Trashing Central Park is not a protest statement

Trashing Central Park is not a protest statement
The Seattle Times ^ | August 26, 2004 | Froma Harrop


Some protesters-in-waiting seem to think that their right to free expression can't be separated from the right to trash New York City's Central Park. The park's Great Lawn has been restored at great expense. And that's the reason why â?? the only reason why â?? the city won't let a group called United for Peace and Justice hold a mass rally there before the Republican National Convention.

Central Park is a green oasis in the concrete chaos of Manhattan. The Great Lawn is a gem of the urban environment. Damaging it would be akin to drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Central Park provides many poor New Yorkers their only brush with nature. So it seems odd that leftists who claim to be friends of the people are demanding a permit to wreck the people's park.

Why would the group even want its demonstrators â?? whose numbers could reach 250,000 â?? stomping every blade of the Great Lawn's grass into compost? The answer is simple: They want it because ... because ... because people in authority told them not to. The authorities in question are the jackboots at the city Parks Department, backed by the dark forces of the Central Park Conservancy.

(To see what the Great Lawn looked like before and after the $18 million restoration, check out the conservancy's Web site at www.centralparknyc.org. Click on "News Archive," then "The Right to Rally ... ")

The city has given the group permission to parade this Sunday right past Madison Square Garden, where the Republicans will be meeting. And it has offered the West Side Highway for the group's big rally. So the marchers are not exactly being fenced in at a Staten Island landfill.

Meanwhile, another group of possibly 75,000 protesters wants to trample the Great Lawn on Saturday. A federal judge in Manhattan has just told the organizers â?? the National Council of Arab Americans and the Answer Coalition â?? that they can't. The Arab-American group said it chose the park location because it provided an "unconfined, family-friendly mass-rally venue," where its members would feel comfortable. Too bad they aren't similarly concerned about New York families who need a nice place to picnic.

A sympathetic Judge William Pauley noted that for this group, the gathering was about "acceptance and equality of Arab Americans." His wise decision to not overturn the city's position, however, was also about equality: Arab Americans are equally not allowed to hold mass rallies on the Great Lawn.

In their defense and to their credit, some leaders of United for Peace and Justice want to keep their rally respectable so as to attract respectable people. That means behaving well and not gathering on the Great Lawn without a permit. But others vow to defy the law and descend on the greensward.

They will recite their justifications in the usual self-dramatizing way. In a world full of war, hunger and gentrification, a few acres of grass should not matter. The anarchist fringe may actively seek confrontation with police trying to keep them off the lawn. The radicals got a lot of attention when they violated Seattle's downtown during the 1999 World Trade Organization meeting. And there was more street action a year later at the Republican convention in Philadelphia. They might see making a mess in New York as another notch on their belt.

Of course, any violence would be counterproductive to the demonstrators' chief goal, presumably to replace President Bush. Wobbly independents might be reminded of why they dislike the left.

But civil disorder that damages a public treasure would also stir contempt in the hearts of New Yorkers, few of whom are big Bush fans. The city still shakes from the tragedy of 9/11. Police are already beefing up patrols in the train stations against possible terrorism. Drawing law-enforcement resources away from vulnerable locations to deal with demonstrators needing to act out in Central Park would be an offense against the people of New York.

It's hard to tell whether the fringe elements even care. They may have no feelings about ruining a green haven in a code-orange city, then returning to the security of Austin, Madison or Eugene. But no leftist with any class (working or otherwise) would want to do this. That it's even an issue gives one pause.

I can only hope,that Americans will finally realize just how destructive,insane and violent,the Left is in America-that it is the Left,which is intolerant of anyone who disagrees with their views..and are eager to cause millions of dollars in damage to prove it. As I predicted,there was barely a ripple,at the democrapper convention..what the protestors and anarchists,socialists and commies are planning to do at the RNC,is despicable-and should be condemned by every American. I hope that the planned destruction and violence,will back-fire horribly for the democrappers-finally exposing their evil,rotten,black hearts for good..and that Bush will be overwhelmingly elected.

You know what? Put yourself in other peoples shoes and you might be more accepting of them. At least you might allow yourself to understand certain things that you otherwise wouldn't.

I'm a lefty. We are rarely heard. CNN hardball has no room for lefties. Thanks to people like Michael Moore that aren't hurting anyone, but are hated by righties (scared?) we are starting to be heard once more. I can't claim to be in control of everyone that has ever disagreed with mainstream views. Nor can anyone.

George Bush has killed over a hundred thousand people, and we haven't even been given a straight answer as to why. But 'the crazy lefties' protest in a park and you start pointing fingers. What is the worst they can do? Make a mess???

I bite my thumb at you, coward. If you want to help your cause, why don't you go kill some commies yourself? I'll even give you my address. I'll be here waiting. And for dessert, you might want to grab a mop for a little ethnic cleansing....


:rolleyes:

" George Bush has killed over a hundred thousand people, and we haven't even been given a straight answer as to why. But 'the crazy lefties' protest in a park and you start pointing fingers. What is the worst they can do? Make a mess??? "

Yup,you're a typical liberal,Bush hasn't killed anyone,but saddam personally killed hundreds,if not thousands of folks with his own hands,not to mention slowly lowering people into a grinder machine-feet first,saddam gassed his own people and Iranians, and is personally responsible for the deaths of many Americans-as well as hundreds of thousands more.

Typical liberal,the mess in Central Park,could amount to millions in damages-but that's okay with you..the liberals of new york can pay for the reconstruction out of their own pockets....

I reckon that you would rather fight the terrorists here on American soil,rather than at their homes in the middle-east,because you'd just as soon see America burned to the ground-anyhow.

As for ethnic cleansing,that's going on in the Sudan,Darfur region as we speak,yet you have no problems with muslim jihadists apparently,when it comes to that.

Go ahead and pout,suck your miserable,liberal thumb if you must..why don't y'all come on down to Texas..and spout your crapola-see how far ya can git.

against islamic terorism aye? what about the extremist right wing abortion clinic bombers,james earl ray,the unibomber and the hundreds of other right and left terrorist groups here in ammerica,its your house inst clean dont clean some1 eles

I'm from the south and I dun gitted to texas many times. I had to drive through the whole state to get to school and its nothing but trailers and oil fields.

We have angry drunkard hicks like you in new orleans too. :D

like melllllllllllba toast.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Stooj

I'm from the south and I dun gitted to texas many times. I had to drive through the whole state to get to school and its nothing but trailers and oil fields.

We have angry drunkard hicks like you in new orleans too. :D

like melllllllllllba toast.

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Just because I live in a trailer and am a roughneck,don't make me a drunkard or a hick...I don't drink whiskey any more,and I can make a six-pack,last a month..you just go right on ahead-and keep on 'misunderestimatin' me,y'all city-slickers and liberals,do it all the time...lol.

You may be from the South,but you ain't no Southerner !

mate you're a fucking crack up. :D
wrecking a lawn is like drilling for oil in alaska.
if america is destroyed, I hope they leave a lil bit of texas coz its just so funny.