New Years Eve Times Square Agitprop.

• Author: Meyers, Joel

Mass anger is boiling over, just beneath the sheepish surface, the aspect that we usually see. That is the conclusion resulting from my experience in Times Square on New Years eve. It confirms a parallel development in the recent upheaval on the streets of Seattle, in which a significant number of local residents were spontaneously swept up into action, even in the face of anti-personnel gas, plastic bullets, concussion grenades and mass arrests followed by abuse during jail custody and trumped up charges.

Without extensive preparation, I decided to go to Times Square, to try to make a mark on the millennium to come, which might be picked up and relayed around the world by the gigantic worldwide media focus.

It was about 11:00 pm, scarcely one hour before the strike of midnight. I had visited the various radical haunts, looking for possible coparticipants, and come up empty handed. I had a furled banner, but not even one person to hold up the other end.

Because this was supposed to be a millennial celebration, I had been inspired to a maximal message on the bright red banner: "Capitalism has no future beyond crash! WELCOME REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALIST MILLENNIUM OF WORLD RECONSTRUCTION FOR HUMANITY AND ECOLOGY! Workers and Oppressed, Unite!" A hammer and sickle, for those in the international audience not familiar with English, was also on the banner. But arriving alone, I did not believe I would meet anyone else who might support it. But I was wrong!

The cops herded me into a barricaded area at 40th Street, about three pens away from the central stage. As I passed, one cop said, "Look, there's Joel doing his thing again. He's got a banner!"

The crowd seemed to be exuberantly absorbed in the noise making and empty revelry. But one man, who happened to be black, asked me what was on the banner. As soon as I told him, his face lit up. "Well, what are you waiting for? Let's unroll it!" "Wow, all right!" I exclaimed. But that was only the beginning. What followed, I still can hardly believe.

First of all, the whole crowd turned to read the banner, and perhaps hear my accompanying speech, which I doubt was initially very audible above the general din. The crowd cheered wildly. Of course, I thought to myself, many of these people were just primed to shout "Happy New Year" greetings at just about anything that captured their attention.

But then the crowd quieted down to hear my speech. Obviously, there was some tipsiness here, but the crowd was not the usual drunk-out-of-their-minds that usually packs limes Square on other New Years...