Democracy Uprising
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      Is Rambo Still A Republican?

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      Six Essays About War and About Peace

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      Jeff Bezos Has Enough! It’s Time for a…

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      In the Pandemic, Should We Tax the Rich?

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      Mass Protests May Fade, But Movements Persist

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      There’s More Than One Way to Strike the…

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      In Praise of Impractical Movements

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      Naming Our Desire: How Do We Talk About…

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      No More Miss America: A Collective Memory of…

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      When Undocumented Activists Infiltrated ICE

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      Does It Make Sense to Protest a President…

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      Lessons from the Pledge of Resistance

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      Is Rambo Still A Republican?

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      Japanese

      ガンジーはどのように勝利したのか? (Japanese)

      Français

      La révolution non-violente a-t-elle échoué en Egypte?

      Deutsch

      Als Martin Luther King seine Feuerwaffen aufgab

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      Mikrokredite: Die Entlassung eines Nobelpreisträgers

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      La strategia di Gandhi per il successo –…

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      ¿Adoptará el nuevo papa la teología de la…

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      Wall Street quiere que les estemos agradecidos

      Español

      Si Las Monjas Se Fueran a una Huelga,…

      Arabic

      Abandoning the World Bank (in Arabic)

      Arabic

      The Return of Daniel Ortega (in Arabic)

      Arabic

      Where’s The Jubilee? (in Arabic)

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      The Last Porto Alegre (in Arabic)

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      Seattle At Five (in Arabic)

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      Is Market Access the Answer to Poverty? (in…

      Arabic

      Mexico’s Democratic Transition Still Incomplete (in Arabic)

      Deutsch

      Als Martin Luther King seine Feuerwaffen aufgab

      Deutsch

      Mikrokredite: Die Entlassung eines Nobelpreisträgers

      Deutsch

      CAFTA – am besten stillschweigend beerdigen

      Deutsch

      Bush in Mexiko

      Deutsch

      Das globale Duell in Evian

      Deutsch

      Die Rückkehr des Daniel Ortega

      Español

      ¿Adoptará el nuevo papa la teología de la…

      Español

      Wall Street quiere que les estemos agradecidos

      Español

      Si Las Monjas Se Fueran a una Huelga,…

      Español

      ALEC retrocede; a la derecha le da un…

      Español

      ¿ALEC disgustado ante la pérdida de patrocinadores? Se…

      Español

      La vida en la nación prisión

      Español

      El futuro del movimiento Ocupar: solidaridad y escalada

      Español

      Matando de hambre al Tío Sam

      Français

      La révolution non-violente a-t-elle échoué en Egypte?

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      Le pari risqué du populisme au Pérou

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      Hong Kong Phooey

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      IL BANK TRANSFER DAY: UN SUCCESSO

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      Trionfo sul debito?

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      ガンジーはどのように勝利したのか? (Japanese)

      Japanese

      Truth Versus Superpower (Japanese)

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      Bush’s Bad Business Empire (Japanese)

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      Revenge of the Combat Cartoonist (Japanese)

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Democracy Uprising

  • About
    • About Mark Engler
    • About Democracy Uprising
  • Books
    • This Is An Uprising
    • How To Rule the World
  • Topics
    • All Book Reviews Environment Essays / First Person Global Economy Immigration Labor Latin America Social Movements Religion U.S. Politics / Elections War / Militarism
      U.S. Politics / Elections

      The Fed Could Help Cash-Strapped Cities and States….

      U.S. Politics / Elections

      In the Pandemic, Should We Tax the Rich?

      Uncategorized

      Mass Protests May Fade, But Movements Persist

      Book Reviews

      The Pan American

      Labor

      There’s More Than One Way to Strike the…

      Social Movements

      In Praise of Impractical Movements

      U.S. Politics / Elections

      Naming Our Desire: How Do We Talk About…

      Social Movements

      Latest Book: This Is An Uprising!

      Book Reviews

      The Pan American

      Book Reviews

      The Godfather of Microcredit

      Book Reviews

      Capitalism as Catastrophe

      Book Reviews

      Four Ways of Looking at an Aztec Eagle

      Book Reviews

      The Ascent of Niall Ferguson

      Book Reviews

      Ordinary Outrages

      Book Reviews

      No Better Place

      Book Reviews

      In God’s Country

      Environment

      Why Wendell Matters

      Environment

      The Gulf at the Gas Station

      Environment

      Climate Disobedience

      Environment

      Farming the Everglades

      Environment

      The Winter of the Climate Denier

      Environment

      Climate of Change: An “Inside-Outside” Strategy Against Global…

      Environment

      Provoking an American Climate Crisis

      Environment

      The Real “Farmer” Story: So God Made High-Fructose…

      Essays / First Person

      Is Rambo Still A Republican?

