NEW YORK — September 21, 2014. Hundreds of thousands of protesters filled Central Park West on Sunday, demanding “system change not climate change.” Photographer Thomas Altfather Good was there, embedded with the labor contingent, and filed this report.


A young UAW supporter - with his dad
 


Judy Sheridan-Gonzalez, RN, president of the New York State Nurses Association
 


Transit Workers Union (TWU), Local 100 Surface Vice President JP Patafio
 


The UAW Contingent - on the move
 


ISKCON adherents (colloquially: “Hare Krishnas”) dancing and chanting
 

As the affluence of society depends increasingly on the uninterrupted production and consumption of waste, gadgets, planned obsolescence, and means of destruction, the individuals have to be adapted to these requirements in more than the traditional ways.

Mass democracy … not only permits the people (up to a point) to chose their own masters and to participate (up to a point) in the government which governs them — it also allows the masters to disappear behind the technological veil of the productive and destructive apparatus which they control, and it conceals the human (and material) costs of the benefits and comforts which it bestows upon those who collaborate. The people, efficiently manipulated and organized, are free; ignorance and impotence, introjected heteronomy is the price of their freedom.

[ … ]


As the production of wasteful and destructive goods is discontinued (a stage which would mean the end of capitalism in all its forms) — the somatic and mental mutilations inflicted on man by this production may be undone. In other words, the shaping of the environment, the transformation of nature, may be propelled by the liberated rather than the repressed Life Instincts, and aggression would be subjected to their demands.

- Herbert Marcuse (Eros And Civilization)


“Uprose!”
 


Moms marching for the environment
 


“Vote the Environment!”
 


NYPD and marchers…
 


Children - the point of the exercise?
 


Greed - the root cause of Climate Change
 


Students from UMaine
 

Click HERE To See More Photos (Complete Gallery)
 

Posted by TAG - September 13, 2014 | News




Cuomo placards discarded by UAW workers
Photo: Roy Murphy / NLN

 
NEW YORK — September 9, 2014. Several thousand workers marched up Fifth Avenue to Central Park for the annual Labor Day parade in New York on September 6, 2014. They were observing a city tradition more than 125 years old.

 
Teamsters, transit workers, teachers and actors were headed up by politicians, few of whom show their support for workers at any other time.




Frank Hickey, Tim Sheard, Yusef Salaam and president Larry Goldbetter
marching with the National Writers Union banner
Photo: Roy Murphy / NLN

 
Governor Andrew Cuomo was at the head of the Transport Workers union. According to the New York Times, his staff physically blocked his Democratic Primary challenger Zephyr Teachout from meeting him.

 
Unlike their Transport Workers Union counterparts, UAW workers were less inclined to be a vehicle for Mr. Cuomo’s re-election effort. Dozens of Cuomo placards lay discarded on the sidewalk behind the UAW contingent, remaining on the pavement after the march stepped off. Some UAW members commented that they know “whose pocket Cuomo is in” and whose interests he really serves.




The UAW band at work
Photo: Roy Murphy / NLN

 
The march called for the support of organized labor, and celebrated its victories. As Joe Rivierzo of Local 360 said, “We’re the people … that brought you the weekend, the eight-hour day, overtime, healthcare, disability insurance, worker’s compensation.”

Posted by TAG - September 2, 2014 | News

 


Protestors at Cadman Plaza march to the Brooklyn Bridge
(Photo: Roy Murphy / NWU)

 
NEW YORK — More than 700 people marched across the Brooklyn Bridge on August 20, 2014 to protest the slaughter of Palestinians by Israel in Gaza. The message of the march was to promote the boycott of Israel, divestment from its investments and sanctions against the country.

 
The marchers were young and old, ethnically diverse, with a solid contingent of orthodox Jews there in support. Many speakers said they were not there for race, religion or ethnicity, but to protest the inhumane treatment of the Palestinians who are trapped by the Israeli blockade of Gaza.

 


A contingent of orthodox Jews were among the protesters
(Photo: Roy Murphy / NWU)

 
The march came when Israel resumed its six-week offensive in Gaza after a 10-day cease-fire.

 


The ‘Beautiful Surprise’
(Photo: Roy Murphy / NWU)

 
The visual theme of the march was the red, white, and green Palestinian flag waved by many of the marchers. They were given a tremendous boost as they were marching across the bridge when a giant banner was unfurled from the Manhattan Bridge just across the water. The banner was a Palestinian flag, about 100 x 40 feet in size, with the words “Gaza in our hearts Boycott, Divest, Sanction” printed on it.

 
“It was a beautiful surprise,” said one of the organizers of the march.

 
Police raced to the bridge, and after fluttering in the breeze for about 20 minutes the flag was dragged back up into the bridge. Police have not found who was responsible for the “beautiful surprise.”

 


July 24, 2014 Protest (NYC)
(Photo: Bud Korozter / NLN)

 
The Brooklyn Bridge march was one in a series of demonstrations against the military actions of Israel. On August 9 several hundred demonstrators marched from Columbus Circle to the United Nations headquarters. On August 1, hundreds of pro-Palestinian demonstrators rallied in Times Square after a 72-hour cease-fire broke down in Gaza.

 
And on July 24 hundreds of protesters, including many Jews holding signs saying “Boycott Israeli Apartheid” and “New York Jews Say: Not in Our Name,” marched through lower Manhattan demanding an end to American support for Israel’s operation in Gaza.

 


Gaza, August 3, 2014
(Photo: Anne Paq / Active Stills)

 
My favorite sign read:
Warsaw Ghetto 1943
Gaza Ghetto 2014
Palestine Will Win

 


May, 1943, Warsaw Ghetto, Occupied Poland
(Photo: Jürgen Stroop Report to Heinrich Himmler)

 
The Brooklyn Bridge march was organized by Occupy Faith NYC

 


July 31, 2014: March to the Israeli Consulate, NYC
(Photo: Michael Nigro / Flickr)