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Protest shuts down the Drag in Austin

A UT employee I know reports:

I just walked back to my office by way of the Drag and it is shut down from 22nd to 27th. I have never ever seen the Drag shut down. At the intersection of 24th and Guadalupe there is a circle of drummers, chanters, and dancers as well as a "die-in" surrounded by lots of curious passersby and a million news cameras. As a matter of fact, it is live on K-EYE news. Anyway, I heard they plan to obstruct traffic until 4pm. So far, the 100 or so police units surrounding the 7-8 blocks affected seem to be taking it pretty well and are diverting traffic..cooperating, it seems. Aaaahhh...it makes me so nostalgic for the good ol' protest days during the Ronnie era. I wish I didn't have to work. Sigh.

I was (ahem) pretty active at UT in the Ronnie Raygun days and I never saw Guadalupe shut down, either. The closest thing was on November 4, 1984, when Reagan won re-election and Oliver North leaked the lie that Soviet MiGs were being shipped to the Sandinistas. A bunch of us had been watching election results in the Texas Union and, sure that Ronnie was preparing for an overt invasion of Nicaragua, we came out onto the Drag in a foul mood. A number of people lay down in the street in front of the Co-Op, but that lasted at most 60 seconds -- a few car horns were enough to convince them to vacate the street.

The only point in this bit of old-fartism is that when it comes to student activism, these may be the good old days right now.

(Now my cousin who attended UT in the sixties -- I think she could tell some UT protest stories. She was there for the Charles Whitman shooting, too.)

I was there for much of it today. We gather under the tower at the South Mall, and the UTPD promptly informed us that we needed to leave or face arrest. Through a bullhorn, the march co-ordinators said we would march down the West Mall and "take over the Drag," if we were going to go to jail anyway, so we marched to Guadalupe and 24th, where a dozen or so activists chained themselves together with what I think is called a "dragon's tail," where arms are slid through PVC drainage pipes and chained together. Anyway, for the first hour or so, I was a little anxious, but the cops shut down Guadalupe between Dean Keeton and MLK, redirecting traffic, so it became clear they were going to let us do our thing without arresting anyone. Seeing that length of Guadalupe without cars was pretty amazing to me and made me wish I had a ball to start a game of pacifist soccer in the street, but, obviously, I couldn't have anticipated the police co-operation. I went home around 3:15 to grab some food, but the plan was to march to the Capitol at four and join the big protest tonight. Nearly everyone at the UT rally was at the Capitol, so I assume there were no arrests. I'll post some pics on the m4dbl0g after I get them processed.

I certainly hope these are the good old days of activism and when the war ends (or slows down anyway) the people protesting now will join the global economic justice movement, but as Todd Gitlin and others pointed out, a lot of leftish causes lost momentum after the end of the Vietnam war. My reasons for contesting this war are largely the same as my problems with sweatshops, namely, the racist exploitation of the people and resources of developing nations, but I'm not sure everyone couches the debate in those terms.

It was rather nice to have Guadalupe blocked to thru traffic. It made being a pedestrian so much easier. Up on my blog I have an entry on my own experience, plus a link to another UT student's photos of the protest.

Best protest I've been a part of...first one to take an action and follow Mandela's ideas of resistance and stop a function of society in order to impart your cause. I talked to a few cops during some of the dull moments of shouting, and one in particular felt proud that he was able to help do something; I don't know if it's a common sentiment, but it surprised me.

The question, as always, is what happens now? Activist protesting must continue to recruit new members and keep up morale, but there must be more...at some point CCPJ and other Austin-based peace movements need to work larger than the Drag.

Alas, some of the police haven't been so benign and helpful as they were at Thursday's action on the Drag. M4dd4wg has blogged about the UTPD cop who slammed a guy's head into a concrete wall for the terrible act of chalking a sidewalk on the West Mall, and the pepper-spraying of the protesters on the Congress Ave. bridge Thursday night.

There's been some porrada [ass-whoopin'] by New York police, but very little in proportion to the enormous crowds streaming down Broadway, despite what MTV and SpaceWar say. The usual knot of anarchists and bored teenage guys escalating the level of grabass seems to be it. Still, I'm not letting my Brazilian guest hang out there. There's soldiers in the subway with frickin M-16s: Operation Atlas, or, bear the weight of the world on your shoulders.

I know, I know, all you Texans chiming in with the Pace salsa slogan: "Neeeew York CITY?"

"Git a rope!"