Looking out my window at work there seems to be a small (taking up about half a block) pro-immigrant rally at NYU today. Seeing this about 11:20 AM, 2/22/07 along the block of Washington Pl. between Greene and the park.

See a sign "No Human Being is Illegal" and "Si se Puede" and "Legalize don't Criminalize Immigrants." The rally must be permitted because the cops were setting up for it by 8 AM when I came in to work.

My main impression: God, the left needs to get new chants. I have been hearing these same ones for decades now and honestly they don't seem to make much of an impression on people. But I am hearing the chants and can't get a good look at the crowd because they are facing towards the park, away from me.

UPDATE: 11:40
The Rally seems to be taking up more like a block right now, though they are marching up and down to take up more space. "What do we want: Immigrant's Rights! When do we want it: Now!"

Reminds me of a friend, real old-school Zionist Socialist leftist, who went to the most recent March on Washington. When I asked her how it was she replied, "Oh, you know. Kind of boring. I've heard all those chants before." Rallies tend to start blurring together after awhile, with some exceptions. The Sean Bell protest and the giant protest during the Republican Convention stand out as pretty exceptional. But most are a smallish group shouting the same chants I used to chant at the same age. Fills me with a sense of futility.

Try and get the same people to actually boycott a company, volunteer for a candidate...or sometimes even vote, and you get a blank look. Showing up to a rally now and then does little. Boycott, write letters and work for candidates. We need more of that!

Best sign yet: Pilgrims = Illegals

UPDATE 12:10 PM: Protest is getting smaller. Gee, my wife and I stood longer in the freezing cold protesting Sandra Day O'Connor speaking in Manhattan in 2001 than these kids are protesting in much better weather.

So what the protest is all about is the College Republicans being dicks. The NYU college republicans (all what, two of them) protested affirmative action by basically being insulting about immigrants. Which is odd because these two issues are not necessarily related. But what do you expect from the republic party. Complexity is a bit beyond them.

UPDATE 12:45 PM: Still going on. The disappearance of many protesters probably simply corresponded to a class change.

UPDATE 1:45 PM: And they are gone.

UPDATE: One of the organizers of the rally stopped by (visiting a lab she used to work in). Turns out the event was organized a day in advance. In light of that, the turnout was quite good. Not at all bad for one day's notice.