Today's rally at the Boston State House may have been a tad smaller than Tuesday's Support Wisconsin rally, but the character was entirely different. Tuesday's had been called by the unions, and the speakers were mostly union leaders and politicians. Today's was a Move On event, and the speakers represented a diverse range from the progressive community -- labor, women's, peace, etc. The tone today was much more combative: Mac D'Alessandro, the SEIU lawyer who ran an unsuccessful primary challenge to the stooge Stephen Lynch last fall, gave a fiery speech denouncing the class war the rich have perpetrated against the working and middle classes which he finished off by calling for a general strike. Ben Wikler brought a report from Madison and led us in some of the best chanting of the day, some of which seemed to have been developed by the protesters at the Madison State Capitol. Union leaders and activists from teachers', nurses', carpenters', and corrections officers' unions all gave speeches, as did a Unitarian minister, the leader of Veterans for Peace, and a reproductive rights activist.
One big difference today is that the Tea Party stayed away. In a way it was too bad, because I had come armed with a chart from Mother Jones documenting increasing income inequality in the United States since the Reagan administration and the We Are Wisconsin video loaded on my cellphone. I was loaded for bear, but found nary a skunk...
On the flip some of the pics I took today. The ones I got Tuesday were better, maybe because Tuesday's signs were better.
I got to the rally site at almost exactly 12 o'clock. The speeches had started, but the crowd was still pretty small and the cops were still being pretty snitty about leaving the street open. I estimated about 700 people at that time, compared to the 2000 or so on Tuesday.
After a minute or two I crossed the street and joined the larger crowd there. I shot this picture for the Veterans for Peace flag flying in the background, but it also gives you a sense for crowd size.
The woman in the green coat with the armband on was a marshal working for the organizers. She was helping the cops keep the street open, and occasionally you could hear the frustration in her voice as she pleaded with us to get on the sidewalk. Problem was there wasn't any room left on the sidewalk, as people kept coming.
This shot gives a sense of how many people were across the street during the early stages of the rally. You can see a guy with a cheesehead and a Wisconsin Badgers hockey jersey to the left of the monument.
This woman had a message for the president.
Meanwhile, I wasn't too sure what decade the guy with the "Boycott Grapes" sign is living in. I used to have a bunch of those around the house, but I thought that boycott was long over.
Somebody brought a Wisconsin flag. I thought that was a nice touch. You can't see it in this pic, but the person holding it was wearing a cheesehead.
Nice shot here of the US and Massachusetts flags on a single pole in the background.
A good shot of the selection of signs folks brought to the rally.
After a while, the crowd grew big enough the cops were forced to close the street. Speakers began to estimate today's crowd was as big as, or maybe even bigger than, Tuesday's (though I don't believe that). In this picture I was trying to get the guy with the cheesehead and jersey in the Robert Gould Shaw monument, but I think what comes out best is that the crowd did fill the street.
I think 1500 is a reasonable estimate for the crowd at its peak. Maybe 2000.