Democracy Uprising
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      The Pan American

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      The Godfather of Microcredit

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      Four Ways of Looking at an Aztec Eagle

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      The Ascent of Niall Ferguson

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      Ordinary Outrages

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      No Better Place

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      Environment

      Why Wendell Matters

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      Is Rambo Still A Republican?

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      On the Price is Right

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      The Last Porto Alegre

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      Six Essays About War and About Peace

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      Republicans Among Us

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      New York Says “No”

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      The Sideshow Rebels

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      Meet the Bailout’s New Slush Fund for Corporate…

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      The Seattle Protests Showed That Another World Is…

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      The Amazon Effect: Sweat, Surveillance, Exploitation

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      The Godfather of Microcredit

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      Capitalism as Catastrophe

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      Immigration Economics: An Interview with Professor Giovanni Peri

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      The World Is Not Flat

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      When Undocumented Activists Infiltrated ICE

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      Four Ways of Looking at an Aztec Eagle

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      When Sanctuary is Resistance

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      Labor

      Democrats Won Power in Several States. Will They…

      Labor

      The Case for a Social Distancing Wage

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      The Seattle Protests Showed That Another World Is…

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      Reviving the General Strike

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

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      There’s Still Power in a Strike

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      The Amazon Effect: Sweat, Surveillance, Exploitation

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      There’s More Than One Way to Strike the…

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      How movements can maintain their radical vision while winning…

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      Jordlösa kombinerar radikala visioner med praktiska reformer (Swedish)

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      Hacer Que Nuestras Demandas Sean Tanto Orácticas Como…

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      C’è più di un modo per colpire il…

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      泛美洲人 爱德华多·加莱亚诺的世界 (Chinese)

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      Mikrokredite: Die Entlassung eines Nobelpreisträgers

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      CAFTA – am besten stillschweigend beerdigen

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      Bush in Mexiko

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      Die Rückkehr des Daniel Ortega

      Español

      Hacer Que Nuestras Demandas Sean Tanto Orácticas Como…

      Español

      Las reformas no reformistas de André Gorz

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      ¿Adoptará el nuevo papa la teología de la…

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      Wall Street quiere que les estemos agradecidos

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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
      Latest Articles

      Democrats Won Power in Several States. Will They…

      Social Movements

      Changing the ‘world as it is’ into the…

      Social Movements

      What’s the problem with taking state power?

      Latest Articles

      Is Los Angeles Creating a Model for Fighting…

      Social Movements

      What If America Had Six Political Parties?

      Social Movements

      Movements are vying for political power — is…

      2021-2023

      How movements can maintain their radical vision while winning…

      Social Movements

      What Happens After Movement-Backed Politicians Take Office

      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

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      Ordinary Outrages

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      No Better Place

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      In God’s Country

      Environment

      Why Wendell Matters

      Environment

      The Gulf at the Gas Station

      Environment

      Climate Disobedience

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      Farming the Everglades

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      The Winter of the Climate Denier

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

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      Provoking an American Climate Crisis

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

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      Meet the Bailout’s New Slush Fund for Corporate…

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      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

      Democrats Won Power in Several States. Will They…

      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

      There’s More Than One Way to Strike the…

      Latin America

      How movements can maintain their radical vision while winning…

      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

      Social Movements

      Changing the ‘world as it is’ into the…

      Social Movements

      What’s the problem with taking state power?

      Social Movements

      Is Los Angeles Creating a Model for Fighting…

      Social Movements

      What If America Had Six Political Parties?

      Social Movements

      Movements are vying for political power — is…

      Social Movements

      How movements can maintain their radical vision while winning…

      Social Movements

      What Happens After Movement-Backed Politicians Take Office

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      Should we disrupt the Democratic Party or try…

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      Reverend Billy’s Holiday Shopocalypse

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      Toward the “Rights of the Poor”

      Religion

      The Pope and the Poor

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      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

      Democrats Won Power in Several States. Will They…

      U.S. Politics / Elections

      What’s the problem with taking state power?

      U.S. Politics / Elections

      Is Los Angeles Creating a Model for Fighting…

      U.S. Politics / Elections

      What If America Had Six Political Parties?

