From the article of 'Petrel'
No.808 / February 4, 2001
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Under an Atmosphere of Martial Law
Protest Demonstrations Against the Bush Inauguration
Disillusionment with The Two-Party System
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On January 20, George W. Bush officially became the new president.
Perhaps the people who watched the ceremony of this inauguration on TV may have thought this was a typical ceremony, but, in fact, on that day, thousands of people participated in a demonstration against Bush.
And the ceremony took place under a tense atmosphere with about 10 thousand police officers intimidating the demonstrators.
Here I want to briefly describe the inauguration and its background.
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Bush Without "Legitimacy"
As is well known, even though Gore won the presidential election more than 500 thousand votes, Bush took office as the new president of U.S.
In addition to the Bush government, the mass media and the Democratic Party want to forget this fact as soon as possible, and they are aiming for a "smooth transitional period."
Therefore, they looked at the inauguration ceremony as an important opportunity to foster the "legitimacy" of Bush.
However, many workers did not forget what they learned in the election, namely the non-democracy essence of this election, and they refuse to accept the "legitimacy" of Bush.
The ceremony seemed for them to be an event more akin to a coronation than an inauguration.
In other words, this signified of the historical figure jokingly referred to as George II.
The reason why many people object powerfully to the Bush government is clear enough.
This election has provided many political lessons for them.
Of course the workers know well that American politics and society are completely rotten already.
However, this election represents a major turning point in terms of revealing, in a short period of time, the essence of many bourgeois institutions (the courts, mass media, and political parties) in a dramatic (and sometimes comical) form.
In a word, the presidential election which is supposed to provide "legitimacy" to the bourgeois government, ironically revealed the "non-democratic" essence of the system, and the limits of bourgeois democracy.
In the end it was the five justices of the Supreme Court and the antiquated Electoral College, instead of the people, that chose the president.
The bourgeoisie were intent on a "smooth" inauguration ceremony for the very reason that the "legitimacy" of Bush is so thin.
The mass media and the police played a particularly important role for that purpose.
The thing that they feared most was a large-scale demonstration against Bush.
The role of the mass media was to ignore this demonstration while it was up to the police to threaten the demonstrators.
This only further revealed the rotten core of American capitalist society.
The Bankruptcy of Liberalism
The presidential election made clear that the Republican Party has gradually become a party of the extreme right, as well as reconfirming that the Democratic Party is completely incapable of putting up any resistance to this fascistic party.
Though the powerless of the Democratic Party (or the liberalism generally) is not surprising, the presidential election revealed this fact to many Americans in a dramatic fashion, that is, many people realized that the Democratic Party cannot protect even the basic democratic rights.
Needless to say, in the inauguration ceremony the other day, the Democratic Party was had nothing to say about the legal "coup d'etat" pulled off by Bush.
In addition, the protest demonstration had little direct connection to the leadership of the Democratic Party.
The behavior of the Democratic Party is nothing but the extension of how they acted during the election itself.
It is well known that Gore made little appeal to the workers, particularly black workers during the election fiasco.
Instead, he adopted the strategy of relying on the justice system and placed his fate in the decision of the judges.
In other words, Gore was more afraid about unleashing the anger of the workers and black workers than actually losing the election.
Gore ignored the issue of basic democratic rights, and focused on legal tactics.
Gore got followed the lead of the mass media, and distanced himself from the demonstration of black "leaders" such as Jesse Jackson and trade unions, even going so far as to pressure them to back off.
While Gore was suppressing such demonstrations, the Republicans, on the other hand, employed brown-shirt tactics to threaten the ballot-counters in Dade County.
Well aware of the impotence of the Democratic Party, the Republicans were naturally confident of victory.
Of course, this was not the simple outcome of Gore's personal weakness (or, kindness) but rather the natural outcome of the right-wing politics of Gore and the Democratic Party.