      Essays / First Person

      On the Price is Right

      Essays / First Person

      The Last Porto Alegre

      Essays / First Person

      Six Essays About War and About Peace

      Essays / First Person

      Republicans Among Us

      Essays / First Person

      New York Says “No”

      Essays / First Person

      The Sideshow Rebels

      Essays / First Person

      A Week in New York

      Global Economy

      Meet the Bailout’s New Slush Fund for Corporate…

      Global Economy

      The Seattle Protests Showed That Another World Is…

      Global Economy

      Jeff Bezos Has Enough! It’s Time for a…

      Global Economy

      The Amazon Effect: Sweat, Surveillance, Exploitation

      Global Economy

      The Godfather of Microcredit

      Global Economy

      Capitalism as Catastrophe

      Global Economy

      Immigration Economics: An Interview with Professor Giovanni Peri

      Global Economy

      The World Is Not Flat

      Immigration

      When Undocumented Activists Infiltrated ICE

      Immigration

      The Children of Intervention

      Immigration

      Immigration Economics: An Interview with Professor Giovanni Peri

      Immigration

      Science Fiction From Below

      Immigration

      Four Ways of Looking at an Aztec Eagle

      Immigration

      Treated Like a Criminal

      Immigration

      When Sanctuary is Resistance

      Immigration

      The Massive Immigrants Rights Protests of 2006 Are…

      Labor

      There’s More Than One Way to Strike the…

      Labor

      The Case for a Social Distancing Wage

      Labor

      The Seattle Protests Showed That Another World Is…

      Labor

      Reviving the General Strike

      Labor

      Jeff Bezos Has Enough! It’s Time for a…

      Labor

      There’s Still Power in a Strike

      Labor

      The Amazon Effect: Sweat, Surveillance, Exploitation

      Labor

      Ai-jen Poo: Organizing a Movement for Care

      Latin America

      The Pan American

      Latin America

      Lessons from the Pledge of Resistance

      Latin America

      The Children of Intervention

      Latin America

      Against Shithole Nationalism

      Latin America

      The Last Porto Alegre

      Latin America

      Kissinger Is Not Our Friend

      Latin America

      Even If You Have Nothing to Hide

      Latin America

      End Illegal Spying; Don’t Shoot the Whistleblower

      Social Movements

      Mass Protests May Fade, But Movements Persist

      Social Movements

      There’s More Than One Way to Strike the…

      Social Movements

      In Praise of Impractical Movements

      Social Movements

      Latest Book: This Is An Uprising!

      Social Movements

      It’s Time We Celebrate Ella Baker Day

      Social Movements

      No More Miss America: A Collective Memory of…

      Social Movements

      When Undocumented Activists Infiltrated ICE

      Social Movements

      The Seattle Protests Showed That Another World Is…

      Religion

      In God’s Country

      Religion

      Reverend Billy’s Holiday Shopocalypse

      Religion

      Toward the “Rights of the Poor”

      Religion

      The Pope and the Poor

      Religion

      Will the Next Pope Embrace Liberation Theology?

      Religion

      Remembering Romero

      Religion

      John Paul II’s Economic Ethics

      Religion

      Against the God of Free Trade

      U.S. Politics / Elections

      The Fed Could Help Cash-Strapped Cities and States….

      U.S. Politics / Elections

      In the Pandemic, Should We Tax the Rich?

      U.S. Politics / Elections

      Mass Protests May Fade, But Movements Persist

      U.S. Politics / Elections

      There’s More Than One Way to Strike the…

      U.S. Politics / Elections

      In Praise of Impractical Movements

      U.S. Politics / Elections

      Naming Our Desire: How Do We Talk About…

      U.S. Politics / Elections

      No More Miss America: A Collective Memory of…

      U.S. Politics / Elections

      When Undocumented Activists Infiltrated ICE

      War / Militarism

      Does It Make Sense to Protest a President…

      War / Militarism

      Lessons from the Pledge of Resistance

      War / Militarism

      Is Rambo Still A Republican?