      U.S. Politics / Elections

      Movements are vying for political power — is…

      U.S. Politics / Elections

      How movements can maintain their radical vision while winning…

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      Is Rambo Still A Republican?

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      War: The Wrong Jobs Program

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      The Ascent of Niall Ferguson

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      Those Who Don’t Count

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      Six Essays About War and About Peace

      War / Militarism

      The Dangerous Dignity of War

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

      Jordlösa kombinerar radikala visioner med praktiska reformer (Swedish)

      Español

      Hacer Que Nuestras Demandas Sean Tanto Orácticas Como…

      Italiano

      C’è più di un modo per colpire il…

      Português

      As reformas não reformistas de André Gorz mostram…

      Español

      Las reformas no reformistas de André Gorz

      Deutsch

      Die nicht-reformistischen Reformen von André Gorz

      Italiano

      Richieste dei movimenti: sia pratiche che visionarie

      Chinese

      泛美洲人 爱德华多·加莱亚诺的世界 (Chinese)

      Chinese

      泛美洲人 爱德华多·加莱亚诺的世界 (Chinese)

      Chinese

      Why Wendell Matters (in Chinese)

      Chinese

      Globalization’s Watchdogs (in Chinese)

      Deutsch

      Die nicht-reformistischen Reformen von André Gorz

      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

      Hacer Que Nuestras Demandas Sean Tanto Orácticas Como…

      Español

      Las reformas no reformistas de André Gorz

      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

      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

      C’è più di un modo per colpire il…

      Italiano

      Richieste dei movimenti: sia pratiche che visionarie

      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

      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

      As reformas não reformistas de André Gorz mostram…

      Português

      A vida na Nação Prisão

      Português

      Outro pretexto?

      Português

      Imigração tem efeito positivo sobre emprego e salários

      Português

      O império hipotecado

      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)

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      Progressive Good Tidings of 2007 (in Thai)

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      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)

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      The Last Porto Alegre [Thai]

      Thai

      Globalizers, Neocons, or… ? (in Thai)

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Book ReviewsU.S. Politics / Elections2005-2006

Introduction to “The Republicans”

by Mark Engler June 16, 2006
written by Mark Engler June 16, 2006
Introduction to “The Republicans”

A book of photographs by Steve Simon.

Published on Steve Simon Photos.


(Editor’s Note: I wasn’t happy when the Republicans came to New York City to hold their party’s national convention in 2004. I was happy, though, when photographer Steve Simon asked me to write the introduction to his book of photos from the convention, called The Republicans. The book is now out from Charta Art Books and available in stores and at online retailers. I didn’t know Steve ahead of time, but we took a similar approach to covering the convention—walking with protests outside by day and then infiltrating the fortress of conservativism by night. Among his many honors, Steve was named The Canadian Newspaper Photographer of The Year in 1994. His photos are captivating, and you can view many on-line at Steve Simon Photo. It was a pleasure and an honor to work with him on this project. — M. E.)


When it came time for New Yorkers to vote, the decision was overwhelming. By a 3-to-1 margin they rejected the incumbent President of the United States, George W. Bush, and his vision for America. If the Republicans held their National Convention in New York in order to persuade the city’s residents to join their cause, they had failed terribly.

Of course, the Republicans did not select the city because of a like-minded citizenry. They didn’t want the actual New York, with all its diversity and creative energy. They came because of 9/11. They came to take the memory of the city’s public grieving and to project it on screen as the backdrop for their political ambition.

Doing this was not altogether easy. It required them, first, to conceal some of their own feelings. Just months before the attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center, The New York Times reported, “Mr. Bush has been heard to say privately that he cannot stand New York.” After 9/11, 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.'”

It’s no secret where many such people live. In the view of the cultural right, New York City, a haven of liberalism and immigration, is a corrupted place.

The Republicans, then, had to keep out of the camera eye all those who weren’t convinced of the sincerity of Falwell’s later apology. When 5,000 delegates arrived in the city, they were greeted by more than 400,000 protesters, who marched as part of the largest demonstration in American history ever to confront a national political convention. The New York that presented itself—the two men who embraced near 34th Street, their lips pressed together; the woman at Ground Zero whose tank top expressed her views with characteristic directness: “Fuck Bush”—this city was not suitable. The Republicans would need to create their own New York.