Ultimately Gore accepted the decision of the Supreme Court while "strongly disagreeing with it" and quickly set about lecturing the American people on how they should also accept this decision and give their support to Bush's government.
The only representatives of the Democratic Party who put up some protest to Bush's theft of the election were some of the Black leaders. This reflected their need to react in some way to the deep anger of the black workers in Florida and throughout the country. Of course, as bourgeois politicians, their role is to direct this anger in "a safe" direction. However, in the right-wing atmosphere that pervades U.S. politics today, even such political maneuvers are increasingly seen as dangerous or radical. This will be clear to see the intense blame for Jesse Jackson.
Jackson "led" various demonstrations in Florida and was planning to participate in a demonstration on inauguration day.
Jackson likened the Supreme Court's judgment of December 12 to the notorious DREDSCOTT decision of 1857.
However, in the wake of a vicious media attack, led by "the Wall Street Journal", culminating in a sex scandal, Jackson temporarily removed himself from the political scene.
Of course, there is no reason to praise the politics of Jackson. Jackson is a great fan of capitalism, and "black capitalism" in particular. Clearly, his objective role is to organize the anger of workers, in particular black workers, in a reformist direction.
The point to be emphasized here is simply that is no longer much room in the United States even for such reformist politics.
The U.S. bourgeoisie is increasingly relying on authoritarianism means.
Police State American Style
The political atmosphere in the United States today could also be felt in the response of the police to the demonstrations held on inauguration day.
In recent years, the police have assumed an increasingly aggressive stance towards protests in general.
This of course could be seen at the anti-WTO protests in Seattle in 1999, as well as at the protests held during the conventions of the Democratic and Republican parties held last summer.
The police has basically been given a green light to suppress leftwing demonstrations.
The attitude taken towards the inauguration day protests was no exception.
On January 20, about 10 thousand police were mobilized in Washington.
This represents 3 times the number of police deployed at the previous inauguration ceremony.
The official reason give for such a display of force was a supposed "threat of terrorism", but the actual reason is obvious. That is, the police feared that Bush's inauguration would be greeted by the largest number of protesters since the inauguration of Nixon in 1973.
The police created 16 checkpoints where they checked the bags of all people attending as a means of harassing potential demonstrators.
"Dangerous" items, such as large signboard or huge comical puppets, were prohibited.
The road of the parade (Pennsylvania street) was surrounded with a barricade of steel.
And tickets were required to enter the viewing stands along the parade route.
The tickets were free, but had to be obtained in advance. Moreover, many of the checkpoints were closed temporarily on the day of the inauguration, thereby preventing or delaying many people from entering the viewing stands.
With such tactics, the police and the Secret Service hoped to limit the number of demonstrators.
Simply put, January 20th inauguration took place under an atmosphere of martial law.
The Demonstrators
However, despite such police tactics, many people from various regions of the country attended the inauguration to protest Bush's theft of the election.
The participants represented a variety of political groups and positions, but, in particular, there seem to have been a large number of young Nader and Gore supporters who were strongly disillusioned by the election scandal. As someone who did not participate in the election, and mainly learned about it through the internet, I can only provide a second hand account. But a look at some of the main slogans and signs from the demonstration can give some idea of the atmosphere on January 20th.
Chants
Hail to the Thief!
(instead of "Hail to the Chief")
George Bush Racist Murderer!
This is What a Police State Looks Like!
Your Racist, Your Sexist, You Must be From Texas!
Signs
Bush = Racism
The People Have Spoken (All Five of Them)
Selected not Elected
One Person One Vote* (*may not apply in some states)
Abolish the Racist Death Penalty
Just by looking at the slogans above, it is clear that many people who participated in the demonstration criticized the Bush government and the political system as a whole, in an emotional or comical form. Putting aside the question of the limitations of the political views expressed, it is significant in itself that more than 20 thousands people turned out to protest Bush's presidency despite the heavy handed tactics of the police and mass media. Many of the participants were individuals who are not members of any political organization.
