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http://www.AllPowerToThePeople.com/events/AshcroftCameToBuffalo

www.snowshoefilms.com Brother Chris, a man of peace the Counter Demonstration The voters of Missouri were RIGHT! "Dissent is Democratic" Ever present Jim Whitlock Celebrate Diversity,Don't Deport It! Western New York Peace Center The lovely and talented Heather K. Preparations     "It was a dark time for the rebellion." Sorry, I always wanted to start something with that old Star Wars quote. But seriously, things in Buffalo did seem to be going pretty sour. Peace groups were talking about which groups don't like each other. Individuals were talking about which other individuals they hate to uninvolved persons --I believe it's called gossip. And I was just generally starting to wonder how everyone can claim that we want to build a peaceful, egalitarian world based on mutual respect when we (progressives) can't even seem to find peace amongst ourselves.     But then someone read a newspaper and found out that John Ashcroft was coming to Buffalo and everything seemed to change. Everyone united around one singular purpose. That being to let John Ashcroft know that we don't like him trampling on our Civil Liberties. Oh, and we also wanted him to know that we really didn't care for him harrassing our Yemenese neighbors in Lackawanna and then trying to make an example of them to make a case for even more police powers in his Patriot Act part II. Oh, and we wanted to voice our displeasure with the whole Bush administration. And, well, I guess we didn't have one singular purpose so much as huge laundry list of outrages that we needed to get off our chests.     I remember the email that wafted across the list serve like so many others. It said something about John Ashcroft coming to Buffalo, and that we should "do something." I pretty much expected that it would go the way of all the other things that we'd like to do but don't have time to do. But I was very wrong. The list serves suddenly seemed to catch fire. Ashcroft? Coming here? We hate that guy! Let's "Do something!"     And then they all started planning to do all kinds of things. I stood back and marveled, "wow, they're all really serious about this." And so I stopped the million other things I was doing and tried to figure out if there was any way I could help.     But noone really seemed to need my help. It was beautiful. One day everyone was tired from waging this prolonged battle for peace and social justice where a new front breaks out every day, and the next day everyone was reenergized and making plans. Heather and I just made sure that all of the planning events were on the shared calendar as best we could and offered a little input where we could.     As the day was approaching we all learned that Ashcroft was rescheduling his speech. Maybe local law enforcement could tell how much activity was being planned and decided not to block morning rush hour with protestors or somebody thought they could break up the activity by rescheduling so that nobody knew when to show up. Some groups did reschedule and some didn't, but everyone agreed to just show up and stay as best they could and figured we'd all be there when we needed to. The Western New York Peace Center, in particular, did a HUGE get the word out campaign and told a ton of new folks about our Monday morning protest opportunity.     By the time the day before his visit rolled around our local peace community had become a well oiled machine. The local A.N.S.W.E.R. office was abuzz with people from all over Western New york making all manner of banners and signs at a frenetic pace. Ashcroft Day     We woke up early on Monday morning. Real Early. And we made our way down to the Hyatt. I had managed to purge all expectations frlom my mind. I had no real guess as to how many people there would be or how close law enforcement would allow us to get to the Hyatt, and no idea what to expect about anything else. Heather and I meandered down a previously unknown alley toward Pearl street and looked both ways trying to decide whether to head toward Lafayette Square (the designated meeting spot for those showing up early) or to just head to the Hyatt (where the main demonstration was to be held). We were floating somewhere between early and on time. We spied Jim Whitlock's peace flags down on the corner at the Hyatt and decided to just head for them.     It seemed like there was a nice gathering of folks. A good 40 or more. Women in Black was already there in full force in their traditional silent observance. Still, contemplative, mourning the loss of freedoms that once seemed invincible. On the way down to join them we passed a sign affixed to a light post. It seemed out of place so we stopped to read it. It said "Sorry I couldn't be here. I HAD to work. No Patriot Act!" We stared at it and then at one another. Somebody took the time to come early to hang that before work. I got the feeling that this was going to be a really big turnout.     As we joined the demonstrators Jim handed Heather a peace flag and I set up to start taking some pictured for AllPowerToThePeople and BuffaloANSWER. In contrast to the Women in Black, the Raging Grannies from Rochester had come down and were singing special songs that they had composed to voice a few opinions about mr. attourney general Ashcroft. I was thinking of running down to Lafayette square to see if there was anything there to photograph, but just then Lafayette square came to us. Or at least the people who had gathered there did. ANSWER and friends showed up with a decidedly noisier group and nearly doubled the number of demonstrators.     It took us a while to get boisterous. As I've said, a lot of us activists are tired, and a lot of progressives are shy by nature. But if you pass the bullhorn to enough different people, you'll eventually find the right person. There was a young lady that I'd never seen before who just went to town getting people energized about our loss of civil liberties. Sad commentary that we need to be energized by anyone on such an obvious outrage but they've been pulling the Matrix down around our eyes for quite a while and we've been asleep at the wheel for many miles.     As she continued to spark the croud, more and more people were wandering up. When it was first suggested that we "do something" I was thinking we might be able to get a few dozen people together. When I saw the buzz of activity on the list serves I was started hoping we might get around 100. Now we already had well over 100 people and it wasn't even 9:30am yet.     The significance of 9:30 was twofold. When it was learned that Ashcroft had rescheduled his speach for 10:45, many groups postponed their start time for 9:30. More importantly MoveOn.org had been alerted to Ashcroft's impending visit by the Peace Center and they were kind enough to send out an announcement to their whole Western New York list. So as 9:30 approached people were wandering up in groups. New people, folks we'd never seen before. Every time you turned around the crowd swelled even more. And then it was 9:30am.

Other articles on Ashcroft's Patriot Act tour
BuffaloANSWER coverage
NYCLU Coverage
Buffalo News article
Buffalo News Editorial
BORDC continuing coverage
North Carolina Coverage


http://www.AllPowerToThePeople.com/events/AshcroftCameToBuffalo

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