war, Cutter points out.

But groups like No Vote Left Behind and Democracy for America, not to mention Democratic Party organizers--all of whom were in overdrive during election 2004--are absent from J20 plans. And while plenty of Seattleites headed to D.C. for the inauguration in 2001, few people--at least as far as protest leaders have heard--are going to D.C. for inauguration '05.

The difference between the protests in 2001 and those being planned for 2005 are clear from the fliers alone. Four years ago, you could muster a crowd with "Bush stole the election." This year, activists are cramming their fliers and rally speakers' rosters with a laundry list of causes and issues: The Green Party wants a few minutes to talk about voting irregularities in Ohio. Gay rights groups want to talk about marriage. ANSWER and NION plan to talk about the war. Labor leaders want to talk about sub-par wages and benefits. And Arab American groups will be on hand to discuss post-9/11 racial profiling. That's enough issues to motivate--and attract--just about everyone.

"We want people to bring all of their concerns. There's so, so much, it blows my mind," says UW's Miller. According to ANSWER's Cutter, "...the issues are really what's fueling this demonstration, more than a sense that the election results might be questionable." Whether a long laundry list of issues will attract crowds, however, is an open question.

Another question activists are wondering about it this: Will the anti-Bush energy so much on display in 2004 remain strong as we move into his second term? Or are liberals and progressives going to hang back for the next four years?

NION spokesperson Margo Polley thinks the people will stay involved. "There's a lot of energy around; we're feeling the buzz," she says. Maybe she's right--maybe after two months of mourning November 2, Seattle is ready to stand up and fight. "I think that people are just crying for a way to express their fear and disgust and loathing," Polley says. "And there's just a real need to make this a different country. There's a mood in this country that's 'What can we do? How can we survive four more years?'"

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*An earlier version of this story incorrectly implied that a pink flier with the phrase, "Start a fire, blow up a bank, block a street... converge at Westlake Park," was affiliated with NION. Though the poster in question uses the national NION organization's web address and rally slogan, and directs people to NION-Seattle's rally at Westlake Park on Thursday, NION-Seattle alerted The Stranger after publication that NION-Seattle did not sanction the poster. In a statement released today, NION-Seattle said, "We call on anyone posting these flyers in NION's name to cease immediately." To read the full text of NION-Seattle's statement, click here.