I'm sorry to have been gone for so long, though I may not have been noticed. School and the theater have simply taken up more and more of my time. But anyway, here are my impressions from the February 15th Mobilization march and protest in NYC.

I was originally going to go to one of the many feeder marches to get to the protest- this one I'm talking about with New York Youth Bloc, a citywide student activist group. But it met at 10:30, and I had to help take care of my mom (she just got back from the hospital) so I had to miss it, and could only make the major march at 49th and 1st, the UN. So I took the subway to Grand Central, but as soon as I got on Lexington there were people marching up. They weren't letting the crowds reach 1st avenue, and were directing us up- it took me til 68th st. to be able to get on to 1st ave.

But it was in no way an easy ride- at 63rd the crowd was so dense, and so vehement that there was talk of taking the barricade. I didn't want a part in that though, it seemed like it would be ineffective, so I moved on up to the crossing at 69th. There I found what I think was the Anarchist and Anti-Capitalist Bloc, and would've followed them if I wasn't waiting for friends on the corner.

The mood was not unlike that at most other protests. There was idealism, there was childish making fun of Bush, there was leftist orthodoxy- the works. There were people who thought only about the moment, the barricade takers and inflammatory guys who get the police riled up. But yeah, it was also a show of support. And I suppose that no matter how dumb many of the individual marchers were that's what's important.