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[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Man do I love New Orleans. - Rex[/font]
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[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Second Term is Met by a Mourning March
Protesters Host Mock Funeral Near Quarter
Protesters Host Mock Funeral Near Quarter
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[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]by Lynne Jensen[/font]
[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]As President Bush began his second term Thursday in Washington, about 1,500 people marched from Congo Square to Jackson Square in New Orleans to mourn the occasion.
"We should not be inflicting democracy in other parts of the world when we don't have democracy here in America," said Buddy Spell, primary organizer of the Jazz Funeral for Democracy, planned by an ad hoc group called the January 20 Coalition that includes military veterans, gay rights activists and civil rights groups.
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Jazz Funeral for Democracy
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[/font]Spell, a criminal defense lawyer and Covington resident, led the parade with his wife, Annie, who pulled their daughter, Sarah, 6, in a tie-dyed wagon.
Steps behind the Spell family, the Treme Brass Band played dirges and a pair of horses pulled a mock coffin containing copies of the Patriot Act and the U.S. Constitution. And marchers dressed primarily in black carried signs protesting the war in Iraq, cutbacks at Charity Hospital and the possibility that the Iberville public housing complex may meet the wrecking ball.
Cutbacks at Charity "kill people just as surely as bomb fragments in Iraq," said community activist Mike Howells. The goal of the jazz funeral is to spark "a movement for social justice and peace," he said.
Among the many marchers carrying video cameras was New Orleans Center for Creative Arts teacher Connie Kringas, who filmed the funeral for her middle school students. They are learning about the democratic process while studying "Hamlet," she said.
The students are comparing Hamlet to John Kerry "because he is a person with a lot of words but ineffectual," Kringas said. Like Claudius, Bush is "so sure of himself but lacks understanding of the real meaning of things," she said.
One marcher wore a Bush mask and simulated bloodied hands with red paint. Some marchers wore skeleton masks and many others carried placards with slogans such as "Stop the 9/11 cover-up," "Electile dysfunction" and "Don't take away our Social Security."
Marriah Brooks, 65, traveled to New Orleans from Washington State to carry a sign that read, "Bombs for peace is like sex for virginity."
Brooks said she headed to town "on a whim" after learning about the march on the Internet.
A family from Croatia participated in the march because they are against the war.
Tanja Pavlovic , who is attending Tulane University, went to Congo Square with her sister, Andrea Kozar, who is visiting New Orleans with her daughter, Dora, 9.
"We thought it was important for her to be here," Pavlovic said about her niece.
"We support all this and most also do in Croatia," Kozar said.
Some marchers wore white armbands in support of bringing American troops home from Iraq.
"We should walk with our hearts broken for our country," said New Orleans engineer Bob Smith. The march is "a very solemn occasion," he said.
Harv Adams of Meraux served for 22 years in the Navy and watched the procession from the Rampart Street neutral ground. Wearing a "W" cap and a "Bush country" T-shirt, he sat in a yellow canvas folding chair flanked by a pair of American flags and two signs: "God bless the USA and President Bush" and "62,000,000 Americans can't be wrong."
Adams listened to the inauguration on a portable radio as the funeral procession passed and some marchers respectfully questioned his views.
"I'm going to be the most nonconfrontational guy here," Adams said. "The majority of Americans agree with Bush and that we're on the right side here," regarding the war in Iraq.
The marchers are liberal Democrats who need to realize "they lost" the presidential election, he said.
As the jazz funeral proceeded toward the Mississippi River on Canal Street, the number of marchers swelled to about 1,500, police said. Their reception was mainly supportive, with streetcar riders signaling "thumbs up" and tourists gleefully snapping pictures.
But Dan Palmer, a Republican from Florida in town for a meeting of medical business personnel, chuckled as he strolled along Canal Street with a colleague in a suit and tie.
"The bottom line is it's a free country and we won the election," Palmer said. "They can protest all they want."
As the Treme band played and marchers turned onto South Peters Street, Canal Place sales clerks watched alongside mannequins in store windows.
The jazz funeral stopped at the amphitheater across from Jackson Square, where speeches were delivered before marchers capped the day's event at Frenchmen Street with more speeches and music.
The jazz funeral was "something I felt I had to see," said Stevie Williams, 21, a Tulane journalism student from Oklahoma who said she is bartending to pay tuition.
"While I do agree that Bush was elected, this is more about his ideology," Williams said at the amphitheater. "As an impoverished queer transgendered student, he is not representing my best interests. I love my country but fear my government. That's why I'm here."
Scattered protests similar to the one in New Orleans took place throughout the country Thursday.
In Seattle, more than 1,000 people participated in walkouts at the University of Washington and Seattle Central Community College.
At a mock inauguration in Baltimore, a woman wearing a Bush mask gave a pretend speech, stumbling over her words. In Louisville, Ky., protesters solemnly read the names of dead Iraqis and Americans.
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