* * * * *

Over 10,000 police officers were put in service for the convention, a large number of them charged with making Madison Square Garden a sealed fortress. Like photographer Steve Simon, I was among the journalists who passed from the protests into the rarefied space inside the arena. I showed my press badge, walked under the metal detector, and entered a different land. The Republicans I spoke with there were unfailingly polite and friendly, eager to talk with me even when I expressed disagreement with their militarism and their moralism. When prime-time speakers took the stage, I saw the delegates beam with enthusiasm and joy.

I see these delegates again in Steve Simon’s images. Their faces are hopeful and often serene. They look into a future of common purpose and values. They are sympathetic: The three boys, dressed in their suits, standing with their prayerful mother. I could be the one in the middle, and that could be my younger brother on the right.

Yet you can also see something troubling in the photos. Something about the young people celebrating—maybe it is their haircuts, or their cuff links—makes the arena start to feel less welcoming. You look at them again and consider that these are the next generation of Republican leaders. You grow more aware that underneath the civility of the gathering, there is power.

Then you see: almost out of view, above the Presidential Seal, sits Bob Dole and, next to him, George H.W. Bush, the father. You glance to a different part of the arena and see another white-haired man in a suit. You realize it is Jerry Falwell himself, seated casually amidst an almost-empty row of chairs in Section 104.

* * * * *

One of Simon’s photographs shows a procession of demonstrators carrying 1,000 flag-draped caskets through the streets of New York. On the sunny afternoon of that protest, I, too, was struck by the sight of those iconic coffins. The march moved slowly, and it stretched block after block. For over twenty minutes, I sat on the curb at 17th and Broadway and watched the pallbearers pace by.

The photo is a reminder, not only of the ultimate consequences of the convention’s grandstanding, but also, in a time when media coverage of soldiers’ coffins returning to U. S. military bases is banned, of the limits on what scenes are allowed to be a part of our political lives.

While some 15,000 journalists came to cover the Republicans, convention organizers took great pains to control “the message” these interpreters would take from the assembly. Operatives transcribed even the most ostensibly heartfelt sentiments onto jumbo teleprompters (“Almighty God… Together we laud and magnify your holy name…”). Most of the reporters, in turn, dutifully framed their dispatches around the key words posted on the walls of the auditorium (“A Safer World,” “A Nation of Courage”).

Steve Simon behaves differently. He shows us the staging off-camera and television personalities before they compose their august on-air expressions. He gives us the blur of the secret service removing an unwanted dissident from the arena; he shows the police scrutinizing the credentials of a father whose placard says something very different from the evening’s preferred theme, “People of Compassion.” It says, “Bush Lied. My Son Died.”

Inside that arena, Simon is an unusual type of spy, one who records information others regard as irrelevant. He sneaks behind the broadcast booths, stepping over thick cables, and from the shadowy, quiet hollow he frames a shot of the wiring pinned to the news anchors’ backs. Instead of jostling with other photographers for position on the convention floor, he lets himself get elbowed behind, adjusts his focus, and includes the throng as his subject. In the stands, when everyone rises, eyes fixed on the stage, Steve Simon looks the other way, observing how deep rows of captivated faces fade into the dark recesses of the auditorium.

The photos that result do not recall the event as it was presented and understood. The medium allows a different story. Simon’s art takes those instants of excitement and fear that marked the convention and holds them in place. Looking at his photos, I remember the intensity surrounding the jubilant Republicans, as well as the playfulness and despair that commingled in the demonstrations. I feel these things again. But now I have the opportunity to linger in the sensations without feeling self-conscious that I stay seated as the delegates jump up and pound their hands in applause, and without worrying about the police down the block who approach with plastic handcuffs. I realize how confined I felt during that week, which all the while we were told was a celebration of our freedoms.

The delegates now are elsewhere. The election is over. Yet we live still in an age when public debate is carefully choreographed, under a government that prizes control. In this setting, in these times, Simon’s remain renegade images.

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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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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