      War / Militarism

      War: The Wrong Jobs Program

      War / Militarism

      The Ascent of Niall Ferguson

      War / Militarism

      Those Who Don’t Count

      War / Militarism

      Six Essays About War and About Peace

      War / Militarism

      The Dangerous Dignity of War

  • Translations
    • All Arabic Deutsch Español Français Italiano Japanese Português Thai
      Japanese

      ガンジーはどのように勝利したのか? (Japanese)

      Français

      La révolution non-violente a-t-elle échoué en Egypte?

      Deutsch

      Als Martin Luther King seine Feuerwaffen aufgab

      Deutsch

      Mikrokredite: Die Entlassung eines Nobelpreisträgers

      Italiano

      La strategia di Gandhi per il successo –…

      Español

      ¿Adoptará el nuevo papa la teología de la…

      Español

      Wall Street quiere que les estemos agradecidos

      Español

      Si Las Monjas Se Fueran a una Huelga,…

      Arabic

      Abandoning the World Bank (in Arabic)

      Arabic

      The Return of Daniel Ortega (in Arabic)

      Arabic

      Where’s The Jubilee? (in Arabic)

      Arabic

      The Last Porto Alegre (in Arabic)

      Arabic

      Seattle At Five (in Arabic)

      Arabic

      Is Market Access the Answer to Poverty? (in…

      Arabic

      Mexico’s Democratic Transition Still Incomplete (in Arabic)

      Deutsch

      Als Martin Luther King seine Feuerwaffen aufgab

      Deutsch

      Mikrokredite: Die Entlassung eines Nobelpreisträgers

      Deutsch

      CAFTA – am besten stillschweigend beerdigen

      Deutsch

      Bush in Mexiko

      Deutsch

      Das globale Duell in Evian

      Deutsch

      Die Rückkehr des Daniel Ortega

      Español

      ¿Adoptará el nuevo papa la teología de la…

      Español

      Wall Street quiere que les estemos agradecidos

      Español

      Si Las Monjas Se Fueran a una Huelga,…

      Español

      ALEC retrocede; a la derecha le da un…

      Español

      ¿ALEC disgustado ante la pérdida de patrocinadores? Se…

      Español

      La vida en la nación prisión

      Español

      El futuro del movimiento Ocupar: solidaridad y escalada

      Español

      Matando de hambre al Tío Sam

      Français

      La révolution non-violente a-t-elle échoué en Egypte?

      Français

      Le pari risqué du populisme au Pérou

      Français

      Hong Kong Phooey

      Français

      Bush Nuit Même Aux Compagnies U.S.

      Français

      Le dynamisme du mouvement pour la paix

      Français

      La déroute de l’ALCA dans une Miami en…

      Français

      Ceux qui ne comptent pas

      Français

      La guerre en Irak : une expo des…

      Italiano

      La strategia di Gandhi per il successo –…

      Italiano

      Le promesse infrante di Obama

      Italiano

      Guantanamo deve sparire

      Italiano

      IL BANK TRANSFER DAY: UN SUCCESSO

      Italiano

      Come il movimento Occupiamo Wall Street si sta…

      Italiano

      Economia tabù

      Italiano

      L’accesso al mercato è la risposta alla povertà?

      Italiano

      Trionfo sul debito?

      Japanese

      ガンジーはどのように勝利したのか? (Japanese)

      Japanese

      Truth Versus Superpower (Japanese)

      Japanese

      Bush’s Bad Business Empire (Japanese)

      Japanese

      Revenge of the Combat Cartoonist (Japanese)

      Japanese

      Bush’s Uneasy Mexican Visita (Japanese)

      Japanese

      Mark Twain in Iraq (Japanese)

      Japanese

      Globalization’s “Lost Decade” (Japanese)

      Japanese

      Hawks Say the Damnedest Things (Japanese)

      Português

      A vida na Nação Prisão

      Português

      Outro pretexto?

      Português

      Imigração tem efeito positivo sobre emprego e salários

      Português

      O império hipotecado

      Thai

      Progressive Good Tidings of 2007 (in Thai)

      Thai

      2006: A Global Justice Year in Review (In…

      Thai

      WTO: Best Left For Dead? (In Thai)

      Thai

      Is Market Access the Answer to Poverty? (In…

      Thai

      Bush’s Bad Business Empire (In Thai)

      Thai

      The Last Porto Alegre [Thai]

      Thai

      Globalizers, Neocons, or… ? (in Thai)

    • Other Translations
  • Appearances
  • Archive
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Essays / First PersonSocial MovementsU.S. Politics / ElectionsPast FavoritesFrom the Archives2003-2004

New York Says “No”

by Mark Engler August 28, 2004
written by Mark Engler August 28, 2004
New York Says “No”

Why the city will—and should—demonstrate against the Republican Convention.