However, it is also worth looking at the political viewpoints of the groups that helped organize the demonstration.
To Develop "Popular Movement"
An organization called the International Action Center (IAC) that was one of the main driving forces behind the January 20th demonstration.
This "mass movement" organization is connected to the Stalinist World Workers Party.
IAC participated in the anti-WTO demonstration of Seattle, and has often participated in such demonstrations as anti death penalty, antiwar.
They take a "critical" standpoint towards the Democratic Party, but at the same time tend to support and cooperate with petit bourgeois black politicians and feminists.
Moreover, they "oppose" capitalism, but this is from a moralistic standpoint rather than the viewpoint of revolutionary socialism. They also tend to criticize global capitalism or "big business" rather than capitalism itself.
The IAC had intended to carry out a demonstration on inauguration day even if Gore had become president.
However, the scale of the demonstration grew much larger after Bush stole the election.
IAC explained the reason to object to the installation ceremony as below.
On Jan. 20, thousands of people will march and rally to protest at George W. Bush's inauguration in Washington and San Francisco. We will be demonstrating against the incoming Bush administration and its racist, sexist, anti-gay, militaristic, anti- labor and pro-big business policies. Bush claims to be a "compassionate conservative," but his real "compassion" is reserved for the giant pharmaceutical, oil, banking and other corporations.
We call for a profound social transformation, to a society where people's needs come before profits, where every person has the right to a good-paying job, decent housing, health care, education, childcare and a clean environment. We call for freedom for death-row activist, author and prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal, Native leader Leonard Peltier and all political prisoners. We cannot rely on the Democratic Party--Clinton led the charge in demolishing social welfare programs, bombing Yugoslavia and keeping the deadly sanctions against Iraq--or on the corrupt corporate elections.
Only a mass people's movement can bring real change, as has always been true. Jan. 20 can be an important step in building this movement, one which links together workers, students, people of all nationalities, women, lesbian, gay, bi and trans people, immigrants, the disabled, seniors and youths." (From IAC Hompage)
It is clear from this passage alone that the IAC is spreading the fantasy that capitalism can be reformed, and do not advance the perspective of socialism.
Ultimately they are appealing to the bourgeoisie.
The immediate aim of this organization is to mobilize a large number of people in the demonstration, and thereby develop the so-called "mass movement".
The political limitations of the IAC are clear, but it is nonetheless interesting that several thousand people gathered under the banner of this organization.
In other words, many of the people who participated in the demonstration objected not only to Bush, but to the two party system as a whole, and to a certain extent, stand on an anti-capitalist standpoint.
Bush's Speech
It is hard to determine whether the demonstration was a success or not. Even if it could be called a complete success, the limitation of the political perspective of the protesters, as we have seen, is clear (i.e. petty bourgeois politics).
Still, in spite of the limitations of the demonstration, the impact of the demonstration seems to have been quite impressive.
When Bush's limousine approached Freedom Plaza on Pennsylvania Avenue, where many demonstrators had gathered, a loud chant could be heard.
George Bush Racist Murderer!
George Bush Racist Murderer!
Bush's limousine sped quickly past Freedom Plaza. And Bush only emerged from the safety of his car near the end of the parade route when he entered an area filled with Republican supporters. The mass media did their best to ignore the presence of the noisy demonstrators, but at times this proved impossible.
The bourgeois media focused to a large extent on Bush's inaugural speech. There is, however, little that can be said about this content-less speech. Bush, the "Born-again Christian", referred to God or religion about ten times in a speech that only lasted 14 minutes.
However, the Republicans in the audience, who cloak their reactionary social policies in the language of religious morality, were more enthusiastic about Bush's references to cutting taxes and building a strong military, which exposed the true nature of their "morality". And now Bush has quickly set about trying to realize his ultra-reactionary policies.
(Written by ROY / WEST, Translated by Yoshi)