BY SEAN HEALY
While corporate media reports focused on "history" being made on the steps on Congress, where George Bush junior was sworn in as the chief executive officer of the world's most powerful state on January 20, there was far more historical significance in the numbers and anger of those who protested at the inauguration.
An estimated 30,000 protesters, of every shade of left and progressive opinion in the US, lined the entire route of the presidential parade. Police and security forces in Washington were out in force, putting the city under virtual siege.
Every police officer in the city was on duty and cops from nearby cities were bussed in and deputised. Members of the local national guard lined the route and Secret Service agents were posted on nearly every building top. Police helicopters buzzed overhead.
In a report for the Washington-based Independent Media Center, Arun Gupta wrote "the rows of security forces disappearing into the gray mist took on the appearance of stony terracotta warriors guarding an ancient emperor".
The most controversial police move was the establishment, for the first time, of 10 checkpoints along the parade route, preventing demonstrators and onlookers from moving easily from one part of the city to another.
One of the main protest organisers, the International Action Center (IAC), launched a suit on January 18 in the US District Court, that argued that the security operation was a "pretext" for eliminating demonstrators' constitutional rights. While the trial judge described the checkpoints as "odious" and said they would have "a chilling effect", the court accepted the authorities' verbal "guarantees" that they would not be used in a discriminatory fashion.
On January 21, the day after the protests, the IAC reported that the authorities had breached their guarantees, citing instances where police had waved through Bush supporters but blocked demonstrators.
Protesters came from an enormously diverse range of backgrounds and political points of view, from disgruntled backers of "defeated" presidential candidate Al Gore and opponents of the death penalty, to anarchists and socialists.
Protesters chanted slogans and sang songs during the quiet patches and then hurled abuse at the presidential and vice-presidential limousines as they rolled past. Some waved US flags with the word "Sold" printed across it, with the stars replaced with corporate logos; others hoisted placards proclaiming "George Bush, racist murderer". When it started to hail, demonstrators started singing "Hail to the thief".
In Freedom Plaza, thousands came for a rally called by the IAC, easily drowning out the cries of Bush backers. Some protesters even bought $50 tickets and filled the bleachers reserved for Republicans.
The protest targeted the racism of Republican policy at home and abroad.
"Globalisation is a war against the poor in the Third World, conducted by the corporate power structure in the US", IAC co-director Brian Becker said. "The prison-industrial complex is the most glaring example of the domestic component of that assault against poor people."
Thousands also responded to the protest call of the radical Justice Action Movement (JAM), a broad coalition which includes many of the groups which organised the city's April 16 mass protests against the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.
JAM spokespeople highlighted their opposition, not just to Bush, but everything he represented. "We are all unified behind a fear and loathing of corporate control in our country", said David Levy, one of the group's spokespeople. "We're environmentalists, human rights campaigners, poverty advocates, feminists but we all agree that the electoral system is fundamentally undemocratic because of the influence of big money."
At Dupont Circle, a crowd of more than 1000 gathered to protest Bush's opposition to women's right to choose. When council workers removed an effigy of Bush hanging from a tree, speaker Patricia Ireland, of the National Organization for Women, told the crowd: "Let them have the tree. We have all of Dupont Circle and we have the whole country. They just have the White House."
Outside the Supreme Court, prominent African-American leader Rev Al Sharpton, civil rights activists and Green Party supporters held a "shadow" inauguration to protest Bush's theft of the presidency, while members of the New Black Panther Party held a "Day of outrage" march through the city, protesting against racial profiling, the death penalty and police brutality.
One group of protesters, the "Oral Majority", had travelled from Florida, the state whose dodgy election count handed Bush his victory. They chanted Bush had been "selected, not elected".
The corporate media also copped a serve, with one group of several hundred protesters gathering outside the offices of the Washington Post to chant "Fuck corporate media".
While the protests faced heavy police intimidation, they were peaceful. In one incident, however, police cornered a group of Black Bloc anarchists, pinning them against a wall and beating several, before they were eventually forced to withdraw when more protesters arrived.
JAM's legal collective reported that 37 activists were pepper-sprayed, several received baton blows to the head and at least nine people were arrested.
Protest organisers called the actions a total success. "What happened at today's demonstration is precisely what the Bush administration has tried to prevent for the past month", said the IAC's Becker.
While he's now safely ensconced in the White House, George Bush junior looks to be in for a tough presidency — as his reign begins, his legitimacy is at rock-bottom.