Published in Counterpunch.


Like many New Yorkers, I am not native to this place. I arrived from elsewhere, and have made the city my home. My extended family lives in the Midwest. They do not understand New York. I have an uncle who labors with an iron work ethic in carpentry and flooring. He gets up every morning at 5:00 AM, and I have often seen him working, trying to finish off a floor, after 9:30 at night. My uncle tells me that he could not live in New York City. It’s “too busy,” he says. I laugh, wondering how he could get any busier than he is in rural Wisconsin.

Such feelings about New York are frequently expressed by my relatives. Their judgements aren’t based on any real knowledge of the city, its rhythms or its neighborhoods. Rather, my family members use New York as a landmark. For them, it is an imaginary place. The city is some place different from where they live. It embodies a different way of life. When they express distaste for New York, they do not intend to denigrate those who live there. They merely wish to express appreciation for what they have, for the places they have settled.

I respect that. I know that there are many people in this country who feel as they do, and it does not bother me at all. Unlike some of our city’s more chauvinistic promoters—yes, they do exist—I do not regard New York as the best possible place for all people to live. Yet I will defend New York, as a city and as a way of life, when called to do so. This is a week in which we are called. The Republicans are trying to use New York to advance a social agenda that assaults the diversity and tolerance at the heart of the city, and to promote a fiscal program that starves urban centers. New Yorkers are right in refusing to provide a cheerful backdrop for the Party’s week of self-promotion.

For members of the cultural right wing in this country, New York occupies a place in the imagination very different from that pictured by my relatives. In the view of social conservatives, the city is a corrupted place. It is an immoral place. They see our city as a hive of feminism and homosexuality and illegal immigration. It is Gomorrah.

After the 9/11 attacks, televangelist Jerry Falwell said, “I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say ‘you helped this happen.'”

For New Yorkers, this ranks with the overt slander of the city offered by baseball player John Rocker. “The biggest thing I don’t like about New York are the foreigners,” Rocker explained in a famous Sports Illustrated interview. “You can walk an entire block in Times Square and not hear anybody speaking English. Asians and Koreans and Vietnamese and Indians and Russians and Spanish people and everything up there. How the hell did they get in this country?”

“Imagine having to take the 7 train to the ballpark,” Rocker continued, “looking like you’re [riding through] Beirut next to some kid with purple hair next to some queer with AIDS right next to some dude who just got out of jail for the fourth time right next to some 20-year-old mom with four kids.”

These statements went far beyond the pale, of course, even for staunch conservatives. Falwell was compelled to apologize. Rocker has been universally reviled. Yet I fear that their opinions tap into sentiments that are more often felt than stated openly. The vision of the city that they invoke lives on, and milder versions of their views appear regularly. Brad Stine, a popular fundamentalist comedian who makes busy rounds of Promise Keepers conventions and other right-wing events, jokes: “I thank God we’ve got a Texan in the White House… You’ll notice the terrorists didn’t attack Texas.”

The audiences laugh, but I puzzle over what this is supposed to mean. What if we had a New Yorker in the White House? The terrorists did attack New York. We were attacked.

I was recently targeted in passing by a conservative talk radio show which, to discredit a column I had written, simply labeled me as “another left-winger from that bastion of truth, New York City.” That was all that needed to be said. The content of my views did not need to be discussed. The city, apparently, had irreparably mutated my Iowan DNA.

The New York Times editorial page reported on July 10, 2001 that “Mr. Bush has been heard to say privately that he cannot stand New York.” The politics pursued by the president’s party have long reflected this dislike. Urban areas, with many people of color and few reliable Republican voters, routinely receive less in federal support than they pay in taxes—$11.4 billion less in 2002, according to the Mayor’s office—with cuts in social services disproportionately affecting city residents. Even after 9/11, New York, an obvious target for future attacks, ranks 49th among cities in per capita anti-terrorism funds from Washington, receiving $5.87 per person, compared with $35.80 for Tom Ridge’s Pittsburgh or $52.82 for Jeb Bush’s Miami.

This week, the Republicans want to use New York to promote their militarism and their moralism. If the stage managers at their National Convention can help it, Jerry Falwell, who offered a prayer at the 2000 convention, will not be in the cameras, nor will Senator Rick Santorum. Yet these figures remain all too welcome in the Republican Party. Asked if she was worried that prominent evangelicals were going to get short shrift at the convention, Roberta Combs, president of the Christian Coalition, told the Associated Press that she was unconcerned. “We’ll have a huge presence there,” she said. “We have the president.”

