Mayday in the Bay

[gordonzola]

The march was awesome even if I got downtown too late to see it take off from the Embarcadero. I got scared that no one had shown up but there were too many t-shirt vendors and police helicopters for that to be true. jactitation and I caught up with it a few blocks up Market. It’s so nice to hear "El pueblo, unido, jamas sera vencido" chanted by native Spanish speakers for a change.

I’m not really sure the full day of events strategy worked well for maximum exposure. When we arrived at 1 PM many folks, probably a lot who had been there since 8 AM, were already leaving. Certainly by the time we got to Civic Center (by that time we were in the middle of the march) lots of folks were already headed to MUNI and BART. This contributed to the capitalist press reports minimizing numbers but hey, they were gonna do that anyway. After all, when have they ever supported a strike ?

Still it was pretty awesome to see so many people there and for my white face to be lending diversity for a change. I am also so glad International Workers Day is a paid holiday for me.

There’s still time to make it to the 5 PM rally at the Federal Building (450 Golden Gate).

Comments

[cindymonkey.livejournal.com]

it was a really cool things to see
i was all around the start of it until about 1:30 and it was just awesome

made me cry
as all protests do
in the good way

[tlacuiloliztli.livejournal.com]

It was awesome.

[digitalchicana.livejournal.com]

it was. Winter was chanting "si se puede" but it sounded like "i e uede"

[superchones.livejournal.com]

adorabley inspiring. :)

sorry to take over your post

[digitalchicana.livejournal.com]

at home when we were watching the news, she recognized the chant and was like, hey! and started it again. YAH!

Re: sorry to take over your post

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

take over any of my posts with that kind of adorableness.

[constintina.livejournal.com]

You could substitute NYC locals and that would pretty much be my day.

Best may day in a good long whiles.

[bing-crosby.livejournal.com]

I'm glad to hear that b/c I didn't hear anything about NY on the news, and LJ people reported little from their everyday routines (I'm a recent ex NYer)

[digitalchicana.livejournal.com]

spanish tv stations reported large amount of folks in New York.

[bing-crosby.livejournal.com]

yeah, actually later news and friends' reports added more to the story.

[maria-sputnik.livejournal.com]

The Portland one was totally rad. I've never seen so many people on the streets of Portland. The older guy who helps edit my school newspaper was all excited and said it was the biggest demo he'd seen since he demonstrated against the Vietnam war...

[badgerbag.livejournal.com]

I was there 11 till 3. At 3pm at Civic Center, even more people were marching into the plaza than I had marched in with. From my point of view it kept getting more and more crowded!

I think the spread-out times allowed maximum flexibility for people to get there. But yes, any numbers reported should be at least doubled since people were coming and going all day.

Did you see the giant fiberglass statue/float of Gandhi?!

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

haha. yeah, we saw the Ghandi. My housemate goodbadgirl saw him getting a full body search at the Federal Building. They though he was concealing bombs. Now that would have been ironic, eh?

[missruckus.livejournal.com]

it's a paid holiday for me too! yay!

[winsey.livejournal.com]

It's a paid holiday here in the UK too.

[missruckus.livejournal.com]

oh, it;s not an official paid holiday for most of us here in canada but according to the collective agreement at my progressive workplace, it's considered a paid stat holiday.

[kristy-chan.livejournal.com]

"my white face to be lending diversity for a change" = interesting observation.

I am so glad to hear people's May Day reports.

XO