Those who will be on stage are exactly the type of Republicans that the hard right has all but boxed out of the Party. Former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani—being pro-choice, pro-gay rights, and pro-gun control, not to mention a noted adulterer—would be viciously attacked and marginalized in Party primaries across the country. On the national scene, New York’s vision of Rockefeller Republicanism is all but dead.

I can accept the reality of short-changed funding from Washington. I can stomach the dislike from cultural conservatives. Those on the right can say what they will about New York. But they cannot both revile our city and then claim it as a launching pad for their political ambition. They cannot have it both ways. We will not let them.

In early August, the local ABC news affiliate reported that “a Manhattan public relations firm found 83 percent of those polled do not want the Republican convention in town.” It is likely that demonstrators on Manhattan’s streets, outraged by the Party’s extremism, will outnumber the convention delegates by more than 50 to one.

The question, then, is whether New Yorkers are wise to protest. Some liberal critics, most notably ex-1960s activist Todd Gitlin, have argued in the past weeks that protests outside the Convention are liable to play into Bush’s hands. They cite Chicago 1968 as an ominous comparison. Some have even suggested that the Republicans chose to have their convention in New York as a deliberate provocation, with party leaders believing that they would benefit from unruly demonstrations. While the commentators deny it, one might judge from the tenor of their argument that they would prefer that there were no protests at all. Whatever their intention, their actions have the effect of discouraging attendance.

In some measure, I am scared to go on the streets. I am not scared of the few activists, who do indeed exist, who have an exaggerated sense of what vandalism can accomplish. I am scared because the authorities have emphasized the risk of terrorism and advertised the new weaponry they will use to control demonstrations. I am scared because the tabloids and the police have trumpeted the danger of “violent anarchists”—an image that has been repeatedly used to justify the militarization of police responses to peaceful crowds, and that has little actual correlation to any marginal acts of property destruction. I am scared because I have seen pre-emptive arrests and unprovoked assaults first hand. I do not relish a clash in the streets.

Nevertheless, I will go. I will go with the belief that a large protest is better than a small one. I have no doubt that the Republicans will try to spin any protests to their advantage. And I have no doubt that the protests will not poll well. They never do. Even the most stately processions of the Civil Rights movement drew criticism for “going too fast,” and for operating outside bureaucratic channels for change. But this does not mean that the demonstrations cannot be effective.

The Republican Convention is meant to be a tightly choreographed pageant. It is meant to be a sunny, week-long advertisement for the Party. Republicans didn’t choose New York to provoke a battle in the streets. They chose New York so that they could wrap their convention in images of 9/11. They chose New York so that they could take our city’s grief and use it to advance their agenda. They wanted to take the memory of those days when we mourned together, honored our public workers, and asserted that our diversity was a source of strength, and use it as the backdrop for their pageant. They chose New York because they thought they could get away with it.

Already there is indication that, as they have before in their planning, those in the Bush administration may have miscalculated. Their Party is not receiving a triumphant, welcoming reception, nor does it seem that many in the city will cooperate in producing scenes of pliable nostalgia. It is always preferable, the convention managers know, to stay on message, to keep attention trained on the stage show. Protesters are making this difficult. They are proposing a different message. They are telling a different story, one not carefully crafted to ensure reelection.

The great majority of those who will protest this week have thought hard about fashioning creative and dignified expressions of their beliefs. And the great majority of those who protest will be New Yorkers. What neither the police nor the liberal commentators have said is that the more residents who pick up signs during the week and refuse to be extras in the Republican’s advertisement, the richer our dissent will become. The more New Yorkers who exercise their liberties, the better it is for our democracy.

After all of their scolding, revulsion, and fiscal slights, the Republicans want to claim New York City as their own. This week, New Yorkers are telling them that they can’t have it.

__________

Research assistance for this article provided by Jason Rowe.

Mark Engler

Mark Engler is a writer based in Philadelphia and an editorial board member at Dissent magazine. His latest book, written with Paul Engler, is entitled This Is an Uprising: How Nonviolent Revolt Is Shaping the Twenty-First Century.

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The Author

Mark Engler is a writer based in Philadelphia and an editorial board member at Dissent magazine. His latest book, written with Paul Engler, is entitled This Is an Uprising: How Nonviolent Revolt Is Shaping the Twenty-First Century (Nation Books). Mark’s full bio is available here.

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